CONFLICT SETTLEMENT AND PEACE-BUILDING

With special reference to the challenges of non-state actors

GENERAL AIM: RESTORE STATE AUTHORITY + ‘MONOPOLY OF FORCE’

• May have to be done with outside help (nation, regional organization, UN, NATO,EU) - and almost always economic/ humanitarian help

• May require period of occupation or international administration

• May require creating more than one state

WHAT GENERAL METHODS DID WE IDENTIFY FOR TACKLING

NON-STATE THREATS??• 1) Physical ‘stopping’

• 2) Legal techniques: a) Anti-crime

b) Regs/measures to cut off supplies

• 3) a) Changing their minds

b) Changing their supporters’ minds

• 4) (Target protection/resilience doesn’t really fit here)

APPLYING THESE METHODS TO AN ARMED NON-STATE FACTION IN

CONFLICT • What would ‘stopping’ or ‘eliminating’ mean?• Military defeat (but NB could drive them

abroad); ceasefire to gain time for other solutions

• After defeat, DDR is now standard solution ie disarm, disband, reintegrate. But need right methods: ’cash for guns’ rarely works, and must not cut the state’s military strength too far - as in Iraq at first

Relevance of legal methods, law and order

• New laws to (i) right wrongs that helped cause conflict, (ii) outlaw non-state violence, regulate gun ownership etc - but enforcement crucial! And important to aim laws against ‘men of violence’, not their victims

• Post-conflict (or ‘transitional’)justice, eg special war crimes courts: both to punish/deter real criminals, and bring forgiveness/reintegration to others (‘truth and reconciliation’)

• Broader concept of Security Sector Reform: rebuild army, police, courts etc to be effective, but stay under the law themselves (no new tyrants or mere revenge)

• Both DDR and SSR must be tailored to cases + have local

‘ownership’

Relevance of cutting off supplies and access

• Arms embargoes on some or all participants: NB importance but also headache of controlling ‘small arms’ (gun possession as such does not mean conflict or violence)

• Financial, trade, aid etc embargoes; transport and travel controls

• Cutting off trade in ‘conflict commodities’: ‘Kimberley process’ for diamonds, attempt now to apply to all ‘conflict minerals – but obvious problems

Relevance of changing minds and methods (of the group)

Basis of all internal peace settlements is some form of this - power sharing, resource sharing, local autonomy, protection of group rights etc.

Should help groups ‘migrate’: from illegal to legal: from for-profit to not-for-profit political roles or legitimate business.

Tough to embrace all groups/motives: risk of ‘spoilers’ and ‘breakouts’, also of ‘failed conversion’

Relevance of changing minds of supporters/people in general

• Limits on ‘hearts+minds’ approach: no point if people were being forced by rebels, or groups have become independent of the social environment

• Tempting to play groups/factions against each other - further fragments authority and can increase violence = more competition (now with official arms supplies)

• BUT IF supporters can be won over or split: at least pushes ‘bad guys’ into a corner, makes them less a political/economic and more of a criminal problem.

• IF grievances are real and are addressed, supporters may be drawn into the non-violent majority in a more representative new regime also less likely for new rebels to arise

And one more method:

• Relevance of regional cooperation/integration (eg SE Asia, parts of Africa, Caribbean, W Pacific):

• As a minimum, less harmful interference + risks of international ‘overspill’ reduced

• Can help find culturally appropriate settlements, provide acceptable peace forces

• In best case (eg EU) can develop into true community and ‘single security space’: allowing wider/deeper range of common laws and measures against all NSAs, and also spreading reforms that make causes of conflict less likely