Mr Chairman, Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen,

It gives me great pleasure to address a truly distinguished audience at this closing ceremony. Finland belongs to the co-organizers of this conference because of its special interest in the topic. Having acted as the Finnish Minister for Foreign Affairs from 2000 to 2007, I can certify that Finland has had and will continue to have the strengthening of international law and the fight against impunity among the priorities of its foreign policy. We have actively welcomed and supported the treaty establishing the International Criminal Court which we regard as perhaps the most important step in recent years in strenghtening the international rule-of-law and bringing an end to the impunity of perperatrators of war crimes and human rights violations. Our experience in conflict resolution has also been widely acknowledged..

I wish to extend my deepest gratitude to the other co-organizers of the conference, the conference secretariat, cooperation partners, sponsors and the City of Nuremberg for giving us the opportunity for organising this conference. I am grateful to the keynote speakers, panellists, chairpersons and experts, and to all conference participants for their rich contribution to the conference.

During these three days we have had the opportunity of gaining insight into the various facets of the relationship between peace and justice in peace negotiations and post-conflict peace-building. The fruits of the discussions in the workshops have just been summarised so eloquently by the chair of this closing ceremony, His Royal Highness Prince Zeid Ra’ad Zeid Al-Hussein. As he also indicated, outrconference could not cover all the specific ussues and conflicts, such as Iraq and others, which certainly would have merited much more concrete attention, and their omission must not be interpeted as an intentional attempt to ignore them.

We have before us a very complex cluster of problems that, as the presentations and discussions have shown, yield no quick and self-evident solutions. Nevertheless, I believe there are a number of assertions that can be drawn from past exercises in peace negotiations and post-conflict peace building. I was glad to hear that Prince Zeid’s conclusions and my remarks point by-and-large in the same direction.

Mr Chairman,

One of the fundamental duties of states and the international community is the maintenance of peace and security. A normal state of affairs in each and every country should include the rule of law, good governance, democracy and respect for human rights as the founding principles. The realization of these goals will reduce the likelihood of conflict and provide to all people a range of basic living conditions in society.

When states and the international community fail in this task and conflict escalates into hostilities and human rights violations, all efforts must be concentrated on restoring peace and implementing a transitional justice scheme that fulfils the needs and expectations of those affected and is in conformity with international law.

States and societies involved in conflict have the responsibility to resolve the relevant issues of transitional justice, including those of peace and justice. It should be clear that decisions on peace and justice need the support of the local population. Choices that do not enjoy broad local support are not likely to be viable and long-standing. It is important to democratise the negotiation process in order to ease the tensions between peace and justice. It is also vital to ensure that the gender perspective is taken into account and fully implemented in accordance with United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 on women, peace and security.

States and societies concerned must have a sufficient degree of ownership in the process. Ownership and acceptance require knowledge and understanding of the facts and causes behind the conflict and the options available. This poses great challenges for outreach within society and for international institutions engaged in the provision of justice, maintenance of peace and assistance in the reconstruction of society. The international ad hoc tribunals and the Special Court for Sierra Leone provide both success stories and lessons learned of the need to devise and implement a well-defined outreach plan – a task to which the International Criminal Court has paid particular attention.

There should also be a clear management of expectations on peace and justice. Disappointment and frustration about what was promised and not realized may slide society back into conflict and lead to a cycle of revictimization.

Post-conflict societies must have the necessary capacity to cater for peace and justice. As conflict often devastates national institutions, there may be no means to maintain peace or render justice. Here, international assistance is of great value, whether, for example, in the form of judicial assistance, police training or general democracy building. States and international institutions must be encouraged to intensify their efforts in this respect. In the long run, capacity building is of utmost importance.

In this context I would like to draw your attention to a recent initiative in which Finland has taken part together with Germany and a number of other states and international organizations, that is, the Justice Rapid Response. In the aftermath of a conflict crucial evidence on genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity has to be speedily uncovered and preserved before it disappears. Societies emerging from conflict are often ill equipped to identify, collect and preserve such evidence. Justice Rapid Response is intended to be an international cooperative mechanism for the supply of voluntary assistance at the request of a State or international institution, where the identification, collection and preservation of information would assist at any stage a wide range of international and transitional justice options. Justice Rapid Response is not yet operational, but the founding legal and practical arrangements will be finalised in the near future.

