Rights and Reconciliation:

Using El Salvador as an example of the UN's recent multidimensional peacekeeping operations, Johnstone explores the delicate balance between the potentially conflicting goals of peace and justice.

Johnstone challenges the view that these twin goals are incompatible, attributing the relative (though still incomplete) success of the Salvadoran peace process to the mutually reinforcing relationship between them. He argues that ONUSAL's verification of the existing human rights situation, as well as investigations of past violations and support for institutional reforms, are breakthroughs for United Nations peacemaking, peacekeeping, and peace building. Finally, he highlights lessons from the strategies employed in managing the political and institutional transformations that ended El Salvador's brutal twelve-year conflict.