Thucydides presents the case for Sparta in an appropriately laconic manner.1 There is no Spartan equivalent in his book of the Funeral Oration – the longest and most famous speech – nor of the Athenians’ speech at Sparta – the seventh longest speech and the first to offer an explicit account of “human nature” (1.76.3). We find no speech here in which a Spartan statesman or citizen gives an eloquent, elaborate, and theoretically sophisticated account of the greatness of Sparta, its education and regime, and its understanding of the character and condition of human beings. Of the nineteen longest speeches among the forty-eight in the book, ten are by Athenians but none are by Spartans, and it is a Spartan, Brasidas, who gives the shortest speech in the book.2 Of the nineteen named individuals who give speeches in the book, ten are Athenian and the sum total of their speeches is 13,639 words, whereas five are Spartan and the sum total of their speeches is 3,673 words.3 Of Pericles, the man whom he praises most extensively in the book, Thucydides says that he was “most capable [or most powerful – δυνατώτατος] at both speaking and acting” (1.139.4).4 Of Brasidas, the man to whom Thucydides devotes the second most extensive praise in his book and the Spartan whom Thucydides praises most, he remarks that “he was not without a capacity [οὐδὲ ἀδύνατος] for speaking, for a Spartan” (4.84.2).5 The Spartans are men of few words and therefore, inevitably, in contrast with the case for Athens presented in the book, the case for Sparta here is understated and indirect. But that case is no less powerful for being austere rather than dazzling, pithy rather than eloquent, and implicit rather than explicit.6

Thucydides’ account of the demise of the Athenian expedition to conquer Sicily appears to vindicate the Spartans’ understanding of that which is human, that is, of the fundamental character and condition of human beings, as one according to which we are morally free beings who are ruled by just gods. However, Thucydides points to grave problems with that understanding, most clearly–but not only–from his account of the Athenian response to the Sicilian disaster through to the end of the book (8.1-109).

This chapter maps the overall picture of transitional justice in Rwanda and the former Yugoslav countries, which shapes how the future has been imagined. Since reflective narratives do not always align with the local, national and international actors’ understandings of post-atrocity realities, this chapter explores which mechanisms, policies and practices have sought to contribute to the transitional justice goals of truth, justice, healing and reconciliation. The chapter highlights that studies driven by goals of transitional justice can help identify complementary and contradictory aims and extend the wealth of research that focuses on specific transitional justice mechanisms.

This concluding chapter returns to the aim of the book to locate the conceptual contribution of reflective narratives in the field of transitional justice. It discusses the implications of the case study chapters, reiterating the ways in which the reflective narratives that imagine futures can help rethink existing conceptualisations and challenges of transitional justice. It explores the relevance of the findings to practitioners and policy makers. The chapter also identifies thematic connections of agency, silence, listening, and death or the dead that emerge as a web of spaces and touchpoints across the different chapters and goals of transitional justice. This contributes towards possible future research avenues and leads towards returning the focus on the individual human beings who live with the complex and evolving legacies of genocide and war.

This chapter engages with critiques about international criminal tribunals that centre on dissatisfaction with justice. It argues that reframing the debate to focus on the bearable level of injustice would invite reflection over and help revise expectations of justice. Engaging with legal and transitional justice scholarship, the chapter analyses Raoul Peck’s film Sometimes in April and Kitty Felde’s play A Patch of Earth together with the ICTR case Prosecutor v. Nahimana et al. and the ICTY case Prosecutor v. Erdemović. These reflective narratives complicate the limits of criminal accountability, and the chapter approaches them through the themes of responsibility, blame and agency. Differentiating between justice and justness, the chapter demonstrates how perceptions of just justice are subjective and dependent on who else is held accountable and how. The chapter also moves outside of the ICTY and ICTR to examine alternative pursuits of justice: impunity through silence and revenge. This reveals that some gaps in justice processes are acceptable while others are unbearable.

Chapter 6 examines authority and the fragile structures that hold society together. It surveys concepts of justice and order, the roles of kings and councils, and the practice of assemblies, including debates about the ‘seeds’ of democracy. Through episodes of dispute and persuasion, it shows how Homeric communities negotiated power when coercion, charisma, and tradition competed.

This chapter starts with a discussion of Thucydides’ famous description of wartime stasis in 3.82, including his account of transvaluations in 3.82.4. It then reassesses the historical context of Thucydides’ reflections on language and stasis; after that, it looks at several key passages where Thucydides shows the effect of the war on discourse, including the Melian Dialogue. Thucydides emerges as a writer who is overwhelmingly concerned with the way that war warps both evaluative language and practices of listening, but who sets out to rectify these effects through his own text. The chapter finishes with a revisionary treatment of Thomas Hobbes’ understanding of Thucydides.

