Local conflicts and international interventions: Victimisation of civilians and possibilities for restorative global responses.

Source: (2008) Contemporary Justice Review. 11(2):101-115.

Existing knowledge suggests that available international mechanisms are not very suitable for dealing with interconnected international and local conflicts in terms of overcoming denial and bringing forth acknowledgment of atrocities and sufferings of people from both powerful and powerless states. At the same time this means that they are not suitable for dealing with conflicts and victimisation in a holistic and inclusive, rather than partial and exclusive, way, and for stopping the cycle of violence and bringing positive rather than negative peace. This article explores the possibility of expanding the use of restorative justice for dealing with interconnected (internal and international) conflicts from national/local to global-level/governance. Bearing in mind Castellos’s statement about the existing gap between the space where issues are defined (global) and the space where the issues are managed (the nation-state), the article intends to contribute to development of a theoretical framework for building new ways of dealing with both internal/regional and related international conflicts. The solutions are sought within global civil society’s potential for bringing together different stakeholders, as well as for making visible the multitude of truths and advocating change. The article deals with these problems using the case study of the Kosovo conflict and the NATO war waged against Serbia in 1999. (author’s abstract)