Just Peace at War’s End

Abstract

The contemporary period is characterized by intense scholarly, legal and socio-political debates about the conceptual framework, which ought to guide state responses to unmitigated violence resulting from protracted armed conflicts across the globe. The prevalence of military interventionist discourse in the media and governmental organizations necessitates further reflection on the international community’s legal obligations not only with respect to putting an end to violence, but holding aggressors of armed perpetrations individually accountable for political unrest, economic destabilization and loss of life as well as responsible for the reestablishment of social and political order on the ground, which are to ensure human security in the process of post-conflict nation-building. The analysis of two recent conflicts in Kosovo and Iraq will provide a critical foundation for the examination of international bodies’ and state actors’, such as the United Nations (in the case of Kosovo) and of the United States (in the case of Iraq), implementation of legal mechanisms by which the jus post bellum principles can be made useful for, both, (i) the purposes of providing justifications for war and (ii) post-conflict restoration of order. In addition, relevant connections will be examined between the principles guiding humanitarian interventions and just war narratives, which make military intermediations publically palpable. The study and conclusions drawn may prove especially pertinent to a continuing diplomatic stalemate with regard to armed conflicts in Syria and Ukraine, renewed tensions in South Sudan, the Central African Republic and various micro-insurgencies in Somalia, Libya or Mali.