1. Conflict resolution and peace settlements
Wk4 W2P

2. Questions Is conflict resolution/peace-building worth pursuing?
What is it?
What are the assumptions?
Do peace settlements work?
Does the nature of the conflict affect the type of settlement?
Can universal templates be applied?
How do we measure successes and failures?

3. Terminology
Peace settlement
Peace process
Conflict resolution
Peace-building
What do these terms mean? How are they used? How are they related? Is this an actual scale that operate in ending conflicts? It is important to interrogate these terms and not use them interchangeably
Alvaro de Soto Peruvian diplomat – special advisor on…..Cyprus or Middle East?

4. Peace-building vs. Peace Processes (Selby 2008)
International group of liberal experts
Informed by liberal ideology
Transplants templates
Post-conflict activity
Peace processes
Local political elites
Shaped by Realpolitik
Seeks to be innovative and inventive
Spans temporal scale
This comparison serves to show us that peacebuilding has a limited scope of application. It is informed by notions and assumptions such as the liberal peace. Peace processes, by contrast, are much more innovative (cf PNA), have a longer scale of application and are generally more complex undertakings than peace-building.

5. Liberal Peace-building (Selby 2008)
Poverty and conflict
Globalization
Pacifying effects of markets
Pacifying effects of market – there is no proof of this, what about the asymmetry that can exist? Also, neo-liberal states don’t always involve distribution of capital or equal investment of capital across locations, creating disparity within states.Regional cooperation? Not necessary, it is quite possible to forge export links far outside the region, there is no actual interdependence regionally. Businesses are good for peace because it facilitates trade, breeding interdependence? Again, no evidence, what about the scale of the business?
Benefit of globalisation, for the stated reasons and also that globalisation renders borders irrelevant. In fact we see as much as globalisation facilitates the crossing of borders, we have also seen the greater impregnability of borders for some. Example US-Mexico border and the NAFTA....
Poverty and conflict cycle. Selby talks about the “Golden Arches” approach, but again there is no link. Conflict can facilitate growth, peace can threaten development. Especially the “cake and eat it” result of political economy of “peace-processes” in which a government can reap benefits of appearing to cooperate in a peace processes without making any actual concessions.
Conclusion: This critique points back to the question, is it worth pursuing?

6. Treaty of Versailles

7. Signed June 1919 after WW1 with allies and Germany.
President Wilson outlined 14-point plan for lasting peace January 1918, emphasising the importance of transparency, free trade, the right of self determination etc
Point XIV : “A general association of nations must be formed under specific covenants for the purpose of affording mutual guarantees of political independence and territorial integrity to great and small states alike.”

8. Wilson’s points resisted at Paris peace conference preceding the Treaty of Versailles.
Treaty imposed strict conditions on defeated Germany - was forced to pay substantial reparations and lost 13% of its territory.
Financial, structural, and physiological upheaval experienced by Germany as a result of the treaty commonly seen as contributing factors to the rise of the Nazi party.

9. Contemporary Peace Accords
Peace negotiations involve multiple actors including: belligerent groups, national and regional government organizations, third party states, NGO’s, international financial institutions and the UN.
Successfully implementing contemporary peace agreements requires overcoming two challenges:
1) Material challenges (usually economic and structural)
2) Challenges related to reconciliation and justice.
Ensuring a sense of ownership at both the national and local level is vital to processes of reconciliation

10. Contemporary peace making as problem solving
“The universalist ethos of peace research becomes operationalized into identification with the interests of the existing international system, that is the interests of those who have power in the international system. So peace research becomes a factor supporting the status quo of the international power structure, providing the decision-makers of the system with knowledge for control, manipulation and integration of the system.” -Schmid

11. The Liberal Peace
Post-Cold War the liberal peace-building model promoted open markets and liberal democratic governance as a means to securing lasting peace.
Critics of liberal peace-building argued the lack of ‘political will’ and dominance of neoliberal conceptions of peace lead to agreements that support dominant elites at national and international levels.
By failing to address underlying causes of conflict, peace agreements break down or generate future tensions.

12. How do we measure? 1.1 (Licklider 1995)
Civil War ‘45-’93
Must be willing to live with enemies after conflict
Multiple sovereignty
Large scale war >1000 battle deaths a year
91 civil wars identified
War/Conflict
Must satisfy three conditions
Resumption of hostilities is a new war
How wars end
27% end after 1 year
>50% end after 5 years
21% last more than 10 years
Long wars are rare
What is a civil war?
The difference between war and conflict
Some info on how wars are ended

13. How do we measure? 1.2 (Licklider 1995)
Peace arising from negotiated settlements is less likely to last than that which follows military victories

14. How do we measure? 1.3 (Licklider 1995)
Identity and political-economic civil war have a similar pathology

15. How do we measure? 1.4 (Licklider 1995)
Military victories in identity civil wars are more likely to end in genocide……

16. How do we measure? 2.1 (Oberg 2009)
Ethnic Challenge to Govenment
Threat to use force against government
Armed and belligerent
Oberg’s Uppsala University Early Conflict Prevention in Ethnic Conflicts
Looks at the effectiveness of early interventions to prevent ethnic violence 90-98

17. How do we measure? 2.2 (Oberg 2009)
These are the forms of intervention possible, but
Time? All occur at once?
Carried out by different people at different time, but does the influence of one group remain constant?

