Global Change, Peace & Security

formerly Pacifica Review: Peace, Security & Global Change

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Forgiveness, restorative justice and reconciliation in

sustainable peacebuilding: contemporary debates and
future possibilities

Josef Boehle

To cite this article: Josef Boehle (2021) Forgiveness, restorative justice and reconciliation in
sustainable peacebuilding: contemporary debates and future possibilities, Global Change,
Peace & Security, 33:2, 103-123, DOI: 10.1080/14781158.2021.1910226

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GLOBAL CHANGE, PEACE & SECURITY
2021, VOL. 33, NO. 2, 103–123
https://doi.org/10.1080/14781158.2021.1910226

Forgiveness, restorative justice and reconciliation in

sustainable peacebuilding: contemporary debates and
future possibilities
Josef Boehle
School of Philosophy, Theology and Religion, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

Since the mid 1990s, growing attention has been given in the Received 22 July 2019
scholarly debate and in the public sphere to forgiveness, Accepted 7 March 2021
restorative justice and reconciliation in peacebuilding. These
KEYWORDS
concepts have been reflected upon and highlighted as core Forgiveness; restorative
components of restoring right relationships and in sustainable justice; reconciliation;
peacebuilding: at first focusing mainly on individuals and peacebuilding; religion;
relations between them and later as well on relations of public policy
communities and states in the public sphere. Attempts to better
understand forgiveness and reconciliation in relation to
peacebuilding have to address also the critical issue of how to
safeguard and integrate processes of justice into peace processes.
After first clarifying the distinction between retributive and
restorative justice, this article considers core findings of Daniel
Philpott, John Paul Lederach and Leonel Narvaez in their
peacebuilding studies and considers selected, contemporary
reconciliation and peace initiatives. The article argues that
forgiveness, restorative justice and reconciliation processes
should be further mainstreamed and integrated as part of any
standard response to major conflicts and wars by national
political bodies, religious communities and religious/secular
NGOs, international organisations, agencies and institutions: in
order to positively and sustainably resolve and transform
conflicts, wars and violence between groups, and to build
sustainable peace.

Introduction
Over the past decades, forgiveness and reconciliation have been increasingly reflected upon
and highlighted as core components of healing and peacebuilding in a multitude of studies
and publications: in a first phase focusing mainly on individuals and relations between them,
and later as well on relations between communities and states in the public sphere. Amongst
the pioneering and leading scholars and practitioners are Robert Enright and Everett
Worthington, both with a psychology background and with a focus on the personal

CONTACT Josef Boehle [email protected] Department of Theology and Religion, European Research Insti-
tute, University of Birmingham, Pritchatts Road, Birmingham, B15 2TT UK
© 2021 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
104 J. BOEHLE

dimension.1 Since the mid 1990′ s growing attention has been given in the scholarly debate
and in public policy to the contribution forgiveness and reconciliation can make in peace-
building and to processes of restorative justice in the public sphere. Reference works like
the proceedings of a major ‘Forgiveness and Reconciliation’ Symposium2 (funded by the
Templeton Foundation) in 2001 and the ‘Handbook of Forgiveness’3 in 2005 have been pub-
lished in the first decade of the twenty-first century, providing good introductions and an
overview of the scholarly debate of the many aspects, conceptual definitions, diverse disci-
plinary approaches and contexts of forgiveness and reconciliation.

Forgiveness, restorative justice, reconciliation and peacebuilding

This article focuses on the question of forgiveness and reconciliation in peacebuilding, in
contemporary scholarship and in the public sphere over the past 25 years. Any attempt to
better understand forgiveness and reconciliation in relation to peacebuilding has to
address, at the same time, the critical issue of how to safeguard and integrate processes
of justice into peace processes. It is necessary to include justice processes for peace pro-
cesses to be sustainable and to retain the support of victims of atrocities, large-scale vio-
lence and crimes. After first clarifying the distinction between retributive and restorative
justice, this article reviews core findings of two selected, leading scholars, as exemplars of
the current debate of critical issues in forgiveness, restorative justice and reconciliation
scholarship: Daniel Philpott (University of Notre Dame, with a Political Science back-
ground) and John Paul Lederach (University of Notre Dame, with a Sociology, Mediation
and Conflict Transformation background).4 These scholars have studied and analysed
private and public aspects of forgiveness, restorative justice and reconciliation in relation
to peacebuilding, as well as having included a reflection on the religious and secular con-
texts in their research.
This academic reflection is expanded and contextualised by considering briefly two
selected, contemporary examples of peace and reconciliation initiatives in the public
1
Robert D. Enright and Joanna North, eds., Exploring Forgiveness (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1998).
Robert D. Enright, Forgiveness is a Choice (Washington, DC: APA Books, 2001).
Robert D. Enright, The Forgiving Life (Washington, DC: APA Books, 2012).
Robert D. Enright, 8 Keys to Forgiveness (New York: Norton, 2015).
Everett L. Worthington, Jr., ed., Dimensions of Forgiveness: Psychological Research and Theological Perspectives (Phi-
ladelphia: The Templeton Foundation Press, 1998).
Everett L. Worthington, Jr., Five Steps to Forgiveness: The Art and Science of Forgiving (New York: Crown Publishers, 2001).
Everett L. Worthington, Jr., Forgiving and Reconciling: Bridges to Wholeness and Hope (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity
Press, 2003).
Everett L. Worthington, Jr., ed., Handbook of Forgiveness (New York: Brunner-Routledge, 2005).
Everett L. Worthington, Jr., The Power of Forgiving (Philadelphia: Templeton Foundation Press, 2005).
Everett L. Worthington, Jr., Forgiveness and Reconciliation: Theory and Application (New York: Brunner/Routledge, 2006).
Everett L. Worthington, Jr., A Just Forgiveness: Responsible Healing without Excusing Injustice (Downers Grove, IL: Inter-
Varsity Press, 2009).
Everett L. Worthington, Jr., Moving Forward: Six Steps to Forgiving Yourself and Breaking Free from the Past (Colorado
Springs: WaterBrook/Multnomah, 2013).
2
Raymond G. Helmick and Rodney L. Petersen, eds., Forgiveness and Reconciliation: Religion, Public Policy and Conflict
Transformation (Radnor, PA: Templeton Foundation Press, 2001).
3
Everett L. Worthington, Jr., ed., Handbook of Forgiveness (New York: Routledge, 2005).
4
Daniel Philpott, Just and Unjust Peace: An Ethic of Political Reconciliation (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012).
Jennifer J. Llewellyn and Daniel Philpott, Restorative Justice, Reconciliation and Peacebuilding (New York, NY: Oxford
University Press, 2014).
John Paul Lederach, Building Peace. Sustainable Reconciliation in Divided Societies (Washington, DC: United States
Institute of Peace Press, 1997).
 GLOBAL CHANGE, PEACE & SECURITY 105

sphere, in the light of the preceding arguments: the work of Leonel Narvaez (a Catholic
Priest and social reformer in Colombia)5 and the Schools of Forgiveness and Reconcilia-
tion he founded in Colombia (in Chapter Two) and the Peace Charter for Forgiveness
and Reconciliation initiative (in Chapter Three).6
In addition, the question is considered why liberal peacebuilding overall has been reluc-
tant to integrate forgiveness into its standard practices, whilst restorative justice and
reconciliation processes have been increasingly acknowledged and integrated in peace-
building, conflict resolution and transformation. The article concludes with the rec-
ommendation that forgiveness, restorative justice and reconciliation processes (ideally
all three processes combined in an integrated process) should be further mainstreamed
and more equitably and sensitively implemented as part of any standard, comprehensive
response to major conflicts and wars by national political bodies, national and inter-
national NGOs, as well as international organisations, agencies and institutions, in order
to positively and sustainably resolve and transform conflicts, wars and violence
between groups.
The concepts of forgiveness and reconciliation are, not surprisingly, understood and
defined in a variety of ways by different scholars, across such diverse disciplines as phil-
osophy, psychology, theology, political science and law, focusing on a range of aspects of
these values and describing their varied impact on individuals, communities and societies.
In the main, and documented through the examples in this article, forgiveness is seen as
an internal process or activity of a person, letting-go of a harmful state of mind, and
thereby finding freedom and peace of mind and heart. Reconciliation is seen, in the
main, as a process between persons and/or communities that can take place in private or
in public settings, re-establishing right relationships. Contemporary discussions and scho-
larly research concerning forgiveness are linked to the closely connected question of its
relation to justice and reconciliation, whether and how these values are related, if there
is an interdependence and interconnectedness between them, if they can be achieved
separately and what, in the long-term, could be the most promising route to restore
broken relationships and foster healthy and peaceful individuals, families, communities
and societies.