Mr Chairman,

Supporting and implementing justice and security sector reform is a comprehensive challenge, as it requires a holistic approach to all justice and security institutions and strategies. The greatest challenge in this context is institutional reform, as it requires true change in thinking and acting. Re-establishing the rule of law presumes that the political elite and leadership fully respect the law and the independence of the judiciary. The development of the rule of law is not an easy task to fulfil in cases of deeply rooted large-scale corruption and impunity, and usually requires a long term, patient process. Moreover, sustainable results presume a transparent process and large participation by civil society.

Mr Chairman,

Criminal justice is an indispensable part of any reconciliation after horrendous crimes have been committed. However, justice is more than criminal justice. Justice is a multifaceted process that can be pursued through a number of measures. As formulated by the Secretary-General of the United Nations in his report on the rule of law and transitional justice, justice is an ideal of accountability and fairness in the protection and vindication of rights and the prevention and punishment of wrongs. Justice implies regard for the rights of the accused, for the interests of victims and for the well being of society at large. It should be clear that justice is a holistic concept.

If justice is conceived in a holistic and comprehensive way (as including e.g. truth-seeking, vetting programs, reparations etc), there are better chances to develop an agenda that is not rigid. A holistic perspective lays a foundation for maximizing the possibility that those responsible will eventually be tried and convicted.

It must be underlined that States bear the primary responsibility for the investigation and prosecution of human rights violations and international crimes – such as genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity – in particular. The promotion of accountability for the most serious crimes of concern to the international community as a whole is a prime example of a task on which the European Union has embarked with great determination. The European Union is a strong supporter of the universality and integrity of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, and has taken action to this effect through a common position and an action plan.

I also wish to underline the importance of the responsibility of States to protect populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. States have the primary responsibility to protect their civilian population. If a state is unable or unwilling to protect its civilian population when threatened to become victim of a most serious international crime, the international community has the responsibility to protect the civilian population. This ”Responsibility to Protect” was endorsed in the 2005 UN World Summit, in which States accepted the responsibility and committed to act in accordance with it.

States must acknowledge the special status of victims – justice implies regard for the interest of victims. Reparations to victims provide an acknowledgement by the States that justice focus not only on perpetrators but on victims, as well. It is important to let victims’ voices be heard. Victims do not view peace and justice as dichotomous: they want both. Vulnerable groups that have been targeted need to be assured they will not be revictimized and left outside the adopted transitional justice scheme.

The Truth Commissions in Latin America, Timor-Leste and Sierra Leone and other similarly valuable truth-telling projects have shown that a victims-centred approach that seeks to provide an account of the past history of society can be a valuable complementary transitional justice tool. Truth commissions will be most useful if they make recommendations in a way that ensures action by others to take their recommendations forward. Their legacy does not automatically turn into action – therefore follow-up on the recommendations is crucial.

Too often national and international transitional justice projects have not embraced gender justice in a meaningful sense. The practice of Sierra Leone’s two bodies, the Special Court and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission has set an encouraging precedent. The decision of the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court last month to open an investigation in Central African Republic in which allegations of sexual crimes far outnumber alleged killings, is particularly welcome.

Vetting programmes recognise that the removal of human rights abusers from positions of trust and responsibility is an important part of establishing or restoring the integrity of state institutions. Vetting can also play a role in establishing non-criminal accountability for human rights abuse, particularly in contexts where it is impossible to prosecute all those responsible.

Mr Chairman,

Peace must be sustainable. One may provide a multitude of examples in recent practice to show that peace without justice is not sustainable. For example, during the decade-long conflict in Sierra Leone, every peace agreement and ceasefire that offered amnesty in return for peace failed within months. Lasting peace was achieved only once justice became a real prospect in the form of the Special Court for Sierra Leone.

The case of Uganda is a complex one, where the relationship between sustainable peace and justice, as well as the impact of international law are tested. In 2006 the Finnish Presidency of the European Union welcomed the signature, on 26 August 2006, of an Agreement on Cessation of Hostilities between the Government of Uganda and the Lord’s Resistance Army. The Presidency also invited them to continue their joint efforts in order to reach a sustainable peace agreement, which should be in accordance with Uganda’s obligations under the Rome Statute and international law in general.

