Tag Archives: mediation

The Folly of Mediating Peace in Sudan, by Professor Hussein Solomon

8 Jun

Editor’s Note: For some time now, Dr. Solomon has held our attention on the swhifting situations facing Sudan from atrocity crimes in Darfur to the current, coup-influenced violence. We have been grateful for his probing commentary which has exposed conflict prevention and resolution flaws across the African continent and beyond. We are pleased that Dr. Solomon (along with Professor Jude Cocodia of Nigeria) will soon be in New York to launch their new book, “African Security in the Anthropocene.” Please contact me (zuber@globalactonpw.org) for more information about their New York events.

The carnage of war is evident in Sudan as the conflict between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) led by General Abdel Fattah al Burhan and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) under the command of Burhan’s deputy – Mohamed Hamdan `Hemedti’ Daglo continues to escalate. The fighting is most intense around the three adjoining cities that make up the country’s greater capital – Khartoum, Omdurman and Khartoum North. However, it is also occurring in other parts of this blighted country.  After six weeks of fighting, 25 million require aid and protection according to the United Nations. Moreover, 1,1 million people are internally displaced whilst 350,000 fled across borders seeking refuge in neighbouring states.

Tensions between the SAF and RSF came to the fore in January 2023 during the discussions around the integration of the RSF into the regular armed forces. By April the tensions escalated into full-scale conflict. Ironically, the Sudanese Armed Forces assisted in the creation of the RSF from Janjaweed militias which it used to fight the anti-Khartoum insurgency in Darfur.

The RSF was estimated to be 5,000 strong in 2014. They grew stronger and by 2016, it sent 40,000 of its members to fight in the civil war in Yemen. By 2023 it was estimated to consist of 100,000 fighters – many battle-tested veterans of the Yemeni civil war. Its growing military strength also lay in its growing economic footprint – especially in gold mining. Consider here the case of the Jebel Amer mines in Darfur which stretch for more than 10 kilometres. Following the RSF wresting control over it, Hemedti was transformed into the most important player in Sudan’s gold industry.  Gold gave the RSF the ability the be financially self-sufficient and exist outside the military’s chain of command. This, of course, Burhan would not countenance. At the same time, it needs to be acknowledged that the SAF are also major players in Sudan’s economy and contribute to the military’s reluctance to hand power over to civilian authorities.

 From this perspective, the current conflict in Sudan should not be seen as beginning this year but relates to the problem of civil-military relations and the military’s penchant of getting itself immersed into the economy. Consider the following fact: Sudan has only had three short-lived attempts at civilian democracies – 1956-1958, 1964-1969 and 1985-1989. Following the ouster of Sudanese strong man Field Marshal Omar al-Bashir on 11 April 2019, there was a serious attempt on the part of Sudanese civil society to establish a civilian government. This, however, was prevented by the military coup in which both Burhan and Hemedti cooperated to thwart the democratic aspirations of the Sudanese people. Both Burhan and Hemedti are the problem together with the ongoing penchant of the military to involve themselves directly in the political and economic spheres.

From this perspective the Jeddah talks which Saudi Arabia and the United States were mediating was bound to fail. It simply did not go far enough to seek a lasting solution beyond the current crisis. The talks were also bound to fail since not enough attention was given by the mediators to the role of outside actors who may be stoking the conflict. For instance, it is alleged that the RSF gets support from the likes of a Libyan National Army strongman – Khalifa Haftar — as well as from Russia’s Wagner Group.

The talks were also bound to fail given the low-level delegations sent by these two Sudanese combatants to Jeddah. Both were attempting to use the Jeddah talks as a public relations exercise as well as to win brownie points in Washington and Riyadh. Embarrassingly for both Saudi Arabia and the United States, they have declared 6 times since the 6th of May when the mediation effort began that a humanitarian cessation of hostilities had been reached, only to have it violated each and every time. Burhan’s commitment to the peace talks was already in doubt when he wrote to the UN Secretary General seeking the removal of Volker Perthes, the UN’s Special Representative for Sudan. This followed Perthes criticizing both Burhan and Hemedti and warning of the “growing ethnicization of the conflict”. Burhan also formally removed Hemedti from his post as deputy and has brought in further army reinforcements in his fight against the RSF.

