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Five Goals For Ethical Post-sanctions Peacebuilding

By
George A. Lopez and Beatrix Geaghan-Breiner
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Ethical Post-sanctions Peacebuilding Peace News

Over the past three decades, sanctions have become a popular tool for pressuring and punishing governments in the hopes of reforming their behavior. But a growing body of research shows that they inflict severe and lasting damage on targeted economies and populations, with vulnerable civilians often bearing the brunt of the pain. Building from international law discussions about forceful humanitarian intervention as ‘the responsibility to protect,’ international relations experts have argued that there is also ‘the responsibility [or the imperative] to rebuild’ war-torn nations. If peacebuilding warrants a responsibility to rebuild, what responsibility does post-economic sanctions peacebuilding require? After all, the negative humanitarian consequences of sanctions often linger even after sanctions are removed, trapping targeted populations in economic distress and devastation.  It is this ethical dilemma we set out to explore.

We advance the case that there should be an ethics to restore a besieged economy, operationalized by effective social and economic remedies. We state the five most essential  policy goals/principles below (from a number of international examples).         

These include:

Principle [1]: A prompt, facilitated delisting of entities — banks, financial institutions, companies — and individuals placed under sanctions for political and related non-criminal reasons, permitting them to operate freely in the regional and global economy.  This would also entail the timely release of frozen assets and other financial resources of the nation and entities.

As of Spring 2020, for example, US sanctions have retained and confiscated more than $4.8 billion in assets belonging to the Venezuelan government, including $1.2 billion in gold deposits that were seized by the Bank of England. In addition to the immediate return of these assets to the Venezuelan treasury, there should be swift compensation for all CITGO revenues that were diverted to US-backed opposition leaders. These funds, regardless of who leads the Venezuelan government, would begin to fund its economic recovery, and eventually, repay the nation’s substantial foreign debts. The latter is key to acquiring international development loans.

Principle [2]:  An aggressive, well-financed commitment to thaw the ‘chilly climate’ on national banks and financial institutions by the sanctioning nations, thus removing the currency straight-jacket that results from sustained, punishing financial sanctions.

This dilemma was apparent in the immediate rollback of sanctions by the Obama administration after the signing of the Iran Deal. Banks, development agencies and international companies will always be cautious and risk-averse to engaging with a recently sanctioned nation unless the imposers of sanctions inject optimism into the banking and commercial sectors through their own new investments and partnerships.

Principle [3]: Remedy the basic socio-economic welfare costs endured by the civilian population during the sanctions. With the assistance of international agencies, such undertakings need to rectify health, food, water and housing crises that may have developed as a result of sanctions.  Research studies show that sanctions result in greater inequality, with the heaviest burden hitting both the working class and the poorest within the civil society. Thus, the major goal of this policy recommendation is a level of immediate restoration to establish the viability of the medical, food, and water sectors of the country.

Principle [4]: Empower the government to generate a national development plan that assists local economic viability to at least the performance level prior to sanctions. This must include, as noted in 2 above, remedies to the economic isolation that encumbers the banking and financial sectors, with particular attention to their ability to facilitate currency and other financial movements regionally and globally.  This must lead to restoring the capacity of local business and financial leaders to wholeness economically, regarding their assets and legal liabilities that may have jeopardized them due to their managerial position in a national [non-war making] enterprise.

Principle [5]:  Provide the resources necessary to decriminalize the economy and end the corruption that sustains it within various political, legal, and economic institutions.  Of all the remedies described briefly here, this is the most substantial commitment required of sanctions imposers and like-minded nations. It involves a labyrinth of actions in building a rule of law capacity that is stronger than the corruption and criminalization that might be dominating the once sanctioned economy.

In October 2021, the Department of Treasury Sanctions Review pledged that US sanctions policy would devote more attention to mitigating unintended negative humanitarian effects of sanctions. Yet, it was short on specific next steps to be taken to attain this goal. There are very few models for operationalizing these principles as imperative tasks.  However, the failing economies of sanctioned states now demand the implementation of the five action-oriented principles outlined herein policy form.