Restorative justice and retributive justice

In any reflection concerning the relation and potential interdependencies between for-
giveness, reconciliation and a holistic view of justice the distinction between retributive
justice and restorative justice needs to be taken into consideration, a distinction that
was developed in scholarship and practice since the 1980s.
Retributive justice seeks punishment for crimes that were committed and assumes that
the imposed punitive judgements and sentences serve as a deterrent for the offender not
to re-offend and for potential offenders to consider the severe consequences before they
engage in criminal activities, thereby preventing crime and unlawful behaviour. Defen-
ders of retributive justice consider it to be essential for upholding the rule of law, from
5
Leonel Narvaez, ed., Political Culture of Forgiveness and Reconciliation (Bogota: Fundación Para La Reconciliación, 2010)
(English Edition)).
6
Peace Charter for Forgiveness and Reconciliation. See its website: www.charterforforgiveness.org
106 J. BOEHLE

a consequentialist point of view, and support an inherently deserved punishment for the
crimes that were committed, from an ethical point of view.
Restorative justice does require that crimes, abuse and human rights violations that
have been committed are admitted and that only then a process of seeking restoration,
healing and repairing of any harm suffered can take place. Retributive justice does not seek
the healing and restoring of broken and harmed relationships, whereas restorative justice
seeks to heal and transform the offender as well as the victim, and seeks to restore right
relationships between them and in the concerned/involved communities. Braithwaite
defines restorative justice as follows:
Restorative justice is a process where all the stakeholders affected by an injustice have an
opportunity to discuss how they have been affected by the injustice and to decide what
should be done to repair the harm. With crime, restorative justice is about the idea that
because crime hurts, justice should heal. It follows that conversations with those who have
been hurt and with those who have afflicted the harm must be central to the process. … ..
Restorative justice comes in many forms. The most common in Europe and North America
is victim-offender mediation.7

Forgiveness, restorative justice and reconciliation

Howard Zehr, a pioneering scholar and practitioner of restorative justice, defined in his
book ‘Changing Lenses. A new Focus for Crime and Justice’ forgiveness in relation to
the justice process as follows:
Forgiveness is letting go of the power the offense and the offender have over a person. It
means no longer letting that offense and offender dominate. Without this experience of for-
giveness, the wounds may fester and the violation may take over our consciousness and our
lives. The offense and the offender are in control. Real forgiveness, then, is an act of empow-
erment and healing. It allows one to move from victim to survivor.8

Daniel Philpott and Jennifer J. Llewellyn, in a co-written book chapter, provide a similar
definition of forgiveness as a practice of letting-go in the context of restorative justice:
Finally, forgiveness is a practice through which victims will to forgo anger and revenge and
resolve to look upon a perpetrator as one against whom they no longer hold their crimes9

In the same chapter they summarise their understanding and definition of reconciliation in
comparison with restorative justice:
Like restorative justice, the core concepts of reconciliation all involve the repair of actual
harms to right relationship that injustices inflict. The justice of reconciliation restores right
relationship by aiming to repair harms to persons and relationships. The peace of reconcilia-
tion is the condition of right relationship that results from this repair. Mercy is the virtue that
wills the reparation of what is broken.10

In the specific context of national reconciliation efforts after large-scale atrocities there are
both positive and critical views in contemporary scholarship of the contribution
7
John Braithwaite, ‘Restorative Justice and De-Professionalization’, The Good Society 13, no. 1 (2004): 28.
8
Howard Zehr, Changing Lenses: A new Focus for Crime and Justice, Twenty-Fifth Anniversary Edition (3rd ed.) (Harrison-
burg, VA: Herald Press, 2015), 53.
9
Llewellyn and Philpott, Restorative Justice, Reconciliation and Peacebuilding, 27.
10
Ibid., 26.
 GLOBAL CHANGE, PEACE & SECURITY 107

forgiveness and reconciliation can make in these contexts. There is some criticism of the
‘institutionalisation’ of forgiveness in ‘Truth Commissions’, pointing out that forgiveness
has to be always a free, non-coerced decision of an individual. Victims of grave injustices
and great harm are often in a weak position in public settings, as they are still seeking to
recover their self-esteem and self-respect whilst experiencing a moral obligation to
forgive, presented to them by religious or political authority figures.11 Forgiveness can
be understood in a variety of ways in public processes after conflicts and mass atrocities.
Often forgiveness and reconciliation are a part of transitional justice, which raises
additional questions and concerns:
When speaking about forgiveness in those situations, it is necessary to be very concrete.
When using this word, one could be referring to political reconciliation among the parties
in a conflict, amnesty for the perpetrators of certain crimes, or personal forgiveness that
victims concede to those who have victimized them. In addition, these three senses are
not necessarily contradictory because it is possible to speak about forgiveness in one, two,
or all three senses at the same time. … … … . However, it seems evident that any of afore-
mentioned three senses of forgiveness in the processes of transitional politics seem to contra-
dict the habitually understood sense of justice in the context of the law. … … … It does not
seem like it should be the role of ordinary judges and the courts to achieve national reconci-
liation, award amnesty to the perpetrators of a crime, nor have the victims forgive the
victimizers.12

If it is not the role of ordinary judges and the courts to achieve national reconciliation, this
raises the critical question whose role it could be and what public processes, policies and
institutions could advance forgiveness and reconciliation, between individuals, commu-
nities and nations? Historically and pragmatically the establishment of truth, reconcilia-
tion and peace commissions with a range of relevant stakeholders has been the
appropriate response to find a public resolution to the grave crimes and atrocities com-
mitted during major conflicts and wars.
Another frequently debated critical issue is the question if there are crimes so severe
(mass murder, mass atrocities and genocide) that they fall outside the immediate reach of
individual, restorative justice and forgiveness, and that they have to be addressed first of
all in traditional public justice settings, either nationally in criminal courts or internation-
ally through the International Criminal Court. Hannah Arendt is perhaps the best known
contemporary author to address the moral question of the limits of forgiveness.13 She
maintained that ‘radical evil’, as experienced in the Holocaust and the Nazi death
camps, can neither be understood, nor judged, nor forgiven:
All we know is that we can neither punish nor forgive such offences and that they therefore
transcend the realm of human affairs and the potentialities of human power, both of which
they radically destroy wherever they make their appearance.14

11
Neelke Doorn, ‘Forgiveness, Reconciliation, and Empowerment in Transitional Justice’, International Journal of Huma-
nities and Social Science 1, no. 4 (April 2011): 13,14.
12
Pedro Rivas, ‘Forgiveness, Law and Politics. Considerations of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’, Journal of Poli-
tics and Law 6, no. 2 (2013): 19,20.
13
Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1958), 239.
For a summary of Arendt’s thinking on forgiveness, see: Michael Janover, ‘The Limits of Forgiveness and the Ends of
Politics’, Journal of Intercultural Studies 26, no. 3 (2005): 230, 231.
14
Arendt, The Human Condition, 241.
108 J. BOEHLE