All these developments point to a further escalation of the conflict. These rivalries, meanwhile, are hastening the disintegration of Sudan. Given the fact that the armed forces are distracted by the RSF, there is a real danger that the banner of insurrection will once again be raised in the Darfur region as well as in Blue Nile and South Kordofan states.

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Play Time: Games We Should Renounce, Dr. Robert Zuber

4 Feb

Morals were nothing but things to be manipulated with. They were tools you could use against others, and weapons others could use against you. Rebecca Schaeffer

Yet I now ask of you—are you marauders or are you servants? Do you give power to others, or do you hoard it?  Robert Jackson Bennett

What I learned in this tragedy was the eternal lesson of good people going bad.  Steven Ramirez

Pens, swords, sticks—weapons shoved into our fists as soon as we’re old enough to grasp them. Hafsah Faizal

The phrase ‘ninth graders with machine guns’ isn’t exactly followed by ‘have a nice day’. Michael Grant

Many years ago, I was an adherent (albeit temporary) of the field of “transactional analysis” made popular by Eric Berne.  His book “Games People Play,” described the numerous games in which people indulge in order to get from others what they might well not be able to acquire otherwise if they were committed to “playing it straight.”

Some of the gamesmanship Berne highlighted, as in a game of poker, is largely about pulling off the bluff, of making others believe that you “hold a better hand” than you actually have and thereby compelling decisions which largely benefit the person at the other end of the table more than the one making them themselves. 

This “game” is hardly news to those of us who navigate this overly competitive world, a world in which we try to “sell” our talents and experiences often well beyond what the facts and/or testimony of others might otherwise suggest, projecting power and/or authority that we might not actually possess based on credentials which in the best instances represent a massaging of what we have any right to publicly claim and at their worst are mere fantasy projections of what we “wish” we had achieved (or were in a position to achieve) more than an actual, frank assessment of capabilities and consequences.

This “game” is an oldie but goodie, but it was not my favorite of Berne’s litany of gamesmanship dysfunction.  That title would have to go to the one known as, “Now I’ve got you, you son of a bitch.”  This is the game by which we stalk our adversaries until we “catch” them in words or deeds, catch them so as to justify our original decision to hold them to often-highly unflattering assessments.  This game is not at all about being fair to others but of ensnaring them in “traps” of our own creation.  The point in bringing this game up here is not to justify wrongdoing of word or deed, but to highlight the tendency of those many who play this game to reduce a person’s “footprint” in the world to those acts or ideas which justify our own unseemly judgements about them, even our hostilities towards them.

The attraction of this game shouldn’t surprise anyone either.  Indeed, the “now I’ve got you” mode is pervasive in our time, a mega-offering of what some now refer to as “cancel culture” in which the cancelling is largely about “catching” rather than about healing, or reconciliation, or even what some theologians refer to as “amendment of life.”  The idea isn’t so much to invent accusation, though that sometimes happens as well, so much as to feed the accusations we have already lodged against others with allegedly “fresh” evidence of their malevolent intent.

The fact of the matter, whether we want to acknowledge it or not, is that this so-called “cancel culture” is merely one tip of a much more imposing, threatening iceberg: that of “weaponizing,” the willingness to turn ideas, objects, career positions and much more into the means for criticizing, mocking or otherwise attacking others whom we generally know only enough about to know that we can’t stomach their ideas or practices. Such weaponization takes numerous and expanding forms as our ideological bubbles harden and our information sources “about the world” become more relentlessly self-selected and self-confirming.  Most everything in our midst now represents some occasion to attack or defend.  We are so much more prone now than even in Berne’s time to “lie in wait” for our competitors or opponents to “slip up” in word or deed such that we might in turn intimidate them, harass them, sue them, or plaster mocking accusations all over social media with little if any regard for context.

