Negotiating peace agreements in internal conflicts: What Perspectives?

Abstract

This article aims to discuss mediation and negotiation in internal conflicts that are difficult to resolve and can even become intractable. Military victory, although difficult in such types of conflicts, seems to be one of the solutions recommended even if the bitterness left by war constitutes a risk of resurgence of the conflict. Other solutions are instead in favor of mediation and negotiation. These types of solutions sometimes take longer to implement because of the nature of these identity-based conflicts. Nevertheless, they have the merit of being built on an agreement accepted by the various protagonists. In this theoretical article, my objective is to make initial suggestions for early mediation at the premises of the conflict instead of repression. The latter, often put forward by some governments to stifle the causes of the conflict, only work to worsen the disputes to the point of becoming a political conflict.