Non-official mediation in disputes: reflections on Quaker experience*

Abstract

The founders of the United Nations seem to have been obsessed with negative concepts: non-permanent members of the Security Council, non-governmental organizations, non-intervention in essentially domestic matters, non-self-governing territories. I am sorry to invent another negative term, 'non-official mediation', but no non-negative will do. By 'non-official mediation', I mean mediation in international disputes by persons who are not employed by or responsible to a national government or an inter-governmental organization. Mediation is one of the techniques included in the UN Charter in an illustrative catalogue of means for the peaceful settlement of international disputes:' it is similar to conciliation and good offices. It was always intended that non-governmental organizations (NGOs) with consultative UN status should be related to the international diplomatic process. The UN Charter empowers the Economic and Social Council to make 'suitable arrangements' for consultation with national or international NGOs, but this consultation was supposed to be confined to economic and social matters and not to extend to the legal, political, or security fields.2 My impression has been that diplomats and UN officials do not object if NGOs stray outside the formal restrictions in the Charter, so long as their contribution to UN processes as a whole is a positive one. NGOs with consultative status have both privileges and obligations. Many of them engage in lobbying, either for some altruistic purpose or for the sectional interests of a particular group, or sometimes for a combination of the two. While the Charter thus envisages that non-governmental organizations have a role in international affairs, it is still my view, based on studies of armed conflict since 1945, that the UN system has not yet evolved a satisfactory means for relating to non-state actors.3