Or without any regard for the ways in which, as Reinhold Niebuhr was famously quoted, “the evils against which we contend are often the fruits of illusions similar to our own.”  Evidence of this chunk of wisdom is hard to find in people who are determined to “catch” their adversaries in speech or actions which might well be toxic but are also, generally speaking, not unrelated to the speech and actions of those doing the accusing.  This aspect of the “gotcha game,” of “seeing the speck in the eyes of others but not the plank in our own is a most unfortunate characteristic of our time, an often-reckless consequence of our obsession with the mis-steps of perceived adversaries and competitors coupled with a healthy set of blinders regarding the many (and preventable) ways in which we also betray, also deceive, also mock and condemn without due cause, also fail to honor promises and obligations, also fail to negotiate with others “in good faith.”

This posture is both pervasive and counter-productive, ramping up our levels of suspicion about each other and our “motives” for all sorts of things, even with regard to matters as simple as compliments or small acts of kindness. Everyone, we seem to be increasingly convinced, has got an angle, a hidden motive.  No one plays it straight.  None are uncorrupted by power and money. None can be trusted to present and “own” more than a piece of truth, some even less than that. 

It does not take a saint or a genius to see how such a pervasive attitude could so easily undermine our efforts to build trust (what the UN now most often refers to as “solidarity”) or to disarm at least some of the growing array of ideas, objects, affiliations and technologies which many are now more prone to horde and weaponize than to share and ensure just access.   

This point came to light this week at a UN discussion hosted by the Group of Friends of Mediation and its chairs from Finland and Turkey.   The event featured USG DiCarlo explaining how the UN has been fortifying its non-coercive tools and capacities to prevent and resolve conflict.  In addition to what the UN refers to as “special political missions,” DiCarlo spoke of the importance of UN mediation resources which are inclusive, accessible and backed by commitments to the “primacy of politics” by all member states but especially the major powers.

But the issue here is more than about providing the resource but also about seeking it out and heeding its conclusions.  In a world that is inclined to weaponize far more than with weapons themselves – food, sex, justice, health care, even diplomacy itself are all candidates – it can be difficult to find those softer spots where mediation can do its best work.   As many of you already know, for a case to proceed at the International Court of Justice in the Hague, the parties to the case must consent to compulsory jurisdiction.  That is, they must agree to accept the verdict regardless of whether or not it is favorable to their national interests.  But something beyond mere consent is required here if mediation is to have a desired effect, if it is to be viewed as an honest, trusted service on the path to peace rather than as tool for partisan political interests or even conspiracy theories under the guise of “frank and open dialogue.”

This was communicated effectively at the “Friends” event by the former Foreign Minister of Finland, Alexander Stubb, who lamented that in our time the “lines between war and peace have been blurred.”  Everything now, he warned, seems to be a candidate for weaponization, including information, elections, even climate threats. In such an environment, how can we know when mediation is more apt to resolve than inflame?  How can we move forward in convincing states and other conflict parties of the “logic” of mediation and related tools, that it isn’t necessary to resort to military measures in order to resolve conflict and address conflict threats, and that effective mediation offers more sustainable pathways to healing and reconciliation than missiles and IEDs ever could?  How do we demonstrate the benefits of mediation resources when so many of us, even global leadership, are consumed with the game of “getting” others rather than ensuring a softer time and space to sort out our common messes?

It is clear to me, if only me, that the sphere of disarmament for which we have advocated over decades must again be expanded – beyond military hardware and weaponry to all of the pieces of our social fabric that we are now willing to deploy against others with whom we disagree or who threaten our power or position.  Our “game” of turning common objects and basic needs into common threats levied against adversaries real and perceived, of applying self-serving glosses to our judgements about those we seek to trip up rather than to steady, is one that we simply cannot win. The world is endangered now by numerous challenges the alleviation of which will require more from all of us, and more from us together.

It is high time to put this “got you” game back in the box from whence it came.