Recently published as Chapter 11 of Ernesto Verdeja, et al, eds: Wicked Problems: The Ethics of Action for Peace, Rights, and Justice

What kind of reconciliation? Syria’s post-conflict transition and the possibilities for peace

By
Samer Abboud
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Syria post-conflict transition Peace News

The shift from war to peace is never a linear or complete transition. In Syria’s case, the regime has declared victory in the war despite the Northwestern governorate of Idlib remaining under de facto Turkish control and Kurdish-dominated forces remaining strong in the Northeast. Continued violence throughout the country is aggravated by the overlapping and disastrous impacts of a collapsed economy, the COVID-19 pandemic, displacement, and low-level violence between militias and armed groups that persist throughout the country. 

Despite this situation, the Syrian regime has begun to establish the foundations for a post-conflict order through two political processes and several legal changes aimed at absorbing the logic of war into the state. What makes the Syrian situation interesting is that this post-conflict order is being brought about outside the hegemonic oversight of outside powers, such as the United Nations, who tend to shape processes of peace and reconciliation in liberal terms that stress power sharing and distribution. I explore the consequences of what I call an “illiberal peace” in Syria in a recent article that examines how this post-conflict order is being brought about. The main argument I make is that a reconciliation process aimed at converting former armed fighters and integrating them into the regime’s counterinsurgency apparatus, a settlement process aimed at proving the loyalty of displaced Syrians and their clearance to return and live in the country, and legal changes aimed at removing the Housing, Land, and Property (HLP) rights of displaced Syrians constitute the basis of a post-conflict citizenship regime that seeks to punish Syrians who are deemed disloyal by the state.

This post-conflict citizenship regime is aimed at bifurcating Syrian society into the loyal and disloyal and ensuring that those deemed disloyal are punished through the loss of various rights. The reconciliation process began after the Syrian regime and its allies took over areas formerly under the control of armed groups. Fighters from these groups were offered two options: a safe, direct route to Idlib governorate or to “reconcile” with the state by disavowing their actions and joining the national army or a government-controlled militia. Over time, these two options were also given to civilians in the areas taken over by government-aligned forces. These areas became known as “reconciled areas”. The reconciliation process was one way to subject citizens remaining in Syria to a loyalty test. The settlement process was aimed at Syrians outside of the country or those who were displaced internally and wanted to return to their homes. This process functioned in the same way to subject Syrian citizens to a loyalty test to ensure that they did not engage in any behavior detrimental to the “homeland”. In other words, both processes sought to force Syrians to repent and declare their loyalty to the state.

Those who are not subject to the reconciliation or settlement process are nevertheless targeted by a series of laws that seek to punish “absenteeism”, which is defined as an absent citizen. This is a surrogate category for displaced Syrians. In these new laws, “absenteeism” is punishable by a series of offenses that include the confiscation of property and the loss of legal identity, effectively targeting an individual’s ability to live and work in Syria should they seek to return. Absent subjects are legally constructed as disloyal until they can prove otherwise. 

While undertaken in the name of peace and reconciliation, Syria’s illiberal peace is creating the conditions for continued displacement, fear, and exclusion. The absence of any deliberative process or sustained political negotiations has allowed the state to construct a post-conflict order outside of any pressure from opposition groups or international actors. In doing so, the Syrian regime and its allies have constructed processes of reconciliation that do not serve to bring together the political community. For this reason, many Syrian exiles fear returning to the country and face constant worries associated with having to prove their loyalty. Even those who were “reconciled” or “settled” have been subject to arrest, imprisonment, torture, and sometimes death. Without protections for returning Syrians to ensure their security and safety, Syria’s post-conflict order structured around “reconciliation” and “settlement” is likely to bring neither about but instead will ensure the continuation of violence, exclusion, and displacement. For sustainable reconciliation to occur in Syria, there needs to be serious protections in place that ensure the legal and political rights of all Syrians to reside in their country and political processes that provide forums for dialogue and accountability. The absence of deliberation between and among Syrians is a necessary prerequisite for moving forward and constructing a post-conflict order in which war’s horrors can be stopped.

