Mass Crimes & Post-Conflict Peacebuilding
Mass Crimes and Post-Conflict Peace-Building January 2002-December 2003
Senior Associate: Simon Chesterman
Program Officer: Sebastian von Einsiedel
Partners: Center for International Studies and Research (CERI – Sciences Po, Paris); United Nations University
Funders: IPA’s Conflict Prevention Program; CERI; United Nations University
Program summary: This project examined the impact of mass crimes on the rebuilding of social, political and economic relations in post-conflict situations. “Mass crime” is a term intended to embrace widespread killings and related atrocities such as mutilation, rapes, destruction of villages and deportations ? frequently, but not always, perpetrated by a state actor. The study drew on historical and more recent cases, including Cambodia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Rwanda, Burundi, and Guatemala. Research examined the impact on individuals, society at large, and the organizations involved in providing assistance in the post-conflict phase. The book project brought together political scientists, sociologists, historians, philosophers, anthropologists, lawyers and psychiatrists in an effort to offer a trans-disciplinary examination of how mass crime is, and should be, addressed in post conflict peace- and society-building. The aim was to bring together the various disciplines that address mass crime in a manner that reflects the multifaceted experience of mass crime by the persons concerned.
A key question for the project was how to identify and build on capacities for peace that exist within a post-conflict society. This depends on an understanding of the rules of social and political life in a given society and how disparate actors may be encouraged to participate without recourse to violent confrontation. At the same time, a caveat must be lodged against idealizing a more peaceful “traditional” past. The crucial point is that post-conflict societies are frequently seen as a passive environment or as a political vacuum. This is not only mistaken ? war is transformative, as well as destructive ? it ignores the very foundation of any lasting post-conflict solution.
The resulting edited volume, Mass Crimes and Post-Conflict Peacebuilding, edited by Simon Chesterman, Beatrice Pouligny, and Albrecht Schnabel, will be published by United Nations University Press in 2004.