Responding to this contemporary debate on forgiveness, Jacques Derrida sought to over-

come the perceived limitation and powerlessness of such a view of human affairs and
asserted in his writing the ‘limitless’ and ‘unconditional’ nature of forgiveness, the possi-
bility of healing even the ‘unforgivable’. ‘Pure forgiveness’, according to Derrida, is ulti-
mately safeguarding the very meaning of forgiveness and reconciliation, where the
unforgivable is forgiven:
Yet despite all the confusions which reduce forgiveness to amnesty or amnesia, to acquittal or
prescription, to the work of mourning or some political therapy of reconciliation, in short to
some historical ecology, it must never be forgotten, nevertheless, that all of that refers to a
certain idea of pure and unconditional forgiveness without which this discourse would not
have the least meaning.15

Pure, unconditional, limitless forgiveness is, however, in real life present as a ‘hyperbolic,
ethical vision’, as a paradox and always in an irreducible tension to pragmatic processes of
reconciliation and justice:
I remain ‘torn’ (between a ‘hyberbolic’ ethical vision of forgiveness, pure forgiveness, and the
reality of a society at work in pragmatic processes of reconciliation). But without power,
desire, or need to decide. The two poles are irreducible to one another, certainly, but they
remain indissociable. In order to inflect politics, or what you just called the ‘pragmatic pro-
cesses’, in order to change the law (which, thus, finds itself between the two poles, the
‘ideal’ and the ‘empirical’ –and what is more important to me here is, between these two,
this universalising mediation, this history of the law, the possibility of this progress of the
law), it is necessary to refer to a ‘“hyperbolic” ethical vision of forgiveness’.16

How to bring the personal dimension of forgiveness and reconciliation together with the
communal and public dimension in contemporary society, whilst at the same time taking
the demand of justice seriously, is a topic that has been extensively researched and dis-
cussed in the scholarly work of Daniel Philpott. His insights will be discussed further in the
next section of this paper and will be complemented by the insights of John Paul Leder-
ach, a highly respected mediator, conflict resolution, reconciliation and peacebuilding
practitioner, with experience in many different country settings over a time period of
several decades.

1. Daniel Philpott and John Paul Lederach: exploring the relation between
forgiveness, justice, reconciliation and peacebuilding
a. Daniel Philpott: reflecting on the interconnectedness of forgiveness, justice,
reconciliation and peace
Daniel Philpott is Professor of Political Science at Notre-Dame University in the United
States. He has written extensively about the tension and relation between forgiveness,
reconciliation and justice and is one of the best-known authors and scholars in this
field of study. Just and Unjust Peace. An Ethic of Political Reconciliation in 201217 and
Restorative Justice, Reconciliation and Peacebuilding (written and edited together with
15
Jacques Derrida, On Cosmopolitanism and Forgiveness (London and New York: Routledge, 2001), 45.
16
Ibid., 51.
17
Philpott, Just and Unjust Peace: An Ethic of Political Reconciliation.
 GLOBAL CHANGE, PEACE & SECURITY 109

Jennifer J. Llewellyn, a Professor of Law at Dalhousie University) in 201418 are his main
publications reflecting on the relationship between these values in peacebuilding.
As mentioned in the introduction section, the many aspects and processes of forgive-
ness and reconciliation are not only debated and analysed in view of healing and restor-
ing personal relationships in contemporary scholarship, but also in relation to restorative
justice and sustainable peace in the public sphere, in societies and between states. In his
book ‘Just and Unjust Peace. An Ethic of Political Reconciliation’ Philpott summarises suc-
cinctly the dilemma and the political as well as institutional challenge in the debates of
forgiveness:
The most surprising, controversial, and dramatic development in the age of peacebuilding is
the growth of forgiveness. It is embodied far less than the other practices in global norms and
institutions. Punishment is supported by international law, an international criminal court,
national courts, and large communities of officials and activists. Human rights and democracy
have even stronger support among activists and in international law. Acknowledgement has
its truth commissions and its memorials. Reparations and apology are practiced and enacted
by presidents and legislatures. Not so forgiveness. It has practitioners and proponents, but
arguments for it are generally not found in speeches and statements coming from the
United Nations, Western government, or other advocates of the liberal peace. … … It is
also the practice that is most disproportionately and distinctly – though not solely or unan-
imously – advocated by religious leaders and their followers.19

Forgiveness, which is often seen as a highly personal and private matter, has so far proved
to be too complex, too elusive and too controversial to be defined and expressed in
shared global norms and to be routinely applied in public processes in national and inter-
national institutions, whilst justice, human rights, rule of law and judicial punishment have
been increasingly embodied and institutionalised internationally over the past decades.
Forgiveness becomes possible when a perpetrator is not solely seen and defined as the
one who has committed evil, but as a person who is grounded always in his/her much
deeper and wider nature as a human being, with the possibility of regretting and trans-
cending any act of evil committed by him/her, and as a person having the potential to
transform himself/herself to overcome evil and to participate in restoring good. For reli-
gious and spiritual persons this process of forgiveness, transformation, restoration and
reconciliation is ultimately grounded in mercy, compassion, grace and love of the all-per-
vasive presence of ultimate Divine Reality. One of the core questions explored in this
article is the possibility that such a religious and spiritual view of a person who always
has the potential for transformation towards the good, could be embodied and expressed
in norms in public and in institutional realms.
Daniel Philpott refers to the possibility of transformation of evil and restoration of the
good in the following clarification on how to overcome evil in his book ‘Just and Unjust
Peace’, seeking to strengthen the argument for a restoration instead of retribution and
resentment:
Not only does constructive forgiveness not condone or necessarily forget evil but it takes evil
seriously in the same ways that resentment does. It names, confronts, and draws attention to
the evil, asserts that the victim has been the target of evil, and wills that the perpetrator
renounce the evil. The difference between constructive forgiveness and resentment is the

18
Llewellyn and Philpott, Restorative Justice, Reconciliation and Peacebuilding.
19
Philpott, Just and Unjust Peace, 251.
110 J. BOEHLE

manner in which they seek this defeat. Resentment seeks it by actively asserting the perpe-
trator’s evil against him, denouncing him for his deed, and perhaps drawing others’ attention
to it. Forgiveness seeks this defeat by willing a world in which the perpetrator has rejected the
evil and in which the evil has been transformed and overcome.20

The argument explored in this article is twofold: (a) that a restorative, transformative
understanding of justice can contribute to healing, liberation, a lasting overcoming of
evil and a restoration of right relationships; and (b) to highlight the important role that
forgiveness can play in restorative justice, reconciliation and sustainable peace.
In order to overcome the antinomies between justice and forgiveness that are often
expressed by those who prioritise retributive justice in dealing with past trauma,
conflicts, abuse and violence, an explanation of a relational approach, as expressed in
models of restorative justice and reconciliation, can lead the discussion beyond these per-
ceived antinomies into a synthesis.
Jennifer J. Llewellyn and Daniel Philpott stated in their introduction to ‘Restorative
Justice, Reconciliation and Peacebuilding’ that
both restorative justice and reconciliation are relational approaches. They conceive of
human persons not as isolated individuals or as mere bearers of utility but rather as
beings who are fundamentally connected and defined in and through their relationships
with others. Peacebuilding at the level of the nation-state, then, seeks not only to restore
rights and the rule of law but also to address the range of harms that violence causes to
human relationships, to restore relationships out of these variegated harms, and to elicit
the participation of a wider range of parties involved in understanding and responding
to these harms.21

There exists a variety of meanings of the terms restorative justice and reconciliation.22
In this article, the approach and concepts of Philpott and Llewellyn are highlighted
because they attempted to develop definitions of these two terms
that can be applied to the problem of peacebuilding on the level of the nation-state and the
community … .. Each concept, we propose further, can also be understood both from reli-
gious and secular perspectives and can facilitate and promote communication and collabor-
ation among these spheres.23

Definitions that can be applied to personal, communal and state-levels, as well as religious
and secular environments, enable a holistic and relational approach to justice that takes
the inter-relatedness and connectedness of all human life serious across all sections of
societies, engaging persons as autonomous and interdependent individuals and as
responsible citizens seeking the common, public good.

