The Emulation of Peace Mediation Practices: Beware of the Jurisgenerative Train

Abstract

This chapter discusses the deontology of peacemakers and mediators. It outlines the notion of epistemic communities and the reproduction of value systems, asking whether any form of emulation influences the evolution of international law in relation to transitional governance (‘TG’). The re-occurrence of TG can be attributed phenomena such as the ‘migration of constitutional ideas’, ‘constitutional borrowing’, ‘transnational information networks’, acculturation in contact groups, and the use of templates for peace building. The community of practitioners engaged in post-war countries and constitution building is relatively small. As a result, the epistemic community dealing with these issues creates a habitat favourable to the reproduction of professional practices by emulation. The question then becomes whether such reproduction is jurisgenerative, namely whether it expresses emerging law through custom creation or otherwise.