6 - War without the War
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
Summary
Peace is a dangerous goal. It rewards misconduct. A history of bad activity by one careless, reckless, or genuinely aggressive can be rewarded at the negotiating table, as the wrongdoer's bargaining strength may be disproportionally great just because of the wrong he has done. Negotiating peace is a distasteful business, often involving further concessions to one already enriched by his own negligence, and involving participation in a process that no notions of justice, equity, or good conduct could bless. Nevertheless, although the process allows wrongdoers not only to keep the fruits of their actions, and occasionally promotes them to leaders of countries or rulers of new territory, peace is universally praised. The pictures evoked, from negotiating with terrorists to cutting a deal with extortionists, vary in the international and criminal arenas. These pictures all appear more extreme than in tort, where it might be thought that violence, wrongdoing, retribution, self-help, and abuse of civil society are given extremely short shrift. They do more than linger in the area of private legal wrongs: they drive the process. Yet, against this violent backdrop, peace is promised and, to a large extent, only peace should be. Peace is notoriously political and specific. Platitudes aside, it is hard to see why any grievant or injured party wants to pursue peace. Such parties are, in some way, worse off because of the activities (as they see it) of the wrongdoer, and justice or fairness cries out for a remedy.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Tort Wars , pp. 183 - 210Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2008