Routine but Consequential: How Ceasefire Monitors’ Reporting Constructs Opportunities for (Non)Compliance by Conflict Opponents

Abstract

ABSTRACT Third party ceasefire monitors routinely gather and report information on conflict events. Although ceasefire monitoring is a common conflict response intervention generally correlated with ceasefire durability, how its routine practices contribute to ceasefire compliance and noncompliance is little understood. This article asks how reporting, monitors’ most common practice, affects conflict opponents. Based on the experiences of more than 100 monitors, as well as archival research, I develop theory for how ceasefire monitors’ reporting constructs opportunities for conflict actors to demonstrate both compliance and noncompliance, and show evidence for this in cases from Kosovo and South Sudan. That monitoring can produce ceasefire noncompliance challenges existing understandings of monitoring as generally contributing to ceasefire durability. The implication is that even credible monitoring and accurate reporting may have inadvertent consequences on conflict trajectories.