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Partisan Appeal: Making Space for Conflict-Related Mediation, Dr. Robert Zuber

11 Oct

In case of dissension, never dare to judge till you’ve heard the other side.  Euripides

A judge, replied the Empress, is easy to be had, but to get an impartial judge, is a thing so difficult. Margaret Cavendish

It is not possible to completely eliminate mediation between you as an observer and the history you are trying to understand. Ken Liu

The fact is that in spite of his cautious nature the scrupulous Giese more than once jumped to premature conclusions. Even when on their guard, human beings inevitably theorize.  Stanisław Lem

Meditation is essentially training our attention so that we can be more aware— not only of our own inner workings but also of what’s happening around us in the here and now. Sharon Salzberg

[We live] rather in the midst of imaginary emotions, in hopes and fears, in illusions and disillusions, in fantasies and dreams. Ernst Cassirer

All roads taken lead us only to ourselves.  Kilroy Oldster

This was another busy and mostly virtual week at the UN in New York as all six General Assembly committees began their work to craft resolutions corresponding to core UN priorities:  disarmament and the rule of law, human rights and financing for sustainable development, special political missions and moving remaining territories towards self-governance.  Watching this process over many years, we lament that the relationship between these carefully-crafted global norms and concrete improvements in the lives of constituents is not always apparent and certainly could be made more so, especially to the constituents themselves.   

Beyond the committees, two events stood out for me given my own interests and biases.  The first was an event organized by our friends and partners FIACAT together with the European Union focused on cementing recent trends towards the abolition of capital punishment, a particularly noxious remnant of a time when we believed more fervently in the “value” of vengeance and retribution, when we acceded to the alleged “right” of the state to take life without recourse to accurate assessments of guilt let alone to the evolving sentiments of the public.  A case now in Oklahoma involving one Julius Jones who most assuredly did not commit the crime for which he is being held – often in solitary confinement – and for which he might actually be executed is only one of too-numerous instances demanding a rethink of an irreversible punishment within those dwindling number of states (including my own) that continue to employ it.

The other discussion of note took place in the Arria Formula format of the Security Council, wherein this week  Germany, Vietnam, Switzerland and Belgium sponsored a discussion on “Mandating peace: Enhancing the mediation sensitivity and effectiveness of the UN Security Council.”   Such mediation is encouraged under Article 33 of the UN Charter as one of the “non-coercive” tools available to the UN and especially to Council members  in discharging their duties to maintain international peace and security.  This particular discussion was based on a report crafted for this occasion by researchers at Notre Dame University with the same title as the event itself.

This Arria Formula sparked high levels of attention from the entire UN community.   As we have noted in the past, UN member states are becoming increasing nervous about a Security Council that is often frozen by its own internal controversies, by the willingness of the permanent members to ignore resolutions they seek to impose on others, and by conflicts that are not addressed at sufficiently early stages and thus require coercive responses when less coercive measures – including mediation – could have put out the fire at a point when it could more easily have been contained. 

States have increasingly embraced the language of conflict prevention, and this to our mind has been a welcome development, at least on the surface.  So much hunger and displacement, so many disruptions of educational and health access are due to conflicts about which we have collectively dragged our feet.  And when we have gotten on top of specific threats, our recourse to the language of “condemnation” and the threat of sanctions – both Council-approved and unilateral – has had a predictably polarizing effect on conflict parties.  In an era where trust is at a premium and political interests are highly partisan, states increasingly recognize that coercive responses are likely only deepen the distrust we need to overcome if progress on preventing and resolving conflict is to occur and, indeed, if our entire multilateral apparatus is to achieve more than rhetorical victories over all that now afflicts us. Sadly this “all,” Turkey and other states reminded the rest of us at this Arria meeting, remains headlined by the “scourge” that is armed conflict.

