These claims do not denude them of moral responsibility for their actions, but frame their actions as morally legitimate as a way of managing the problem of moral responsibility. Six claims to moral legitimacy are made: they were reluctant combatants; the decision to take up arms and to continue was emotionally problematic and not lightly taken; they were protecting their own community; they have been heavily involved in subsequent conflict transformation; the legacy of that decision leaves heavy suffering and costs to this day; and people should be judged on what they do now for conflict transformation, not on the past.

It’s being held on 12 May 2021 at 5pm for the Warwick Interdisciplinary Research Centre for International Development.

Prof John Brewer HDSSc, MRIA, FRSE, FAcSS, FRSA is a former President of the British Sociological Association and Professor of Post Conflict Studies in the Senator George J Mitchell Institute for Global Peace, Security and Justice and Honorary Professor Extraordinary, Stellenbosch University.  He is a member of the United Nations Roster of Global Experts for his work on peace processes.  He was awarded an honorary doctorate in 2012 from Brunel University for services to social science.  Prof Brewer is Series Editor for the Palgrave Studies in Compromise after Conflict Book Series and Co-Editor of the Bristol University Press Book Series on Public Sociology.

 

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The Senator George J.Mitchell Institute for Global Peace, Security and Justice
Queen's University Belfast
18-19 University Square
Belfast BT7 1NN

E: mitchell.institute@qub.ac.uk