International Humanitarian Law and Criminal Court: Their Role in Peacebuilding

This entry focuses on international humanitarian law and international criminal court and their role in building peace.

International humanitarian law is defined as “set of rules which seek, for humanitarian reasons, to limit the effects of armed conflicts.” The Geneva Conventions have formed the significant part of international humanitarian law. It applies only to armed conflicts, regardless whether the conflict is international or within a state. It prohibits the use of weapons that indiscriminately fire to anyone, cause unnecessary suffering, and damage the environment severely.

It is part of international law in the form of treaties and conventions that govern the relationships among states. International law is made by states, for states and enforced by states. In relation to conflict, it is outlawed to use force in times of conflict. States have to settle conflicts peacefully and amicably. However, states may use force in two situations; if it is acting in self-defense and if the use of force is authorized by Security Council. There is a blurred and gray area whether use of force is justified when the situation calls for humanitarian intervention. State’s sovereignty gets in the way whenever intervention is being contemplated.

The international criminal court has been instituted twice already to try the cases in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. Bringing to justice those who committed atrocities and large-scale human rights violations like genocide is a critical part to restore and bring peace in conflict areas. However, there is the question of recognition and power of this international court to try cases when there is a domestic court that should try these cases.

Human rights law, unlike humanitarian law, is applicable at all times and in all occasions. These human rights law has been stipulated in various treaties and conventions. Major of which is the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It sets the universality of this declaration to those states that signed the declaration. It is legally binding for those states. However, there are instances where a state legislates something that runs counter to the universally-recognized human rights. So, are human rights subject to legislation? They say that because of cultural relativity, the discourse on human rights becomes contentious although we cannot discount its universality aspect.

Conflict Interventions: Peacekeeping, Peacemaking and Peacebuilding

There are three stages of conflict or peace process that we need to understand. These stages have already been discussed in the previous lectures; peacekeeping, peacemaking, and peacebuilding. The stages attempt to explain and describe the dynamics and features of peace process.

Peacekeeping is the most challenging stage because it will be conducted amidst a heated conflict to contain violence and prevent from escalating, to limit intensity, duration, and geographical spread of the conflict, and to push for ceasefire and hopefully for conflict resolution. There are questions of timing, legal, ethics, and who will do the peacekeeping. This should not just be limited to ceasefire and stoppage of conflict but also to humanitarian activities. Peacemaking, on the other hand, is all about communication to know the underlying interests and needs. It includes negotiation, mediation, dialogue and confidence building. Peacebuilding is about reconciliation and repairing of relationships. These 3 stages are in parallel and consonance with conflict management, conflict resolution, and conflict transformation.

In peacemaking, negotiations play an important part. There are 3 types of negotiations; soft, hard, and principled. The soft negotiation sees the goal of the negotiation is agreement because it treats the participants as friends. The hard negotiation sees its goal as victory because it treats the participants as adversaries while the principled negotiation sees its goal as wise outcome reached amicable and efficiently because it treats the participants as problem-solvers.

From the real conflict situations, these theoretical concepts are applied and found to be helpful yet inadequate at times. It only shows that there is much to catch our interest and passion in the field of conflict and peace studies.

Conflict Resolution Tools

Let us talk about stalemate and de-escalation of conflict.

There are 5 reasons why conflicts stop escalating; first, one party overwhelms the other and other yields; second, one party is able to take unilateral advantage of the other; third, two parties avoid further conflict; fourth, a powerful party imposes a settlement; fifth, two parties cease fighting and negotiate for settlement.

When the situation reaches a level where two parties perceives that continuing the conflict will not take them anywhere and will be risky and costly, that is perceived stalemate. Again, there are reasons why the parties perceive this way; 1) contentious tactics fail and simply lose their bite; 2) resources necessary to carry out further conflict are exhausted; 3) parties lose some social support or constituencies/backers; 4) costs and risks are so great that both parties conclude that escalation must be avoided.

This perceived stalemate is subjective. But it serves as benchmark in the analysis and attempt to resolve the conflict. Therefore, the recognition of stalemate depends heavily on the skill of a conflict analyst.

Let’s go to de-escalation. How does it start? Well, there must be an acceptance from the party that the other is an interdependent partner in the endeavor for peace. One should regard the other as necessary devil to contend with. This opens the door for negotiation. One must also have optimism of success which may be anchored on working trust.

From de-escalation, how can negotiation move forward? There are 3 approaches to this. 1) contact and communication allow parties to explain the actions done which will lead to understanding of each other, 2) cooperation on other issues or having superordinate goals that are common to parties, 3) unilateral conciliatory initiatives do not require the acquiescence of the other but it simply reach out to build trust.

Problem solving is a challenge to find a mutually acceptable resolution. Structurally, problem solving can be compromise and integrative solutions. Simply put, compromise is an agreement to concede on the middle ground from the two incompatible goals and interests. Integrative solutions, however, reconcile the goals and interests of each party.