During this session, one state after another enthusiastically advocated for mediation resources and other, early-applied, less coercive measures in response to conflict threats.  In so doing, many states such Costa Rica and Italy recognized that the background of mediators is one key to success, advocating for mediation that is both gender-balanced and gender-sensitive.  Saint Vincent and the Grenadines took this one step further, noting that where the application of resources such as mediation are concerned, “neighbors know best.”  Indeed, calls came throughout this discussion for mediation that prioritizes “what is happening around us in the here and now,” with special attentiveness to, as Finland noted, the increasing “complexities” that characterize conflict contexts.  And if the Security Council can fully grasp, as claimed by SRSG Haysom, that “negotiated settlements must take priority over imposed settlements” (though both can unravel), then mediators must be given space for flexible responses to shifting conflict circumstances and Council members who might be overly addicted to coercion must hold in mind the importance of  isolating mediators from responsibility for any subsequent imposition of sanctions or other coercive means.

Amidst calls from Portugal and others for regular deliberations on maximizing the value of mediation and other “Chapter VI” responses, it is important that member states be clear with themselves about the often-profound degree of difficulty in maintaining the integrity and independence of mediators given the current avalanche of partisan views and “minds made up” long before all relevant evidence and context have been considered.   We are indeed inclined, perhaps more than ever in our recent history, to “jump to conclusions,” to bend facts to suit our personal and political interests, to live in a self-authorized realm of “imaginary emotions,” illusions and fantasies. We have substituted out honest inquiry with conspiracies and rooting interests.  We have cashed out insights that could benefit all for the sake of biases that elevate partial truths to universal status.  And we are amply suspicious of the motives of others, even when it is our own motives that require closer scrutiny.

I have seen a bit of this tendency myself in years of counseling.  At the level of conflicted couples and “neighbors,” suspicion is often palpable.  People are quick to assume that mediators who struggle hard to maintain independence are actually giving in to partisan values and outcomes, that once the curtain of “what is best” is pulled, it will surely reveal grave mis-readings of the “history” that mediators allege (and often honestly strive) to understand.  Indeed, many of us nowadays spend so little time listening to persons and ideas that threaten or oppose us, so little time exploring self-accountability for festering disputes small and large, that we can barely imagine what non-partisan engagement might look life.  Too often, we are simply waiting for the other shoe to drop, for the mediators or counselors to “show their hand” and commit the errors that reinforce our fears of and reservations regarding discussions mostly shielding biased revelations.

During this Arria Formula, a German minister wondered aloud, as a response to the report under consideration, whether Council mandates on mediation, including in the context of peacekeeping operations, are simply “too political to succeed?”  Certainly they are often seen as such by conflict parties, especially those whose biases and rationales for ongoing violence have also been allowed to harden.   But this points to an even larger problem, one we at GAPW strive regularly to identify, and that is the hard road that inevitably leads us back to ourselves.

In the end, as important as carefully worded resolutions and carefully crafted mandates might be, we must take time to address the social climate that we have conspired to create, one enabling the growth of hyper-partisan worldviews, a climate conducive to the insistence on unbiased perfection in our mediators that we are unable to guarantee in ourselves.  If we want less coercive, more inclusive solutions to conflict, and we certainly should, it will take more than discussions about our policy tools and options; it will also take discussions focused on our capacities to engender trust within a security and political environment that is now giving too many people sufficient reasons to withhold the risk of trust altogether.

Slowly, inexorably, our views and affiliations have calcified as dramatically as our arteries.  It is this hardening of hearts, and not a lack of UN Charter guidance on mediation and other non-coercive tools, that constitutes the greatest impediment to the development and implementation of flexible, context-specific, attentive, trustworthy responses to conflict threats. This “other” conversation, the one about our human capacities and barriers to progress we erect ourselves, is one that we would do well not to overlook.

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Facing History and Ourselves: GA Debate on the Role of International Criminal Justice in Reconciliation

15 Apr

On April 10, the President of the General Assembly’s Office initiated a 1 ½ day event focused on the relationship of international justice – specifically the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) – and prospects for national and regional reconciliation. The President of the GA offered opening remarks.

The event drew a large crowd of diplomats and a few civil society representatives, though many of the folks we spoke with came for the spectacle as much as for the content.    Many were aware of the decision by several invited persons – including Adama Dieng, UN Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide, and Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch – to cancel their participation in the event precisely because of the specter of a contentious and one-sided event that hung over the room.

