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Overcoming the Obstacles to Effective Mediation of International Disputes

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Mediation in International Relations

Abstract

Mediation has been used to settle international conflicts ranging from sovereignty disputes between centuries-old enemies, to battles over the independence of colonies, to struggles over the use of natural resources. In a majority of the wars fought since 1945 involving at least 100 fatalities, the disputing parties accepted the intervention of a mediator.1 During this same period, mediation was attempted in about two-thirds of the conflicts among the nations of Africa and Latin America and 80 per cent of the conflicts in the Middle East.2 During the last forty years, mediation has been central to American foreign policy. Nearly every American administration has dispatched mediators to help resolve conflicts abroad.

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Notes

  1. Jacob Bercovitch, ‘International Mediation: A Study of the Incidence, Strategies and Conditions of Successful Outcomes’, Cooperation and Conflict, 21 (1986) pp. 155–68.

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  2. Examples of track two diplomacy in which the contact is not between formal state representatives are discussed in Mike Yarrows, Quaker Experiences in International Conciliation (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1978)

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  3. and Maureen R. Berman and Joseph E. Johnson (eds), Unofficial Diplomats (New York: Columbia University Press, 1977).

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  4. The MacArthur Foundation sponsored the International Mediation Project at MIT in 1987–8. Twenty-five specialists in international relations, political science, international law, and dispute resolution met monthly to analyze the theory and practice of international mediation. See Lawrence Susskind and Eileen Babbitt, Report of the International Mediation Project (Center for International Studies, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1988).

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  5. Diane Lieb, ‘Iran and Iraq at Algiers, 1975’ in Saadia Touval and I. William Zartman (eds), International Mediation in Theory and Practice (Boulder, Co: Westview Press, 1985) pp. 67–90.

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  6. Jimmy Carter, Keeping Faith (New York: Bantam, 1982), pp. 267–430.

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  7. Christopher J. McMullen, Mediation of the West New Guinea Dispute, 1962 (Institute for the Study of Diplomacy, Georgetown University, 1981), pp. 5–6.

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  8. Lawrence Susskind and Jeffrey Cruikshank, Breaking the Impasse (New York: Basic Books, 1987), pp. 94–5.

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  9. Zartman and Berman offer a similar set of phases, that they label the ‘diagnostic, formula and detail’ phases in I. William Zartman and Maureen R. Berman, The Practical Negotiator (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1982).

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  10. Harold H. Saunders, ‘The Pre-Negotiation Phase’, International Negotiation: Art and Science (Foreign Service Institute, US Department of State, 1984) pp. 47–56.

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  11. Howard Raiffa, The Art and Science of Negotiation (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1982).

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  12. Oran Young, The Intermediaries (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1967), p. 35.

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  13. There are many discussions of tactics and strategies used by mediators during negotiation. Examples include: Susskind and Cruikshank, op. cit., pp. 136–86; Jeffrey Rubin, ‘Introduction’ in Dynamics of Third Party Intervention (New York: Praeger, 1981), pp. 7–41

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  14. Howard Raiffa, ‘Mediation of Conflicts’ in The Art and Science of Negotiation (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1982), pp. 218–34; Oran Young, op. cit., pp. 49–79.

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  15. Roger Fisher’s advice to negotiators on ways to reformulate the questions being asked in negotiation is also useful to mediators. See International Conflict for Beginners (New York: Harper and Row, 1969).

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  16. Gregory F. Treverton, ‘Falklands/Malvinas: Breakdown of Negotiations’ (John F. Kennedy School of Government, Case Program, 1986).

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  17. Nina M. Serafino, ‘The Falklands/Malvinas Crisis: The Historical Setting’ in Diane B. Bendahmane and John W. McDonald, Jr. (eds.), Perspectives on Negotiation (Foreign Service Institute, US Department of State, 1986), p. 66.

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  18. See the excellent discussion of escalation in Dean G. Pruitt and Jeffrey Z. Rubin, Social Conflict: Escalation, Stalemate and Settlement (New York: Random House, 1986).

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  19. Louis Kriesberg, ‘Timing and the Initiation of De-Escalation Moves’, Negotiation Journal, 3 (1987) pp. 375–84; I. William Zartman and Saadia Touval, ‘Conclusion: Mediation in Theory and Practice’ in S. Touval and I. William Zartman, op. cit., pp. 251–68

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  20. Richard Haass, ‘Ripeness and the Settlement of International Disputes’, Survival, 30, May/June 1988, pp. 232–51.

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  21. Herbert C. Kelman, ‘The Problem-Solving Workshop: A Social-Psychological Contribution to the Resolution of International Conflicts’, Journal of Peace Research, 13 (1976) pp. 79–90.

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Authors
  1. Lawrence Susskind
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  2. Eileen Babbitt
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Canterbury, New Zealand

    Jacob Bercovitch (Senior Lecturer in International Relations) (Senior Lecturer in International Relations)

  2. Tufts University, USA

    Jeffrey Z. Rubin (Professor of Psychology, Adjunct Professor of International Diplomacy, Associate Director) (Professor of Psychology, Adjunct Professor of International Diplomacy, Associate Director)

  3. Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University, USA

    Jeffrey Z. Rubin (Professor of Psychology, Adjunct Professor of International Diplomacy, Associate Director) (Professor of Psychology, Adjunct Professor of International Diplomacy, Associate Director)

  4. Program on Negotiation, Harvard Law School, USA

    Jeffrey Z. Rubin (Professor of Psychology, Adjunct Professor of International Diplomacy, Associate Director) (Professor of Psychology, Adjunct Professor of International Diplomacy, Associate Director)

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© 1992 Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited

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Susskind, L., Babbitt, E. (1992). Overcoming the Obstacles to Effective Mediation of International Disputes. In: Bercovitch, J., Rubin, J.Z. (eds) Mediation in International Relations. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230375864_2

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