As has already been pointed out, peace and justice are not contradictory forces. They are not mutually exclusive objectives, but rather mutually reinforcing imperatives. The question is not about the inclusion or exclusion of justice and accountability, but as the Secretary-General of the United Nations pointed out in 2004, about strategic planning, careful integration and sensible sequencing of activities. It is the task of the international community to assist post-conflict states in fulfilling their obligations under international law, regardless of how and when they are fulfilled. The UN Peacebuilding Commission is one of the important actors in this regard and we hope the Commission will find its place as a provider of strategic advice and prioritisation for sustainable peacebuilding

Perceptions concerning peace and justice may change with time in a post-conflict society. Transitional justice provides a set of complementary tools that post-conflict societies may utilize in their transitional justice scheme. The past is full of examples of different approaches taken in response to a wide range of fact-patterns and various expectations. A community may employ different tools at different times with respect to the same conflict: once hostilities have ceased, people may want peace but as time goes by, they may realize that truth and justice are essential.

Mr Chairman,

As you indicated, tensions between peace and justice are most pronounced when people expect simple and straightforward solutions to very complex situations. The conference has shown that compromises are necessary but also that bad compromises are not viable. What is needed is a clearer normative framework that would indicate which compromises are acceptable and which are not.

The conference has been seeking a solution to the peace and justice dilemma. We did not expect to find a simple and exhaustive solution and, as you, Mr Chairman, have pointed out, have not found such a solution. Nevertheless, we have seen that there is a substantial amount of rich practical experience and that there are more options to deal with the peace and justice dilemma than most negotiators and most politicians or most communities believe.

We can encourage those involved in peace negotiations and post-conflict peace-building to be creative, to avoid ”simple” solutions, to be patient and to have a long-term vision.

We can convey the emerging consensus that certain bad compromises are ”off-limits”, such as total and final impunity and we can promote a clearer normative framework for the peace and justice dilemma.

Mr Chairman,

You have reiterated that the conference co-organizers had the wish, from the early days of preparing the conference, to synthesize the results of the conference in an outcome document in the form of a Declaration. Like you, I am now even more convinced than before that we should do that. The Declaration would give more conceptual clarity to the relationship between peace and justice and stimulate good and creative solutions. It would increase the negotiating power of mediators, make the United Nations and the International Criminal Court look more principled and avoid that they are used as political pawns.

[As pointed out] The Declaration would not be a ”one size fits all” document, and would not make sweeping generalisations. Most of the points in the Declaration would be common wisdom to experts. But the innovative aspect would be the combination of some justice wisdom, some conflict resolution wisdom and some developmental wisdom all in one document. The drafters of the Declaration would be faithful to what the conference has discussed. The drafting process would be very transparent with wide consultations.

The co-organizers of the conference – Jordan, Finland, Germany, the International Center for Transitional Justice and the Crisis Management Initiative – are planning to establish a regionally balanced group of experts to produce a first draft of the Declaration. We sincerely thank the President of Costa Rica, HE. Ocar Arias for having accepted to supervise this international team of experts. As a Peace Nobel Prize winner, as the author of the Central American Peace Plan, and as an adamant supporter of human rights, he is uniquely qualified to ensure that the Declaration will be both visionary and realistic. The issues at stake in the conference and in the Declaration should also be discussed in relevant regional and multilateral organisations, including the United Nations and the Assembly of States Parties of the Statute of the International Criminal Court. We hope that the first draft of the Declaration can, after broad consultations, be presented by the first half of 2008.

Everyone, the general public as well as politicians, would benefit from a better knowledge of history, and I say this not only as a historian who shares the profession’s vested interest in getting more attention and money from the powers-that-be. I say it particularly as a politician who has become increasingly concerned about both the ignorance and abuse of history in politics.

It may or not be true that those who do not know their history are doomed to repeat it. What is more likely to be true is, that the less you know about your history, the more difficult it will be to see the into the future either and be able to influence it.

