Unofficial Intervention: Potential Contributions to Resolving Ethno-national Conflicts

Abstract

Unofficial intervention is a relatively new approach to mediation in international and ethnic conflicts with a potential, yet unfulfilled, for significant contribution to the resolution of ethno-national conflict.1 There is a discernible increase in interest and proliferation of practice in unofficial intervention and a variety of other unofficial activities often dubbed ‘track-two diplomacy’.2 The increase in interest is evidenced by the growing number of academic research and training programmes dedicated to the study and teaching of this approach, conferences and academic gatherings about various methods used within this approach, and private institutions engaged in carrying out such interventions. There are also some expressions of interest, albeit with some scepticism, on the part of segments of the official diplomatic community in considering the potential contribution of unofficial approaches to dealing with ethnonational conflicts.3