There are 5 types of integrative solutions. 1) expanding the pie means increasing the available resources 2) non-specific compensation refers to the situation where one party gets what it wants while the other is compensated for other means, 3) logrolling describes a situation when each party concedes on issues based on its priorities, 4) cost-cutting points to a situation where the party gets what it wants and the cost of other’s want is reduced or eliminated, 5) bridging is about reframing the issue – new options are put forward to satisfy the underlying interests of both parties.

Environmental security: climate change meets peace through the state

Climate change has made us rethink the way we treat the environment. No more of wasteful and irresponsible investments and activities that harm the environment. Even the security discourse has been put into context by the environmental concern.

There has been an increasing awareness and concern of the environmental degradation and its relationship with security issues. Likewise, a growing evidence shows that conflicts are exacerbated by environmental decline in some countries whose governments are weak, poor, corrupt, and oppressive.

There are four approaches to understand the relationship between environment and security. First is the Toronto School that sees conflict as effect of resource scarcity and population growth. Second is that conflict is directly linked to society’s transition from a subsistence to a market economy. Third is the attempt of groups to gain control of abundant resources through violence. Finally, the fourth approach refers to the “network threats” brought about by environmental degradation that is caused by human activities and disasters.

How we view security? There are two ways to do it; traditionalist and non-traditionalist. The traditionalist view of security gives primacy to military security because the world is anarchic. Relations are driven by insecurity. Nation-state is the unit of analysis here. While, the non-traditionalist view of security argues that there is no hierarchy of issues. It basically expands the scope of security to other threats including individual quality of life.

The concept of sovereignty makes nation-state remain to hold the power to enforce environmental security. Any effort for environmental conservation and protection must engage the nation-state to be effective, sustainable, and have long-lasting impact. How do then international groups and organizations engage a state that is contributing to environmental degradation?

Hydropolitics or politics of water is significant to security studies. This role of hydropolitics has been manifest in the conflicts involving freshwater usage. If water could cause war (water-war thesis), it could also foster peace (water-peace thesis) as exemplified in the agreements and cooperation by countries sharing the water areas (Nile and Mediterranean).

Regional Conflict Complex

To understand contemporary civil conflicts, there are four theses that attempt to give explanation; ancient ethnic hatred, new barbarism, poor governance or weak state, and economic agenda.

The ancient ethnic hatred thesis touches down on identity issues like ethnic and religion. The new “barbarism” thesis characterizes civil conflicts as motivated by irrational and primeval savagery. The poor governance or weak state thesis explains that civil conflicts can arise from government’s failures and problems such as corruption, nepotism, underdevelopment. The economic agenda thesis sheds light on the conflict brought about by greed and exploitation of resources to perpetuate the conflict.

There are many civil conflicts that spill-over to the surrounding areas and states. This prompts a regional approach to the conflict. There are elements of this regional conflict that are useful in understanding of and formulating resolution to the conflict; economic, military, political, and social networks. Each network plays a role in the perpetuation of the conflict. It also provides a perspective on the conflict which is significant to its resolution.

With these theses on conflicts, I wonder how and what the future conflict will be caused by? Any thesis on conflict is preceded by certain conflict phenomenon. It is interesting to note how these theses are able to somehow catch-up with any conflict phenomena. Researchers, scholars and practitioners are doing a good job in trying to explain and resolve conflicts that we have on this world. However, we are always a step late to prevent bloodshed and violence.

Some Theories on Conflict and Violence

Hannah Arendt’s On Violence discusses philosophically the relationships of power, violence, and authority in conflict situations. It dissects the concept of power in relation to violence and authority. When it comes to justification, power and authority need no justification because they are inherent in the existence of political communities. What they need though is legitimacy. However, violence needs justification, but “it will never be legitimate.”

Thucydides’ The Peloponnesian War interestingly presents a dialogue that features the motivation behind alliance-building, expansion of territories, and perception and attitudes towards the Other.

Tony Karpo’s lecture presented theories of conflict, such as Galtung’s idea, sociobiology, frustration-aggression theory, social learning theory, social identity theory, relative-deprivation theory, basic human needs, Gilpin’s theory of hegemonic war, Modelski’s long-cycle theory, and Wallertein’s world systems theory. The lecture provided an overview and application of those theories. For example, Gilpin’s hegemonic war talks about a war that is between a dominant power and a rising challenger. The dominant one wants to retain status quo but its decline in power is an opportunity for the rising challenger to take the leadership in the international system. The example given was the US as the dominant power while China is on the side to take the dominance in due time.

In applying these theories to actual cases of conflict situations, we found out that there is more to be done theoretically to really explain and provide deep understanding of the actual conflicts. These theories are not like shirts that can be fit into a body of certain conflict. I think these theories are useful in giving us starting points and certain perspectives in the approach of conflict analysis and assessment. That’s why they are called theories – attempts to explain a phenomenon.