Justice is needed for a lasting peace  By prosecuting perpetrators, justice creates a deterrent. The deterrent effect, as accepted in criminal law generally, is likely to make the peace more long standing and stable in the future – it will make those minded to perform atrocities think again. If those who committed atrocities ‘get away with it’ they will be much more likely to plunge the country back into violence.  The career of Laurent Nkunda is a good example of this; he fought in the Tutsi group that took control of Rwanda in 1994 ending the genocide and then was a rebel commander in both Congolese civil wars in which he was accused of atrocities before launching his own rebellion, only now after 14 years as an army commander is he under arrest. [1] Clearly Nkunda being locked up at some stage would have been better than regularly negotiating with him to try and create peace.  [1] BBC News, “Profile: General Laurent Nkunda”, 23 January 2009,