To say that we have entered into a new post-modern world dominated by the short-term and where the new generation will more and become part of what some people call the precariat with nothing solid or enduring to rely and build ones future on is exaggerated, at least regarding the novelty of the phenomenon – after all it was already in 1848 that Marx and Engels wrote how ”all that is solid melts into thin air, all that is holy is profaned”. Nevertheless I think a lot of the concern about short-termism and the ”end of history” (although not necessarily in Fukyama’s meaning) is valid.

Knowing your history is not the same as becoming a prisoner to it. On the contrary, it is much easier for those who know their history to avoid becoming its prisoner, through the manipulative and nefarious efforts of those who will seek to misuse it for political ends. After all also myths about history thrive on ignorance.

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Finland is also a country where history has played  an important role in nation-building. Faced with the threat of Pan-Slavic nationalism and efforts to russify Finland and curtail its autonomy in the late 19th century Finnish historians were recruited to prove how the Emperor Alexander I had ”elevated Finland into the ranks of nations” at the estates meeting in Porvoo 1809 and pledged to respect the constitutional rights and autonomy of Finland. The later controversy over the exact nature of the estates meeting and the pledge made by the Emperor is centered around the issue whether or not Finland was recognized as a state already in 1809, or if it was only started on a path which gradually led later during the century to Finland acquiring the features and institutions of a separate state. Even J.V. Snellman was reprimanded by Finnish nationalists  when he unguardedly wrote in article in 1861 that Finland had not yet been a state in 1809 but had later developed into one, as this undercut the basic historical and judicial arguments of the Finns. He did not repeat the mistake.

Finnish mainstream historians held on to their views and interpretations which became part of the nationally adopted established truth. Only much later as the 21st century approached has it become possible for historians in Finland to become more relaxed about the issues and admit, that, maybe, the Russians too had a point when they questioned some of the historical and legal premises on which the Finns had based the defence of their autonomy.

Historians were very much in demand during the inter-war period and the war years to lend their reputations as researches in the nationalist cause and for the irredentist dreams of a Greater Finland. After the war the same historians were employed in promoting the thesis of the Finland’s separate war with the Soviet-Union and portraying Finland as a piece of floating driftwood with no control over events or real choices concerning its action during the war. But a younger generations of historians already during the Cold War effectively sank this so-called ”driftwood” theory. Nevertheless the subject remains sensitive, as witnessed by some of the Finnish reactions to Henrik Arnstad’s recent biography of the Swedish wartime Foreign Minister Christian Günther, where Finland is portrayed as a rather willing and active ally of Nazi Germany.

With the Cold War and the Soviet shadow over Finland also new politically convenient historical narratives were taken into use, such as over-emphasizing the role and personal commitment of Lenin in recognizing Finland’s independence, which in more extreme interpretations made our independence look like a gift from Lenin. When president Kekkonen promoted this interpretation it was also a calculated pre-emption of possible future Soviet tendencies to call this independence into question.

With the end of the Cold War arose also a new more revisionist historiography which , helped also by improved access to documents in former Soviet archives, begun to evaluate more critically the role of Kekkonen, the concept of finlandization and that of  ”rähmälläänolo”, i.e. the craven , opportunistic and subservient submission to Soviet interests. This is, on the whole to be firmly welcomed, even if one does not necessarily have to share the views of some of the more peremptory writers.

Finland has not undergone any abrupt regime changes during our independence, and while the periodization of our history into the first (1917-1944), second (1944-1989) and third republics (1989-) is a striking way of describing changes in the relative position of societal actors in Finland, it is also misleading as these shifts have not entailed any constitutional or revolutionary changes. Except for a period immediately after the end of the Continuation War in 1944 history or other books have not been censored and even then it was not based on actual new legislation, but on voluntary form of self-censorship which was mostly directed at wartime propaganda material. But almost all the material survived in archives and the basements of libraries, the only really significant archieval loss being the transfer of the Army’s intelligence material in September 1944 to Sweden and onwards to other destinations, in which process some high-ranking officers also ensured their pecuniary status. This material has not been returned to Finland.

