International Mediation Bias and Peacemaking: Taking Sides in Civil Wars

Citation

Kai Chen (2016), "International Mediation Bias and Peacemaking: Taking Sides in Civil Wars", Online Information Review, Vol. 40 No. 3, pp. 450-454. https://doi.org/10.1108/OIR-02-2016-0046

Mediation is a process whereby “a third-party assists two or more parties, with their consent, to prevent, manage or resolve a conflict by helping them to develop mutually acceptable agreements” (United Nations Secretary-General, 2012). Not all conflicts are amenable to mediation. According to the United Nations Secretary-General, there are three indicators that suggest the potential for effective mediations. First, the conflicting parties would like to “negotiate a settlement”; second, a mediator must be “accepted, credible and well supported”; and third, there must be general consensus at the regional and international levels to support the process (United Nations Secretary-General, 2012). That is to say, the conflicting parties should reach certain consensus on mediators and their bargaining position.

In many cases, conflicts were aggravated by “well-meaning third-party actors who lack a good understanding of mediation and adequate preparation” (United Nations Secretary-General, 2012). As the first line of defense for resolving the disputes and conflicts, and finding a mutually acceptable resolution of disputes, mediators and mediations have been “establishing respect for human rights and ending violent conflict” (p. 5). As the only global intergovernmental organization with more than 60 years in mediation, the United Nations has achieved a number of achievements in mediation than any other organization(United Nations Secretary-General, 2009). In practice, United Nations mediators have found it useful to explain that mediation is “a form of professional assistance,” rather than “representing outside interference” (United Nations Secretary-General, 2009).

The past decade has witnessed the emergence of violent against civilians in some regions, which have been spreading across multiple countries and complicating mediation operations. In such a case, mediators have to grapple with “diverse motives and fluid and ever-changing alliances, and with situations of uncertain command and control” (United Nations Secretary-General, 2015). This situation raises a series of questions. What kind of mediator is able to help conflicting parties to resolve their disputes? What are the fundamental elements of a qualified mediator? How can sustainable mediation operations contribute to the effective implementation of a peace agreement? The answers to these questions are urgently needed.

From a comparative perspective, International Mediation Bias and Peacemaking by Isak Svensson – Associate Professor at the Peace and Conflict Research, Uppsala University, stresses the biased mediation and mediators that gained much less attention in the academia, evaluates the performance of different types of mediators (i.e. unbiased mediators, government-biased mediators, and rebel-biased mediators), hypothesizes and proves that “(a) biased mediator can mediate a fair process, just as an unbiased mediator can mediate an unfair one” (p. 41).

This book has three parts, which are made up of 11 chapters. From a theoretical perspective, Part I (Chapters 1-3) examines the qualities of a good mediator, reveals the limitations of unbiased mediators, and analyzes biased mediators’ influences on the institutional arrangements in peacekeeping. In general, many mediators would bring their own interests to their medication. Then Svensson develops a theory of biased mediation, which reveals the causal mechanisms of biased mediators in civil wars, in which the conflict parties are not ready to “make the often painful but necessary concessions and compromises in order for peace institutional arrangements to be reached” (p. 25).

In the words of Svensson, mediations “defined as a voluntary, third-party activity which aims to resolve or regulate conflict through negotiations,” and “craft(s) peace institutions that regulate the core issues in conflicts” (pp. 6, 29). Chapter 1 conceptualizes the most essential criteria for evaluating mediation success – “peace institutions,” which has four institutional arrangements, that is, “power-sharing, security guarantees,” “justice arrangements,” and “amnesties” (pp. 18, 36-37, 48).

In next chapter, Svensson addresses three motivations for unbiased mediators, and addresses the weak points of unbiased mediators. In the words of Svensson, all the unbiased mediators are motivated by “various combinations of humanitarian altruism, enlightened self-interests aimed at minimizing negative externalities, and reputation concerns” (p. 22).

From an empirical perspective, the following pages (Chapters 4-9) explore China’s mediation efforts in Cambodia, India and Norway in Sri Lanka, the USA in Israel/Palestine, Malaysia in the Philippines, and Russia in Georgia. Svensson compares the incentives and capabilities of the unbiased mediators and biased mediators. For instance, the former is highly interested in “bringing armed conflicts to a peaceful end,” but the latter “commonly intervene to secure the interests of their preferred side” (pp. 20, 40).

Concerning the weak points of unbiased mediators, the most significant one is that unbiased mediators are in “short supply of leverage” (p. 25). In the opinion of Svensson, biased mediators “[…] leverage commonly stems from particular ties with one side, ties that can be manipulated, but unbiased mediators are unbiased just because they lack such ties with the parties” (p. 26).

In contrast with the weak performance of the unbiased mediators, the biased counterparts have some relative advantages in bringing about peace institutions around the world. Most important of all, the biased mediators can act as “a security guarantor,” who are willing and capable of supplying of security guarantees (p. 39). In many scenarios, unbiased mediators are unable to provide sustainable security guarantees to any of conflict parties, while biased mediators have comparative advantages in offering security guarantees, and overseeing the implementation of peace agreements. Not surprising, Svensson believes that biased mediators do not need impartiality, what they need is to have sufficient leverages to promote the conflicting parties to reach a consensus.