Overcoming the Border, Advancing Peace

By
Saliba Sarsar
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Graffiti_near_Israeli_wall_Peace_News

When we are in conflict, when we feel threatened, when we fear and mistrust the other, we tend to stress a security mindset that justifies “might makes right” and de-emphasize a peace mindset that sheds light on goodness, justice, and “right makes right.” Sometimes, however, a war, the loss of loved ones, a dispossession, or new information causes us to question, to reevaluate our assumptions and beliefs. That has been my experience and that of many others living in Israel/Palestine. 

In June 1967, my family and I had a brush with death. Living a few hundred yards from no man’s land separating East Jerusalem under Jordan from West Jerusalem under Israel, we experienced firsthand the Six-Day War. As the fighting intensified, we had to leave our home. In the heat of battle, my 18-year-old brother and I (11 years old) became separated from the rest of the family and had to fend for ourselves. Neither side knew of the other’s whereabouts or condition. Upon our return home several days later, we learned that two of our close neighbors were killed. 

Once the border dividing Jerusalem was dismantled, we were able to cross it and interact with those we once called “enemies.” While we still remember the fear and the pain, we made a conscious decision to traverse the psychological boundary as well toward dialogue, healing, and forgiveness. Yes, the issues separating Jewish Israelis and Palestinians persist, but these must be resolved through diplomacy, negotiations, and mutual recognition, not dehumanization and aggression. Resorting to violence to avenge, to oppress, to effect change in one’s favor only, though satisfying to some, diminishes the whole. 

As Israel and Palestine come to terms with what is ailing them and as many Jewish Israelis and Palestinians wrestle with their own personal and national challenges, there are those on both sides of the divide who refuse to play the zero-sum game, opting instead to speak truth to power and to take risks for peace, as I have highlighted in my book, Peacebuilding in Israeli-Palestinian Relations. Among them are Robi Damelin, Sami Awad, Gershon Baskin, and Huda Abuarqoub. Each has overcome the border and is making a real difference. 

Robi Damelin immigrated to Israel from South Africa in 1967. Her life took a tragic turn when her son David was killed by a Palestinian sniper while serving in the Israeli army reserves. Instead of channeling her personal pain into thoughts of revenge, she joined the Parents Circle-Families Forum, a grassroots organization of Israeli and Palestinian families who have lost immediate family members due to the conflict. In an interview with Just Vision, she stated, “The pain breaks down barriers very quickly between Palestinians and Israelis in the group. There’s a sense of trust. It’s not hummus and hugs—it’s much deeper than that; it’s acknowledgment and empathy, which happen … because we recognize each other immediately through the pain.”  

Sami Awad is the Executive Director of Holy Land Trust. In childhood, he heard about the killing of his grandfather during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, and at age 12, he began to be inspired by his uncle Mubarak Awad’s work in Palestinian nonviolence resistance against the Israeli occupation. Awad puts his vision into action through deep personal transformation and through serious advocacy and activism. For him, nonviolence is the means to ending injustice and occupation. It makes the walls between peoples fall and creates mutual trust and respect that are key to promoting peace based on a shared acknowledgment of rights and equality. 

Gershon Baskin, who immigrated to Israel from the United States, is a peacebuilding pioneer. For him, peace is not a product or service we secure or a “dove” pin we wear. Peace is an intergenerational endeavor involving both “self-reflection” and “soul-searching” as well as reaching out to the other. When properly cultivated on the inside, it will be profoundly expressed on the outside. Peace cannot be imposed on the other; only when the invitation to peace is freely accepted will it thrive. Hence, conflict is more likely to be resolved when it is based on relationships of trust and cooperation. 

Huda Abuarqoub is the regional director of the Alliance for Middle East Peace. Her lifelong plan is to dispel stereotypes of Palestinians and Jewish Israelis against each other. For her, the language of enemy-making and victimhood is corrosive and can only lead to fear and violence. Common ground and mutuality of interests open the door to understanding and trust. Internal dialogue work becomes possible, facilitating a reconsideration of the narrative of fear and the healing of personal and collective traumas. 

