Towards a ‘humanism of justice’ through restorative justice: a dialogue with history

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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 This approach is also apparent within Recital 9 to European Directive 2012/29/EU – ‘Crime is a wrong against society as well as a violation of the individual rights of victims’, which endorses the position taken within the literature since Zehr (1990).

2 In Ancient Greek the term χρονος (chronos) expressed sequential chronological time, whilst καιρος (kairos) expressed a ‘time in the middle’, an indeterminate time in which language defines things and where the word is central and constitutive. Whilst kronos is quantitative, kairos has a qualitative nature and, considering the central role of language, is perfectly suited to mediation. According to Thucydides, the kairos was the time for negotiation.