The reach and type of mediators is changing, with a shift to the South and East and, as Mateja Peter and Sanja Badanjak’s analysis of ‘what the data says’ sets out, a new prominence of regional or ‘middle power’ mediators. While some states continue to facilitate discrete processes – such as Norway’s role in talks between the government of Nicolás Maduro and the opposition in Venezuela and in patiently nurturing a return to talks between the government of the Philippines and communist rebels, announced in November 2023 – there is also an increase in processes in which multiple mediators, facilitators and levels (‘tracks’) are engaged simultaneously, leading to potential congestion.
This proliferation of mediators demands innovation in how they work together, drawing on lessons learned from some of the more successful collaborative efforts of the past, as well as attention to what their engagement may mean for the outcomes of the peace processes with which they are involved. Mediation of internationalised internal conflicts is particularly challenged by the multiple roles assumed by states that may be both fuelling the conflict and, at least formally, participating in efforts to end it.
Across Africa, peacemaking cooperation between the UN, the African Union, the regional economic communities and the continent’s most powerful states is – according to the Institute for Security Studies – undermined by confusion, and sometimes competition, about an appropriate division of labour. Meanwhile, against the background of shifting regional and geopolitical relationships in the Middle East, and the increased influence of the Gulf States across the Horn of Africa and North Africa, states such as Egypt, Oman, Qatar (see article by Sultan Barakat), Saudi Arabia, Türkiye and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) are all increasingly active. As for other mediators, their engagement may be just one facet of complex economic, diplomatic or security relationships with the contending parties – and with more distant powers. Questions of prioritisation and interest are paramount.
China, too, has stepped forwards, as Yun Sun describes. While its extensive international involvements have rarely manifested in an explicit mediation role, its mediation between Iran and Saudi Arabia sealed the terms of a deal quietly developed through direct talks previously facilitated by Iraq and Oman. Numerous states active in their own regions – from Brazil, to China, Kenya, India, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Türkiye and the UAE – have also indicated their readiness, or put forward ideas, to support an eventual negotiation of the end of the war in Ukraine. The constellation of regional actors engaged with the United States in talks on ceasefires, the return of hostages, humanitarian assistance and an eventual return to a political process to address the Israel-Palestine conflict, looks very different to the now-defunct Quartet on the Middle Peace Process of the EU, Russia, the UN and the United States.
Against this shifting terrain, peacemakers are having to assess the setbacks they have faced as well as the situations where many feel their efforts have little purchase. The messy and increasingly transactional character of peace negotiations has brought to the fore significant differences in the extent to which political and civil rights will be prioritised, as well as persistent failures in agreement implementation.
Some mediators engage within normative and other frameworks that are hard-baked into their identities as multilateral organisations, foreign policy positions (for example on human rights, and women, peace and security), or, in the case of non-governmental organisations, defined principles or values. Drawing on a multi-year global participatory process, in January 2023, the International Commission on Inclusive Peace introduced eight broad ‘Principles for Peace’ for addressing 21st century conflict. In practice, however, clear red lines – for example, that the UN will not endorse peace agreements that offer amnesties for genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity or gross violations of human rights – are the exception in a field of activity that necessarily involves compromise between warring parties with blood on their hands. Yet, more broadly, globally agreed norms – even when sometimes violated – can be of utility in peace processes.
A normative grounding, as the UN emphasised in an October 2023 ‘practice note’ on the tangible benefits of human rights to mediation processes, is a powerful source of legitimacy. Reaffirming the provisions of the UN Charter on non-intervention has often been a principle in the resolution of internationalised civil war.
The UN and other impartial mediators frequently need to 'borrow' leverage from global or regional powers. Other actors, meanwhile, have long engaged in or around peace processes based on explicit interests or relationships with one or other of the conflict parties – a bias that, according to work by Isak Svensson, can bring benefits to peacemaking. They have not hesitated to use the economic and other leverage available to them, when this has served their purposes. Nor have some blanched at the hypocrisy that has broadcast support for human rights, or international intervention, in some contexts, and studiously avoided it on others.
Divisions in the Security Council have precluded new mediation mandates since the establishment of three special political missions in Libya (2011), and on Syria and Yemen (both 2012) in the aftermath of the Arab revolutions of 2011 (though the Secretary-General has the capacity to appoint Personal Envoys, as he did for Bolivia and Mozambique in 2019, Sudan in late 2023, and Cyprus in early 2024, without recourse to the Security Council).
