Marching Orders: Exploring the Mediation Mandate

ABSTRACT

This article addresses a major gap in the literature on international mediation by investigating the significance of the mediation mandate. It identifies different types of mediation mandate and examines their functions and effects. A mandate issued by a multilateral organization serves as instructions to the mediator and sets the parameters of the process and outcome of peacemaking. It can therefore have a crucial impact on the orientation, trajectory, and results of mediation. It can contribute to success by conferring legitimacy on the mediation and endowing the mediator with authority, status, and leverage. It can also impair the effectiveness of mediation by provoking tension between the mediating body and other multilateral organizations, the mediator, and the conflict parties.

KEYWORDS:

• African Union
• international mediation
• mediation mandate
• regional economic communities
• United Nations

Acknowledgments

I am very grateful to Chris Ankersen and David Lanz for their useful comments on a previous draft of this article and to Di Kilpert for her sterling work in editing all the articles in this edition.

Notes

1. For example, Jacob Bercovitch, “Mediation and Conflict Resolution,” in The Sage Handbook of Conflict Resolution, ed. Jacob Bercovitch, Victor Kremenyuk, and I. William Zartman (London: Sage, 2009), 340–354, at 346, 349; Kjell Skjelsbaek, “The UN Secretary-General and the Mediation of International Disputes,” Journal of Peace Research 28, no. 1 (1991): 99–115 at 105.

2. For example, Marieke Kleiboer, “Understanding Success and Failure of International Mediation,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 40, no. 2 (1996): 360–389; James Wall, John Stark, and Rhetta Standifer, “Mediation: A Current Review and Theory Development,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 45, no. 3 (2001): 370–391; James Wall and Timothy Dunne, “Mediation Research: A Current Review,” Negotiation Journal 28, no. 2 (2012): 217–244.

3. Peter Wallensteen and Isak Svensson, “Talking Peace: International Mediation in Armed Conflicts,” Journal of Peace Research 51, no. 2 (2014): 315–327 at 323.

4. Peter Bartu, “What Mandate? Mediating during Warfighting in the Libyan Revolution (2011),” African Security, 1–16. 2017, 176-191.

5. Kasaija Phillip Apuuli, “The African Union’s Mediation Mandate and the Libyan Conflict (2011),” African Security, 2017, 192-204.

6. Antonia Witt, “Mandate Impossible: Mediation and the Return to Constitutional Order in Madagascar (2009–2013),” African Security, 2017, 205-222.

7. Jamie Pring, “Including or Excluding Civil Society? The Role of the Mediation Mandate in South Sudan (2013–2015) and Zimbabwe (2008–2009),” African Security, 2017, 223-238.

8. Chris Saunders, “Mediation Mandates for Namibia’s Independence (1977–1978, 1988),” African Security, 2017, 239-253.

9. Henning Melber, “Mission Impossible: Hammarskjöld and the UN Mandate for the Congo (1960–1961),” African Security, 2017, 254-271.

10. Michael Aeby, “Stability and Sovereignty at the Expense of Democracy? The SADC Mediation Mandate for Zimbabwe (2007–2013),” African Security, 2017, 272-291.

11. “Mandate,” Oxford English Dictionary, https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/mandate.

12. UN, United Nations Guidance for Effective Mediation (New York: United Nations, 2012), 4.

13. Boutros Boutros-Ghali, An Agenda for Peace: Preventive Diplomacy, Peacemaking and Peacekeeping (New York: United Nations, 1992).

14. AU, Protocol Relating to the Establishment of the Peace and Security Council of the African Union (2000), Art. 6(c), Durban, South Africa.

15. UN, United Nations Guidance for Effective Mediation, 8–9; AU and ACCORD, African Union Mediation Support Handbook, rev. ed. (Durban, South Africa: ACCORD, 2014), 8, 26.

16. For example, Bercovitch, “Mediation and Conflict Resolution,” 349; Skjelsbaek, “The UN Secretary-General and the Mediation of International Disputes,” 105; Wallensteen and Svensson, “Talking Peace,” 323–324; Siniša Vuković, “Three Degrees of Success in International Mediation,” Millennium: Journal of International Studies 42, no. 3 (2014): 966–976 at 972; Laurie Nathan, “The Peacemaking Effectiveness of Regional Organisations,” Working Paper 2, no. 81 (2010), Crisis States Research Centre, London School of Economics, 9; Isak Svensson and Peter Wallensteen, The Go-Between: Jan Eliasson and the Styles of Mediation (Washington DC: US Institute for Peace, 2010), 13.

17. For example, Bercovitch, “Mediation and Conflict Resolution,” 346; Nathan, “The Peacemaking Effectiveness of Regional Organisations,” 3.

