Publication: Post-Conflict Justice and Sustainable Peace
Loading...
Date
2007-04
ISSN
Published
2007-04
Editor(s)
Abstract
No systematic study has examined the effect of post-conflict justice on the duration of peace on a global basis. This paper attempts to fill that void by building on a newly constructed dataset (Binningsbo, Elster, and Gates 2005), which reports the presence of various forms of post-conflict justice efforts (trials, purges, reparation to victims, and truth commissions) as well as processes associated with abstaining from post-conflict justice (amnesty and exile). It investigates the long-term effects of post-conflict justice on the duration of peace after conflict. It uses a Cox proportional hazard model to analyze the influence of the various types of post-conflict justice on the length of the peace period before the recurrence of violent conflict. Post-conflict trials as well as other types of justice do lead to a more durable peace in democratic as well as non-democratic societies, but the results are weak and are therefore difficult to generalize. Forms of non-retributive justice (that is, reparations to victims and truth commissions), however, are strongly associated with the duration of peace in democratic societies, but are not significant for non-democratic societies. Amnesty tends to be destabilizing and generally associated with shorter peace duration, but exile tends to lead to a more durable peace.
Link to Data Set
Citation
“Lie, Tove Grete; Binningsbø, Helga Malmin; Gates, Scott. 2007. Post-Conflict Justice and Sustainable Peace. Policy Research Working Paper; No. 4191. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/7007 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
Associated URLs
Associated content
Other publications in this report series
Publication The Asymmetric Bank Distress Amplifier of Recessions(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-07-11)One defining feature of financial crises, evident in U.S. and international data, is asymmetric bank distress—concentrated losses on a subset of banks. This paper proposes a model in which shocks to borrowers’ productivity dispersion lead to asymmetric bank losses. The framework exhibits a “bank distress amplifier,” exacerbating economic downturns by causing costly bank failures and raising uncertainty about the solvency of banks, thereby pushing banks to deleverage. Quantitative analysis shows that the bank distress amplifier doubles investment decline and increases the spread by 2.5 times during the Great Recession compared to a standard financial accelerator model. The mechanism helps explain how a seemingly small shock can sometimes trigger a large crisis.Publication From Tailwinds to Headwinds(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-07-10)The first quarter of the twenty-first century has been transformative for emerging market and developing economies (EMDEs). These economies now account for about 45 percent of global GDP, up from about 25 percent in 2000, a trend driven by robust collective growth in the three largest EMDEs—China, India, and Brazil (the EM3). Collectively, EMDEs have contributed about 60 percent of annual global growth since 2000, on average, double the share during the 1990s. Their ascendance was powered by swift global trade and financial integration, especially during the first decade of the century. Interdependence among these economies has also increased markedly. Today, nearly half of goods exports from EMDEs go to other EMDEs, compared to one-quarter in 2000. As cross-border linkages have strengthened, business cycles among EMDEs and between EMDEs and advanced economies have become more synchronized, and a distinct EMDE business cycle has emerged. Cross-border business cycle spillovers from the EM3 to other EMDEs are sizable, at about half of the magnitude of spillovers from the largest advanced economies (the United States, the euro area, and Japan). Yet EMDEs confront a host of headwinds at the turn of the second quarter of the century. Progress implementing structural reforms in many of these economies has stalled. Globally, protectionist measures and geopolitical fragmentation have risen sharply. High debt burdens, demographic shifts, and the rising costs of climate change weigh on economic prospects. A successful policy approach to accelerate growth and development should focus on boosting investment and productivity, navigating a difficult external environment, and enhancing macroeconomic stability.Publication Intergenerational Income Mobility around the World(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-07-09)This paper introduces a new global database with estimates of intergenerational income mobility for 87 countries, covering 84 percent of the world’s population. This marks a notable expansion of the cross-country evidence base on income mobility, particularly among low- and middle-income countries. The estimates indicate that the negative association between income mobility and inequality (known as the Great Gatsby Curve) continues to hold across this wider range of countries. The database also reveals a positive association between income mobility and national income per capita, suggesting that countries achieve higher levels of intergenerational mobility as they grow richer.Publication The Macroeconomic