ULI451U-CONFLICT RESOLUTION
Chapter 6: The Role of Third Parties in Conflict Resolution
Types of Third Parties
The most common types of third parties in conflict resolution are presented below:
• States: States can intervene in conflicts as a third- party for several reasons. They may increase the prospects of stability, deny their rivals’ opportunities for intervention, earn the gratitude of one or both parties, or enable them to continue to have a role in future relations • Intergovernmental organizations: Interventions by intergovernmental organizations are more complex than those of states. Peace itself would be the main reason for most intergovernmental organizations. Yet intergovernmental organizations are subject to certain policies and interests of their member states. Hence, they may be in a position to maximize such policies and interests in exercising intervention activities. • Non-governmental organizations (NGOs): hand, generally act more freely than states and other types of intermediaries can. Because of their transnational identities, they can hold the world public interests above national interests in ways that neither the nation-states nor even the UN itself can do. • Local actors: Interventions by local actors share the motives of self-interest, although their interests are not as apparent as the primary players of power politics. At the very least, local actors have a role and a reputation for establishing or defending, as successful interveners. Yet often this role extends beyond intervention to become ready for other functions or duties.
Third-Party Intervention in the Form of Peacekeeping
peacekeeping in international conflicts is an activity that involves the interposition of military and police forces between conflicting groups, either to stop the violence or to prevent it. The groups to be kept apart could be:
• state agents, • paramilitaries, • militia, • guerrilla groups, • or even mobs.
What they share is a desire to use violence against the other side as a way of conducting their conflict. Over the years, we have witnessed peacekeeping operations conducted by:
• the UN, such as UN Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus (UNFICYP) and UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS); • regional organizations, such as the Organization of African Unity (OAU) peacekeeping forces in Chad);
• a grouping of states, such as the Multinational Force and Observers (MFO) in the Sinai.
As these examples clearly show, peacekeeping operations are not only limited to the efforts of the UN. However, the UN has a central role in international peacekeeping activities due to its grand mission as a guardian of international peace and security.
The first UN peacekeeping mission was deployed by the UN in May 1948 with the creation of the UN Truce Supervision Organization (UNTSO) to monitor the ceasefire and supervise armistice agreements in Palestine. Another unarmed peacekeeping mission was deployed in January 1949 to supervise the ceasefire between India and Pakistan in Kashmir. The earliest armed UN peacekeeping force, UN Emergency Force I (UNEF I), was dispatched after the Suez Crisis in 1956. Since 1948 71 UN peacekeeping operations have been conducted while, as of March 2020, there are 13 operating peacekeeping missions around the world operating.
As they evolved from the 1950s to the 1980s, the traditional tasks of UN peacekeeping operations included interposing between conflicting parties and monitoring ceasefires. These tasks were usually carried out based on three key principles:
• consent of the parties, • impartiality, • and non-use of force
Third-Party Intervention in the Form of Peacebuilding
Third parties can assume especially four types of roles in this process of peacebuilding. These include:
• the provision of humanitarian relief to people in emergencies, • rehabilitation functions, • peacemaking activities, • sustaining peace through multitrack interventions.
The Provision of Humanitarian Relief
Intergovernmental organizations and NGOs have mostly had experience in war-related contexts. Many of their branches, indeed, were formed during and immediately after serious, large-scale conflicts. Therefore, most international organizations, especially NGOs, often define themselves as service agencies.
Rehabilitation Functions
The overall social indicators in countries that have experienced large-scale conflicts are usually very poor before the armed conflict, and conflict-related poverty causes even further decline. Hence, most post-conflict countries record abysmal rates of infant mortality, illiteracy, malnutrition, school enrolment, and so on.
School enrolment, and so on. Consequently, all war-torn societies face a large and complex set of issues that must be addressed rapidly. Resolving the myriad of institutional, economic, social, and political problems takes on a heightened urgency as many of these issues are related to the conflict itself. Failing to respond in a timely fashion may create the conditions for a return to organized violence.
Peacemaking Activities
Peacemaking refers to actions by third parties to bring hostile parties to an agreement. Third parties can perform this role in four basic ways:
• conciliation, • consultation, • arbitration, • and mediation.
Conciliation
Conciliation is an alternative out-ofjurisdiction conflict resolution instrument. It is a process whereby the conflicting parties use a conciliator that meets with the parties both separately and together in an attempt to resolve their differences. Conciliators attempt to do this by improving communications, identifying key issues, encouraging parties to explore potential solutions, and assisting the parties in finding a mutually acceptable solution.
Some of the significant benefits of conciliation can be summarized as follows:
• First, conciliation may ensure party autonomy. • Second, the parties are free to select their conciliator • Third, conciliation is time and cost-efficient. • Last, conciliation ensures confidentiality.
Consultation
Third-party consultation is a small-group problem-solving method for the study and resolution of a conflict, whereby a consultant or consultants give information, opinion, and advice to conflicting parties to direct them to reach a mutually acceptable solution.
The third-party actors use social skills to problem-solving and draw upon social scientific knowledge to further the parties’ understanding of their relationship. The core strategies of the approach include:
1. initiating mutual positive motivation for problem- solving, 2. improving the openness and accuracy of communication, 3. diagnosing the issues and processes of the conflict, 4. regulating the interaction among the participants (Fisher, 1983: 301-304).