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While Finland has not needed anything like the history debates in Germany, we too could learn from the way that Germany has endevoured to address the question of its awful 20th Century history. Finnish is one of the few languages into which the challenging concept of verganheitsbewältigung can be translated easily with the word menneisyydenhallinta. If Germany is the good example there are unfortunately plenty of other countries, which have not made any serious efforts to come to grips with their dubious past.

Obvious examples of this failure are Japan and Serbia, where Vuk Draskovic my former colleague as foreign minister used to say perhaps as an excuse that ”we produce more history in the Balkans then we can consume”.  Perhaps the United States too should be mentioned, but certainly the United Kingdom , France and other former colonial powers have dark corners which should be more openly examined and addressed, as the examples of their colonial wars in Kenya and Algeria indicate. Fortunately revisionist and critical historians in these countries will no longer meet the same kind of obstacles (up to including physical threats) which such historians may meet in Russia, perhaps the saddest and potentially the most worrying case of history-denial today.

When regimes change, this almost inevitably leads to some purges and rewriting of history. When dictators and dictatorships fall, it is quite understandable and maybe necessary that  the statues and monuments erected to honour them also fall. All regime changes will also entail a close scrutiny of the individual responsibility that supporters and official of the previous regime had for any crimes committed  This has been done in very different ways, from summary executions and  show-trials to long-drawnout legal processes and truth commissions.

Communist and Fascist takeovers  have usually been followed by the former methods, democratic changes have tried to do better. But many still ongoing processes and recurring crisis situations in the former communist countries in East and Central Europe are evidence of the many difficulties and challenges this entails. Post regime-change situations will always entail a demand for the work of historians. While they should be ready to offer their experience and research results to those directly engaged in these processes, they should not allow themselves to become institutional parts of them,  much less take any role resembling that of a judge.

Let history – and historians – judge is a good and correct slogan, but only provided this judgement has no direct or indirect connection to or dependence on formal judicial processes.

A regime change, whatever the viciousness of the former regime, should not and cannot entail erasing history, nor  eradication of all the very concrete marks and monuments the ancien regime has left. A cultured approach to historical monuments should leave an environment where traces of all our history, the more unpalatable and unsavoury parts of it included can be seen and, as times passes, can be regarded as historical relicts which need not unduly bother future generations but will serve as focal points in understanding our common past. This respect and comprehension is even more needed when these relics may still arouse contradictory memories, feelings and passions among different groups of the population. The recent dramatics over the monument for the Russian soldiers in Tallinn is a very pertinent example.

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What then should the role of politics and politicians be vis-a-vis history? It may be better to begin by laying down what it should NOT be, i.e. legislating about historical truths or untruths. While he motives and other activities of Holocaust-deniers are rarely free of anti-semitism and are most often intimately connected to racista and fascist ideology and politics, we should still resist proposals to make holocaust denial a criminal offence as has been done in some countries. Other laws criminalizing anti-semitist and racist defamation are enough, without making historiography the subject of legally-defined truths.  And as much as I deplore the failure of modern Turkey to recognize the atrocities committed against Armenians in 1916 in the Ottoman empire, it is a subject that parliaments and governments should refrain from issuing declarations, not to mention from passing legislation on yet another Holocaust-denial.

While individual politicians can, and indeed should have a good knowledge of history and an ability to speak out on issues of history, they should not do so through legislative acts. What they should do is to see that  historical resarch in general is adequately funded. They can also identify areas of research were more work is needed and also establish special projects, such as the current project in Finland to  study and examine all war-related deaths in Finland during the period 1914-1922,.

What politicians and legislators also should do is to ensure that historians have full and open access to all relevant archives and documents. So far no universal international rules or agreements exists concerning freedom of information in general or access to archives in particular. International agreements are mostly concerned with data security and privacy protection  as well as collection and publication of statistical information for international regulatory and comparative purposes. I will not be the first to call on the European Union to adopt directives on access to archives, much less harmonise rules on this. If that were to happen I doubt it would start out with the aim of achieving greater transparency and public access. International cooperation and agreements can, however, be used to facilitate exchange of and more open access to historical information.

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Finally a short reminder of the important and difficult issue of reconciling privacy protection and the public’s right to know. Striking the right balance is not always an easy task, as many recent examples of how material from the archives of the Intelligence and Security Services in East and Central European countries of the former Soviet bloc have been both used and misused.