The transformation of just peace: EU and the Middle East peace process

The terms justice and peace have long been the focus of much debate as well as numerous attempts of conceptualization. Just peace however, has been very little studied despite being widely used together in everyday language. The terms justice and peace are therefore insufficiently conceptualized together and surprisingly little interest has been given to how a just peace can be realized. This paper looks into how the European Union has conceptualized just peace in the Arab-Israeli conflict over the past 40 years and identifies five phases of different conceptualizations of just peace in the narrative of the EU: the first three phases evolved in the 1970s when the EC approved of Security Council Resolution 242 and recognized the Palestinians as a party to the conflict with “legitimate rights” including a “homeland”. The last two phases evolved in the 1980s and 1990s when the EC/EU endorsed the Palestinians rights to “exercise fully its right to self-determination” and ultimately a “Palestinian state”. At the same time, despite its economic power, the EU has had great difficulties to go beyond the issuing of declarations to actually implement what it conceives as a just peace in the Arab-Israeli conflict.