Mediation: A Primer

John Garang, former chairman of the Sudanese People's Liberation Army, once argued that the National Islamic Front (NIF) regime in North Sudan "could not be reformed, that they were too deformed to be reformed and must therefore be removed not improved."[1] Yet later he negotiated and signed the Comprehensive Peace Agreement with this same regime. What happened to enable such a dramatic shift from a strategy of war to a strategy of negotiation leading to a joint government with the former enemy? What was the role of mediation in ending a war that cost the lives of 2 million people?

This dossier focuses on the role of and potentialities for mediation and facilitation in peace processes in violent inter-group conflicts in countries such as Sudan, Nepal, Columbia, Mozambique, Angola, DR Congo, Guatemala, Indonesia and Burma to name but a few. It does not focus solely on track one intergovernmental mediation of peace agreements, but rather aims at a wider assessment of "mediations" and "facilitations" in peace processes, focusing on the multi-actor (IGOs, goverments, NGOs, internal and external actors), multi-phase (pre-negotiation, negotiation and implementation) and multi-topic (governance, justice, security, society and economy) dimension of today's complex processes. The dossier's focus is broader than pure track-one mediation, yet narrower than peacebuilding and conflict resolution in general.

Mediation is a way of assisting negotiations and transforming conflicts with the support of an acceptable third party.[2] Facilitation is similar to mediation (especially facilitative mediation), yet it is less directive. Unlike mediation, facilitation does not focus so much on decision-making, but rather on enhancing the mutual understanding of perceptions, interests and needs or preparing for joint action.

Since the end of the Cold War, mediation has been used in about 50 percent of all international crises.[3] It generally leads to a five-fold greater probability of reaching an agreement compared to a non-mediated one, and a 2.4 times greater probability of longer-term tension reduction.[4] The high acceptability from the side of the conflict parties, and low cost from the side of the third parties, are some of the reasons for the method's wide use. Besides mediation and facilitation, other approaches like sanctions, arbitration, civilian peacebuilding and military peace support operations can be used in a complementary manner as well.

This dossier provides an analysis, introduction of trends, rationales and lessons learned regarding mediation and facilitation methodology. It pools relevant resources on topics related to mediation and indicates where and what kind of third party is active. This dossier also highlights the processes in which opponents move from fighting in the field, to fighting over the table, to realizing they can gain more through compromises and negotiations than through killing.

The dossier is structured as follows: section 2 focuses on conceptual and general methodological approaches. One of the key methodological arguments is that various topics play a role in peace processes and that these topics need to be better interlinked in order to achieve sustainable peace. Section 3 then examines various topics related to peace processes, sorted by the sub-topics: mediating peace agreements, economy and environment, justice and governance, security and society. Each topic and its subtopics are briefly introduced, followed by a selection of documents and links that are accessible on the internet. While it is beyond the scope of this dossier to examine specific cases, the sections "databases", "news" and "references" provide links to external sources that provide basic material to study specific cases.

The dossier was formed in the context of the Mediation Support Project (MSP), a joint project of the Center for Security Studies, ETH Zurich and swisspeace, funded by the Political Division VI of the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs. Special thanks goes to Ryan Cross and Matthias Siegfried. The dossier is intended to be dynamic; to integrate new lessons learned, resources and links as it develops. If you wish to contribute to this dossier, please contact us.

1. Chairman's 19th Anniversary Message: to all SPLA, SPLM and CANS Units and to the Civil Population of the New Sudan.
2. "Mediation is generally defined as the intervention in a negotiation or a conflict of an acceptable third party who has limited or no authoritative decision-making power, but who assists the involved parties in voluntarily reaching a mutually-acceptable settlement of issues in dispute. In addition to addressing substantive issues, mediation may also establish or strengthen relationships of trust and respect between parties or terminate relationships in a manner that minimizes costs and psychological harm." Moore, C. The Mediation Process: Practical Strategies for Resolving Conflict. (2nd edition). Jossey-Bass Publishers. 2003. p. 15.
3. International crisis is " … a change in type and/or an increase in intensity of disruptive (i.e. hostile verbal or physical) interactions between two or more states, with a heightened probability of military hostilities that, in turn, destabilize their relationship and challenges the structure of the international system – global, dominant or subsystem." Brecher, Michael/Wilkenfeld, Jonathan. A Study of Crisis. 2nd ed. (with CD rom). Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2000. Zitiert in: Beardsley, Kyle C./Quinn, David M./Biswas, Bidisha/Wilkenfeld, Jonathan. "Mediation Style and Crisis Outcomes," in Journal of Conflict Resolution, 50 (2006), Nr. 1, S. 58-86.
4. Beardsley, Kyle C./Quinn, David M./Biswas, Bidisha/Wilkenfeld, Jonathan. "Mediation Style and Crisis Outcomes," in Journal of Conflict Resolution, 50 (2006), Nr. 1, S. 58-86.