Those who chose to stay away had their share of good reasons to do so.  The event itself was a carefully choreographed and at times intellectually dishonest exercise that sought to rehabilitate the reputation of the Serbian government and people by attacking the foundations of the system of international justice for which Serbian government behavior was an initial impetus.

The event may have done more to polarize the international community than to help explore legitimate concerns regarding the effectiveness of our international legal architecture, specifically concerns focused on the unresolved inconsistencies of the system of justice established by the UN Security Council – itself a politically compromised body.   Sadly the event did too little to enhance understanding of how international law functions, the nature and limitation of Tribunal mandates, or the complementary functions needed to establish conditions of positive reconciliation.  It should be noted here that it was not specifically the task of the Tribunal to promote conditions for reconciliation divorced from (often neglected) initiatives by other parts of the UN system let alone by the regional States themselves.

Nor was there any discussion of how the behavior of Serbs and others led us down the path where Tribunals were considered to be a viable option to national courts which, 20 years after this phase of violence commenced, have still proven themselves unwilling and unable to prosecute their own.   The Serbs-as-victims line is not completely without merit, insofar as international efforts to end impunity were selective and inadvertently reinforced negative stereotypes about Serbian ethnic communities, even regarding the ability of their newly elected representatives to contribute as viable members of the international community.  But such damage has remedial options that should have been explored carefully, one of which should NOT have been calls to dismantle the Tribunal, especially with key figures still awaiting trial. Moreover, we must have more clarity regarding what is wrong with the Tribunals, what can be fixed, and how we would avoid making the same mistakes again in other international fora mandated to end impunity for the most horrible, State-sanctioned crimes.

There is certainly merit to attempts to understand more clearly the limitations and compromises of our system of international criminal justice.   They clearly exist, and it would be wrong to sweep them under the rug.   At the same time, many of the complaints throughout the event were as unbalanced as the alleged behaviors of international prosecutors and their judicial processes.   Below I attempt to wade through what I and others felt to be a swamp of sloppy and compromised analysis to make the following points:

  • While it is important for any Tribunal to be sensitive to the impacts of their prosecutions and convictions on public perceptions, it is commonplace for victims of abuse to be dissatisfied with the results of court action that presumes to apply justice to victims’ allegations.   Courts must weigh options and evidence.   They cannot convict if there is insufficient evidence, regardless of the need of victims for conviction.   Nor can a Tribunal impose punitive measures beyond relevant sentencing guidelines.   It would appear that the Tribunal did its work within an environment where governments and constituents were rooting for it to fail.   That it has partially succeeded in fulfilling its mandate has little to do with levels of regional cooperation, including efforts to understand and work with the Tribunal’s limitations.  The Tribunal was treated by many as more like a tax collector to be spurned than a reconciler to be welcomed, officials’ contentions to the contrary.
  • Moreover, a Tribunal is not responsible for addressing all violations of law, but only those that rise to a level that establishes a clear and compelling interest for international prosecutors. While many of us, for good reason, recoil from the notion of symbolic justice – that is, prosecuting some as a ‘lesson’ to others – there is clearly a tendency to focus the attention of Tribunals on the highest established levels of accountability for gross violence and violations of rights.  Given the many resource and political limitations of the Tribunal, there is little justification for spending time on the equivalent of ‘street level drug dealers’ when the narcotics bosses are firmly within your sights.
  • Tribunals were established by the Security Council as a function of its (self-perceived) Charter-mandated responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security.   Many States are uncomfortable (as are we) with the recent history of Council effort to expand its own mandate beyond what we believe to be the intent of the Charter.  Nevertheless, it is not clear where the viable, authorized alternatives might be to Council oversight of peace and security concerns, especially if we accept, which some on the panels clearly did not, that State “sovereignty implies responsibility” for the protection of civilian populations.  Invoking a recycled, Westphalian notion of sovereignty, as some participants did, was most unfortunate.   States participate in the UN, not because it is perfect or because they are rushing to cede national authority to international institutions, but because they recognize the limitations of State centrism in a multi-polar world.     There are things that States want and need that they simply cannot get within a system that holds them solely and rigorously responsible for all internal matters – including the economy, security and international justice.
  • As highlighted on day 2 of the GA debate, a clear majority of States continue to support (in theory and even in practice) the work of international Tribunals while affirming the duty of responsible parties to ensure that justice is pursued in a fair, impartial and vigorous manner.  But it is also clear that ‘responsible parties’ are not confined to Council members and Tribunal officials.   They also include States and the political entities within States.   It is clear to most States that the fair and equitable pursuit of justice in countries wracked by ethnic bitterness and massive human rights violations – let alone the larger agendas of national and regional reconciliation – cannot find success in the absence of support from those very same regional governments.      It was disturbing to many participants at this event that so few commitments to reconciliation – new or existing – were made or highlighted by the very States that were criticizing the limitations of the Tribunal in this area.      It is unfortunate at best for States that have not done nearly enough to foster national and regional reconciliation to claim that a Tribunal somehow has ‘magic bullets’ to share in this area.
  • National justice systems, as many States acknowledge, are ultimately the best setting for the adjudication of grave violations of human rights.   As our program partners in Guatemala indicate, their national courts are taking responsibility for sexual slavery and other crimes committed under previous governments, albeit tentatively and belatedly. National courts in Guatemala have advantages that do not accrue to international Tribunals, including having a more contextualized understanding of the impact of indictments and prosecutions on elements as diverse as national mood and access to justice.  We must utilize and support national judicial authorities wherever it is practical to do so, though the opinion of most at the GA debate is that we must also be able to supplement such capacity at the international level where needed.

