Samenvatting

The author analyses and compares several distinct models of doing justice to find out which is serving ‘sustainable justice’ the best. Sustainable justice could be defined as justice that produces conflict resolutions that last for a long time and in this way contribute to a more sustainable society. Modern developmental methods for organisations make use of assessments to measure, compare and improve the effectiveness of organizational cultures. These methods are used in this contribution to analyse the organizational cultures of mediation, the traditional accusatorial (penal) procedure, problem-solving courts (with a focus on drug courts) and restorative justice conferencing. The comparison results in conclusions indicating that mediation and problem solving courts have a sound and effective organizational culture, due to healthy conflict management styles, characterized by managing both opposition and competition constructively and by a stimulating person-oriented focus. Restorative justice conferences bring together many stakeholders in a conflict and its resolution and facilitates in this way the awareness of the connections between many problems behind the actual conflict at hand: for this reason the resolutions may have a deeper societal impact and a greater sustainability.