Jus Post Bellum and Transitional Justice

This collection of essays brings together jus post bellum and transitional justice theorists to explore the legal and moral questions that arise at the end of war and in the transition to less oppressive regimes. Transitional justice and jus post bellum share in common many concepts that will be explored in this volume. In both transitional justice and jus post bellum, retribution is crucial. In some contexts criminal trials will need to be held, and in others truth commissions and other hybrid trials will be considered more appropriate means for securing some form of retribution. But there is a difference between how jus post bellum is conceptualized, where the key is securing peace, and transitional justice, where the key is often greater democratization. This collection of essays highlights both the overlap and the differences between these emerging bodies of scholarship and incipient law.

1. Just military occupation? A case study of the American occupation of Japan Shunzo Majima; 2. Was damals Recht war… nulla poena and the prosecution of crimes against humanity in occupied Germany Lawrence Douglas; 3. Community based accountability in Afghanistan: recommendations to balance the interests of justice Michael A. Newton; 4. (Re)defining crimes against humanity for a jus post bellum world Charles Chernor Jalloh; 5. Jus post bellum and amnesties Max Pensky; 6. Earthquakes and wars: the logic of international reparations Gabriella Blum and Natalie J. Lockwood; 7. International criminal court, the trust fund for victims and victim participation Jovana Davidovic; 8. Truthfulness in transition: the value of insisting on experiential adequacy Cindy Holder; 9. Nunca más: truth commissions, prevention, and human rights culture Margaret Urban Walker; 10. Transnationalizing peacebuilding: transitional justice as a deliberative process James Bohman; 11. Jus post bellum and political reconciliation Colleen Murphy and Linda Radzick.

Larry May is W. Alton Jones Professor of Philosophy, Professor of Law and Professor of Political Science at Vanderbilt University. He is the author, most recently, of Crimes against Humanity: A Normative Account (2005), War Crimes and Just War (2007), Aggression and Crimes against Peace (2008), Genocide: A Normative Account (2010), Global Justice and Due Process (2011), After War Ends: A Philosophical Perspective (2012) and Limiting Leviathan: Hobbes on Law and International Affairs (2013). He is also the editor of International Criminal Law and Philosophy (2009, with Zachary Hoskins) and Morality, Jus Post Bellum, and International Law (2012, with Andrew Forcehimes).
Elizabeth Edenberg is currently working on her PhD in philosophy at Vanderbilt University. Her article, 'Unequal Consenters and Political Illegitimacy', co-authored with Marilyn Friedman, was published in The Journal of Political Philosophy.