Human Rights and Conflict Resolution

Bridging the Theoretical and Practical Divide

Claudia Fuentes Julio, Paula Drumond, Claudia Fuentes Julio, Paula Drumond

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781315409351
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Human rights and conflict resolution have been traditionally perceived as two separate fields, sometimes in competition or in tension and occasionally with contradictory approaches towards achieving a lasting peace. Although human rights norms have been incorporated and institutionalized by various national, regional, and international organizations that deal with conflict resolution, negotiators and mediators are often pressured in practice to overlook international human rights principles in favor of compliance and more immediate outcomes. The chapters in this volume navigate the relationship between human rights and conflict resolution by fleshing out practical, conceptual, and institutional encounters of the two agendas and engaging with lessons learned and windows of opportunities for mutual learning.

Recognizing the increasing relevance of this debate and important gaps in the current research on the topic, this book addresses the following questions:

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• How can we improve our practical and theoretical understanding of the complementarity between human rights and conflict resolution? How would a human rights-based approach to conflict resolution look like?

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• How are international, regional, and national organizations promoting, implementing, and/or adapting to better coordinate between human rights and conflict resolution?

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• Building on empirical evidence from contemporary conflict resolution processes, how have human rights been integrated in different efforts on the ground? What are the main lessons learned in this regard?

Examining a wide range of countries and issues, this work is essential reading for human rights, conflict resolution, and security experts including scholars, diplomats, policy-makers, civil society representatives, and students of international politics.

1 The transformative potential of human rights in conflict resolution

Michelle Parlevliet

• Clarifying terms

• Human rights and violent conflict

• Human rights in conflict resolution

• Lessons from practice: challenges

• Implications for practice: opportunities

• Conclusion

This chapter discusses the relevance of considering human rights in the context of conflict resolution interventions and processes, arguing that doing so can enhance the transformative potential of such efforts.¹ It contends that incorporating a human rights perspective in our analysis of and approach to destructive or violent conflict deepens the understanding of the issues at stake and the question of how to work effectively toward sustainable peace. Taking human rights into account prompts more emphasis on underlying conditions that are pivotal in generating, escalating, and transforming such conflict—notably the role of the state, systems of governance, and issues of power—than is often common in conflict resolution initiatives. Considering human rights also benefits the design of conflict resolution processes and assessment of options for resolution. Yet this chapter recognizes that drawing on human rights in conflict resolution is not straightforward. Noting various challenges that may arise, it refrains from positioning “human rights” as a panacea for all trials and tribulations encountered in conflict resolution. It nevertheless identifies some practical implications for conflict resolution that provide opportunities to boost its transformative impact. Tensions between human rights and conflict resolution need not be problematic; these may galvanize conflict resolution to go beyond established approaches and transform violent conflict into peaceful processes of social, political, economic, and cultural change.²

The question of linking human rights and conflict resolution has been on the academic, policy, and practitioner agenda for quite some time. It especially came to the fore in the 1990s, as the Cold War ended and attention shifted to violent conflict within states. Normative considerations became more salient in international relations; efforts to end violent conflict through negotiated peace settlements between adversaries became central to ensure a “new world order” characterized by law, democracy, and international cooperation. Policy-makers, scholars, and practitioners increasingly realized that peace agreements were relevant from a human rights perspective. The war in the former Yugoslavia (1992–1995) and the genocide in Rwanda (1994) served as catalysts, given the gravity and scale of violations of human rights and international humanitarian law committed in both settings. Efforts to end widespread violence and establish peace and stability could not ignore such atrocities. Human rights mattered in other respects too: whatever was agreed in peace talks would inform systems of governance and human rights protection in a post-settlement context, and might create space to address past abuses. Hence, “peace” became increasingly linked to the notion of justice. Conflict resolution was no longer measured simply by the absence of bloodshed but by the “moral quality of the outcome.”³

