This book discusses the impact of war on the complex interactions between various actors involved in justice: individuals and social groups on the one hand and ‘the justice system’ (police, judiciary and professionals working in the prison service) on the other. It also highlights the emergence of new expectations of justice among these actors as a result of war. Furthermore, the book addresses justice practices, strategies for coping with the changing circumstances, new forms of negotiation, interactions, relationships between populations and the formal justice system in this specific context, and the long-term effects of this renegotiation. Ten out of the eleven chapters focus on Belgian issues, covering the two world wars in equal measure. Belgium’s diverse war experiences in the twentieth century mean that a study of the country provides fascinating insights into the impact of war on the dynamics of ‘doing justice’. The Belgian army fought in both world wars, and the vast majority of the population experienced military occupation. The latter led to various forms of collaboration with the enemy, which required the newly reinstalled Belgian government to implement large-scale judicial processes to repress these ‘antipatriotic’ behaviours, in order to restore both its authority and legitimacy and to re-establish social peace.

Offering a new way of thinking about liberalism and public policies, this book contends that group-based policies, predicated on all manner of group construction, pervade public policy. Such policies are grounded in group distinctions that include not only race, ethnicity, gender, and age, but current and past behavior, employment status, personal preferences, and numerous statistical and inferential factors. Although many of these policies are considered to be liberal, they are all discriminatory in essence. For example, the Social Security Act of 1935, although regarded as the foundation of modern liberalism, is riddled with group-based policies that are inconsistent with the principle of nondiscrimination. This book examines other examples of group-based discrimination in such diverse areas as public welfare and child welfare, drug and gambling laws, drunk driving laws, criminal justice, and foreign policy. Pelton argues that the true roots of liberalism are found in nondiscrimination and respect for the individual. Doing Justice proposes just that—nondiscriminatory, individual-oriented policies in place of each of the group-based policies that are analyzed. The book's innovative thesis points to a conceptual and political rebirth of liberalism.

As communities struggle to make sense of mass atrocities, expectations have increasingly been placed on international criminal courts to render authoritative historical accounts of episodes of mass violence. Taking these expectations as its point of departure, this book seeks to understand international criminal courts through the prism of their historical function. The book critically examines how such courts confront the past by constructing historical narratives concerning both the culpability of the accused on trial and the broader mass atrocity contexts in which they are alleged to have participated. The book argues that international criminal courts are host to struggles for historical justice, discursive contests between different actors vying for judicial acknowledgement of their interpretations of the past. By examining these struggles within different institutional settings, the book uncovers the legitimating qualities of international criminal judgments. In particular, it illuminates what tends to be foregrounded and included within, as well as marginalised and excluded from, the narratives of international criminal courts in practice. What emerges from this account is a sense of the significance of thinking about the emancipatory limits and possibilities of international criminal courts in terms of the historical narratives that are constructed and contested within and beyond the courtroom.

Pablo Oyarzun is one of the foremost Benjamin scholars in Latin America. His writings have shaped the reception of Benjamin’s work in Latin America and have been central to the effort to identify the tasks and responsibilities of the kind of critical theory that would interrupt social violence. In this book Oyarzun examines some of the key concepts in Benjamin’s work – including his concepts of translation, experience, history and storytelling – and relates them to his own systematic reflection on the nature and implications of ‘doing justice’. What is meant by the words ‘justice was done’? The passive voice is important here. On the one hand, justice does nothing: it is not an agent, it can only prevail or fail, and if it fails, it does so without limit. On the other hand, the passive voice alludes to the agents of an action while covering them up; the allusion is the masking of the identity and traces of the person who accomplishes the action. And this cover-up can be dangerous: it can cover-up the executioners, who are subjects that everyone can confirm anonymously, without their being recognized and without their wanting to be recognized. Justice, argues Oyarzun, can only be done in the active effort to do justice – or, as Benjamin would say, in the striving to turn the world into the highest good. This book by one of Chile’s most distinguished philosophers will be of value to anyone interested in Benjamin’s work and in the development of critical theory in Latin America.

Doing Justice, Doing Gender: Women in Legal and Criminal Justice Occupations is a highly readable, sociologically grounded analysis of women working in traditionally male dominant justice occupations of law, policing, and corrections. This Second Edition represents not only a thorough update of research on women in these fields, but a careful reconsideration of changes in justice organizations and occupations and their impact on women's justice work roles over the past 40 years.

