International justice and peace today.

Source: (2012) Paper presented at the 1st International Symposium on Restorative Justice and Human Rights. 2-7 June 2012, Skopelos Island, Greece.

The quest for justice and peace in the world and in international affairs has been a recurrent demand of
humanity from the ancient times. It continues to exist at the level of the global society now – despite not
proving lobe a successful venture. From the birth of the modern state in the last three hundred years, to
the creation of a more globalized yet tense international community, the quest for global justice has
related itself to the singular and universal implementation of international laws. But what happens today
and has happened in the past is that there has been a selective implementation of justice and law, that
depends on the willingness and the power of the ruling states to implement international justice and
international law. This selectivity is a fact deriving from the anarchical international system, even though
there have been instances of implementation of international law in cases where there was a blatant
breach and violation of peoples’ and individuals’ rights, as in the aftermath of the breakup of Yugoslavia.
Respectively, peace in the era of globalization is breached not only by the of exercise or the threat
of armed violence but also at the level of “structural violence”, meaning the pauperization of large
population groups by hunger, unemployment, lack of housing and medical care, and illiteracy. In an era
where human rights are global in scope with international bodies tasked with their propagation as well, large swathes of the human population are still deprived of their fundamental rights. Possible links
between humanitarian law and restorative justice principles and philosophy are also addressed. (author’s abstract)