War, civil war and other political violence often revisit countries after brief periods of ‘peace’ or armistice. Some countries are ravaged by multifarious violent conflict during two to four decades. Many cease-fires and peace agreements do not cure the underlying social pathology which led to the bloodshed in the first place. I started this study to explore how a country which has gone through civil war might be helped to avoid the next war.

The journey which this explorative study maps out begins at the cease-fire line. It proceeds through the rough and risky terrain of post-war looting, military rule, interim government, and ‘transitional’ justice. We will pass refugee camps and come across heinous war criminals. Our destination is the promise of a peaceful state in the distance, where stable and possibly good governance gives comfort to the traveller. Grave threats to basic human rights dominate the entire region. The grey zone between war and peace is a source of life-threatening problems, not only to its inhabitants, but also to people in distant countries, far away from the violence.

Around the turn of the twentieth to the twenty-first century, it became clearer than ever before that war, civil war and massive, violent political crimes in a state anywhere in the world can also pose risks to the well-being of other states, even on different continents. In the era of global communications, the news about political violence travels fast. Streams of refugees knock on the doors of other states. The effects of different forms of terrorism, violent and oppressive governments, failing or collapsing states, widespread, abject poverty and virulent, endemic diseases, as well as other sources of instability, can hardly ever be contained to the areas of origin.

National stability and legal order, including human rights, suffer from lawlessness and instability of states elsewhere, as well as from the volatility of the world's political system. The serious deficiencies which exist in the maintenance of human rights in many regions have a troublesome impact on stable states which are trying to uphold those rights. Anarchy, violence and the absence of the rule of law in several states undermine the maintenance of the global legal order.