It is often assumed that the law and religion address different spheres of human life. Religion and ethics articulate complex systems of moral reasoning that concern norms, deliberation of ends, cultivation of disposition, and transformation of moral agency. Law, in contrast, seeks to govern human conduct through procedural justice, rights, and public good. Doing Justice to Mercy challenges this assumption by presenting the reader with an urgent conversation between the law and religion that yields a constructive approach, both theoretically and practically, to the complex role of mercy in our legal process. Authored by legal practitioners, activists, and theorists in addition to theologians and ethicists, the essays collected here are informed by timeless principles, and yet they could not be timelier. The trend in sentencing moves toward an increased severity, and the number of incarcerated people in the United States is at an all-time high. In the half-decade since 9/11, moreover, homeland security has established itself as a permanent fixture in our lives. In this atmosphere, the current volume seeks initially to clarify how justice and mercy intertwine in relation to a number of issues, such as rehabilitation, the death penalty, domestic violence, and war crimes. Exploring the legal, philosophical, and theological grounds for mercy in our courts, the discussion then moves to the practical ways in which mercy may be implemented. Contributors:Marc Mauer, The Sentencing Project * Lois Gehr Livezey, McCormick Theological Seminary * Ernie Lewis, Public Advocate, Commonwealth of Kentucky * Jonathan Rothchild, Loyola Marymount University * Albert W. Alschuler, Northwestern University School of Law * David Scheffer, Northwestern University School of Law * David Little, Harvard Divinity School * Matthew Myer Boulton, Andover Newton Theological School * Mark Lewis Taylor, Princeton Theological Seminary * Sarah Coakley, Cambridge University * William Schweiker, University of Chicago Divinity School * Kevin Jung, College of William and Mary * Peter J. Paris, Princeton Theological Seminary * W. Clark Gilpin, University of Chicago Divinity School * William C. Placher, Wabash College

Doing Justice: Knowing God represents a fundamentally new departure in ethical theory. Drawing on the work of Alasdair MacIntyre, John Milbank, and Franklin Gamwell, it argues that that modern and postmodern moral theory is fundamentally inadequate, and that the current crisis of values can be resolved only on the basis of a substantive vision of the Good. But it goes beyond these thinkers to argue that such a vision must be grounded metaphysically in a revitalized doctrine of Being. The result is a radically historicized natural-law ethics. This ethics argues that not only human individuals but human societies and indeed the universe as a whole grow and develop toward God. The fundamental moral law is to act in such a way as to promote this development. The book draws out the implications of this insight for our understanding of the virtues as well as for social justice.

Punishment policies and practices in the United States today are unprincipled, chaotic, and much too often unjust. The financial costs are enormous. The moral cost is greater: countless individual injustices, mass incarceration, the world's highest imprisonment rate, extreme disparities, especially affecting members of racial and ethnic minority groups, high rates of wrongful conviction, assembly line case processing, and a general absence of respectful consideration of offenders' interests, circumstances, and needs. In Doing Justice, Preventing Crime, Michael Tonry lays normative and empirical foundations for building new, more just, and more effective systems of sentencing and punishment in the twenty-first century. The overriding goals are to treat people convicted of crimes justly, fairly, and even-handedly; to take sympathetic account of the circumstances of peoples' lives; and to punish no one more severely than he or she deserves. Drawing on philosophy and punishment theory, this book explains the structural changes needed to uphold the rule of law and its requirement that the human dignity of every person be respected. In clear and engaging prose, Michael Tonry surveys what is known about the deterrent, incapacitative, and rehabilitative effects of punishment, and explains what needs to be done to move from an ignoble present to a better future.

An Introduction to Transitional Justice provides the first comprehensive overview of transitional justice judicial and non-judicial measures implemented by societies to redress legacies of massive human rights abuse. Written by some of the leading experts in the field it takes a broad, interdisciplinary approach to the subject, addressing the dominant transitional justice mechanisms as well as key themes and challenges faced by scholars and practitioners. Using a wide historic and geographic range of case studies to illustrate key concepts and debates, and featuring discussion questions and suggestions for further reading, this is an essential introduction to the subject for students.