Dr. Maria Varaki. Lecturer in International Law
Department of War Studies, King’s College London
Ruti Teitel’s latest book on Presidential visions of Transitional Justice is an interesting investigation and depiction of different generations of the American legacy of responsibility and reconciliation, as the subtitle of the book indicates. This scholarly work invites the readers to a historical journey of a non-linear narrative; It starts with the apology tour of President Obama during his last term, goes backwards shedding light on presidential initiatives in the 18th and 19th century, moves to the 20th century with Roosevelt’s “peace with action” and Wilsonian “peace without victory” and returns to Obama’s last days, while at the same time this dialectic discourse reveals seeds of continuity but also rapture among the different individuals and centuries.
The book is very rich, offering food for thought and further exploration through various perspectives. Whether one is a constitutional lawyer, a transitional justice one, a public international scholar with an interest in dispute settlement, or a legal historian, this book not only does not disappoint but provides the ground for further problems. The book’s final sentences raise a series of further questions about future “US global engagement” in the current zeitgeist.
Within this context, my current contribution will focus solely on what I have identified as the core common thread that permeates this scholarly exercise. I will discuss further the role of human agency and the importance of imaginative but also responsible political leadership, especially in times of fluidity. All the chapters of this book cover initiatives of Presidents when the domestic and foreign affairs were at a crossroads. Those executives exercised their power and some type of political judgment in order to accommodate solutions, solve disputes, or end wars, on some occasions with a massive contribution to the development of modern international law. I will not assess whether their vision of peace and justice reflected a colonial mentality, accommodated inequalities, or violated sovereignty and independence. Sadly enough, our current era is reminiscent of many of those practices. Yet, the appeal of political leadership, not of any kind, remains a burning quest, and in this regard, the U.S. narrative can provide a revealing exemplar of the type of leadership that should be avoided, and if there, reviewed and questioned by active citizens.
In this part of the post I will refer the readers to some of my previous work on the importance of ethical leadership in international settings. For the sake of a smooth narrative, I will summarize the central idea of the argument, which is inspired by Aristotelian virtue ethics and its impact on the exercise of political judgment. In other words, despite the existence of codes of conduct and so-called “objective” criteria, humans exercise discretion in the context of political praxis. Particular traits (both intellectual and sentimental) such as wisdom or phronesis, courage, empathy, and imagination, among others, can shape the overall exercise of political judgment differently. The recent series of “crises”, such as the covid pandemic, the financial crisis, and the refugee crisis, has revealed patterns both of imaginative leadership, but also opposite examples of cruel and inhumane response at the most senior level. To make things even more dire, phenomena such as the climate emergency, “well-sustained” global inequality and poverty, and a widespread mistrust towards international institutions, magnify even further the necessity for responsible but also humane leadership that can indicate wisdom and at the same time be an antidote to cruelty, the worst vice for Judith Shklar, since it triggers other vices.
Unfortunately, over the last few years, we have experienced a poisonous cocktail of cruel actions and deleterious public discourse. Visible and invisible conflicts, inflammatory language, incitement to violence, bully leadership, together with a sensibility of dehumanization and “weaponization” of sentiments, terms, and fora, have challenged the vision and appeal of humanism severely. For some commentators, the invocation of crisis, death, and the demise of what was presumably achieved post World War II, depicts accurately where we are (here and here). Others offer a different reading on the distinctiveness or not of our era (here and here) Still others simply lack the words to describe and process what is really at stake.
2026 started with an invasion of a foreign country, the establishment of a non-intelligible “Board of Peace”, a real estate style of enforced peace agreements, and cruel and inhumane treatment of migrants, with parallel demonization of the civil society and an aggressive war with incalculable global consequences. These developments took place in the same land where previous U.S. executives exercised their leadership, trying to reckon with the past, secure peace treaties and domestic stability, promote international dispute settlements, and set the ground for sustainable peace, as Ruti’s book describes.
The contrast between the examples of the book and the current era is striking. This is not because of the time lapse and the emergence of new kinds of global challenges. It is primarily due to the kind of leadership exercised by Donald Trump. It is not only about the substance of his foreign choices, which are deeply problematic and irresponsible, creating dangerous precedents in international law. It is mainly due to the harm it causes to the woven fabric of a society as diverse and multicultural as that of the United States. While the previous executives in the book, within their imperfection, aimed to surpass divisions and promote their vision of peace and justice, the current President appears to drain those two words of any content, rendering his leadership wordless. Notwithstanding the kitsch tumult of social media posts, the shallowness and actual silence of the leader’s words are deafening.
Ruti Teilel’s book has arrived at a crucial time. Among all other things, it contains a call to action; a call to find those words that will reconceptualize the content of peace and justice with the fundamental doses of humanism and decency urgently. As Camus argued in The Plague, decency might be the answer. The quest for decent leadership will be our answer to the wordless one.
Suggested citation: Maria Varaki, Symposium on Ruti Teitel’s Presidential Visions of Transitional Justice, Part V: A Wordless Leadership, Int’l J. Const. L. Blog, Apr.1, 2026, at: https://www.iconnectblog.com/symposium-on-ruti-teitels-presidential-visions-of-transitional-justice-part-5-a-wordless-leadership/