ABSTRACT
Peace negotiators in democratic contexts face a stiff dilemma in the peace vs justice debate. They need to meet state treaty obligations under the Rome Statute, while at the same time having to persuade their own citizens of the legitimacy of the peace agreement. With a new international imperative for individual criminal accountability, and with amnesty now mostly removed from the toolbox, how are negotiated ends to conflict to be achieved? We analyze the recent peace negotiations in Colombia as the first country to engage in peace negotiations under the full implementation of the Rome Statutes and in a democratic context. We argue that in order to meet this double-challenge, negotiators become norm-makers, demonstrating innovation in the implementation of transitional justice norms with an intent to shore up the international and domestic legitimacy of their solution to the dilemma. We examine the negotiations over victims’ rights, accountability, and political participation as a two-level bargaining game in which negotiators must consider the legitimacy of various transitional justice options, as well as the potential threats posed by international actors if they deem the accords to violate international norms.