The UN retains the formal peacemaking lead in these three contexts as well in legacy conflicts such as Cyprus and Western Sahara. However, its effectiveness will always be constrained by the positions of its member states. Without consensus among those involved, it has struggled to shape an external environment favourable to peace or find agreement to an end to external military intervention – two elements that Sean William Kane extracted from his 2022 study of mediation processes at the end of the Cold War as central means to tackle internationalised internal conflicts.
In Syria, UN efforts to lead the political process were overtaken by big power politics, military dynamics on the ground, and the creation of the parallel ‘Astana Process’ by Iran, Russia, and Türkiye. During 2020 and 2021, the Berlin International Conference (see From the outside in: the Berlin International Conference on Libya), led by Germany and the UN at the highest level, proved an innovative means to unify international actors with different roles in the Libyan crisis in support of a peaceful solution. The UN’s efforts to mediate an inclusive Yemeni process have shown promise, while involving careful navigation around talks between Saudi Arabia and Ansar Allah (the Houthi movement) facilitated by Oman. However, progress reached in December 2023, including discussions of a UN roadmap, was imperilled in early 2024 by the Houthis’ attacks on commercial ships in the Red Sea, the retaliatory strikes against them by the United States and United Kingdom and the risks of wider regional conflict.
Elsewhere the UN is constructively engaged in peacemaking in a supporting role. In Colombia, for example, it is one of several actors, along with the Catholic Church and several ‘guarantor’ states and donors, accompanying negotiations between the government and the National Liberation Army (ELN) rebel group. It is also supporting a distinct process with dissident members of the former Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).
Evolving partnerships of different kinds have become a near constant feature of contemporary mediation. As Barney Afako demonstrates in his article on innovation in the Horn of Africa, in different contexts facilitators and mediators in the region have adopted new tools to enhance their interventions. These have included complementary institutional and ad hoc partnerships, mediation panels, and the pooling of leverage and expertise in multiple forms of engagement. Both the complexity and fragility of this multi-actor mediation have been underlined by the course of events in Sudan. At the time of writing, multiple and competing initiatives have gained little traction in the devastating war.
Innovative collaborations have also been pursued between multilateral and state mediators and private or non-governmental mediators (whose eruption into the mediation space is described in the article on international private mediators). Such collaborations include formal arrangements such as the mixed state/NGO International Contact Group established to support the peace process in Mindanao (documented by Conciliation Resources in 2013); support to the UN by private mediation and other peacemaking entities in multi-layered engagements; and ad hoc partnerships such as that between the Swiss ambassador (later appointed the UN Secretary-General’s Personal Envoy), international private mediators and a national mediator in the successful process to secure agreement and implementation of the Maputo Accord for Peace and Reconciliation of August 2019. The potential value of NGOs, or private mediation organisations, as partners has been enhanced by the expansion of their own engagements to include many more local and insider mediators and a recognition that their relevance will depend on an ever-widening network of relationships with the diversity of other mediators.
In this challenging context, mediators of all kinds are forced to be humble with regard to their potential reach and influence, but also creative and pragmatic. In Ukraine, the Black Sea Grain Initiative, mediated by UN and Türkiye, as described in Mediation alongside the hell of war: the Black Sea grain deal, illustrated that when conditions for political mediation are not present, an innovative approach to humanitarian or economic mediation, seizing the opportunity by drawing on ad hoc partnerships and expertise, offers potential to alleviate suffering.
Mediators may also face the challenge of filling a gap between unattainable comprehensive peace agreements and unsatisfying ‘partial’ agreements. In contexts of continuous negotiation and renegotiation, in which states exist in a condition that Christine Bell and Jan Popsipil described as ‘formalised political unsettlement’, Christopher Thornton suggests, that international actors need to think creatively about uncertainty and flux. Mediators can still help parties work towards peace. But this is more likely to involve iterative processes, balancing the short-term interests of conflict parties with the determination of other actors to secure the long-term interests of the wider society and future generations.
In one example of a long-term approach, Rafat Al-Akhali highlights the centrality of economic issues to the conflict In Yemen and welcomes the decision by the UN to formally recognise this by calling for a dedicated ‘economic track’ to the peace process (as was earlier introduced in Libya). Elsewhere, issues of political economy can and have been too frequently ignored – or addressed in opaque and self-interested side deals – under the pressure of hastily assembled agreements among political and security elites.
The implications for what we consider to be mediation ‘success’ are considerable. In circumstances in which a comprehensive, just and sustainable peace is elusive, distinct agreements at local, regional and national levels may be all that it is possible to achieve. Yet these may have intrinsic value. The challenge for conflict parties and those working to support them alike is how to assess and plan for peace efforts to move beyond isolated attempts to limit violence and help establish norms of dialogue, civic engagement and inclusivity in the resolution of differences.