Implications of Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation Options(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-05-29)Estimating the macroeconomic implications of climate change impacts and adaptation options is a topic of intense research. This paper presents a framework in the World Bank's macrostructural model to assess climate-related damages. This approach has been used in many Country Climate and Development Reports, a World Bank diagnostic that identifies priorities to ensure continued development in spite of climate change and climate policy objectives. The methodology captures a set of impact channels through which climate change affects the economy by (1) connecting a set of biophysical models to the macroeconomic model and (2) exploring a set of development and climate scenarios. The paper summarizes the results for five countries, highlighting the sources and magnitudes of their vulnerability --- with estimated gross domestic product losses in 2050 exceeding 10 percent of gross domestic product in some countries and scenarios, although only a small set of impact channels is included. The paper also presents estimates of the macroeconomic gains from sector-level adaptation interventions, considering their upfront costs and avoided climate impacts and finding significant net gross domestic product gains from adaptation opportunities identified in the Country Climate and Development Reports. Finally, the paper discusses the limits of current modeling approaches, and their complementarity with empirical approaches based on historical data series. The integrated modeling approach proposed in this paper can inform policymakers as they make proactive decisions on climate change adaptation and resilience.Publication Global Poverty Revisited Using 2021 PPPs and New Data on Consumption(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-06-05)Recent improvements in survey methodologies have increased measured consumption in many low- and lower-middle-income countries that now collect a more comprehensive measure of household consumption. Faced with such methodological changes, countries have frequently revised upward their national poverty lines to make them appropriate for the new measures of consumption. This in turn affects the World Bank’s global poverty lines when they are periodically revised. The international poverty line, which is based on the typical poverty line in low-income countries, increases by around 40 percent to $3.00 when the more recent national poverty lines as well as the 2021 purchasing power parities are incorporated. The net impact of the changes in international prices, the poverty line, and new survey data (including new data for India) is an increase in global extreme poverty by some 125 million people in 2022, and a significant shift of poverty away from South Asia and toward Sub-Saharan Africa. The changes at higher poverty lines, which are more relevant to middle-income countries, are mixed.
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue
Collections
Related items
Showing items related by metadata.
Publication Security and Justice Overview(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2010-03)The central theme of the 2011 World Development Report (WDR) is that violent conflict remains a constant threat to human rights, peace and sustainable development. While the nature of violent conflict maybe changing1 its negative impact on poor people in terms of rights violations, public health, forced displacement and diminution of life chances is the same. Critical to establishing peace and the necessary confidence between state and citizen is providing a sense of security, freedom from fear, and the protection of basic rights and entitlements. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the relationship, overlapping and sometimes contradictory, between a range of approaches to security and justice in conflict affected contexts, and to place these efforts within a broader rule of law framework. This, it will be argued, greatly assists in addressing the kind of frictions and blind-spots that commonly exist in making the transition from violence to peace. The paper will then examine some of the instruments and approaches adopted by governments and international partners in addressing the kinds of stresses which result in violent conflict. Finally, it will examine the gaps in the international arena which continue to persist in this area of support. A series of security and justice-themed papers produced for the WDR 2011 outline in more detail the issues, approaches and lessons of the key components including: security, public security in peacekeeping settings, criminal justice, justice and administrative law, and transitional justice.Publication Rwanda's Exit Pathway from Violence(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2011-04)This report aims to assess the steps taken during Rwanda's transition following the genocide against the objective of the long-term durability of domestic peace. Its principal conclusion is that peace is most likely to endure if Rwanda's political space is gradually opened up to allow: (i) Rwanda's formal state institutions to establish greater autonomy from the current regime; and (ii) Rwandan political and civil society, its political opposition and media in particular, to evolve