In May 1899, diplomats flocked to The Hague to participate in the first of two peace conferences. The Austrian pacifist Bertha von Suttner enlisted Henri Dunant, the founder of the Red Cross, in her efforts to commit states to disarmament and conflict settlement by publishing a letter she had received from him. Dunant wrote that he would ‘like to see the Hague Congress set up a Permanent Mediation Bureau recognized by all the States in the world … and to which they would be obliged always to have recourse in order to smooth out complications’.
Von Suttner and Dunant’s calls were heeded, at least partially. The final act of the conference, signed in July 1899 by 26 mostly European states, featured an entire convention on the peaceful settlement of international disputes. ‘In case of serious disagreement or conflict, before an appeal to arms’, states committed ‘to have recourse, as far as circumstances allow, to the good offices or mediation of one or more friendly Powers.’
Codifying in an international treaty the obligation for states to seek mediation was novel, breaking with the existing practice whereby neutral states offered their good offices on an ad hoc basis. Although quickly overtaken by the First World War, the ambition is an appropriate starting point for this article, which traces the evolution of international mediation through innovation in relation to systemic and institutional change and hopes to shed light on what has driven it.
This article focuses on international mediation, understood as efforts by international actors to help conflict parties settle their dispute peacefully and within a system of collective security. Other forms of mediation and innovations associated with them, as well as other perspectives on the evolution of mediation, are addressed elsewhere in this volume.
The analysis in this article rests on two assumptions. First, international mediation is a response to armed conflict and takes place in a context of agreed norms and frameworks. Second, the potential for institutional innovation in international mediation is greatest during critical junctures in world politics, when new institutions, norms, ideas, and power dispensations in the international system crystalise and create opportunities for change. The article therefore focuses on four critical junctures since 1945, and the innovations they enabled, before zeroing in on the period since the early 2010s and some broader innovations that characterise the practice of international mediation today.
Critical junctures enabling innovation in international mediation since 1945
United Nations
Although mediation featured prominently in the 1899 and 1907 Hague Conventions, the Covenant of the League of Nations (1919) did not mention mediation as a means to resolve disputes, instead prioritising arbitration and judicial mechanisms and conflict settlement by the League’s Council. This changed with the foundation of the United Nations in 1945 – the first critical juncture. The UN Charter prohibits the threat or use of force by states, obliges them to resolve disputes peacefully (including through mediation), and, absent this, authorises the Security Council to take action to maintain international peace and security. Mediation thus became one element in a comprehensive system of collective security, as Henri Dunant had imagined it.
The appointment of mediators representing the UN was a significant practical innovation. This happened for the first time in May 1948 when the UN General Assembly mandated the Swedish diplomat Folke Bernadotte ‘to use his good offices … to promote a peaceful adjustment of the future situation in Palestine’. In his function as UN mediator, Bernadotte consulted with Jewish leaders, Palestinian authorities and Arab states in the region. He helped to bring about a truce in June 1948 and worked to formulate a peace plan. However, before being able to present the plan, Bernadotte was assassinated in Jerusalem by members of a Zionist paramilitary extremist group. He was succeeded by his aide Ralph Bunche, who obtained signatures on armistice agreements between Israel and the Arab States – which earned him a Nobel Peace Prize in 1950. These efforts only brought short-term reprieve, as the conflict remains unresolved to this day. The efforts of Bernadotte and Bunche were nonetheless significant insofar as they acted as representatives of the UN as a multilateral organisation, rather than of individual states, endeavouring to find a solution to a conflict by proactively engaging with conflict parties.
Cold War
The Cold War period was a second critical juncture. Rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union fuelled proxy conflicts and limited the UN Security Council’s role in resolving them. However, even in this difficult context, successive UN Secretaries-General practised their good offices. Dag Hammarskjöld, who was Secretary-General from 1953 until 1961, articulated a more assertive ‘preventive diplomacy’ as a means to find solutions to crises before they escalated. In practice, this entailed several innovations: mediation was conducted by the Secretary-General himself or his representatives (men in this period and the vast majority of them subsequently), rather than by mediators appointed by the General Assembly or the Security Council. Hammarskjöld championed the impartiality of his peace efforts, and he pushed the UN to react fast and engage early. Also innovative was his approach to conflicts in which superpowers confronted one another. In 1955, he negotiated the release of 11 US airmen held in China. A year later, he helped resolve the Suez crisis through direct talks that brought about a ceasefire to be monitored by UN peacekeepers.
