Understanding limits and capacities of NGO’s as managers of conflict and legal means as a peaceful means of solving violent conflict.

Articles reviewed

Chigas, D. (2007). “Capacities and Limits of NGOs as Conflict Managers,” in Crocker, Hampson, and Aall, eds., Leashing the Dogs of War, pp. 553-582

Cede, F. (2009). The settlement of international disputes by legal means – arbitration and judicial settlement. In J. Bercovitch, V. Kremenyuk, & I. Zartman (Eds.), The SAGE handbook of conflict resolution. (pp. 358-376). London: SAGE Publications Ltd

According to Diana Chigas (2007), NGO’s have emerged as important players in international intervention as the scope has significantly changed since the cold war. Conflict management has widened to include activities such as human rights education and development assistance that has seen the increase in NGO’s involvement in conflict resolution, human rights, which has shown that NGO’s can and do actually contribute to conflict management.

Due to changing nature of conflict and its complexity that is emerging as now conflict is less state-centric and happens across permeable border, NGO’s are seen as flexible, rapid in responding, committed to local environment thus, they are important part of peacebuilding and democracy. However, other have raised concerns on their increase in highly volatile areas, all with different conflicting agendas, their lack of accountability as well as their potential to divert funds that would otherwise be used by responsible ones like the UN in peacebuilding initiatives. The author thus looked at the roles of these institutions, their contributions as well as challenges they face in transforming intractable conflict.

NGO’s have played important roles in transforming conflict around the world, they did this and continue to do so through, un-official direct mediation or conciliation between conflicting parties (Track one and a half diplomacy), by facilitating talks, e.t.c for example the Carter Foundation. Unofficial consultation is also part of track one and a half diplomacy where parties are brought together for direct and private interaction rather than use representatives. E.g. Conflict management group involved in Georgian-South Ossetia peace process. Secondly, by use of un-official interventions with un-official actors, also known as track two diplomacy; they work with influential non-official people from both sides, in order to develop new ideas to resolve the conflict. This includes models developed by Kelman and Saunders. Finally,, there is Track three diplomacy; this is where they work at grassroots level with people of all walks of life in order to overcome direct, cultural and structural violence. For example New Sudan Council of Churches used this method in 1997 and succeeded in reconciling Dinka-Nuer people.

Although NGO’s can bring warring parties to the table, change negative attitudes of the other in conflict, and political cultures to encourage negotiation and problem solving, they are faced with challenges that constrain their activities, and these include, lack of capacity as they lack enough resources to offer as “carrot and sticks” in order to sway opinions, their ability to mediate in conflict is affected by political impartiality after the 9/11 terror attack, and finally, political approaches used, undermines their impact on achieving broader peace.

It is undeniable that the NGO’s have contributed positively towards transformation of conflicts around the world. Their ability to respond to crisis at the grassroots level and be interactive with the community has provided both wide knowledge and awareness of the situation to the governments and governmental organisations who are working at the macro-levels. However, there is a challenging aspect that the author, Diana Chigas, did not clearly highlight, with thousands of NGO’s working in different fields around the world, it looks like they have little coordination amongst themselves especially if they work in similar fields, for example rather than making response to humanitarian crisis response easy, they all act unilaterally. This not only reduces their effectiveness of helping the vulnerable but also shows the divide that exists within the community of NGO’s, due to different approaches and frameworks.

Additionally, there seem to be a divide between the NGO’s in the global south and north, this is because they have different experiences, different ways of conducting their activities, approaching the issue at hand, and mobilising its task. Coordination is important to bring different NGO’s from different parts of the world not only to share their unique experiences but also learn how to solve crisis they are facing on the grassroots level effectively.

Without undermining the role of NGO’s around the world involved in conflict transformation, it is quite fascinating to see that the amount of resources put into their programme in relation to the outcomes of these organisations does not match up. For example, there are so many NGO’s dealing with conflict in areas like the DRC, at grassroots levels, and it is surprising that in collaboration with UN forces, and peacekeepers, they have achieved little. The best they can do is, carry out research, inform the World of the situation, and when the situation gets tough for them, with the help of the UN forces, evacuate the area. Thus, one wonders, how effective are these organisations? Are they failing because they are not under one umbrella where they would have been well coordinated? Is competition among them, on which one provides the best support shifting them from their main goal of humanitarian oriented project to entrepreneurship?

Increase in the number of the NGO’s is a good sign, however, these numbers are predominantly from the North, riche states, which tends to make the agenda’s of these organisations to be dominated by the agendas from the North. This has limited their knowledge, understanding of the areas they deal with when it comes to conflict dynamics in the South. This not only hinders their ability to provide the services they were meant to, but it also slows down their ability to finally get there. However, with globalisation, interconnectedness, and growth of diverse NGO’s, deepening global society of NGO’s is emerging and their ability to handle conflict and humanitarian crisis shall surely be tested by time.

On settlement of disputes, Franz Cede (2009), in his article widely discusses settlement of international disputes through legal means, either judicial or arbitral, which are all peaceful and neutral as shown in UN Charter article 33 paragraph 1. The challenging thing for the parties to the conflict is that they will lose decisive control once the case is submitted to the tribunal. This method is good in promoting reconciliation in areas torn by ethnic conflicts by bringing perpetrators to justice in order to reconcile the society affected on both sides.

Arbitration and adjudication as peaceful means share the following features: they both require the consent of the parties, acceptance of the jurisdiction of the court is important, dispute concerned is judged as “legal dispute” and finally, the judgement is accepted as norms of international law.

There are a couple of judicial settlement institutions that is linked to UN, and they include the International court of justice, that promotes international law, passing judgements submitted to it by states. Regionally, there is European court of human rights, which determines if human rights have been violated in a particular case, e.t.c. others include, ad hoc criminal tribunals, for example international tribunal for Rwanda.

Resolving conflict through law provides ways of equalising parties than negotiation does, as all states whether powerful or less powerful are bound by the same law. However there are challenges when it comes to conflicting legal systems, where different state’s laws conflict. Additionally, these processes of legal process have a tendency of “winning principle” where an outcome for one party is a win, and the other is considered a loser, this does not happen in negotiation.  Finally when it comes to implementation of the court decisions, states are induced to comply or risk being sued before the courts whose jurisdiction they have accepted, sometimes sanctions are used against states who do not implement the outcomes.

In response to Franz Cede (2009) it is undeniable that use of legal measures to transform conflict is peaceful; however, its effectiveness is debatable. The process as a way of bringing to justice perpetrators of violence is legitimate, expands the role of the system, government in justice maintenance however, it fails to encourage community control, and strengthen social justice. This is because by bringing people to court, the process takes long, resources, and has a tendency to divide, on the basis of winner versus loser. This if not carefully handled might lead to further division. For example Ratko Mladic, a former Bosnian Serb leader’s indictment at the ICC has led to mixed feelings among population as a result of the process of bringing the perpetrators of Bosnian Genocide to justice. Thus, to make law as a conflict resolution tool to work better at transforming the conflict and encourage social cohesion, it should be used with other methods like mediation.

 All in all, the papers were boldly written, showcasing the role of NGO’s and why they should not be sidelined as they have leverage where the government at the national and international level lacks. Additionally, legal means as tool of solving and transforming conflict and the challenges it faces has been clearly highlighted by Cede. It is an approach that has the ability to bring justice to community affected by tragic events, and it also has the ability to divide if politicised.