The world looks decidedly different nowadays. Pessimism, fear, and unrest tend to prevail. Concern with the role of human rights in conflict and conflict resolution has however remained, if not intensified. Groups and organizations around the world fortify demands for political, economic, or social change in their specific context with reference to human rights values, principles, and standards. Human rights norms have become an important component of the global policy framework for thinking about and dealing with violent conflict, partly due to a concern with protecting civilians in all stages of conflict. As noted in this volume’s introduction, multiple declarations and reports now highlight the importance of connecting human rights and conflict resolution. The lines between human rights and peace work have also become blurred because of rising ambitions, expanding conceptions, and diversifying practices in these fields.⁴ Nevertheless, human rights and conflict resolution efforts often remain rather separated in the institutional set-up of organizations working in these realms, whether multilateral, bilateral, or non-governmental. They tend to be housed in different units and championed by different persons. Human rights advocates and conflict resolution practitioners may thus overlook how their respective efforts interrelate. The extent to which human rights and conflict resolution are linked in practice should therefore not be overstated.⁵

Against this background, this chapter reviews the relationship between human rights and conflict resolution and asserts that considering human rights, broadly conceived, can make conflict resolution more transformative in terms of creating constructive change processes that reduce violence, increase justice in direct interaction between state institutions and people and within social structures, and respond to real-life problems.⁶ Below, the chapter first clarifies the use of the terms “human rights” and “conflict resolution.” It then discusses how human rights matter in the generation, manifestation, and evolution of violent conflict, highlighting insights yielded by a human rights perspective on conflict resolution. It outlines the role of human rights in preventing, resolving, and transforming violent conflict, but recognizes challenges involved in linking human rights and conflict resolution in practice. It subsequently points to some practical implications of considering human rights in conflict resolution and concludes thereafter.

Clarifying terms

The term “human rights” is understood here as norms that express expectations about appropriate behavior and capture ideas about the equal moral worth of all human beings. As these are largely reflected in international treaties, the term also refers to the standards contained therein and to the legal and moral claims made by individuals and groups based thereon. It further points to a specialist field of inquiry and practice. This chapter hence approaches “human rights” from a constructivist, socio-legal perspective, not a legal-positivist one that depicts human rights as rights set down in treaties, conventions, and international customary law. “Conflict resolution” is used as a generic term to cover the whole range of nonviolent conflict-handling and the field itself. Practically, it contains both settlement and transformation dimensions. In the former, conflict resolution works within existing power structures to secure agreements between adversaries to limit physical violence; in the latter, it seeks to fundamentally change the social, political, economic, and cultural sources of conflict, including the existing balance of power.

Human rights and violent conflict

Considering the link between human rights and (violent) conflict is a useful starting point for explaining the significance of human rights for conflict resolution, as I have argued elsewhere.⁷ Rights violations may result from conflict yet can also lead to such conflict. This distinction affects the problems to be addressed, the outcomes to be pursued, and the strategies to be adopted.

Human rights violations as symptoms and consequences

The fact that human rights violations constitute symptoms or consequences of (violent) conflict requires little explanation. Atrocities may flare up within a short timeframe (e.g., the Rwandan genocide), but they can also occur over long periods of time as the conflicts in Colombia, Sri Lanka, and Iraq reflect. Specific human rights abuses are sometimes used as a strategy of war to intimidate opponents and terrorize civilians. In Syria, for example, all parties to the conflict have engaged in siege warfare, despite international human rights and humanitarian law prohibiting the starvation of civilians as a tactic of war.⁸ Many symptomatic violations relate to civil and political rights, but social and economic rights are also affected through destruction of public infrastructure (schools, courts, hospitals) and the use of land mines or scorched earth tactics. Human rights violations as symptoms arise not only in civil wars but also in cases of latent conflict where tensions exist but have not (yet) fuelled widespread violence—for example, where the government engages in repression through harassment of activists, censorship, or banning of trade unions and other organizations.