The post-Cold War and regional organisations
A third critical juncture came towards the end of the Cold War, when multilateral efforts to resolve conflicts increased significantly. In the second half of the 1980s, under the leadership of Secretary-General Javier Pérez de Cuellar, the UN stepped up its role as a mediator, working to end civil wars in Cambodia, Namibia, Angola, and Central America among other places. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the UN was thrust into an even more central role as a peacemaker, and regional organisations also became more active. Mediation became a preferred tool in a continuum of approaches – preventive diplomacy, peacemaking, peacekeeping and post-conflict peacebuilding – clearly laid out in Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali’s 1992 Agenda for Peace. The tools conceptualised by Boutros-Ghali underpinned a vision of a liberal peace, which emphasised democracy, human rights and justice as the goals of international mediation. In this context, mediation was to lay the foundation for transformation through a peace agreement, ushering in a transitional period during which former belligerents share power while peacekeepers ensure security, enabling post-conflict peacebuilding and finally internationally supervised elections and a new democratic constitution.
This approach had profound practical implications. As the Cold War adversaries reconciled and wound down their proxy wars, mediation by the UN and others was focused on civil wars, rather than on disputes between states. Peace agreements were frequently comprehensive documents with detailed provisions on power sharing, wealth sharing, justice, and security sector reform. From lean diplomatic efforts, mediators began to head teams of technical experts and coordinate diplomatic coalitions that provided political leverage during a lengthy negotiation process. The mediation to end the civil war in Sudan exemplified this approach. Led by the Kenyan general Lazaro Sumbeiywo, representing the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), a regional organisation in East Africa, the negotiations concluded in 2005 in a 241-comprehensive peace agreement, whose implementation was largely handed to the UN.
In the post-Cold War period, international mediation was also shaped by the push to prevent mass atrocities and promote accountability for international crimes, notably through the creation of ad hoc tribunals and, eventually, the International Criminal Court. This sharpened tensions between the goals of peace and justice, whilst contributing to innovative practice in the field of transitional justice. Further innovation came in the landmark UN Security Council Resolution 1325 on women, peace and security, which was adopted in 2000 thanks to the efforts of civil society and a diverse coalition of states, including Namibia and Sweden. The resolution gave impetus to calls that more women needed to participate in peace efforts and for peace agreements to address the needs of women and men.
While there is continued resistance to the meaningful participation of women in peace processes, Resolution 1325 in time spurred innovation as Sanam Anderlini discusses in more detail on p.16. Gender-responsive language in peace agreements slowly increased, as have, in some contexts, the number of women, women’s groups and gender experts participating in peace talks as mediators, negotiators and advisers. A case in point: the UN’s appointment of women to head peace operations and as mediators has increased in recent years.
The end of the Cold War also unleashed the potential of what Chapter VIII of the UN Charter describes as ‘regional arrangements and agencies’. Under the principle of subsidiarity, the role of regional organisations in international mediation grew, with the Organisation of African Unity, the League of Arab States and the Organisation of the Islamic Conference engaged with the UN in Somalia in the early 1990s and then increasingly active within their respective regions. The Association of Southeast Asian Nations was a key actor in the Cambodian peace process, and the Organization of American States in Central America. In time, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe took a prominent role in mediating conflicts related to the dissolution of the Soviet Union while, in later years, the European Union incorporated mediation in its emerging foreign and security policy. In Africa, the Economic Community of West African States mediated an end to the wars in Sierra Leone and Liberia. The creation of the African Union in 2002 and its subsequent establishment of the African Peace and Security Architecture embraced new norms and mechanisms rooted in the principle of ‘non-indifference’ and the call for African solutions to African problems.
9/11 and the War on Terror
A fourth critical juncture occurred after the attacks of 11 September 2001 when the fight against terrorism became a dominant paradigm of world politics. Militarised responses to armed conflict and the listing of groups as terrorist became more common. These approaches often crowded out mediation in formal peace processes. Sensitivity with regard to sovereignty also increased, leading to pushback against the involvement of international mediators, especially from the UN. These developments challenged the post-Cold War model of mediation but also contributed to a significant innovation: mediation through private diplomacy, often conducted by specialised non-governmental organisations, such as the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue in Geneva or CMI Martti Ahtisaari Peace Foundation in Helsinki, which established themselves in the 2000s. (See article on international private mediators). Their work was innovative insofar as they transcend different levels of engagement. They were able to engage flexibly with any conflict party, including proscribed groups, and with the kind of confidentiality and informality that multilateral and state mediators struggle to maintain. The involvement of private mediators is also often less problematic for governments concerned about internationalising what they consider internal issues.
