The Peacemaker’s Paradox : Pursuing Justice in the Shadow of Conflict

Building on her path-breaking Unspeakable Truths, Priscilla Hayner expands her focus on truth commissions to explore peace negotiations and conflict resolution in the world''s toughest cases of civil war. Drawing on first-hand involvement in the peace process and dozens of interviews with peacemakers and war criminals, Hayner shows the peace vs. justice debate in action and offers a model for balancing the concerns of ending the violence and righting wartime wrongs. The Peacemaker’s Paradox delves into fresh new case studies like Gaddafi’s Libya and the FARC in Colombia, and probes the ICC''s role and offers recommendations for harnessing its power in even the most intractable conflicts.

Expanding from her path-breaking work in Unspeakable Truths, Priscilla Hayner focuses on a new challenge in The Peacemaker’s Paradox: the age-old problem of negotiating peace after a war of atrocities. Drawing on her first-hand involvement in peace processes and interviews from the frontlines of peace talks, the author recounts many heretofore-untold stories of how justice has been negotiated, with great difficulty, and what this tells us for the future. Those with the most power to stop a war are the least likely to submit to justice for their crimes, but the demand for justice only grows louder. She also asks how the intervention of an international tribunal, such as the International Criminal Court, changes how a war is fought and the possibility of brokering peace. The Peacemaker’s Paradox looks far and wide, from Gaddafi’s Libya to the FARC talks in Colombia, to provide an unparalleled exploration of these thorniest of issues.

A combination of interview-based reporting and political analysis, The Peacemaker’s Paradox brings clarity to a field fraught with both legal and practical difficulties.