At the end of the day, the debate failed some basic tenets of intellectual and political viability.   For instance, it seemed odd at best to attack the Tribunal for not solving problems inconsistent with its mandate, while essentially letting off the hook States and other stakeholders for which reconciliation tasks are very much within their sphere of responsibility.  Moreover,  to dismiss (as did some ‘scholars’ in this process) the relevance of international criminal justice altogether without any viable alternatives  or suggestions for practically modifying the limitations which were legitimately called to account seemed to us to be an unprofessional attempt to toss the baby out with the bathwater.

We can do better than this.  Thankfully, many participating States pointed us in a more fruitful way forward.

 

—Dr. Robert Zuber

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UN discusses the Role of Women as Mediators

13 Mar

The theme of the role of women as mediators was in air around the UN, in the latter part of last week, with two back-to-back meetings addressing this topic. The missions of the UK and Portugal hosted the Arria Formula, while the Mission of Finland and the UN Department of Political Affairs hosted roundtable workshop to discuss guidance for effective mediation, based on Resolution 65/283 on Strengthening the Role of Mediation in Peaceful Settlement of Disputes, Conflict Prevention and Resolution.

As the first panelist to present at the Arria Formula, Minister Betty Bigombe, drawing from her experiences from Uganda with the LRA, addressed common excuses often surrounding lack of women’s participation, such as women are too emotional to handle war lords or they are constrained by family obligations. She also addressed the limited political will of governments and regional organizations to increase women’s ability to participate in mediation. Involving women early in the process is necessary in the overall design of the rules of procedure as a way of ensuring their participation in the process is effective.

Turning the focus a broader gender theme, SG Special Adviser on Yemen, Jamal Benomar, stressed women’s human rights are not subject to compromise, and that both men and women mediators need to promote UN standards and norms, and both have an obligation to ensure gender expertise is mobilized. The last panelist was President of the Aceh Women’s League Shadia Marhaban, who spoke based on her experience from the Aceh Peace talks. Ms. Marhaban noted the lack of psychological support available to her, and recommended that mediators get briefed from women’s organizations to make sure that the gender expertise is available to negotiating teams.

The NGO Working Group on Women, Peace and Security opened a round of questions, asking the panel for recommendations on how women’s issues can become nonnegotiable, while Canada, as Chair of the Group of Friends of Women, Peace, and Security, asked the panel to rank the top three practical steps for the international community to take to increase women’s participation. Recommendations from the panelists included government accountability; more involvement by regional organizations; training available to both men and women mediators; and better coordination between member states and women’s organizations.

