Peacemaking

Peacemaking is practical conflict transformation focused upon establishing equitable power relationships robust enough to forestall future conflict, often including the establishment of means of agreeing on ethical decisions within a community, or among parties, that had previously engaged in inappropriate (i.e. violent) responses to conflict. Peacemaking seeks to achieve full reconciliation among adversaries and new mutual understanding among parties and stakeholders. When applied in criminal justice matters, peacemaking is usually called restorative justice, but sometimes also transformative justice, a term coined by the late Canadian justice theorist and activist Ruth Morris. One popular example of peacemaking is the several types of mediation, usually between two parties and involving a third, a facilitator or mediator. Peacebuilding#Approaches to peacebuilding Some geopolitical entities, such as nation-states and international organizations, attempt to relegate the term peacemaking to large, systemic, often factional conflicts in which no member of the community can avoid involvement, and in which no faction or segment can claim to be completely innocent of the problems, citing as instances post-genocide situations, or extreme situations of oppression such as apartheid. However peacemaking is a universal and age-old approach to conflict at all levels and among any and all parties, and its principles may be generalized and used in many different kinds of conflicts. In contemporary international affairs, especially after the end of the Cold War, the concept of peacemaking has often been associated to the imposition upon warring parties of a peace settlement, usually under the auspices of an international organization. Peacemaking in smaller, traditional societies has often involved rituals. For example, Alula Pankhurst has produced films about peacemaking among Ethiopian communities. The process of peacemaking is distinct from the rationale of pacifism or the use of non-violent protest or civil disobedience techniques, though they are often practiced by the same people.