Restorative justice and peacebuilding

Restorative justice seeks justice by repairing and healing relationships between individ-
uals, the perpetrator and the victim, and by including their surrounding community in
the process.

20
Ibid., 263.
21
Ibid., 3,4.
22
Ibid., 8.
23
Ibid., 8.
 GLOBAL CHANGE, PEACE & SECURITY 111

Restorative justice takes the fact of human connection – of human beings as relational – as its
starting point for thinking about what justice means and what is required to do justice …
From this perspective we can see that our protection lies not in isolation or separation but
through the right conditions and character of relationships between individuals, commu-
nities and societies.24

Often opposed to the restorative justice approach, and challenging its primacy, are defen-
ders and proponents of retributive justice, claiming that punitive consequences are
necessary where crimes and atrocities have been committed, in order to uphold the
rule of law, to prevent impunity and to deter perpetrators of committing similar violence,
crimes and atrocities in the future. Defenders of retributive justice and the current domi-
nant, retributive judicial system overlook, however, another consequence of putting the
state and its prosecution, as well as lawyers in charge: it normally disempowers victims of
finding their own, personal resolution to the injustice they suffered from. It prevents them
from restoring, if they would wish so, a healing and right relationship with the perpetrator
and, in consequence, thereby also enabling the perpetrator to reintegrate into the com-
munity if he responds and engages with the restorative justice process. Zehr summarised
the disempowering and dividing dynamics of the contemporary, predominantly retribu-
tive justice systems:
The justice process … requires dependence upon proxy professionals who represent
offender and the state. This, in turn, removes the process of justice from the individuals
and the communities which are affected. Victim and offender become bystanders, nonparti-
cipants in their own cases … . The justice process does not seek reconciliation between victim
and offender because the relationship between victim and offender is not seen as an impor-
tant problem.25

There are great differences amongst a multitude of NGOs active in peacebuilding and
conflict transformation in their approaches how to achieve justice after conflicts, atrocities
and war. In the 1990s, after the end of the Cold War and as part of renewed attempts to
strengthen the rule of law in international relations and in global politics, there was a
growing momentum to bring perpetrators of violence and mass atrocities to justice by
establishing, for example, the International Criminal Court.26 Retributive justice and tran-
sitional justice understanding were gaining prominence in debates how to address atro-
cities in national and international judicial systems. A fierce debate followed, if local
reconciliation efforts, often including forgiveness, should be allowed to prevent the
implementation of retributive justice and punishments through national and inter-
national criminal courts and justice systems. Such retributive justice was demanded by
secular, national and international organisations focused on a law- and rights-based
approach, including the demand that war crimes had to be prosecuted at the Inter-
national Criminal Court in grave and large-scale cases. Faith-based NGOs and religious
organisations often tended to prioritise forgiveness and reconciliation, whilst secular
organisations more often demanded the rule of law and retributive justice to be
implemented and upheld. The desire to prevent and not to reinforce an attitude of

24
Ibid., 18,19.
25
Zehr, Changing Lenses: A new Focus for Crime and Justice, 79–82.
26
Philpott, Just and Unjust Peace, 37,38.
112 J. BOEHLE

impunity amongst perpetrators of crimes and atrocities was as much of an argument as

the demands that justice and rule of law in its retributive character must be upheld.
Louise Mallinder addressed the often perceived negative linkage between (uncondi-
tional) amnesties and impunity, and summarised instead principles for a ‘restorative
amnesty’.27
In contrast, amnesty laws that aim to deliver peace may also contribute to delivering restora-
tive justice and reconciliation, where they are designed to encourage offenders to take
responsibility for their actions and engage with accountability through participation in
restorative justice processes. In this way, by encouraging offender participation, amnesty
laws can potentially contribute to creating the conditions for the restoration of relationships.

I would argue that for amnesties to be understood as an expression of restorative justice they
must be designed according to restorative justice principles.28

The concept of transitional justice, including truth commission, restoration programmes

and amnesties, gained greater acceptance in the 1990s in secular settings and in inter-
national law discourse, seeking to maintain justice in contexts where a criminal prosecu-
tion of all offenses, including human rights offenses, could not be realistically assured,
primarily because of the great number of such offenses committed. The International
Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ) was founded in New York in March 2001 and it
defined transitional justice as follows:
Transitional justice refers to the ways countries emerging from periods of conflict and repres-
sion address large scale or systematic human rights violations so numerous and so serious
that the normal justice system will not be able to provide an adequate response. Transitional
justice is rooted in accountability and redress for victims. It recognizes their dignity as citizens
and as human beings. Ignoring massive abuses is an easy way out but it destroys the values
on which any decent society can be built. Transitional justice asks the most difficult questions
imaginable about law and politics. By putting victims and their dignity first it signals the way
forward for a renewed commitment to make sure ordinary citizens are safe in their own
countries – safe from the abuses of their own authorities and effectively protected from vio-
lations by others.29

Another major difference in justice approaches can be noticed between a legalistic and
formal Western justice and rule of law approach and models of justice found in develop-
ing countries and amongst religious and indigenous communities.30 According to a UNDP
publication, ‘informal justice systems usually resolve between 80 to 90 percent of dis-
putes’31 in many developing countries. The contemporary, dominant understanding of
justice and law as a form of retribution and punishment, and as the rational way to
protect order and the rule of law, has not been exclusively the only way justice has
been understood and practised in the history of societies and civilisations. In the West,
the contemporary, dominant understanding of systems and institutions of justice and
law are strongly influenced by and can be traced back to their origins in Greek and

27
Louise Mallinder, ‘Amnesties in the Pursuit of Reconciliation, Peacebuilding, and Restorative Justice’, in Restorative
Justice, Reconciliation and Peacebuilding, ed. J. J. Llewellyn and D. Philpott, 140.
28
Ibid., 150.
29
What is Transitional Justice, from the web site of the International Center for Transitional Justice: https://www.ictj.org/
about/transitional-justice (accessed July 21, 2019).
30
Mallinder, ‘Amnesties in the Pursuit of Reconciliation, Peacebuilding, and Restorative Justice’, 139.
31
Ewa Wojkowska, Doing Justice: How Informal Justice Systems Can Contribute (UNDP: 2006), 5.
 GLOBAL CHANGE, PEACE & SECURITY 113

Roman times. In Europe and the Middle East, values of mercy, forgiveness, restorative
justice and reconciliation can be found predominantly in the religious and indigenous tra-
ditions, however, they were rarely expressed in Greek and Roman sources of law. Philpott
writes:
What is true of mercy is also true more broadly of reconciliation and restorative justice: These
are odd visitors, discordant entrants, in modern Western thought, law, and politics as well as
in global institutions. Reconciliation has played little role in Western law since it emerged in
the Middle Ages and is not a major theme in the Greek and Roman sources of Western law
and thought or in the natural law tradition of ethics.32

But even in Roman times, other paradigms of justice and reconciliation were present in
the many local cultures and religions under Roman rule. Historically speaking, Jesus of
Nazareth, the founder of Christianity, can be understood as an individual who has chal-
lenged profoundly a Roman, predominant legalistic, retributive justice paradigm. Chris-
tians might argue that over the last 2000 years Jesus of Nazareth had perhaps the most
widespread and enduring impact on how justice was understood in the Western hemi-
sphere, first on the private and then on the public quest for a more holistic, forgiving,
reconciling and healing understanding of justice, inspiring countless persons to seek a
restorative response to human failing, betrayal, crime, conflict, atrocities and even wars.
The reconciliation between France and Germany, and to some extend between
Germany and Poland, after the Second World War, are recent examples which were
pioneered by individuals with a Christian worldview and supported by Christian
denominations in Europe. However, such examples are still not the rule, but rather
the exception in the contemporary world of politics, national interests and international
order, where realpolitik, economic might and military power continue to be the domi-
nant factors.
Philpott and Llewllyn see the origins of reconciliation as a concept of justice strongly
rooted in the Abrahamic religions (which was the selected, particular religious focus in
their book and does not deny the presence of these values in other religious
traditions):
Reconciliation as a concept of justice? That idea will ring strange to westerners, for whom
reconciliation is more familiarly an overcoming of enmity, a state of embrace, or perhaps a
personal and intimate matter. It is in fact in ancient religions, their texts and their traditions,
that the idea of reconciliation as a concept of justice can be found. Here we focus on Judaism,
Christianity and Islam. In these traditions (though perhaps not in every theological interpret-
ation of them) the meaning of reconciliation indeed converges strongly with the meaning of
justice as well as the meaning of peace and mercy.33

