This chapter considers foundational Buddhist thought and the relevance (or not) of modern just war theory. A just way to think about war, conduct war, and repair harm from war from a Buddhist perspective would be to stop the endless cycle, to avoid war altogether by accepting responsibility, and addressing the catalytic harms that perpetuate it.

A classic tenet of the just war tradition is that the purpose of a just war is to secure a just peace. In the past generation, securing a just peace in the wake of military victory has been perhaps the thorniest problem in United States foreign policy, encountered in Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, Libya, and Kosovo. This chapter offers a moral framework for judging and pursuing a just peace in the wake of military intervention – an ethic of political reconciliation. It roots the ethic in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, seeks also to express it in secular language, and contrasts it with the globally dominant liberal peace. The chapter then applies the ethic to Iraq and shows how the it may help to build a deeper and more lasting peace and thus secure a critical foreign policy interest of the United States.

There is no authoritative catalogue of principles that set expectations for military members and their commanders operating in what is presumed to be a postconflict space – where residual armed conflict is possible and return to “peace” is uncertain. There is no “Lieber Code” or general regulation imposed on troops to guide their conduct, or from which to deduce and formalize Rules of Engagement (ROE), relative to the “enemy” during the transition from active warfare to conditions of peace and reconciliation. This chapter suggests that such principles are a critical practical necessity for a post bellum transition period and can be understood when stimulated by an unexpected source: criminal law. The military’s post bellum ROE should be based on certain values justified by its unique circumstances: justification, due care, forethought, moderation, nonarbitrariness, self-restraint, and accountability. These values parallel those shaping criminal justice prosecution decisions in military law and are compatible with the jus in bello principles of distinction, humanity, proportionality, and military necessity.

This concluding chapter revisits some of the key issue areas in peace settlements, which have been covered in the International Law and Peace Settlements volume, to demonstrate how past settlement practice has added to the repertoire of legal tools that can be deployed in conflict settlement, and to highlight the contours of the relationship between this settlement practice and international law. By reflecting on the ‘patterns’ of approaches and provisions that have emerged in settlement practice in addressing these key issues, the chapter lays some empirical foundations to interrogate the normative character of these emerging ‘patterns’ of legal tools in peace-making. The normativity to legal tools for peace-making is considered in the context of the diversity in settlement actors and in the legal character of settlements, with a view to identifying how settlement practice has affected international law, and whether it is possible, helpful or necessary to proclaim the existence of a lex pacificatoria.

This chapter examines the role of international finance for post-war transitions and its relationship to international law. That relationship is considered in two respects: first, the international legal norms relevant to ‘who should pay?’; and second, the relevance of international aid to the development of international law. Section 2 tracks the evolution of post-conflict funding for settlement implementation and reconstruction in light of historical transformations in peace-making practice; and addresses the financial demands on conflict-affected states. Urgent needs for international aid to finance settlement implementation and peacebuilding, raises questions about whether third states might have a duty to provide finance. Thus, Section 3 evaluates prospects for international legal duties to provide that aid. The relevance of post-conflict finance and aid conditionality to the development of international law is considered in Section 4 to shed a different light on debates about an emerging law of peace-making or lex pacificatoria.

This introductory chapter identifies the key questions and themes for the International Law and Peace Settlements volume, and provides a framework and conceptual map for analysing the relationship between international law and peace settlement practice. In particular, it examines the concepts of peace and war, and their relation to law, before developing a working lexicon for peace agreements and settlements. The chapter then critically examines the legal character of peace agreements and settlement commitments as ‘legal tools’ for peace-making. This analysis provides essential foundations to map out the ways in which peace settlements and international law can interact. Those forms of interaction become key focal points for the various contributions in the remainder of the volume. The thematic rationale and structure of the volume is explained to orientate the reader in light of its key themes and questions.

I draw insights from the Augustinian and Liberal traditions and, to a lesser extent, the Westphalian tradition to offer ordered liberty as a central organizing concept for just war thinking. Ordered liberty is the rightful purpose of statecraft, the just aim of the state—which means it is also the just purpose of warfare. This helps answer the two questions animating this book. When is war just? The violent disruption of ordered liberty is the “injury” in response to which force may be used and war may be justly waged. What does justice require? Justice requires the vindication and restoration of ordered liberty in, through, and after warfare. The upshot of this argument is that while just cause is more expansive than is conventionally understood, the responsibilities of post-conflict restoration are commensurably far higher.