Recognition of the complexity of armed conflicts, and the variegated challenges international mediators were facing, led to a push to professionalise mediation through the establishment of dedicated mediation support structures. These units provided technical expertise and hands-on operational support to mediation teams, and they promoted learning from past operations. The creation of the UN Mediation Support Unit in 2006 came first, followed by similar structures established in foreign ministries and regional organisations. The advent of mediation support also contributed to the setting out of guidance for effective mediation practice and defined mediation as a specialised field within the broader area of international peace and security.
Recent developments and innovations
Developments in world politics since the early 2010s constitute another critical juncture. As the number of active armed conflicts has risen, geopolitical polarisation, associated with the contestation of global norms and the weakening of multilateral frameworks, a series of failed Western-led interventions and now the war in Ukraine, has complicated the context in which international mediators operate. While inter-state conflict, or the threat of it, is on the rise, internal armed conflicts have become more internationalised and fragmented, with multiple and often incohesive belligerents pursuing a diverse mix of motives for their violent behaviour. Comprehensive peace agreements, as pursued in the post-Cold War period, rarely seem a possibility, and the liberal peacebuilding they presaged has experienced pushback. New technologies affect conflict dynamics by providing new means of warfare, including the use of social media for mis- and disinformation.
At the same time, international actors offering mediation have grown in number, size and diversity. A larger number of states in different parts of the world emphasise mediation in their foreign policy. More regional organisations and private diplomacy organisations offer their mediation services, reinforcing an earlier trend. However, the main armed conflict parties, be they international, national or more localised armed groups, are often reluctant to engage in serious peace talks. In a number of contexts, such as the Central African Republic and Mali, multiple national-level peace agreements have proven not to be viable. Mediation efforts in other situations, such as Syria, Sudan and Ukraine, have taken a back seat to military dynamics, and conflicts continue.
So far, challenges – rather than opportunities – for mediation have marked the current juncture. Still, a number of innovations have crystalised, many of which are covered by other articles in this volume. The diversity of mediators has energised some efforts and led to new partnerships, or ad hoc forums of coordination.
Moreover, recognising the fragmented nature of conflicts, international mediators have begun in recent years to engage more thoroughly at different levels of society, in particular the subnational level. Many international actors thus work with local mediators, including women, young people and customary, religious and business leaders, recognising their ability to address subnational dynamics of violence and seeking to encourage more inclusive processes. Meanwhile, the use of new technologies, as this publication explores, has fostered innovation in the analysis of conflict dynamics, communication with the parties and the wider public, as well in expanding the inclusivity of peace processes and in monitoring and verifying agreements.
In the absence of willingness and space to foster conflict resolution, international mediators have also had to be pragmatic and lower their ambitions. With decreasing opportunities for all-out resolution of armed conflicts, mediators have reinforced efforts to manage the devastating consequences of violence, including through facilitating the delivery of services and humanitarian relief or addressing community-level tensions.
Responding to today’s critical juncture
Henry Dunant’s one-stop shop for mediation has never materialised. Still, mediation has become a permanent feature of the international system in addressing armed conflicts. Rather than a single bureau, multiple states, as well as multilateral and non-governmental actors offer their mediation services. The analysis of critical junctures since the Second World War illustrates how shifts in the geopolitical environment have stimulated different innovations in the practice of mediation. As discussed in this article, mediation tends to produce innovation through adaptation, rather than through the anticipation of future trends. This is because international mediation operates within the constraints of global politics, having to adjust to changing conflict dynamics. Yet critical junctures in world politics have created opportunities for innovation, and pioneering mediation actors have seized them.
Overall, in recent years, the field of peace mediation has also become more professionalised and attentive to its own learning. Given the major transformations taking place, the urgency of innovation to which this volume seeks to respond is clear. While we begin from the premise that the practice of mediation needs to respond to an increasingly polarised world, a fragmented conflict landscape and the rapid onslaught of new threats, peace mediation’s track record of adaptation inspires some optimism.