as mature and independent counterweights to the ruling party. Incremental political liberalization will encourage an important shift in Rwanda's political culture to one which encouraged accountability for the subordination of institutional rules to personal, party, or ethnic interests. It falls on the regime to show the way forward to Rwanda's civil and political society by demonstrating its tolerance for genuine political pluralism, dissent, and inclusion. It is in the regime's long-term strategic self-interest to encourage such a change in political culture and increase its legitimacy in order to discourage attempts to bring about regime change extra-constitutionally.Publication Understanding Civil War : Evidence and Analysis, Volume 2. Europe, Central Asia, and Other Regions(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2005)The two volumes of Understanding Civil War build upon the World Bank's prior research on conflict and violence, particularly on the work of Paul Collier and Anke Hoeffler, whose model of civil war onset has sparked much discussion on the relationship between conflict and development in what came to be known as the "greed" versus "grievance" debate. The authors systematically apply the Collier-Hoeffler model to 15 countries in 6 different regions of the world, using a comparative case study methodology to revise and expand upon economic models of civil war. (The countries selected are Burundi, Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo, Nigeria, Kenya, Mozambique, Sudan, Algeria, Mali, Senegal, Indonesia, Lebanon, Russian Federation, Colombia, Northern Ireland, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Macedonia, and the Caucasus.) The book concludes that the "greed" versus "grievance" debate should be abandoned for a more complex model that considers greed and grievance as inextricably fused motives for civil war.Publication Colombia - Peace Programmatic I : Demobilization and Reinsertion of Ex-Combatants in Colombia(Washington, DC, 2008-03)This report presents the results of the study on the demobilization and reinsertion of excombatants from illegal armed groups in Colombia. The report describes and analyzes the Colombian case, compares it with international experience, discusses critical issues of the current program, and presents options to improve its design and implementation. The study responds to a request by the Colombian government to conduct an assessment of the previous and current approaches to demobilization and reinsertion in Colombia and, in light of national and international experience, to present options to improve the program. This study relied principally on secondary data and information from existing studies, essays, and press articles produced by government agencies, nongovernmental organizations, United Nations and bilateral agencies, specialized analysts, and media. The analysis also used primary information collected for the study, including: (1) information from interviews with government and non-government sources about the current condition of individuals demobilized during the 1990s; (2) the profiles of a sample of young excombatants (18-26 years old) enrolled in the current reinsertion program in Medellin and Bogota; (3) the assessment of the demobilization and reinsertion experience of the 1990s as viewed by leaders of existing foundations from four of the demobilized groups; and (4) a special work session held with 50 representatives from diverse private-sector associations and businesses. This study assesses Colombia's experience using a framework of five interwoven phases from armed conflict to peace: prevention, demobilization, reinsertion, reintegration, and reconciliation. This framework together with accumulated national and international best practices in technical aspects of the operations of disarmament, demobilization, and reinsertion (DDR) programs are used in the analysis of the current Program of Demobilization and Reinsertion (PDR).Publication Defining Heroes : Key Lessons from the Creation of Veterans Policy in Timor-Leste(Washington, DC, 2008-09)This study seeks to examine and reflect on the process, results and lessons of the efforts to recognize and assist veterans of the resistance in Timor-Leste. The aim is to document those aspects that may have value for other post-conflict settings where nascent institutions are attempting to wrestle with similar issues. The paper proceeds in four sections. Section two provides background and contextual information. Four themes are covered: the development of veterans' policy in post-conflict settings; the history of the Timorese resistance movement; military formation and demobilization under United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor (UNTAET); and, the predicament of veterans at the reestablishment of independence (2002). Section three documents the creation of veterans' policy in Timor-Leste. In rough chronological order it focuses on seven phases: the establishment of the veterans' commissions; the registration of veterans; public consultations; legislation development; recognition measures, pensions and assistance, as well as some of the key challenges ahead. Section four draws out some of the key lessons of the Timorese experience, including both more strategic and more operational lessons. Section five concludes.
