Getting to lasting peace: Does mediation suffice to settle civil wars successfully?

Book excerpt: Essay from the year 2003 in the subject Politics - Topic: Peace and Conflict, Security, grade: 2 (B), University of Kent (Brussls School of International Studies), course: Negotiation and Mediation, language: English, abstract: Since the end of the Cold War the nature and perception of international conflict has changed significantly. Instead of inter-state war, intra-state conflicts now constitute the majority of current conflicts. “Global nuclear warfare is no longer the primary international security concern. It has been displaced by [...] excessively violent and destructive intra-state or internal conflicts.” And these conflicts, which would have been regarded as purely internal matters during the Cold War, are now seen as being of international concern. Civil wars which are normally regionalised, are often nevertheless deemed to be a threat to international peace and security. As a result, the international community has become more and more involved in the resolution of civil wars, often by mediating peace negotiations between the parties involved. However, the resolution of civil war is one the most challenging tasks in Conflict Resolution. Only a minority of negotiations result in a lasting peace and only under exceptional circumstances is this achieved without a third party mediating the negotiations. Although many of the attempts to settle civil wars by mediation have failed, it is clear that the involvement of international mediators makes civil war negotiations more likely to succeed and in some cases indeed helps to find long-term solutions to the conflict.