A cherished common law notion is equality before the law. This notion has shaped and defined Australian laws, and is important to law’s capacity to produce justice because it requires that everyone is treated the same before the law. However, equality before the law has not produced effective social justice and equality in Australia: demographic and socio-economic indicators consistently paint a picture of broad social inequality and a growing poverty gap – rather than one of an egalitarian society in which everyone achieves the same justice. This chapter explores how Australian laws work with the idea of equality to help explain why certain groups continue to be disadvantaged in their access to justice and the legal system. It provides a window onto different perspectives and experiences of Australian laws, which we encourage you to reflect upon throughout your legal studies.

The introduction of co-management is often associated with recognition and allocation of property rights. This chapter therefore provides definitions of the concepts of property, property rights and property regimes. Systems informed by economic theory to provide ‘user rights’ are reviewed in relation to collaborative governance, including Transferable Quota systems and Territorial User Rights for Fishing. Given that rights may be contested and not realised in practice, the chapter goes on to consider the pursuit and realisation of justice through co-management, differentiating between procedural, distribution and recognition justice. Insights from the application of a human rights based approach to natural resource governance and implications for co-management are then identified.

This chapter begins the second main part of the book, which sets out a high Christology. I try to explain just what it is that I take myself to be doing by pursuing this kind of account, given doctrinal theology’s besetting problems. I insist that my account is necessarily provisional, one contestable and partial balancing act, worked up in one particular context, making use of materials that I happen to have inherited and that lie to hand for me in my context – and that it must be so provisional, given both the inexhaustibility of its object and the nature of embodied knowledge. I argue that it must, nevertheless, if it is to do justice to its object, be oriented toward love, toward justice, and toward liberation.

This chapter and Chapter 17 together form the third main part of the book, focused on biblical hermeneutics. Here, I look again at the expectation that Christians will discover love in Jesus’ company, and focus on what it might mean for the reading of scripture. I begin with the endlessly various ways in which, according to scripture’s own testimony, Christians are being taught by the Spirit to read for God’s sake, learning to glimpse in scripture the love, justice, and mercy toward which they are being called, and learning to read against anything in scripture that speaks contrary to that love, justice, and mercy. Love is, I argue, the deepest criterion that should guide Christian reading.

Air pollution has been identified as the single largest environmental health risk by the World Health Organisation. Existing legal instruments are inadequate to respond to the scale of the challenge. The question of how to design more efficient, as well as more just, legal systems is becoming increasingly pressing. The essay identifies three sets of ethical conundrums that decision-makers must confront when regulating air pollution – related to why govern, how to govern, and where to govern. It uses the planetary boundary framework that identifies the processes that regulate the stability of the Earth system, as a conceptual lens, to explore the ethical implications behind the motivations driving air quality governance, the framing of a complex environmental problem and the global governance of localized impacts. In doing so, the essay reflects on how the design of more ethically oriented legal systems can enhance environmental law’s response to planetary problems.

Chapter 5 shows how the proposed reframing of the TRIPS around the ideal of freedom as non-domination should guide the interpretation of further norms. It uses the ‘guiding light’ function of the TRIPS’ foundations (Articles 7 and 8) to interpret key TRIPS’ ‘flexibilities’. This chapter deals with exceptions and limitations, focusing on the three-step test of patent (Article 30 of TRIPS) and copyright (Article 13 of TRIPS), further addressing compulsory licensing issues (Article 31 of TRIPS) and the obligations of developed economies regarding technology transfer and technical assistance (Articles 66-67 TRIPS). These provisions are crucial pieces of the overall bargain that the TRIPS represents and presents key norms to address the legitimacy crisis of the IP regime.

This chapter introduces the planetary boundaries framework and explains the explicit and implicit role of value judgements within it. It explains the key scientific concepts at work in the planetary boundaries framework, and discusses their relationship to the goal of ensuring a ‘safe operating space’ for humanity. It then considers how the planetary boundaries framework has been advanced by its proponents as a way to achieve justice within the constraints of the Earth system, and more recently the idea that planetary boundaries can be guide humanity’s future on Earth. It considers the influence of the planetary boundaries framework on new ideas of economics and international law. Then, the chapter shows how uses of planetary boundaries to define a perimeter within which justice or fairness is sought encounter difficulties that require further ethical examination. It then presents an explanation of the approach to ethics taken by interdisciplinary, international scholars that contributed to this edited collection.