Global After-Maths: Justice, Accountability, and Transformative Futures

With the ongoing genocide in Gaza, the Russian–Ukrainian War and the recent bombings of Iran, the political significance of the concept of “the aftermath” is due to be once again foregrounded as a central concern in the field of IR. Historically, IR has shown a cyclical interest in the question of accountability for historical wrongdoing, from the mismanagement of public health crises to war crimes, colonialism and chattel slavery. Yet critical works on post-war/post-conflict accountability have often portrayed debates on post-war justice in a somewhat incomplete or outdated light, failing to engage in depth with theoretical and empirical developments of cognate disciplines. This Special Forum aims to “take the measurer of justice in IR” with an eye toward advancing a multidimensional and interdisciplinary study of the “global aftermath.” In this introduction, we also propose a view of aftermaths of violence as after-maths: Performative and formulaic exercises where body counts serve the purpose of rendering individual/collective perpetrators accountable for large-large premature death.