Human rights violations as triggers and underlying causes

It is now generally recognized that human rights violations can also give rise to conflict, both latent and manifest. They can trigger unrest and violence in the short term (think of a police crackdown on an anti-government protest or outlawing of an important minority language), but also in the long term when rights are denied over a sustained period of time. Apartheid in South Africa remains a prime example: the state’s systemic oppression of the civil and political liberties of the majority of the population, combined with its restraints on their social, economic, and cultural rights led to a long liberation struggle (1948–1994). The civil war in Nepal (1996–2006) had its origins in the sustained social, political, and economic exclusion of low-caste groups, ethnic minorities, women, and youth, reflected amongst other things in an uneven distribution of land and prosperity and limited access to the political process.⁹

Whether socioeconomic inequality constitutes a definite cause of violent conflict in itself remains subject to debate. Yet economic differences between groups are widely considered relevant, especially together with political factors.¹⁰ Issues of governance are thus crucial: the organization and functioning of the state largely determines who has access to matters such as employment, freedom of expression or religion, a fair trial, education, healthcare, or police protection—thus, which individuals or groups can access the resources and processes required to address key concerns regarding identity, freedom, security, and welfare.¹¹

In states with effective and legitimate institutions, people are likely to raise their grievances, both real and perceived, through ordinary forms of political action; their concerns may be handled through various peaceful means, including litigation, legislative reform, or administrative policy change. Yet when such avenues are absent or when institutions are weak, corrupt, politicized, or abusive, socio-political tensions around systematic discrimination, differential access, or curtailed freedoms can turn violent—especially when people’s expression of discontent or demands for human rights meet with repression.¹² A history of repression or communal violence exacerbates this risk. Past levels of repression affect present government behavior. Also political elites have been known to manipulate collective memories of suffering and abuse to mobilize their constituency for violence.¹³

Why the distinction?

The distinction between human rights violations as causes and consequences of violent conflict may seem artificial, as they are usually both simultaneously. Yet for conflict resolution, the distinction matters because the problems to be addressed and the outcomes pursued are different. When tackling violations as consequences, the main objective is to halt ongoing violence and prevent further abuses through, for example, negotiating ceasefires, human rights monitoring, peacekeeping, and humanitarian relief. The focus is on securing negative peace: peace defined by the absence of direct, physical violence. When targeting violations as causes, the primary goal is to transform the underlying conditions that generate tension and threaten human security and the stability of the state. This requires working toward positive peace by addressing structural violence through facilitating social justice, political equality, fair and accountable institutions, and constructive, peaceful relationships between individuals and groups.¹⁴

A human rights perspective thus clarifies how the focus and aim of interventions differ depending on the aspect of the rights/conflict-relationship being addressed, thereby deepening understanding of the issues at stake and suitable strategies. Notably, it highlights the extent to which conditions of inequality, inequity, injustice, and insecurity create structural fault lines in society that may not be directly visible but provide fertile ground for violence.¹⁵ Foregrounding “the centrality and primacy of the political,”¹⁶ it signals the need to pay attention to the ways in which the state and systems of governance facilitate and occasionally escalate destructive conflict and violence, and to the politics underpinning decisions on who deserves what kind of protection or access. Naturally, actions, policies, and attitudes on the part of the state and the government are not solely responsible for violent conflict or the outbreak of violence. Other factors matter too, including opportunity structures, the choices made by non-state actors, demographic developments, and the regional and international context. Yet “these deeper questions of structural violence and socioeconomic injustice” cannot be tackled “without paying attention to the institutions, mechanisms, and processes that generate order and effective participatory governance”¹⁷—or fail to do so.

Human rights in conflict resolution

The notion that human rights can—and should—play an important role i...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of tables
• List of contributors
• Abbreviations
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction: Human rights and conflict resolution: bridging the gap?
• 1. The transformative potential of human rights in conflict resolution
• 2. The place of human rights in the twenty-first century peace system
• 3. Human rights issues and dilemmas in contemporary peace mediation
• 4. International human rights institutions and conflict resolution
• 5. Regional organization, human rights, and conflict resolution
• 6. Truth versus/and justice: the case of the Brazilian National Truth Commission
• 7. Human rights non-governmental organizations in conflict transformation
• 8. Engaging armed groups in conflict resolution from a human rights perspective
• 9. Integrating gender into conflict resolution and human rights discourses: rethinking the politics of dialogue in Israel, Palestine, and the North of Ireland
• 10. Human rights and the Israeli–Palestinian peace agreements
• 11. Between peace and justice: the role of human rights norms in Colombia’s peace process
• Conclusion: Integrating human rights into conflict resolution: lessons learned and opportunities for engagement
• Index