A haunted past: requesting forgiveness forwrongdoing in International Relations

This article examines why states ask for forgiveness from other states or peoplesthat they have harmed. Asking for forgiveness has significant political, legal, and moralimplications. But beyond these, the subject concerns how states confront their history andtheir collective responsibility for wrongdoing. My focus on the reasons states have for askingforgiveness could also improve our understanding of conflict resolution. The articleintroduces an innovative typology of requests for forgiveness by presenting importantconceptual distinctions in the terminology currently employed in the field. Apologies,regrets, and expressions of sorrow are conceptualised as distinct avenues of askingforgiveness with varying degrees of significance and meaningfulness. I assert that the typeof request for forgiveness is influenced by the degree of severity attributed to a wrongdoingand by the extent to which a state perceives its image as threatened by its wrongful act. Thearticle analyses the important 1951 statement of West Germany’s Chancellor Adenauerregarding the Jewish Holocaust as an example of a type of request for forgiveness