The search for justice in its deeper and more holistic meaning, focusing at the core on the
relationships amongst individuals, in families, in communities and with the Divine, has
included rituals, traditions and prophetic responses going beyond retribution, seeking
healing, restoration and wholeness throughout the history of Abrahamic religions.
In the scriptures of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, justice commonly translates to something
very much like ‘righteousness’, meaning the demands of right relationship among the

32
Philpott, Just and Unjust Peace, 7.
33
Llewellyn and Philpott, Restorative Justice, Reconciliation and Peacebuilding, 23.
114 J. BOEHLE

members of a community in all of their roles – economic, political, familial, cultic – and with
respect to God. … .. Peace, then, is the comprehensive right relationship, or state of justice
that results from processes of restoration.34

Here we find the common ground where the concepts of justice and reconciliation meet:
right relationships, healed and restored. Philpott has summarised this shared purpose,
building on insights from Abrahamic traditions and schools, as follows:
Reconciliation, in these traditions and schools, is the restoration of relationships that wrongs
have ruptured with the aim of realizing a condition of right relationship, that is, a state of
being reconciled. If justice, too, is both a state of right relationship and a process of restoring
right relationship following wrongs, then it follows that justice is identical to reconciliation.
Put more simply, reconciliation is a concept of justice – the justice of comprehensive right
relationship.35

According to such a holistic understanding of the various contributing processes needed

to constitute and maintain justice and peace, a sustainable peace can only be the result of
restorative justice, forgiveness, and reconciliation.

b. John Paul Lederach: sustainable reconciliation and peacebuilding

Prof John Paul Lederach from the University of Notre Dame, USA, is a pioneering, well
known peacebuilding scholar who was amongst the first to highlight in his writings the
intricate link between relationships, reconciliation and sustainable peace. In 1997 Leder-
ach published one of the classics of contemporary peacebuilding literature which has
been used in countless seminars and workshops around the world: Building Peace. Sus-
tainable Reconciliation in Divided Societies.36 In this book he outlined core models of build-
ing peace, including his often quoted Pyramid model,37 and presented the core
conceptual framework for building peace as being constituted by four key values:
truth, mercy, justice and peace. This framework was developed by Lederach after he
was part of mediation group meetings in Nicaragua between the Sandinista government
and an indigenous resistance group, the Yatama. These mediation meetings had opened
with a reflection on Psalm 85 (10) from the Bible: ‘Truth and Mercy have met together,
peace and justice have kissed.’38 The place where these four concepts meet was
named reconciliation.39 Reconciliation was understood as a place and a perspective, as
a locus and a focus.40 Lederach wrote:
Reconciliation, I am suggesting, involves the creation of the social space where both truth
and forgiveness are validated and joined together, rather than being forced into an encoun-
ter in which one must win out over the other or envisioned as fragmented and separated
parts.41

34
Ibid., 24.
35
Philpott, Just and Unjust Peace: An Ethic of Political Reconciliation, 54.
36
Lederach, Building Peace. Sustainable Reconciliation in Divided Societies.
37
Ibid., 39.
38
Ibid., 28.
39
Ibid., 28–30.
40
Ibid., 30,31.
41
Ibid., 29.
 GLOBAL CHANGE, PEACE & SECURITY 115

Forgiveness was understood by Lederach as being an aspect of mercy and mercy as being
related to compassion, restoration and healing.42 In his argument, the insight is expressed
that lasting, sustainable reconciliation and peace involves all concerned parties and their
righteous and healthy relationships. Based on these insights, Lederach argued for a
change in the paradigm of peacebuilding, away from a statist diplomacy paradigm to a
relational paradigm. He wrote:
I believe this paradigmatic shift is articulated in the movement away from a concern with the
resolution of issues and toward a frame of reference that focuses on the restoration and
rebuilding of relationships. [1] This calls for an approach that goes beyond a mechanical strat-
egy. The framework must address and engage the relational aspects of reconciliation as the
central component of peacebuilding.43

Twenty years later, the reconciliation and peacebuilding initiatives and organisations have
multiplied amongst NGOs, and at the United Nations there is now a Peacebuilding
Support Office,44 a Peacebuilding Commission and a Peacebuilding Fund, to expand,
complement and inform the United Nations peacekeeping operations and to improve
co-ordination with national peace efforts.45
Reconciliation and forgiveness values, however, still have not found their own insti-
tutional expression or formalised processes in the international institutional arena, even
though both are seen as being essential and a core part of sustainable peacebuilding by
leading scholars in the field of peacebuilding and by many religious actors who are fol-
lowing the precepts of their traditions. However, the topic of post-conflict reconciliation
is debated increasingly also in UN settings and the UN Peacebuilding Fund has begun to
support national reconciliation efforts in several countries.46 On 19 November 2019 took
place a first UN Security Council meeting with a focus specifically on reconciliation,47
whilst on 29 August 2018 the UN Security Council held a meeting focusing on mediation
and conflict resolution. The Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby called during the 2018
Security Council meeting for a better integration of the peacebuilding work of the UN
with local and national reconciliation processes:

42
Ibid., 28.
43
Ibid., 24. In this quotation Lederach referenced two earlier authors [1] to strengthen his argument for a relational
approach: Hizkias Assefa, Peace and Reconciliation as a Paradigm (Nairobi: Nairobi Peace Initiative, 1993), 10–16;
Howard Zehr, Changing Lenses: A New Focus for Crime and Justice (Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, 1990), 177.
44
https://www.un.org/peacebuilding/supportoffice (accessed December 9, 2020).
45
https://www.un.org/peacebuilding/news/secretary-generals-remarks-general-assembly-high-level-meeting-
peacebuilding-and-sustaining (accessed December 9, 2020).
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, remarks to the General Assembly high-level meeting on peacebuilding and
sustaining peace on 24 April 2018:
The central message of my report on peacebuilding and sustaining peace is that we need to enhance the coher-
ence of international efforts in support of national governments and their people.The scale and nature of the
challenge we face calls for closer strategic and operational partnerships between all key stakeholders, based on
what are the national priorities and the national policies. These key stakeholders include Governments, the
United Nations, other international, regional and sub-regional organizations, international financial institutions,
civil society, women’s groups, youth organizations and the private sector. To achieve greater coherence, we are
strengthening partnerships around all our efforts, and at every stage along the peace continuum from conflict
prevention and resolution to peacekeeping, peacebuilding and long-term development.
46
https://www.un.org/peacebuilding/sites/www.un.org.peacebuilding/files/documents/pbf_strategy_2020-2024_final.
pdf UN Secretary-General’s Peacebuilding Fund, 2020 – 2024 Strategy, page 8. (accessed December 9, 2020).
47
Remarks of UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres at UN Security Council meeting, 19 November 2019. https://www.
un.org/sg/en/content/sg/statement/2019-11-19/secretary-generals-remarks-the-security-council-the-role-of-
reconciliation-processes-delivered (accessed December 9, 2020).
116 J. BOEHLE