18. How do we measure? 2.3 (Oberg 2009)
Example finding from Olberg 2009
35 cases where no measures were taken, 9 (23%) conflicts resulted in war.
32 cases where measures were taken, 17 (32%) conflicts resulted in war
Therefore, preventative measures are not effective.
How tenable is this claim? How can it be tested?

19. How do we measure? 2.4 Questions
How helpful are discrete categories?
Conflict/war?
Identity/political-economic conflict?
Valid criteria for inclusion in dataset?
Battle death threshold?
Threat to use force in ethnic challenge to government?
Questions
How helpful are discrete categorizationConflict/war? Identity/political-economic?
Are the criteria for inclusion in the dataset valid? Battle deaths?

20. El Salvador – civil war 1980-1992
Between military government and the left-wing FMLN
USA supported the dictatorship
Notorious human rights abuses during the conflict
75, ,000 died
1992 Chapultepec Peace Accords signed after UN-led negotiations

21. Achieving Peace
Negotiations between the two sides were sporadic throughout the conflict
Formally suspended by FMLN/FDR in protest of the assassination of the head of the human rights commission
Negotiations recommenced in April 1991, by which time FMLN had captured parts of San Salvador
UN became involved in 1991 to monitor the negotiations, at the request of both sides

22. Chapultepec Peace Accords
20 months of UN-monitored negotiations
Had been several failed partial settlements during the previous ten years
Comprehensive Peace Accords signed Jan 1992; UN involved in monitoring until 1997
There was a ceasefire; demob of both military and guerrilla forces; establishment of FMLN as political party; reintegration of combatants into society

23. UN and Peace Accord Verified implementation of peace accords
Contributed to institution-building
Mediated impartially
Set up Truth Commission – very important considering human rights abuses
Three stages to peace – military; institutional reform; evaluation – UN involved in all
Importantly, UN was invited into the peace process.

24. “Post-Peace” El Salvador
Has been no return to civil war/all out conflict
But, homicide rate double the rest of Latin America
Institution-building efforts failed to overcome pre-war/civil war political legacies
Political roots of violence not successfully tackled by peace process – DDR was not effective
Death squads – vestige of war but now seen as “crime”
Extensive amnesty for those involved in human rights abuses
So, negotiated settlement to the war – but peace has not necessarily led to a reduction in the violence

25. Sierra Leone –
Initially RUF (backed by Taylor/Liberia) against government
Over 50,000 dead, many more maimed
Seen to typify the “new war” thesis
Involved many external actors – Taylor, Executive Outcomes, UN, UK etc.

26. Attempts at Peace Several near peace agreements
Civilian govt. elected March 1996, retreating RUF (following EO action) signed Abidjan Peace Accord
Under int. pressure, EO pulled out before accord implemented, fighting started again
May 1997 coup by parts of army – Koroma govt. declared war over
ECOMOG intervened, retook Freetown
Jan 1999 – int. diplomatic pressure restarted negotiations
March 1999 Lomé Peace Accord – gave RUF govt. positions and diamond fields in return for disarmament monitored by UN

27. Result ofLomé Accords
RUF disarmament was slow – by mid-2000, rebels were nearing Freetown again
Despite strengthened UN mission, lacked power to coerce RUF – 500 held hostage, weapons stolen, rearming rebels
UK Operation Palliser – expanded mandate; rebels were repelled from Freetown area
Guinea launched strategic airstrikes
UN resolution demanded Liberia stop support of RUF
These pressures led to RUF signing new peace treaty

28. Post-War July 2002 – UK forces withdrew, leaving small training force
2002 – UNAMSIL began gradual withdrawal, all gone by 2005, replaced by UNIOSIL
Truth and Reconciliation Commission – part of Lome accords, to facilitate healing
Special Court for Sierra Leone – from 2002, for those with most repsonsibility
Leaders of RUF indicted for war crimes; leaders of SLA were “reallocated”

29. Current situation Homicide rate – 66/100,000 Life expectancy – 72.2
El Salvador
Homicide rate – 66/100,000
Life expectancy – 72.2
GNI (PPP) - $5,925 (9 years after start of war - $5153)
GNI (PPP) – Start of war $4,282;
Sierra Leone
Homicide rate – 34/100,000
Life expectancy – 47.8
GNI (PPP) - $737 (9 years after end of war)
GNI (PPP) Start of war - ( $586

30. Conclusion
Idea of liberal peace-building – depends on what liberal and whose peace
Difficult to judge whether negotiated settlements “work” – even with accurate data, could not tell what would have happened with/without one in specific situation
Is the concept of liberal peace-building flawed or simply current practice?
If we disagree with liberal peace-building, does that mean we would countenance letting a genocidal civil war fight itself out?