This contribution discusses the prospects and challenges arising out of a declaration of so-called traditional justice mechanisms as internationally recognised intangible cultural heritage. For long, internationally sponsored post-conflict reconstruction was mainly concerned with the rebuilding of tangible cultural heritage that had been damaged or destroyed during conflict. In contrast, the impact of mass violence on intangible cultural aspects such as social structures, traditional justice mechanisms and values is often ignored due to their invisibility to outsiders, the enormous amount of time needed to rebuild them and the lack of knowledge on how to facilitate this process. This has disastrous effects on post-conflict-situations, especially in cases of neighbours fighting neighbours rather than the state fighting its citizens, which makes conflict resolution and reconciliation even more difficult. However, in places such as Rwanda, East Timor and the Moluccas (Indonesia) it was the re-establishment of broken social relationships of the people concerned that brought reconciliation and sustainable peace. This article aims to analyse these three post-conflict settings and discuss the role of intangible cultural heritage in peace building processes. Although the background of the conflicts and the conflict dynamics in Rwanda, East Timor and Indonesia differ a lot, in all three cases it was “culture“ or “traditional“ conflict resolution mechanisms that were essential in the peace process due to the absence of state initiatives or the state's inability to cope with the magnitude of the conflict. The article focuses on how traditional justice mechanisms and rituals were rebuilt, reconstructed and/or reinvented in order to cope with the aftermath of large-scale violence and reconcile the population. I discuss both the positive impact as well as the various challenges and problems implied in these processes. The final part reflects on whether customary law and conflict resolution mechanisms should be accepted into the corpus of internationally recognised intangible cultural heritage. Change and ritual performance are described as central elements of both discourses.