If we can learn how to set conflict transformation in a framework of reconciliation – including

at the grass roots, and not only by elites in conferences – we open ourselves to working
together in new and more effective ways as we strive for peace, as the Secretary-General
has just said. We enable mediation to be orders of magnitude more effective. As I have
already said, the United Nations is the most extraordinary example of a framework of recon-
ciliation – but this framework needs to be embedded in current ways of working and analysis.
A cross-agency and cross-departmental reconciliation strategy, supported by the necessary
resources, will open up current ways of working to new and innovative ways of negotiating
strategies for peace, offering more options in an increasingly complex international system.48

Whilst Truth (and Reconciliation) Commissions have been set up after many conflicts49 and,
for example, are being called for also in the current national effort to reach reconciliation in
the peace process in Colombia, these efforts remain however national efforts. They begin fol-
lowing national initiatives initiated by grassroots or civil society campaigns, or after being
initiated by influential individuals, politicians or political parties. There are some documents
and guidebooks available internationally, but no standardised international policies or norms,
or international, institutionalised processes of forgiveness and reconciliation that could be
called upon by local and national actors. A globally acknowledged depository or hub for
reconciliation processes and studies could therefore make a significant contribution to
further improve and mainstream forgiveness and reconciliation processes in peacebuilding.
Crucial to advance the argument for forgiveness and reconciliation in all areas of public
life, local, national and international, is a deeper understanding of the reasons, the nature
and the necessity for political reconciliation in order to achieve a more sustainable peace.
Philpott outlined some of these reasons and the proper application of political reconcilia-
tion in his book Just and Unjust Peace (2011). He summarised his approach and its consti-
tuting principles as follows:
At this point the ethic of political reconciliation can be stated as a definition. It is a concept of
justice that aims to restore victims, perpetrators, citizens, and the government of states that
have been involved in political injustices to a condition of right relationship within a political
order or between political orders – a condition characterized by human rights, democracy,
the rule of law, and respect for international law; by widespread recognition of the legitimacy
of these values; and by the virtues that accompany these values.50

To explore further the contemporary challenges and critical issues of applying the values
of forgiveness, reconciliation and restorative justice after conflict and war in a national
setting, the following section will critically reflect on the pioneering, scholarly and prac-
tical work of Leonel Narvaez seeking reconciliation and a just peace in Colombia.

2. Leonel Narvaez and the case of forgiveness, justice and reconciliation in

Colombia
Leonel Narvaez, whose scholarship is shaped by the experience of decades of civil war and
violence in Colombia, is a scholar, priest and activist who is seeking to apply his insights
48
Remarks of Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby at UN Security Council meeting, 29 August 2018. https://www.
archbishopofcanterbury.org/speaking-and-writing/speeches/archbishop-canterbury-addresses-un-security-council
(accessed December 9, 2020).
49
Philpott, Just and Unjust Peace: An Ethic of Political Reconciliation, 181,182. Philpott counted some 40 truth commissions
at the time of writing his book.
50
Philpott, Just and Unjust Peace: An Ethic of Political Reconciliation, 58.
 GLOBAL CHANGE, PEACE & SECURITY 117

on forgiveness and reconciliation in the current peacebuilding and reconciliation initiat-

ives in Colombia. The inclusive reconciliation process in Colombia involves the victims of
the civil war, the opposing actors in the civil war and the Colombian government, and is
attempting to take serious human rights, justice, truth finding, forgiveness and restor-
ation. Narvaez collected and summarised the insights of his and his team’s forgiveness
and reconciliation work and research in the book Political Culture of Forgiveness and
Reconciliation (2009). He also founded the workshops named Schools for Forgiveness
and Reconciliation (Escuelas de Perdón y Reconciliación, ESPERE) and the Foundation of
Reconciliation (Fundación para la Reconciliación).51
The ESPERE workshops of forgiveness and reconciliation are designed around ten
modules, guiding the participants on an inner journey in a safe and private environment.
The 10 steps and 10 modules are described by Narvaez as follows:

1. Motivation and agreements of total privacy

2. I decide to move from darkness to light
3. I choose to forgive
4. I see with new eyes
5. I share the pain
6. I accept the other within me
7. I construct the truth
8. I guarantee justice
9. I agree on a pact
10. I organise the celebration.

These ten work modules are structured within a common framework: a safe environ-
ment, case presentation, theoretical inspiration, commitment and ritual. These modules
and the route they take are filled with a strong symbolic concentration, where the
colours, aromas, music, rituals, games, representations, and agreements play an important
role.52
Whilst these modules were developed at the beginning of the public and collective for-
giveness work of Narvaez, focusing on a communal setting and on restoration of relation-
ships, a large repository of principles, theories and ideas has been collected since ESPERE
started its work in 2001.
A partial collection of the great diversity of approaches, processes, principles and ideas
that Narvaez and his team encountered during their collective work for forgiveness and
reconciliation is provided in the chapter The General Principles of Forgiveness and Recon-
ciliation,53 co-written by Leonel Narvaez and Jairo Diaz, in the book on Political Culture of
Forgiveness and Reconciliation (2009) edited by Narvaez. He emphasises the focus of his
approach a follows:
For centuries, the strategies of peacemaking and citizen security have strongly emphasized
rationality and law enforcement. ESPERE Schools want to offer a different paradigm by

51
Narvaez, Political Culture of Forgiveness and Reconciliation, 171.
52
Leonel Narvaez, ‘Schools of Forgiveness and Reconciliation. Constructing Peace’, ReVista. Harvard Review of Latin
America (Spring 2003): 49.
53
Narvaez, Political Culture of Forgiveness and Reconciliation, 171–220.
118 J. BOEHLE

designing communal work techniques that are sustained through the strengthening of the
emotional intelligence.54

The personal, relational and communal aspects of restorative justice are given pre-emi-
nence in this paradigm, taking precedence over law enforcement and retributive
justice. The processes of forgiveness and reconciliation in this paradigm involve both
the interior healing of the individuals, as well as the restoration of healthy, peaceful
relationships between individuals and in communities. In the typology of interpersonal
reconciliation of the Schools of Forgiveness (ESPERE) the following clarification is made:
In other words, to repair people is to forgive; to repair relationships is to reconcile. Thus, for-
giveness is a process of interior repair that permits, if it is possible and if it is so desired, the
initiation of a process of reconciliation, of reparation of the relationship that was ruptured by
the offense.55

Inevitably such a reconciliatory and restorative approach will evoke criticism and opposi-
tion from those who want punishment for crimes and atrocities and strict law enforce-
ment to be the foundation of any peace settlement. Based on his decades-long work
and reconciliation experience, Narvaez has responded to recurring, fundamental criticism
and opposition to the public implementation of the values of forgiveness and reconcilia-
tion in his writings. In seeking to accommodate the validity of truth and justice claims,
whilst asserting at the same time the foundational character of forgiveness and reconci-
liation for enabling healing and a stronger peace, Narvaez wrote:
Certain paradigms have begun to form part of the everyday language of the ESPERE Schools.
Against the irrationality of violence it is necessary to propose the irrationality of forgiveness,
as well as demonstrate that cities are built from inside out, that forgiveness is not forgetting
but rather remembering with different eyes, that without reconciliation there is no future,
that hatred and resentment have grave somatic and psychological effects, that truth and
justice are indispensable elements of reconciliation, and, finally, that compassion and tender-
ness must be reinstated as basic elements of the culture of peace.56

The argument made here in this article concludes, in agreement with Narvaez’ insights
expressed above, that ultimately a solely rational solution to the legitimate, and at
times, conflicting demands of justice and reconciliation, has not been found in Colombia
or elsewhere, and that the ‘reasons’ and ‘voices’ of the heart and of faith need also to be
heard and integrated in public processes of forgiveness and reconciliation, for individuals
and communities to have any chance of a lasting, peaceful future. In such a viewpoint,
understanding and approach, the wisdom and combined life experiences that find
expression in the world’s religious traditions can help to navigate the deepest and
darkest experiences in communal and personal life, such as crime, war, betrayal, violence
and multiple forms of abuse. Compassion, love, mercy, forgiveness (sometimes referred to
as letting-go) and reconciliation are values that are central to all major religious traditions.
These values and their application in demanding life situations and crises haven been
shared through religious traditions, their rituals, stories and scriptures for millennia. As
in so many other war, civil war and post-conflict zones around the world, the question