18. For example, Vuković, “Three Degrees of Success in International Mediation,” 972; Svensson and Wallensteen, The Go-Between, 13; Jacob Bercovitch and Gerald Schneider, “Who Mediates? The Political Economy of International Conflict Management,” Journal of Peace Research 37, no. 2 (2000): 145–165.

19. Bercovitch and Schneider, “Who Mediates?”

20. Wallensteen and Svensson, “Talking Peace,” 323–24.

21. Ibid., 324.

22. Chester Crocker, Fen Hampson, and Pamela Aall, “Ready for Primetime: The When, Who, and Why of International Mediation,” Negotiation Journal 19, no. 2 (2003): 151–167 at 154.

23. Crocker et al., “Ready for Primetime,” 154.

24. Wallensteen and Svensson, “Talking Peace.” Many studies of international mediation in armed conflict define a successful outcome in terms of a cease-fire, partial settlement, or full settlement. See, for example, Jacob Bercovitch, J. Theodore Anagnoson, and Donnette Wille, “Some Conceptual Issues and Empirical Trends in the Study of Successful Mediation in International Relations,” Journal of Peace Research 28, no. 1 (1991): 7–17.

25. AU, Protocol Relating to the Establishment of the Peace and Security Council, Arts. 6(c), 10(2)(c).

26. ECOWAS, Protocol relating to the Mechanism for Conflict Prevention, Management, Resolution, Peace-Keeping and Security (1999), Art. 15(e), Durban, South Africa.

27. SADC, “Madagascar: Communiqué of an Extraordinary Summit of Heads of State and Government of the Southern African Development Community,” June 20, 2009; Witt, “Mandate Impossible.”

28. Witt, “Mandate Impossible.”

29. SADC, “Madagascar: Communiqué.”

30. Laurie Nathan, “A Clash of Norms and Strategies in Madagascar: Mediation and the AU Policy on Unconstitutional Change of Government,” Mediation Arguments 4 (2013): 6–7.

31. SADC, “Communiqué, Extraordinary Summit of SADC Heads of State and Government,” December 8, 2012, para 8.4.

32. Pring, “Including or Excluding Civil Society?”

33. SADC, “Communiqué, 2007 Extra-Ordinary SADC Summit of Heads of State and Government,” March 28–29, 2007, 3.

34. Pring, “Including or Excluding Civil Society?”

35. IGAD, “Communiqué of the 24th Extra-Ordinary Session of the IGAD Assembly of Heads of State and Government on the situation in South Sudan,” January 31, 2014, paras. 13 and 14.

36. Pring, “Including or Excluding Civil Society?.”

37. Saunders, “Mediation Mandates for Namibia’s Independence.”

38. AU, Protocol Relating to the Establishment of the Peace and Security Council, Art. 7(3).

39. AU, “Communiqué of the 544th Meeting of the Peace and Security Council,” September 18, 2015, para. 12(iii).

40. UN, United Nations Guidance.

41. AU and ACCORD, African Union Mediation Support Handbook.

42. AU, “Communiqué of the 186th Meeting of the Peace and Security Council,” May 6, 2009).

43. Laurie Nathan, “No Ownership, No Peace: The Darfur Peace Agreement,” Working Paper 5 (2006), Crisis States Research Centre, London School of Economics; Aleu Garang, “The Impact of External Actors on the Prospects for a Mediated Settlement in South Sudan” (presented at the Conference on International Mediation, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa, June 2-4, 2015).

44. Nathan, “No Ownership.”

45. Ibid., 4.

46. UN, United Nations Guidance, 4.

47. Ibid., 4.

48. Ibid., 4–5.

49. The information in this paragraph is drawn from Gregory Mthembu-Salter, “A Peace Agreement without Peace: The Case of Burundi,” unpublished paper in the author’s possession, 2005.

50. Apuuli, “The African Union’s Mediation Mandate”; Bartu, “What Mandate?”

51. International Crisis Group, “Madagascar: Crisis Heating Up?” Africa Report 166 (2010).

52. On Burundi, see Mthembu-Salter, “A Peace Agreement without Peace.” On Zimbabwe, see Aeby, “Stability and Sovereignty at the Expense of Democracy?”

53. Saunders, “Mediation Mandates for Namibia’s Independence.”

54. SADC, “Communiqué, 2007 Extra-Ordinary SADC Summit,” 3.

55. IGAD, “Communiqué of the 24th Extra-Ordinary Session,” paras. 10 and 15.

56. For example, UN Security Council Resolution 385 of 1976.

57. AU, African Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance, 2007, Art. 25(4).

58. Nathan, “A Clash of Norms and Strategies in Madagascar,” 6.

59. Aeby, “Stability and Sovereignty at the Expense of Democracy?”

60. SADC, “Madagascar: Communiqué,” para. 12.

61. Ibid., para. 10.

62. SADC, “Communiqué: Extraordinary Summit of Heads of State and Government of the Southern African Development Community,” June 11–12, 2011, para. 16.