Chapter 3 (Chapters 10-11) highlights several open questions and potential counter-arguments of his arguments, which need to be studied in the future, such as timing of mediation, and internal mediators’ impacts on medication. In elsewhere, Svensson argues that insider-partial mediators are “utilized in conflict situations that are less severe,” and “have a substantially higher frequency of activity in unarmed as compared to armed insurrections” (Svensson and Lindgren, 2013). Historically, “internationalized conflicts often end with an unacceptable and even incomprehensible outcome both for the opposing sides and for the foreign mediators” (BBC Monitoring International Reports, 2015). In the long run, the biased mediators and their preferred sides were always tied together into three kinds of partnership, that is, “ideological, ethnic, and strategic” (p. 30).

In some cases, biased mediators would produce negative effects, such as “pursuit of justice and punishments against human rights violators” (p. 123). In the words of Svensson, “(t)oo much bias can be negative when the mediator wishes to control the outcome to a degree that it becomes destructive” (pp. 121-122). In 2011, the Arab League accused the international quartet of “Middle East peace brokers of double standard” after the key players deferred a crucial meeting on the Palestinian-Israeli peace process, which comprised the USA, European Union, United Nations and Russia (BBC Monitoring International Reports, 2011). In some cases, as Svensson argues, the biased mediators would “misrepresent information in order to enhance the prospect for peace,” in order to be trustworthy to their side (p. 32). Unfortunately, such tactics would also produce negative consequences, especially when it threatened the important values of conflicting parties, such as their “sense of identity, honor, or commitment to a goal, or creates loss of face with constituents” (United Nations Secretary-General, 2009).

It’s noteworthy that the importance of unbiased mediators should not be downplayed. In most cases, mediators are regarded as “neutrals.” In other words, when a mediator is “solely interested in promoting cooperation,” or “biased toward one side,” its mediation may be ineffective (Kydd, 2006, p. 449). From the parties’ perspective, trust means confidence that a potential mediator will be impartial, professional, and have the skill to guide the process toward an acceptable outcome (United Nations Secretary-General, 2009). Therefore, unbiased mediators have low accepting costs. To put it differently, “easy access also signals an easy departure” (p. 27).

An example of a successful unbiased mediation is conducted between the government of Indonesia and the Free Aceh Movement. Following the devastating Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004, both sides requested the former president of Finland, Martti Ahtisaari, to mediate in their disputes (Koh, 2015). In 2008, as one of the most renowned and successful mediators in international conflicts, Martti Ahtisaari, was awarded Nobel Peace Prize for “his efforts to resolve international conflicts across the globe, including Northern Ireland, Namibia, Kosovo, Indonesia and Iraq” (Miller and Chu, 2008).

More important, whether a mediation will end conflicts depends ultimately on the conflicting parties themselves. The mediation is less likely to end with only one party’s accepting medication or altering its expectations, while the other parties feel that the mediator has not been a true neutral. For instance, Egypt had been a mediator between Hamas and Israel to reach truces in previous Israeli military offensives on the Gaza Strip and also mediated a prisoner swap deal between the two sides in 2011. Egypt also mediated a reconciliation agreement and a series of understandings between Hamas and Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas. However, in 2015, a Cairo court ruled that the Hamas movement be outlawed as a terrorist group. Afterwards, Hamas publicly announced that Egypt was not qualified to be a mediator (Xinhua News Agency, 2015). It happens that there is similar cases. “The United States, the European Union, Qatar or Turkey,” were not “able to talk with any credibility” to Israel and Hamas, let alone promoting the conflicting parties to overcome the difference between their positions, or bringing the conflicting parties to the negotiating table (Al-Arab, 2014).

It’s critically needed for mediators to find proper ways to “create(s) the basis for a longer term arrangement that has a chance of moving things forward,” rather than “simply end the immediate bloodshed” (Al-Arab, 2014). As Svensson argues, there are four models recommended for unbiased mediators, that is, “(a)ct as the biased mediators do,” “(t)ransform external supporters into biased mediators,” “(c)oordinate and collaborate with biased mediators,” “(p)rovide a framework for differently biased mediators” (p. 107). If necessary, mediators should “increase the likelihood of amnesties for government representatives or rebel representatives” (p. 40). Moreover, the suggestion of Eric van Ginkel would be helpful too, that is, “face-giving can be very helpful and, at times, even crucial, in preserving a positive climate for conflict resolution.” In many cases, the mediator’s face-giving tasks would engage in “explicit verbal acknowledgment and feedback,” recognize “the individual names, faces, abilities, and skills of the disputants,” and compliment “the unique contributions of the disputant and the relevant members of his group” (Ginkel, 2004, pp. 475, 483).

If Svensson would show more concerns about the following three issues related with mediation, his arguments would be more inclusive. First, mediators and mediations, either unbiased or biased, are often exposed to considerable security risks. In some cases, they might be misunderstood as biased due to their relationship with one or the other party. Second, “the field of mediation has become more diverse and crowded. Regional, sub-regional and other international organizations as well as non-governmental organizations and private individuals are increasingly involved in mediation activities. If a mediation only involves armed groups (e.g. militias or private security/military contractors), it would probably generate “resentment within other sectors of society,” even “encourage others to take up arms in order to get a place at the negotiating table” (United Nations Secretary-General, 2012). Third, historically, local religious leaders and faith-based organizations did play an essential mediating role in many conflict-affected areas, because they did enjoy the trust of the conflicting parties to some degree. However, they and their potential contribution are not fully explored in further.

In summary, International Mediation Bias and Peacemaking is a fascinating and invigorating contribution to the scholarship on international medication and biased mediators. As a vital resource for military professionals, policymakers, and scholars alike, it will be widely read and discussed. This book will definitely be of great interest not only to scholars and students of international medication and peacekeeping, but also to general readers interested in unbiased and biased mediators, and to all those seeking to understand more about how mediators take effects on the process of peacekeeping in the past, present, and future.