The UN in 21st Century Cyprus: Meditration, Mediation-Lite and Beyond

For decades, the UN has failed to mediate a settlement in Cyprus because of a general and profound weakness: it is unable, outside of unity and resolve in the Security Council, to offer direct incentives to parties in conflict that would shape their calculus towards conflict resolution, or to control the actions of third parties in a way that would incentivize conflict resolution or prevent disincentives. In the resulting vacuum, the prospects for peace settlements come to rest largely on domestic politics within the contesting camps and, sometimes relatedly, on the balance of power between them. In the case of Cyprus, the article claims that these weaknesses on the part of the UN were clearly on display during the negotiation process surrounding the Annan Plan (2001–04) and the resumed process that began in 2008 and ended at Crans-Montana in 2017.

Psychological Casualties as a Source of Friction During War and a Mediator of Coerced Peace Efforts

The United States homeland does not enjoy sanctuary in the twenty-first century geopolitical environment. Near-peer rivals, such as China and Russia, have capabilities that can impact the United States homeland during a high-end war. Adversaries’ aerospace capabilities have the potential to cause large volumes of psychological casualties among the United States population. Psychological casualties during a high-end war could serve as the basis for a mass call to end a war due to the altered information processing seen among traumatized people. Such a call to end a war could result in unfavorable peace settlements. The United States homeland must improve its ability to prevent cognitive hacking and it must insulate its population from epistemologies unfavorable to the United States.

The Draughtsmen

Little is known about the formal crafting of the Paris Peace Treaties in 1919/20 and the set of international lawyers that was tasked to draft the hundreds and thousands of articles of one of the most contested peace settlements of all times. Taking a fresh look behind the scenes of the negotiations in Paris, this chapter unearths role and influence of the drafting committee, offers a characterization of the in-house lawyers involved, and examines how they transformed political bargaining into legally binding rules and treaty provisions. The broader aim is to explore what international legal advisors do in government service and how they operate along the blurred the boundary between law and politics.

Conclusion

The Conclusion considers why it took so long to negotiate an end to the Northern Ireland conflict, examining the role of internal divisions and leadership, emphasizing the importance of strategic action, and suggesting a more agential approach to understanding peace settlements. It outlines how back-channel negotiation allowed two key parties to the Northern Ireland conflict to coordinate their actions, and to assist each other in resolving strategic dilemmas and in overcoming intra-party resistance to compromise when direct contact and open meetings were impossible. It sets out how an analysis of the conflict through the lens of negotiation can enhance understanding of the factors that make for peace agreements.

Conclusion

This concluding chapter reprises the book’s content and offers several key lessons. It also proffers predictions about where future work may take studies of deliberative design for peace referendums. Referendums are now part of very many peacemaking efforts. We expect referendums to continue to be used this way. But when this occurs, the success of peace referendums—particularly their capacities to achieve and secure the endurance of constitutional peace settlements—may turn largely on whether institutional supports for deliberation are in place.

The Business of Peace and the Politics of Inclusion: The Role of Local Business Actors in Yemen (2011–16)

This chapter explores the role that businesses played in Yemen 2011-2016 and their place in the strategies of UN mediators. Research demonstrates that businesses – including ‘formal’ and ‘informal’, ‘licit’ and ‘illicit’ play distinctly political roles in war to peace transitions, as conflict instigators, mediators, benefactors and beneficiaries; indeed, such actors are normally deeply enmeshed simultaneously in the production of statehood, and in processes that undermine it through networks of patronage, nepotism and corruption. Yet the increasing recognition of the negative and positive roles played by businesses in countries in conflict has yet to translate into the consistent inclusion of these so-called ‘economic actors’ in peace negotiations and of ‘economic issues’ in peace settlements. The marginalisation – and in some instances omission - of such actors sheds light on and calls into question the discourse on inclusive peace processes.