The Peacemaker’s Paradox

Building on her path-breaking Unspeakable Truths, Priscilla Hayner expands her focus on truth commissions to explore peace negotiations and conflict resolution in the world's toughest cases of civil war. Drawing on first-hand involvement in the peace process and dozens of interviews with peacemakers and war criminals, Hayner shows the peace vs. justice debate in action and offers a model for balancing the concerns of ending the violence and righting wartime wrongs. The Peacemaker’s Paradox delves into fresh new case studies like Gaddafi’s Libya and the FARC in Colombia, and probes the ICC's role and offers recommendations for harnessing its power in even the most intractable conflicts.

Priscilla Hayner has worked in the field of transitional justice for twenty-five years, the last ten years focused on the challenge of justice in contexts of peace negotiations. She co-founded the International Center for Transitional Justice in 2001, working as program director and head of its Geneva office. Her first book, Unspeakable Truths: Transitional Justice and the Challenge of Truth Commissions, helped to define that field. She has served as human rights advisor in a number of peace negotiations, from Kenya in 2008 to the recent talks in Colombia. In 2017 she was appointed to the United Nations Standby Team of Senior Mediation Advisors. She is based in New York City.