Security Council Member States also took the floor, with Pakistan noting that peace agreements are a great place to begin promoting the role of women as mediators, while France encouraged the Secretariat to appoint more women mediators because the UN itself needs to set a better example of including women mediators. Finally, Morocco noted the limited amount of women representatives in the Security Council, while the US encouraged more collaboration with the civil society members to create a group of qualified women mediators, ready to be sent to missions.

Touching upon the themes and recommendations of the Arria Formula, the roundtable discussion held at the Finnish Mission focused more on the challenges of the process, from how to include women in mediation to the lack of political will, among many others. Emphasis was placed on laying out a good process for integrating more women in mediation roles/processes. A task simpler in theory than it is in practice, some of the practical steps identified to achieve it include- positioning gender issues so as to make them more political; addressing the fear of failure and defeat found among many women in their hesitations to take on the mediation challenge; and empowering women to enter in diplomacy. Discussion also revolved around the standard of evaluation for men mediators versus women mediators, and the tendency to set the standard much higher for women; and bringing out a gender perspective early on in the process.

Overall, in a week with attention on a wide range of women’s rights, attention on their role as mediators was timely to emphasize the various lenses of women’s participation. Both events were insightful, the recommendations were resourceful, and left a sense of activism in this area.  The discussion and the attention of women as mediators were not new by any means, as the Security Council held an Open Debate in October 2011 on Women’s Participation and Role in Conflict Prevention and Mediation. One can only hope that the energy around this topic continues and we see more similar events and small opportunities to begin to foster change in the system.

-Melina Lito

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Upcoming at GA66: mediation, dispute settlements and the role of women

18 Aug

The role of mediation to reconcile opposing claims and appease resentment was recognized in the 1907 Hague Convention. The concept continues. The upcoming opening General Assembly debate the role of mediation in the settlement of disputes by peaceful means, chaired by Qatar, will build upon the Assembly’s  June 2011 Resolution on strengthening the role of mediation – recognizing the importance of: women’s participation, resources from member states, quality mediation, continued SG support and UN capacity, international, regional and subregional organizations and civil society.

Qatar has put the role of mediation as a “key priority” during its term as president as the “high-level debate” is to be held at the opening of the Assembly’s 66th session.

There is an abundance of literature on peace mediation best practice. Going by the evidence, the General Assembly’s resolution is on the right track – at least in rhetoric –  especaily with its recognition of the the gender dimension:  increased participation of and leadership of women in mediation.

However, the UN itself might be a good place to start. GAPW is a member of the Working Group on Women Peace and Security (NGOWG). In an open letter to UN member states, NGOWG  stated that despite the UN recognition of the important role of women in mediation, they remain:

“overwhelmingly excluded from mediation efforts, and their rights and concerns are not consistently and concretely included in regular mediation practice. At the international level, the United Nations has still never appointed a women as a high level mediator, as called for most recently in A/RES/65/283, OP 9.

Given the continuing barriers that women in particular face in gaining access to these processes, and the differential impact that armed conflict often has on women, we encourage you to emphasize the following key points in your statement at this year’s General Debate:

  • The importance of ensuring women’s rights are fundamental to all guidelines and good practice established regarding mediation;

  • The necessity of embedding women’s rights in content of all peace agreements, and the role of mediators in assisting negotiating parties as to how this can be done;

  • The central role women can play in all prevention efforts, and the need to support and promote women’s participation in all these efforts;

  • The urgent need for the UN to appoint senior women mediators appointed by the UN, which would set an important example for promoting women’s participation in peace policies and processes; and

  • It would be particularly striking for you to speak of any examples of support your country has given to women’s inclusion in mediation processes and ensuring women’s rights in peace agreements. Publicizing women’s engagement in mediation would send a strong signal to the international community of your national commitment to women’s empowerment.”

If the UN is sincere about this issue, action over rhetoric is required. Can the UN deliver? Will the role of women in mediation be properly addressed?

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