A careful review of the lives of peacebuilders reveals that they embody common traits. They are usually motivated by a vision larger than themselves; affiliative and sensitive to the needs of others; trustworthy and trusting of other people’s motives and methods; collaborative in nature, enabling them to be catalysts as they involve others and arrive at consensus; receptive to change and to discarding biases and old habits; tolerant and conceptually complex concerning events, ideas, and people; flexible and willing to compromise; interdependent and supportive of each other; and focused on the common good. Those interested in peacebuilding in Israeli-Palestinian relations can benefit from learning about empathy and ways to humanize the other. If this happens on a larger scale, the current barriers to peace will likely be diminished and the peace process will progress more smoothly.

Peace, as a path and as a destination, is our individual and collective responsibility. Each of us might highlight one or more aspects of the peace journey, but all of us contribute to its ultimate success. The transformation starts within and radiates to the world!

Women and the Syrian Peace Process

By
Lakshmi Priya
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Regional and international stakeholders of the Syrian crisis have accelerated efforts to achieve sustainable peace as the crisis has persisted for more than a decade. The eighteenth round of the Astana peace talk and the eighth round of the United Nations-led Syria constitutional talk in Geneva concluded this year without success. However, despite demands for effective participation in the peace process by women from Syrian civil society, only a minuscule presence was achieved with symbolic representation from the Syrian state and the opposition delegation to the peace processes. Women are placed in government positions in order to showcase modernization and progress while they are used by the opposition to attract attention from international donors.

Women have the potential to play an important role in peace resolutions and peacebuilding. Research shows that ceasefires are 35 percent more likely to last at least fifteen years if women participate in their negotiations. Moreover, the participation of local women in peace negotiations increases the probability of a cessation of violence within a year by 25 percent. The United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security recommends that women shall comprise at least 30 percent of participants in peace talks. However, the body has not been able to maintain the stipulated percentage during the Syrian peace process. On  average, women constituted only 13 percent of negotiators, 6 percent of mediators, and 6 percent of signatories in major peace processes worldwide between 1992 and 2019. 

Meaningful and fruitful participation by the women’s groups during political negotiations may act as an effective link with the grassroots level and facilitate the diverse representation of marginalized and excluded communities. Of the 45 members at the August 2020 meeting of the constitutional committee only 13 were women, of which only 7 members represented the civil society, 4 women represented the Syrian government and 2 women represented the opposition. Despite the progressive policies of Hafiz al Assad during his 30-year rule, Syrian women have been at the receiving end of the existing structural violence in Syrian society. 

Some Syrian women fought alongside men during the Arab Spring in Syria and faced direct violent retaliation by the state, however, the majority of women in the households that lost men faced indirect violence impeding their quality of life. Women were suddenly compelled to bear the financial needs of the family, leave their homes and provide for the children. Their bodies became politicized and were abused by the state and the opposition. The UN Commission of Inquiry on Syria reported that women and girls faced sexual violence, including rape, in government detention facilities and areas under the control of armed groups. As per the Founder of Mazaya Centre Ghalia Rahal, there is no space for women in the Syrian civil society and humanitarian organizations as it is dominated by men.

The Geneva Communiqué of 2012 mentioned that women must be fully present in all aspects of the transition. Nevertheless, women were absent from peace talks until 2016 and in 2019 only one percent of the Security Council’s discussions on Syria included references to women’s participation. The Women’s Advisory Board created by the Office of the Special Envoy in January 2016 is a positive development. The board found consensus on controversial issues related to aid delivery and the release of detainees. However, it does not participates in the peace talks and there is no certainty regarding the implementation of their recommendations. Moreover, even when Syrian women were represented in the 2016 peace talks, former UN Special Envoy Staffan De Mistura disclosed that the women representatives of the opposition were not at liberty to talk or intervene and remained at the margins. 

Syrian women have the potential to raise critical issues at the peace talks. They have the experience of negotiating local ceasefires, deescalating fighting, organizing nonviolent protests, and documenting war crimes. They have also led humanitarian efforts and worked in schools, and hospitals, and can raise pertinent issues relevant at the grassroots level. For instance, Women Now for Development is an organization led by Syrian women and empowers women to push Syria toward peace by promoting democratic values and resilience at the local level. As the Syrian peace talks are important for bringing stability to Syria, women’s presence in the peace process is a definite formula for its longevity. 

