Rebuilding Justice

"Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal System."

Restorative justice, with its emphasis on identifying the justice needs of everyone involved in a crime, is helping restore prisoners' sense of humanity while holding them accountable for their actions. Toews, with years of experience in prison work, shows how these practices can change prison culture and society. Written for an incarcerated audience, and for all those who work with people in prison, this book also clearly outlines the experiences and needs of this under-represented part of our society. A title in The Little Books of Justice and Peacebuilding Series.

This guide is designed to further U.S. military understanding of the critical nation-state building role that U.S. forces play during stability operations. It focuses on the military's role in rebuilding and establishing a functional, effective, and legitimate nation-state; one that can assure security and stability for its citizens, defend its borders, deliver services effectively for its populace, and is responsible and accountable to its citizens. It provides a comprehensive approach to planning and implementing a program to rebuild governance by U.S. peacekeeping forces during stability operations. Recognizing that the extent of U.S. Government and military involvement is determined by the mandate, the mission, the level of resources and most importantly, the host country context, this guide provides options and trade-offs for U.S. forces in executing these operations.

This volume presents the research analysis of a range of scholars and experts on post conflict peacebuilding and international law from a variety of perspectives and missions. The selected essays show that peacebuilding, like the concept of peacekeeping, is not specifically provided for in the UN Charter. They also demonstrate that the record of peacebuilding, like that of peacekeeping, is varied and while both concepts are intrinsically linked, neither lends itself to precise definition. The essays consider the historical approaches to peacebuilding such as the role played by the UN in the Congo in the early 1960s and the work of the United States and its allies in rebuilding Germany and Japan in the aftermath of World War II. Finally, essays consider the major challenge for contemporary peacebuilding operations to make international administrations accountable and to ensure the involvement of the international community in helping rebuild communities and prevent the resurgence of violence.

In recent years serious concerns emerged over the state of European democracy. Many democracy indices are reporting a year-on-year drift towards less liberal politics in the countries of the European Union. Polls regularly suggest that the voters are coming to question democratic norms more seriously than for many decades. Here, Richard Youngs assesses these risks as many analysts, journalists and politicians stressed the danger of Europe descending into an era of conflict, driven by xenophobic nationalism and nativist authoritarians slowly dismantling liberal democratic rights. In 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic has intensified these fears. There is another side of the democratic equation, however. Youngs argues that governments, EU institutions, political parties, citizens and civil society organisations have gradually begun to push back in defence of democracy. With each chapter, Youngs shows how many governmental, political and social actors have developed responses to Europe's democratic malaise at multiple levels. Europe's democracy problems have been grave and far-reaching. Yet, a spirit of democratic resistance has slowly taken shape. This book argues that the pro-democratic fightback may be belated, but it is real and has assumed significant traction with various types of democratic reform underway, including citizen initiatives, political-party changes, digital activism and EU-level responses.

On August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina made landfall near New Orleans leaving death and destruction across the Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama Gulf Coast counties. The lethargic and inept emergency response that followed exposed institutional flaws, poor planning, and false assumptions that are built into the emergency response and homeland security plans and programs. Questions linger: What went wrong? Can it happen again? Is our government equipped to plan for, mitigate, respond to, and recover from natural and manmade disasters? Can the public trust government response to be fair? Does race matter? Racial disparities exist in disaster response, cleanup, rebuilding, reconstruction, and recovery. Race plays out in natural disaster survivors' ability to rebuild, replace infrastructure, obtain loans, and locate temporary and permanent housing. Generally, low-income and people of color disaster victims spend more time in temporary housing, shelters, trailers, mobile homes, and hotels - and are more vulnerable to permanent displacement. Some 'temporary' homes have not proved to be that temporary. In exploring the geography of vulnerability, this book asks why some communities get left behind economically, spatially, and physically before and after disasters strike.

The book is an accurate and accessible introduction to the complex and dynamic field of transitional and post-conflict justice, providing an overview of its recurring concepts and debated issues. Particular attention is reserved to how these concepts and issues have been addressed, both theoretically and literally, by lawyers, policy-makers, international bodies, and other actors informing the practice. By presenting significant, if undeniably disputable, alternatives to mainstream theories and past methods of addressing past injustice and (re)building a democratic state, the work aims to illustrate some foundational themes of transitional justice that have emerged from a diverse set of discussions. The author’s position thus arrives from a careful analysis of the advantages and disadvantages of answers to the question: how, after a traumatic social experience, is justice restored?