54
Narvaez, ‘Schools of Forgiveness and Reconciliation. Constructing Peace’, 49.
55
Narvaez, Political Culture of Forgiveness and Reconciliation, 207.
56
Ibid., 49.
 GLOBAL CHANGE, PEACE & SECURITY 119

of seeking forgiveness and reconciliation, without, at the same time, abandoning the quest
for truth and justice, is at the heart of the current debates concerning the peace and recon-
ciliation process in Colombia. Whilst former President Juan Manuel Santos has launched and
strongly supported a peace and reconciliation process in 2015, there was a substantial oppo-
sition led by former President Álvaro Uribe Vélez and his political party Partido Centro Demo-
crático (Democratic Center Party) against the Peace Agreement. It was finally ratified by both
houses of Congress on November 29–30, 2016, with abstention from the supporters of
former President Uribe. The opposition is against implementing, in their view, a premature
and unjust peace agreement with the FARC and other armed guerrilla groups. The demand
to ensure that justice is maintained and that crimes committed during the civil war in Colom-
bia are prosecuted is central for the opposition to the Colombian peace process. Former Pre-
sident Uribe himself was supporting in 2005 the Justice and Peace Law which was meant ‘to
create a legal framework that would permit the reintegration of illegal armed groups into
society.’57 In his and his supporter’s judgement, apparently, the conditions are not yet
given for a just peace, for the upholding of law and a succeeding reintegration of guerrillas
into Colombian society. The current President of Colombia, Iván Duque, is seeking to reform
and adjust the Peace Agreement, without rejecting it completely.

3. Peace Charter for Forgiveness and Reconciliation: an example of a

contemporary initiative
In addition to the scholarly debates and political processes on a national level, the public
discourse and argument concerning forgiveness, reconciliation and restorative justice are
advanced also through a variety of national and international NGOs and peace initiatives,
in national and international settings. One such recent initiative, the Peace Charter for For-
giveness and Reconciliation (PCFR)58 was started in 2011 in Birmingham, UK.59 It is a public
and multi-religious initiative that aims to raise awareness for the critical issues that have
been debated above and advance the private and public understanding and engagement
with forgiveness, reconciliation and peacebuilding. It also aims to make a contribution to
a growing recognition and further mainstreaming in national and international public set-
tings for the need to include forgiveness and reconciliation in the default, standard
responses, formal processes and tools of diplomacy that state actors, NGOs and inter-
national agencies offer and apply for the resolution and transformation of conflicts and
war. The Peace Charter’s global and public launch took place at the 10th World Assembly
of Religions for Peace International60 on 20 August 2019 in Lindau, Germany where it was
57
Ibid., 210, 211.
58
For further information, see the web site of the Peace Charter for Forgiveness and Reconciliation: www.
charterforforgiveness.org.
59
In 2011, the question of developing a Charter for Forgiveness was raised by Bhai Sahib Mohinder Singh, Chairman, Guru
Nanak Nishkam Sewak Jatha, in a series of conversations between Bhai Sahib Mohinder Singh and Dr Josef Boehle (Uni-
versity of Birmingham). They have co-led the Peace Charter project and organisational development since then. In 2014,
Dr William Vendley, former Secretary-General of Religions for Peace International, embraced the Charter idea, vision and
project and he joined as Co-convenor the Peace Charter project. A Charter Editorial Panel with 13 members was set up
in 2016 to jointly develop the Charter text and to safeguard universal ownership and a high-quality Charter. https://
www.charterforforgiveness.org/processes/ See Peace Charter Information Brochure (accessed February 18, 2021).
60
For further information on Religions for Peace International, see its web site: www.rfp.org
For information on the 10th World Assembly of Religions for Peace, see: https://www.rfp.org/10th-world-assembly-
of-religions-for-peace/ (accessed December 11, 2020).
120 J. BOEHLE

formally adopted by the World Assembly as Action Point 1 and it was subsequently
included in the 5 year strategic plan (2020–2025) of Religions for Peace International.
The Declaration of the 10th World Assembly of Religions for Peace, announced on 23 August
2019, stated: “We – 900 women, men, and youth – have gathered in Lindau, Germany, coming
from 125 countries for the 10th World Assembly of Religions for Peace. We are grateful for 49
years of determined focus on building peace and on speaking for those most in need. We are
an alliance of care, of compassion, of love. … … . We adopt The Peace Charter for Forgive-
ness and Reconciliation, convinced that transforming violent conflicts requires the healing
of historical wounds and painful memories, forgiveness, and reconciliation. We commit to
integrating efforts for healing into all our conflict resolution work.”61

The Peace Charter and the 10th World Assembly of Religions for Peace is mentioned here
as an example of the growing public awareness and public discourse that is considering
the indispensable contribution forgiveness and reconciliation processes can make to
transform conflicts, restore justice for all and secure sustainable peace.
Forming a consensus on how to integrate forgiveness and reconciliation remains chal-
lenging however, and critical issues that need to be addressed in multi-religious, public
initiatives like the Peace Charter include: the challenge to balance religious and secular
language and religious and secular worldviews; gaining and maintaining acceptance in
religious and secular environments, amongst religious communities, spiritual movements
and in secular, public institutions; avoiding the appearance of religious syncretism and
giving no single religious tradition a preferred or pre-eminent status; and retaining a
focus on shared, universal values, such as forgiveness, reconciliation, justice, peace.
A concise statement reflecting on the multiple challenges on the path of inter-religious
peacebuilding was given by Pope John Paul II three decades earlier, responding to similar
concerns and necessities of equitable partnerships, when he addressed senior leaders of
diverse religions, and the world at large, during the World Day of Prayer for Peace on 27
October 1986 in Assisi, Italy:
The fact that we have come here does not imply any intention of seeking a religious consen-
sus among ourselves or of negotiating our faith convictions. Neither does it mean that reli-
gions can be reconciled at the level of a common commitment in an earthly project which
would surpass them all. Nor is it a concession to relativism in religious beliefs, because
every human being must sincerely follow his or her upright conscience with the intention
of seeking and obeying the truth. Our meeting attests only – and this is its real significance
for the people of our time – that in the great battle for peace, humanity, in its very diversity,
must draw from its deepest and most vivifying sources where its conscience is formed and
upon which is founded the moral action of all people.62

4. Conclusion and outlook

The argument proposed here in this article is that (1) forgiveness as well as political and
communal reconciliation after conflict are very much needed on community and national
61
Declaration of the 10th World Assembly of Religions for Peace, 23 August 2019, Lindau, Germany. https://www.rfp.org/
wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Declaration-of-the-10th-World-Assembly-of-Religions-for-Peace-FINAL-2-1.pdf (accessed
December 10, 2020).
62
Pope John Paul II, Address to Heads and Representatives of the Christian Churches and Ecclesial Communities and of
the World Religions, Assisi, Italy, 27 October 1986. https://w2.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/speeches/1986/
october/documents/hf_jp-ii_spe_19861027_prayer-peace-assisi.html (accessed May 20, 2018).
 GLOBAL CHANGE, PEACE & SECURITY 121