Three principles for successful communicative peacebuilding

By
Stef Pukallus
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Communicative Peacebuilding Peace News

In today’s environment, we can see conflicts in many places. These include intra-state wars such as in Ethiopia, inter-state wars, such as the Russian invasion of  Ukraine, and conflict manifest in discursive dehumanisation. The construction of enemies and us vs. them distinction makes peaceful coexistence, let alone peaceful cooperation in the pursuit of some form of the common good, nearly impossible as identities and views are considered incompatible and based on incommensurate values. Conflict is also visible in the amplification of polarisation through social media in mature civil societies such as those in the US or the UK. 

This is not to say that conflict is inherently bad and should be avoided at all costs – indeed, conflict can be healthy and lead to progressive outcomes but only if it is negotiated and managed through non-violence with all actors adhering to a set of  ‘rules’ or upholding a set of ‘civil norms’. And this can only be achieved through communicative peacebuilding.

Building civil peace is an ongoing process aiming to achieve cooperation between the different members and groups of society despite deep divisions and strong disagreements. Peaceful cooperation can be achieved through the performance of three categories of civil norms – (1) assent to civil peace (a firm yes to peace), (2) substantive civility (acknowledging the equal civil standing of all members of society) and (3) capacity building and civil competencies (both at institutional and individual levels). These building blocks of peace are performed across the communicative spectrum of civil society. This includes unmediated communication (discussion and dialogue, debate, mediation and negotiation); the factual mass media (news journalism, documentaries, non-fiction); the fictional mass media (novels, poetry, TV and radio soap opera); and the performative (dance, theatre, music) and the visual arts (photography, street art, graffiti, architecture and space, paintings, memorials). It is through all these communicative outputs that communicative peacebuilding is undertaken, that societies communicate with each other, as well as define and represent themselves internally and to the external world. 

For communicative peacebuilding and therefore the performance and achievement of peaceful cooperation to be successful it is necessary to uphold the three principles of discursive civility. Discursive civility is a civil-communicative skill that enables citizens to manage and negotiate conflict, deep disagreements, and division in agonistic and non-violent ways. It helps them navigate difference and otherness all by pursuing a common objective on behalf of an inclusive and solidary society: civil peace as peaceful cooperation. It also makes communicative engagement between participants from different groups and with different views safe. Discursive civility acts as a guarantor for safety and provides the basis for the creation of safe spaces. The three principles of discursive civility which can be learned      and taught are:

  • Principle 1: Participants have to make a commitment to manage their individual negative emotions (emotional forbearance). 
  • Principle 2: Participants have to make a commitment to listen to the other and, importantly, to hear the other (perspective-taking).
  • Principle 3: Participants have to commit to making only such contributions that are supportive of the pursuit of peaceful cooperation (reasonableness).  

These three principles need to be locally and contextually interpreted and applied by peacebuilders and across the communicative spectrum of civil society. Their upholding,      the playing by the ‘rules’ of discursive civility, is essential to civil peace and peaceful cooperation. Without them, lasting self-sustainable peace is impossible. 

Over the past year, I have spent a lot of time discussing and advocating communicative peacebuilding, defending its essential role, and training peacebuilders and NGOs in it in various parts of the globe. I discovered that indeed communicative peacebuilding is easily recognised as essential and quickly valued as an important peacebuilding tool by local peacebuilders in particular. It is something that often is intuitively done but needs to be explicitly formulated to be able to become part of programming choices and peace education curricula. I believe it is an urgent imperative to recognise communicative peacebuilding as equal in importance to political and economic peacebuilding. This entails that we all understand communication as essential to peacefully cooperative and associative societies and including the arts – often falsely dismissed as entertainment or as the activity to include if there is money left in the budget. It also entails that peacebuilding needs to include training in the skill of discursive civility as a basic citizenship skill; one that is considered at least as important as media and information literacy. 

In short and to conclude: without communicative peacebuilding, the move from enmity to co-citizenship will be at best short-lasting and in the worst case entirely unfruitful. 

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