Mind the Just Peace Gaps

The post-cold war construction of peace praxis has been confronted and challenged by countless conflicts for which the existing peacebuilding and transitional justice tool-kit box has been inadequate. The frozen peace processes in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the insufficiency of the international community’s peacebuilding efforts in the post-Dayton Bosnia-Herzegovina clearly demonstrate the problematique of building just and durable peace in war-torn societies. Practices and theory associated with building peace are now undergoing critical evaluations and revisions to overcome the challenge presented by peace gaps, justice gaps, gender gaps, time gaps and policy gaps. A just and self-sustainable peace requires an ethical and holistic vision and by exploring the interplay between peace and justice, new theoretical, empirical and policy-relevant insights to peacebuilding strategies are gained.