The jus post bellum is an emerging field of international law focusing on the aftermath of conflict, i.e. the stage where the conflict is already settled. The jus post bellum may affect the settlement of conflicts in several ways.
The increasingly emphasized transitional justice, making up an important part of the jus post bellum may make the parties to the conflict less prone to actually settle the conflict since they then risk being brought before the court, or the truth commission. Already, war crimes are often covered by amnesties in peace agreements.
In internal conflicts the Additional Protocol II to the Geneva Conventions applies which stipulates that the broadest possible amnesty should be granted persons who have participated in the armed conflict. The emerging jus post bellum could paradoxically reinforce the tendencies among the parties to a conflict to avoid war crimes trials post bellum by either prolonging the conflict or introducing amnesty clauses in peace agreements.
In the statute of the International Criminal Court, the jus post bellum in the form of war crimes trials is explicitly avoidable through the mechanism of deferral. This allows the UN Security Council to suspend for twelve months at a time any ongoing investigation into suspected war crimes or other serious human rights violations presumably if the prospect of trials is considered a threat to the peaceful settlement of a conflict.
The jus post bellum – if actually carried into effect and not avoided through amnesty arrangements or deferrals – is likely to increase the quality of the settlement of the conflict and thus contribute to making the settlement more durable. The jus post bellum potentially includes useful norms for the organization of a sustainable society based on reasonable respect for democracy and human rights.
