Essay On Peace Agreements

Research on Peace Agreements

Peace agreements are the milestone of peace processes. Once the parties to a conflict decide to sit in the negotiation table with the purpose of signing a peace agreement there is reason to believe that they are committed to find a resolution to the ongoing conflict. Peace agreements bring together conflicting parties on the negotiation table. At the same time they specify policy interventions which deal with conflict issues as perceived and presented by each party (Darby & Mac Ginty, 2008; Guelke, 2003). There are several variations in terminology and definition in the literature about peace agreements. Mac Ginty (2008) discusses the definitions regarding peace agreements, which have been named as: peace agreements,

Different parties in a conflict have different interests. These interests in turn will define the level of commitment of different parties once they sit on the table with the purpose of negotiating a peace agreement (Mitchell, 2002; Guelke, 2003). Lederach (1997) argues that parties need to develop trust, and approach the process with good faith in order for the negotiation process of the peace agreement to be successful. Whereas, Guelke (2003), in investigating the signs that show if a party is committed or not, found out that non-committed parties tend to make requests that cannot realistically be fulfilled. As for the timing of the negotiation process, Zartman (1995; 2008), a well- known scholar on this topic, argues that only when the parties are ready to negotiate is it the right time to do so, otherwise the negotiation process will lead nowhere. Another group of scholars such as Stedman (1997), and McClintock and Nahimana (2008), who are interested in the negotiation process of the peace agreements have looked at the parties involved in the process. Most researchers agree on the importance of including all actors with a stake in the outcome of the conflict. If some crucial actors are not included, they will undermine the negotiation process and hinder the implementation of the peace agreement once it is achieved (Stedman, 1997; McClintock & Nahimana, 2008; Wains-St & Kew, 2008; Lanz, 2011; Nilsson, 2012; Paffenholz, 2014). Some of these scholars have focused specifically on actors which tend to be left out of the peace agreements negotiation process such as women and civil society (Nilsson, 2012; Paffenholz,