The Legal Status of the Colombian Peace Agreement

Abstract

One of the many roles played by international law in the Colombian Peace Accord is that of guarantor— that is, creating assurances that the parties will comply with their commitments. To this end, negotiators declared that the Final Peace Accord would constitute a Special Agreement (SA) in “terms of Article 3 common to all Geneva Conventions of 1949”. My main focus in this essay is on the international effects of the Peace Accord as an SA; and particularly, on the additional international legal protection this legal form provides. I will explore that issue in reference to three themes: (a) the international legal capacity of the FARC guerrilla; (b) the international legal status of the Agreement; and (c) the scope of an SA. Then I will consider whether greater legal certainty would actually be achieved in the Colombian case by assimilating a Peace Accord to an SA. Overall, I argue that adopting the form of an SA as an international legal guarantee was a highly controversial choice, with no well-defined effects. While this move made it possible to provide an interpretation of international law that satisfied the needs of the negotiating parties, it did so at the cost of creating uncertainty and fomenting resistance, adding to the “No” vote in the plebiscite.