Arbitration
Arbitration is a binding way of conflict resolution outside the courts or legal procedures. The conflict is decided by one or more persons, the arbitrator(s), and is legally binding on both sides.
Mediation
Perhaps the most common and well-known type of third- party intervention in terms of making peace in conflict settings is mediation, and that is why mediation calls for special attention. Mediation differs from other types of third-party intervention in that it is not based on the direct use of force. It aims to bring the conflict to a settlement acceptable to both sides voluntarily. Mediation is also a political process with no advance commitment from the parties to accept the mediator’s ideas of formulas.
Right Timing
To accomplish its purposes, mediation must be made acceptable to the conflicting parties, who can, in turn, cooperate diplomatically with the intervener.
Mediation plays upon the parties’ perception of having reached an intolerable situation.
A plateau is, thus, as much a matter of perception as of reality for the parties and as much a subject of persuasion as of timing for the mediator. Successful exploitation of a plateau shifts both sides from a combative mentality to a conciliatory mentality (Zartman and Touval, 1996: 453).
Personal Qualities of Mediators
To be welcomed by the parties and to successfully handle the mediation process, mediators should possess basic mediation skills and assume a variety of roles, including the followings:
• The opener of communication channels, initiating communication, or facilitating better communication if the parties are already negotiating. • The trainer, educating unskilled or unprepared negotiators in the bargaining process. • The resource expander, providing procedural assistance to the parties and linking them to outside experts and resources that may enable them to enlarge acceptable resolution options. • The problem explorer, enabling the parties to examine their issue from a variety of viewpoints, calling for specific exercises and thought processes that might move them from conflictive thinking to creative design. • The legitimizer, helping the parties to recognize the rights and interests of others to be involved in negotiations. • The leader, taking the initiative to move the negotiations forward by procedural or substantive suggestions (Bowling and Hoffman, 2004: 78- 82).
The Mediation Process
Once a mediator has gained a commitment to mediate, he or she must first collect relevant data about the conflict and the parties involved in it. This task is typically conducted before the parties get together, and negotiations begin. Data collection enables the mediator to identify critical issues, as well as relational problems, if they exist, between the parties.
An internationallyrecognized expert on mediation, Christopher W. Moore identifies several problem areas that often deadlock negotiations:
1. substantive problems, such as too few or too many favorable options, 2. procedural problems, such as an absence of process or the wrong process, 3. relational problems, such as strong emotions, stereotypical labeling, or miscommunication (Moore, 2003: 160).
The main functions of a mediator traditionally include:
• Providing ideas or possible solutions, mostly when the parties are deadlocked. • Initiating proposals that originate from one or another party, but which could not be advanced for fear of revealing weakness or uncertainty • De-committing the parties by providing some formula by which they can gracefully abandon previous positions. • Acting as a substitute source of ideas or proposals (Stitt, 2004: 87-89).
Sustaining Peace: Multitrack Interventions
The role of third parties in building peace also goes beyond monitoring negotiated agreements and mediating follow-up negotiations. The act of signing a peace agreement between political elites does not automatically create the result that fighting groups immediately lay down their arms and return to civilian life.
Reaching peace between formal negotiators is an important step, but it is not enough for durable peace. The public in conflict should also be prepared to that end. This, indeed, constitutes the most challenging area for third parties. Multitrack intervention strategies should be utilized to transform hostile relationships harming the parties at large.
One strategy, in this regard, would be promoting common goals and interdependence between hostile groups.
Another strategy would be designing or redesigning the system of education for peace.
Third parties could also cope with stereotypes and try to build trust between adversary groups.
On 9 July 2011, South Sudan became an independent state. The birth of the new state was the culmination of a six-year peace process. UNMIS ended its six years of
mandated operations on the same day South Sudan declared independence. Yet the situation was not stable in South Sudan. In adopting Resolution 1996 on 8 July 2011, the UN Security Council determined that the situation faced by South Sudan continued to constitute a threat to international peace and security in the region, establishing, this time, the United Nations Mission in the Republic of South Sudan (UNMISS) to consolidate peace and security. Following the conflict which broke out in South Sudan in December 2013, the UN Security Council, by its resolution 2155 on 27 May 2014, reinforced UNMISS, reprioritizing its mandate towards the protection of civilians, human rights monitoring, and support for the delivery of humanitarian assistance.
Sudanese conflict has become an arena where both the UN peacekeeping missions and other third-party initiatives represent a comprehensive peace approach to reach durable peace in the country, as well as in the region. Despite all these constructive efforts, however, the problems concerning the implementation of the CPA have triggered many smaller-scale conflicts in oil-rich Abyei, South Kordofan, and the Blue Nile. The UN Security Council, by its resolution 1990 on 27 June 2011, responded to the situation in Sudan’s Abyei region by establishing the United Nations Interim Security Force for Abyei (UNISFA). The Security Council was deeply concerned by the violence, escalating tensions, and population displacement. The operation has aimed at monitoring the flashpoint border between north and south and is authorized to use force in protecting civilians and humanitarian workers in Abyei. Its mission has been continuing to date.