In the wake of political evil on a large scale, what does justice consist of? Daniel Philpott takes up this question in Just and Unjust Peace. While scholars have written about many aspects of dealing with past injustice, no general ethic has emerged. Philpott seeks to provide a holistic model that delivers concrete ethical guidelines for societies striving to build peace.

A beautiful commemorative edition of Dr. Martin Luther King's essay "Letter from Birmingham Jail," part of Dr. King's archives published exclusively by HarperCollins. With an afterword by Reginald Dwayne Betts On April 16, 1923, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., responded to an open letter written and published by eight white clergyman admonishing the civil rights demonstrations happening in Birmingham, Alabama. Dr. King drafted his seminal response on scraps of paper smuggled into jail. King criticizes his detractors for caring more about order than justice, defends nonviolent protests, and argues for the moral responsibility to obey just laws while disobeying unjust ones. "Letter from Birmingham Jail" proclaims a message - confronting any injustice is an acceptable and righteous reason for civil disobedience. This beautifully designed edition presents Dr. King's speech in its entirety, paying tribute to this extraordinary leader and his immeasurable contribution, and inspiring a new generation of activists dedicated to carrying on the fight for justice and equality.

With issues of war and peace at the forefront of current events, an informed Christian response is needed. This timely volume answers 104 questions from a just-war perspective, offering thoughtful yet succinct answers. Ranging from the theoretical to the practical, the volume looks at how the just-war perspective relates to the philosopher, historian, statesman, theologian, combatant, and individual—with particular emphases on its historical development and application to contemporary geopolitical challenges. Forgoing ideological extremes, Charles and Demy give much attention to the biblical teaching on the subject as they provide moral guidance. A valuable resource for considering the ethical issues relating to war, Christians will find this book's user-friendly format a helpful starting point for discussion.

All over the world, the practice of peacebuilding is beset with common dilemmas: peace versus justice, religious versus secular approaches, individual versus structural justice, reconciliation versus retribution, and the harmonization of the sheer number of practices involved in repairing past harms. Progress towards resolving these dilemmas requires reforming institutions and practices but also clear thinking about basic questions: What is justice? And how is it related to the building of peace? The twin concepts of reconciliation and restorative justice, both involving the holistic restoration of right relationship, contain not only a compelling logic of justice but also great promise for resolving peacebuilding's tensions and for constructing and assessing its institutions and practices. This book furthers this potential by developing not only the core content of these concepts but also their implications for accountability, forgiveness, reparations, traditional practices, human rights, and international law.

Catholic pacifists blame the just war tradition of their Church. That tradition, they say, can be invoked to justify any war, and so it must be jettisoned. This book argues that the problem is not the just war tradition but the unjust war tradition. Ambitious rulers start wars that cannot be justified, and yet warriors continue to fight them. The problem is the belief that warriors do not hold any responsibility for judging the justice of the wars they are ordered to fight. However unjust, a command renders any war “just” for the obedient warrior. This book argues that selective conscientious objection, the right and duty to refuse to fight unjust wars, is the solution. Strengthening the just war tradition depends on a heightened role for the personal conscience of the warrior. That in turn depends on a heightened role for the Church in forming and supporting consciences and judging the justice of particular wars. As Saint Augustine wrote, “The wise man will wage just wars. . . . For, unless the wars were just, he would not have to wage them, and in such circumstances he would not be involved in war at all.”

Just War has attracted considerable attention. The words peace and justice are often used together. Surprisingly, however, little conceptual thinking has gone into what constitutes a Just Peace. This book, which includes some of the world's leading scholars, debates and develops the concept of Just Peace.The problem with the idea of a Just Peace is that striving for justice may imply a Just War. In other words, peace and justice clash at times. Therefore, one often starts from a given view of what constitutes justice, but this a priori approach leads - especially when imposed from the outside - straight into discord. This book presents conflicting viewpoints on this question from political, historical, and legal perspectives as well as from a policy perspective.The book also argues that Just Peace should be defined as a process resting on four necessary and sufficient conditions: thin recognition whereby the other is accepted as autonomous; thick recognition whereby identities need to be accounted for; renouncement, requiring significant sacrifices from all parties; and finally, rule, the objectification of a Just Peace by a "text" requiring a common language respecting the identities of each, and defining their rights and duties. This approach basedon a language-oriented process amongst directly concerned parties, goes beyond liberal and culturalist perspectives. Throughout the process, negotiators need to build a novel shared reality as well as a new common language allowing for an enduring harmony between previously clashing peoples.It challenges a liberal view of peace founded on norms claiming universal scope. The liberal conception has difficulty in solving conflicts such as civil wars characterized typically by fundamental disagreements between different communities. Cultures make demands that are identity-defining, and some of these defy the "cultural neutrality" that is one of the foundations of liberalism. Therefore, the concept of Just Peace cannot be solved within the liberal tradition.