While peace and justice advocates share ultimate goals, the short-term concerns and tactics of practitioners in the two fields may differ dramatically. This paper by Hurst Hannum argues that the two disciplines need to build on their shared values of impartiality, independence and concern for the less powerful while maintaining the distinctive features of each approach. Collaboration between the two disciplines is feasible, particularly as the international community increases its knowledge of the limits and possibilities of outside intervention.
The goals and expertise of human rights advocates are different from those of the mediator or diplomat. Human rights professionals generally see neutrality as inappropriate in the face of human rights violations. Mediators guard neutrality as an essential attribute and consider conflict resolution principles (participation, inclusion, empowerment, cultural sensitivity and equity) as quite different from the normative demands of human rights law.
Recognition and reconciliation of these differences between international practicioners, particularly after large-scale conflicts, is necessary to ensure that peace processes are pursued with the least possible tension and are more likely to produce viable peace agreements.
An analysis of the differing strategies of peace and justice advocates suggests that:
- while recent international guidelines rejecting blanket amnesty for war crimes provide a human rights benchmark for peace agreements, this does not mean that mediators should not include suspected war criminals (who are often key players) in negotiations when necessary;
- calls for immediate accountability for war crimes may hamper negotiations. However, it may be possible to avoid this issue through appropriate sequencing, whereby legal action is delayed until suspected war criminals are out of power and/or the state is more stable (although this process may take decades);
- while the concept of justice helps achieve balance among negotiating parties with different degrees of power, rights agendas in peace agreements must be realistic and feasible. Meaningful rights provisions may be strengthened by providing financial and technical assistance for implementation of well-targeted initiatives;
- concerns about post-agreement rights abuses could be addressed by balancing the necessary deference to a new government with near-zero tolerance for abuses. Meaningful post-agreement oversight and rapid implementation of foreign economic assistance directed at basic rights and needs could also mitigate concerns about post-agreement abuses; and
- while the rule of law and long-term capacity building are essential to sustainable peace, peace agreements should avoid unrealistically
raising expectations of substantial social and cultural changes, since such heightened expectations put great pressure on often tenuous new governments.
Neither ‘negative peace’ (the absence of conflict) nor an exclusive focus on human rights is sufficient to assist societies in moving from conflict to sustainable peace in a viable, non-violent society.
While human rights norms provide a floor of justice below which no conflict resolution practitioner should go, very few of these norms are absolute. Local conditions should be considered when translating international norms into specific domestic practices, without compromising the universality of those norms. While there is room for legal action to prevent or punish human rights violators, the goal is not to win debates about violations, but to change government practices and attitudes.
Both mediators and human rights advocates could use more humility and less arrogance. Neither party can create world peace by itself; collaboration is possible. The entire international community needs to understand the limits as well as the possibilities of outside intervention.
