Dr. Gearoid Millar provided a guest lecture at the Otto-von-Guericke Universitait in Magdeburg Germany
Abstract
In Peacebuilding and Transitional Justice literature various forms of economic justice are considered central to creating a sustainable peace in post-conflict societies. However, many post-conflict societies cannot provide the usual mechanisms of such justice. Not only are many such states poor to begin with, but conflict further degrades state economic capacity. In response, scholars and policy makers often turn to clearly inferior substitutes for economic justice such as “symbolic” reparations. This paper, on the other hand, explores the role that Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) may play in providing the necessary resources for economic restoration and justice by presenting findings from 6 months of fieldwork evaluating the local experiences of one such project in rural Sierra Leone. It describes how local people experience the project and explores whether employment, income, and land-lease payments can provide experiences of economic restoration unforthcoming from the state.