UN’s mediation lessons

During a visit to the United Nations headquarters in New York City this week, discussions I joined with assorted senior UN officials and country representatives focused on mediation efforts around the world in recent years, especially in the Middle East.

One issue raised was how seasoned national or international mediators would deal today with the many conflict-resolution challenges in our region, which is riddled with increasingly complex and violent wars that include local, regional and foreign fighting forces.

Two things quickly dawned on me: the three toughest conflicts to resolve in the region — Libya, Syria and Yemen — are all being actively addressed by United Nations-appointed mediators, but the longest and most serious conflict in the region — the Palestinian-Israeli conflict — remains without much hope for a breakthrough in part because the UN has been sidelined and even ridiculed by its ill-advised participation in the Quartet (United States, European Union, Russia and UN) for promoting the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.

This juxtaposition of active UN mediation in three very difficult internal conflicts alongside a moribund UN performance in the Quartet reminds us that credible peacemaking efforts depend heavily on factors that are evident in these cases.

These include impartiality, inclusiveness and a commitment to legitimacy and the rule of law.

Impartiality and inclusiveness are the easiest and most clear concepts here, which is why they are the two most important initial qualities needed to validate and activate any would-be mediator.

They simply require the mediator to respect equally the legitimate interests and needs of both or all sides without favouring anyone; to listen to and grasp fully the perspectives of all parties; and to engage with all the involved actors on the ground and in the neighbourhood, without excluding, sanctioning or threatening any of the parties that are crucial for reaching agreement.

Applying these basic concepts to the four cases I mentioned above provides some useful insights.

There are no guarantees that the Libya, Syria or Yemen mediations by the UN will succeed. But the fact that they persist year after year in all three countries, amidst often barbaric military attacks by many parties, suggests that the UN is doing something useful, and the parties to the conflict look to it to end the fighting and move towards a just and lasting peace.

The UN’s commitment to keep seeking a path to resolving the Syria war(s) has included valiant but unsuccessful efforts by two of the world’s most respected diplomats, Kofi Annan and Lakhdar Brahimi.

A third UN mediator, Staffan de Mistura, now plods ahead with this daunting mission, which has included serious American-Russian discussions and has brought Syrian government and opposition officials to several rounds of talks in Geneva.

The chances of success remain slim, due to the apparently irreconcilable demands of the Syrian government and the opposition groups.

Yet the process continues, because all parties seek to end this senseless and destructive war — and because they see in the UN-managed process a credible combination of impartiality, persistence, patience and inclusiveness.

In contrast, the lack of progress by the Quartet on Israel-Palestine — in fact the embarrassment with which most of the worldviews the Quartet — probably reflects the opposite of those crucial qualities.

The Quartet process sorely lacks inclusiveness, impartiality, focus on law and legitimacy in trying to resolve the Israel-Palestine conflict, so it flounders along with only fringe activities, rather than any meaningful steps towards lasting peace and justice.

This is due in large part — I would agree with many if not most experts who do not fear to speak the truth — to the fact that the process is heavily skewed to the minimum requirements of the United States and Israel, rather than seeing the demands and rights of Israel and Palestine as equal and simultaneous.

The Quartet was established in 2002 to offer some kind of serious international consensus on how to nudge the parties towards a comprehensive, just and lasting peace agreement.

It has achieved none of those goals, because it basically demands that all major Palestinian parties, especially Hamas, meet Israeli preconditions before being allowed into the process.

Yet, it does not conversely demand that Israel meet any preconditions from the Palestinians, such as freezing the construction of Jewish settlement-colonies and the expropriation of Palestinian lands.

The contrast between these different mediating efforts is clear for all to see.

The real question that needs more vigorous discussion is why the UN remains in the Quartet as a multinational organisation, alongside the other sovereign partners in the Quartet who have their own political positions based on their perceived national interests.

The UN has badly damaged its credibility and effectiveness in the Arab-Israeli conflict through its amateurish and weak-kneed decision to join the Quartet, and subsequently to remain in it, in contrast with its more impressive mediation performance in other parts of the Middle East.

Time for a rethink, no?