levels and that (2) local and national reconciliation and peacebuilding benefits from being
supported and strengthened by national and international organisations, wherever poss-
ible, through national and international norms, practises and formal processes. Such norms,
practises and processes on the issues of forgiveness and reconciliation are still being
further developed and discussed, and there is no widely accepted, standard response. It
is important to keep in mind, however, the widespread consensus amongst conflict res-
olution and peacebuilding practitioners and scholars that resolutions of local and national
conflicts and restoration at community level have to be created by the local and national
concerned parties themselves and that insider mediation is key.63 Any international
support from the outside can only assist the local and national actors: with external exper-
tise and collected depositories of past learnings, with the intention to help the conflict
parties in achieving their reconciliation and peacebuilding goals, through facilitation
and mediation, by creating safe spaces, by being a witness, by providing funds and by
adding contextual and historical insights.
There are many local and national initiatives to advance forgiveness and reconciliation
as part of post-conflict reconstruction and peacebuilding. Best known amongst these are
the many ‘Truth (and Reconciliation) commissions’ (different authors have counted
between 40–50 national commissions) that have been set up in many countries after
major conflicts over the past 40 years. These are seen by some as an emerging new inter-
national norm for processes of national reconciliation, democratisation, and post-conflict
reconstruction.64 However, these national initiatives, organisations and commissions are
in general not focused on advancing these values and practises beyond their national
contexts and spaces. There is therefore a substantial and timely need to further raise
awareness, deepen understanding and advance the public discourse concerning forgive-
ness, restorative justice and reconciliation inside international agencies and institutions,
as well as in the international public sphere, aiming to create and mainstream inter-
national norms and standards in response to these critical issues.
Initiatives such as the Peace Charter for Forgiveness and Reconciliation (PCFR) aim to
address this institutional and public challenge by working at local, national and global
levels. They seek to advance the public and political discourse on these three inter-
related values (forgiveness, reconciliation and peacebuilding) in the contexts of inter-
national agencies and institutions, and in the formulation of international norms and
policies.
A variety of international non-governmental organisations and networks, government
departments, as well as academic research centres are considering the contribution that
forgiveness and reconciliation processes can make for building sustainable peace and are
engaged in reconciliation work.65 Reconciliation processes are increasingly and more

63
Supporting Insider Mediation: Strengthening Resilience to Conflict and Turbulence, UNDP Report, 2014. http://www.undp.
org/content/dam/undp/library/crisis%20prevention/Supporting-Insider-Mediation---Strengthening-Resilience-to-
Conflict-and-Turbulence--EU%20Guidance%20Note.pdf (accessed June 3, 2018).
64
Michal Ben-Josef Hirsch, Megan MacKenzie, and Mohamed Sesay, ‘Measuring the Impacts of Truth and Reconciliation
Commissions: Placing the Global “Success” of TRCs in Local Perspective’, Cooperation or Conflict 47, no. 3 (2012): 386–
403.
65
For example, see the research reports: ‘Mapping on Approaches to Reconciliation’ (March 2019) written by Prof Simon
Keyes for the Network for Religious and Traditional Peacemakers: https://live-peacemakersnetwork.pantheonsite.io/
wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Mapping-on-Approaches-to-Reconciliation.pdf (accessed December 11, 2020).
‘Pathways for Peace : Inclusive Approaches to Preventing Violent Conflict’ published by the World Bank (2018):
https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/28337 (accessed December 11, 2020).
122 J. BOEHLE

widely accepted, whilst forgiveness processes are still often considered to be fraught with
difficulties and to be a matter first of all for each individual victim to address. This reluc-
tance to engage more formally and institutionally with forgiveness is observable
especially in secular contexts and settings. For reconciliation and peace processes to
succeed and to be sustainable, all constituencies and communities that are part of a
conflict and have suffered from it need to be engaged.
In large parts of the world this includes religious and indigenous communities. Respect
for religious and secular diversity, and the uniqueness of the ‘other’, as well as the chal-
lenge and necessity for all citizens to develop a shared understanding in public discourse
and in public institutions across very diverse worldviews, are critical concerns that need to
be taken seriously if forgiveness and reconciliation are to be better integrated into the
highly secular international institutions of our time. A genuine understanding of these
critical concerns is therefore essential for inter-religious, inter-cultural, public initiatives
that seeks public endorsement and support in pluralistic societies in a post-secular world.
Jürgen Habermas, one of today’s best known and leading public intellectuals,
expressed succinctly in his reflections on Religion in the Public Sphere the common chal-
lenge of seeking mutual understanding in the public sphere, requiring openness as
well as the ability to communicate from both secular and religious citizens:
Moreover, religious citizens must develop an epistemic stance toward the independence of
secular from sacred knowledge and the institutionalized monopoly of modern scientific
experts. … … … … …

Finally, religious citizens must develop an epistemic stance toward the priority that secular
reasons enjoy in the political arena. This can succeed only to the extent that they convincingly
connect the egalitarian individualism and universalism of modern law and morality with the
premises of their comprehensive doctrines. … … … …

However, secular citizens are likewise not spared a cognitive burden, because a secularist atti-
tude does not suffice for the expected cooperation with fellow citizens who are religious. …
… .. Instead, the insight by secular citizens that they live in a post-secular society that is epis-
temically adjusted to the continued existence of religious communities first requires a change
in mentality that is no less cognitively exacting than the adaptation of religious awareness to
the challenges of an ever more secularized environment.66

Better integrating forgiveness and reconciliation practices with international peacebuild-

ing therefore means ensuring the participation of a diversity of communities and cultural
and religious traditions, finding language that is acceptable across many different world-
views and cultures, engaging religious and secular citizens, reaching out across a multi-
tude of interests, constituencies and communities, and engaging with private
individuals and public officials. Openness, respect and inclusiveness are essential qualities

See also: The Winchester Centre for Religion, Reconciliation and Peace at the University of Winchester: https://www.
winchester.ac.uk/research/building-a-sustainable-and-responsible-future/centre-for-religion-reconciliation-and-peace/
The Jena Center for Reconciliation Studies at the Friedrich Schiller University Jena: https://www.jcrs.uni-jena.de/
The Mary Hoch Center for Reconciliation at George Mason University: https://carterschool.gmu.edu/research-and-
impact/centers/mary-hoch-center-reconciliation
66
Jürgen Habermas, ‘Religion in the Public Sphere’, European Journal of Philosophy 14, no. 1 (2006): 14,15.
See also Jürgen Habermas, ‘Notes on a Post-secular Society’ (2008). English version online at http://www.
signandsight.com/features/1714.html (accessed May 21, 2018).
(German original first published as: ‘Die Dialektik der Säkularisierung’, Blätter für Deutsche und Internationale Politik
4 (2008).
 GLOBAL CHANGE, PEACE & SECURITY 123

for processes of healing, for restoring broken relationships between individuals and com-
munities, when seeking sustainable peace and when safeguarding justice, and while
searching for unity in diversity, locally, nationally and globally. These are the complex
and often conflicting demands of the concrete work of forgiveness, reconciliation and
restorative justice, especially in increasingly pluralistic societies.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Funding
This work was supported by Guru Nanak Nishkam Sewak Jatha (GNNSJ)/Charitable Organisation,
Birmingham, UK.

Notes on Contributor
Dr Josef Boehle is a Research Fellow and the Principal Investigator of the ’Religion and Peacebuild-
ing in International Relations’ Research Project at the School of Philosophy, Theology and Religion
at the University of Birmingham, UK, and a Visiting Scholar at the Jena Center for Reconciliation
Studies at the Friedrich Schiller University Jena. From 2004 - 2010 he was the Coordinator of the
UNESCO Chair in Interfaith Studies at the University of Birmingham and from 2005 - 2010 he was
a member of a UK Government (DFID) sponsored Research Consortium on ’Religions and Develop-
ment’. He has worked with international interreligious organisations and helped to organise major
conferences, seminars, symposia and summits addressing interreligious and intercultural issues. His
work and research seeks to make a contribution towards improved relations between diverse cul-
tures and religions and to present relevant responses to today’s search for a fairer and more peace-
ful world community. Issues around religion and politics, globalisation, interreligious understanding
and cooperation, peacebuilding, reconciliation and forgiveness are central to his scholarly work. He
is working on projects with a wide variety of NGOs and international organisations.

ORCID
Josef Boehle http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9794-6569