Users also downloaded
Showing related downloaded files
Publication Making Monitoring and Evaluation Systems Work : A Capacity Development Toolkit(World Bank, 2009)There are constant and growing pressures on governments and organizations around the world to be more responsive to demands from internal and external stakeholders for good governance, accountability and transparency, greater development effectiveness and delivery of tangible results. Governments, parliaments, citizens, the private sector, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), civil society, international organizations, and donors are all among stakeholders interested in better performance. As demands for greater accountability and results have grown, there is an accompanying need for useful and useable results-based monitoring and evaluation systems to support the management of policies, programs, and projects. Governments and other organizations have many different kinds of tracking systems as part of their management toolkits: good human resource systems, financial systems, and accountability systems. They also need good feedback systems. A results-based monitoring and evaluation (M&E) system is essentially such a feedback system; it is a management tool to measure and evaluate outcomes, providing information for governance and decision making. Many management systems have been missing a feedback component to enable them to track the consequences of actions. Building an M&E system gives decision-makers an additional management tool by providing feedback on performance as a basis for future improvement.Publication Climate Change and Migration : Evidence from the Middle East and North Africa(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2014-07-15)Climate change is a major source of concern in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, and migration is often understood as one of several strategies used by households to respond to changes in climate and environmental conditions, including extreme weather events. This study focuses on the link between climate change and migration. Most micro-level studies measure climate change either by the incidences of extreme weather events or by variation in temperature or rainfall. A few studies have found that formal and informal institutions as well as policies also affect migration. Institutions that make government more responsive to households (for example through public spending) discourage both international and domestic migration in the aftermath of extreme weather events. Migration is often an option of last resort after vulnerable rural populations attempting to cope with new and challenging circumstances have exhausted other options such as eating less, selling assets, or removing children from school. This study is based in large part on new data collected in 2011 in Algeria, Egypt, Morocco, Syria, and the Republic of Yemen. The surveys were administered by in-country partners to a randomly selected set of 800 households per country. It is also important to emphasize that neither the household survey results nor the findings from the qualitative focus groups are meant to be representative of the five countries in which the work was carried, since only a few areas were surveyed in each country. This report is organized as follows: section one gives synthesis. Section two discusses household perceptions about climate change and extreme weather events. Section three focuses on migration as a coping mechanisms and income diversification strategy. Section four examines other coping and adaptation strategies. Section five discusses perceptions about government and community programs.Publication Changing the Face of the Waters : The Promise and Challenge of Sustainable Aquaculture(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2007)This study provides strategic orientations and recommendations for Bank client countries and suggests approaches for the Bank's role in a rapidly changing industry with high economic potential. It identifies priorities and options for policy adjustments, catalytic investments, and entry points for the Bank and other investors to foster environmentally friendly, wealth-creating, and sustainable aquaculture. The objectives of the study are to inform and provide guidance on sustainable aquaculture to decision makers in the international development community and in client countries of international finance institutions. The study focuses on several critical issues and challenges: 1) Harnessing the contribution of aquaculture to economic development, including poverty alleviation and wealth creation, to employment and to food security and trade, particularly for least developed countries (LDCs); 2) Building environmentally sustainable aquaculture, including the role of aquaculture in the broader suite of environmental management measures; 3) Creating the enabling conditions for sustainable aquaculture, including the governance, policy, and regulatory frameworks, and identifying the roles of the public and private sectors; and 4) Developing and transferring human and institutional capacity in governance, technologies, and business models with special reference to the application of lessons from Asia to Sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America.Publication Early Child Development, From Measurement to Action : A priority for Growth and Equity(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2007)The World Bank recently hosted a symposium on the priority of early child development (ECD) for economic growth and equity. The participants urged application of population-based tools and measures to assess the outcomes of children's early years and children's readiness for school. This study is derived from the symposium and is a valuable resource for policy makers, economists, donors, and investors, as well as researchers and practitioners in early child development. It summarizes the current neuroscience on early child development and major longitudinal studies, the rationale and urgency for greater investment, and countries' innovative funding strategies. The report consists of 15 chapters authored by ECD experts and leaders in the field. The chapters are grouped into five main parts relating to the: business imperative and societal benefits of ECD investments; lessons from evaluation of longitudinal ECD interventions; countries' experiences in monitoring ECD interventions; innovative approaches to countries' financing of ECD initiatives; and next steps on the ECD agenda for the next 5 years. A theme highlighted at the symposium and enlarged upon here is the urgent need for evidence- and population-based instruments and measures to monitor, evaluate, and compare ECD interventions over time and across settings.Publication Disease Control Priorities, Third Edition(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2016-04-06)This book focuses on maternal conditions, childhood illness, and malnutrition. Specifically, the chapters address acute illness and undernutrition in children, principally under age 5. It also covers maternal mortality, morbidity, stillbirth, and influences to pregnancy and pre-pregnancy. It also includes the transition to older childhood, in particular, the overlap and commonality with the child development volume.