63. SADC, “Madagascar: Communiqué,” para. 9.

64. The critical issue in the debate on subsidiarity in the realm of peace and security is whether the locus of decision-making authority for mediation and other forms of peacemaking should lie at the lowest level, in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity, or at the highest level, in accordance with the principle of primacy. See Laurie Nathan, “How to Manage Inter-Organizational Disputes over Mediation in Africa,” Global Governance 23, no. 2 (2017): 151–162.

65. AU, Protocol Relating to the Establishment of the Peace and Security Council, Preamble.

66. AU, Protocol Relating to the Establishment of the Peace and Security Council, Art. 16(1).

67. AU, “Memorandum of Understanding on Cooperation in the Area of Peace and Security between the African Union, the Regional Economic Communities and the Coordinating Mechanisms of the Regional Standby Brigades of Eastern and Northern Africa,” 2008.

68. See Nathan, “How to Manage Inter-Organizational Disputes”; David Lanz and Rachel Gasser, “A Crowded Field: Competition and Coordination in International Peace Mediation,” Mediation Arguments 2 (2013): 1–20.

69. AU, “Communiqué of the 544th Meeting of the Peace and Security Council.”

70. Ibid.

71. ECOWAS, “Final Communiqué: Extraordinary Session of the Authority of Heads of State and Government on the Political Crisis in Burkina Faso,” September 22, 2015.

72. Ibid.

73. Nathan, “How to Manage Inter-Organizational Disputes.”

74. ECOWAS, “Extraordinary Session of the Authority of Heads of State and Government on Côte d’Ivoire,” press release no. 192/2010, December 24, 2010.

75. AU, “Communiqué of the 259th Meeting of the Peace and Security Council,” January 28, 2010).

76. Colum Lynch, “On Ivory Coast Diplomacy, South Africa Goes Its Own Way,” Foreign Policy website, February 23, 2011, http://foreignpolicy.com/2011/02/23/on-ivory-coast-diplomacy-south-africa-goes-its-own-way/.

77. Kasaija Apuuli, “The African Union’s Notion of ‘African Solutions to African Problems’ and the Crises in Côte d’Ivoire (2010–2011) and Libya (2011),” African Journal of Conflict Resolution 12, no. 2 (2012): 144.

78. Lynch, “On Ivory Coast Diplomacy”; Vijay Nambiar, “Dear President Mbeki: The United Nations Helped Save the Ivory Coast,” Foreign Policy website, August 17, 2011, http://foreignpolicy.com/2011/08/17/dear-president-mbeki-the-united-nations-helped-save-the-ivory-coast/.

79. UN Security Council Resolution 1975 of 2011.

80. For a detailed discussion of this case, see Apuuli, “The African Union’s Notion.”

81. Bartu, “What Mandate?”

82. Alex De Waal, “African Roles in the Libyan Conflict of 2011,” International Affairs 89, no. 2 (2013): 365–79 at 373.

83. International Crisis Group, “South Sudan: Keeping Faith with the IGAD Peace Process,” Africa Report 228 (2015).

84. Melber, “Mission Impossible.”

85. Aeby, “Stability and Sovereignty at the Expense of Democracy?”

86. Lakhdar Brahimi and Salman Ahmed, In Pursuit of Sustainable Peace: The Seven Deadly Sins of Mediation (Center on International Cooperation, New York University, New York, 2008), 8.

87. “Gaddafi: Mauritanian Presidential Elections Will Take Place on Time,” TopNews.in, March 13, 2009, http://www.topnews.in/gaddafi-mauritanian-presidential-elections-will-take-place-time-2138722.

88. See SADC, “Communiqué of the 31st SADC Heads of State and Government Summit,” August 18, 2011, 5; Nathan, “A Clash of Norms and Strategies,” 6.

89. International Crisis Group, “Mali: Avoiding Escalation,” Africa Report 189 (2012): 24.

90. On Mali, see International Crisis Group, “Mali: Avoiding Escalation,” 24. On Madagascar, see Nathan, “A Clash of Norms and Strategies,” 6.

91. UN Security Council Resolution 1970 of 2011.

92. Bartu, “What Mandate?”

93. International Crisis Group, “Madagascar.”

94. UN, United Nations Guidance, 17.

95. AU, African Charter, Arts 3(9) and 25(9).