Ceasefire Verification and Monitoring

Ceasefire Verification and Monitoring

Katie Hetherington: ​Hello and welcome to this session on Ceasefire Verification and Monitoring. My name is Katie Hetherington and I am a Program Manager here at the Public International Law and Policy Group. Today, I'm very pleased to welcome Frederick Lorenz, who is a Senior Legal Advisor at PILPG, as well as Dr. Greg Noone, Executive Director at PILPG. Welcome both. 

Dr. Greg Noone: Pleasure to be here, Katie. 

What is ceasefire verification and monitoring?

Katie Hetherington: So, to begin today's session, Greg, let me turn to you. What is ceasefire verification and monitoring?

Dr. Greg Noone: So, ceasefire verification and monitoring are two closely related, but clearly distinct tasks. Both can play an important role in the ceasefire implementation process. Ceasefire verification refers specifically to the technical assessment of the conflict parties in compliance with some specific terms in the ceasefire agreement itself.

So, this involves a small team of normally military personnel who are selected because of their technical expertise who investigate, assess, or verify whether conflict parties have undertaken their activities set out in the ceasefire agreement. So, this usually involves the verification of very specific tasks, such as the redeployment of heavy weapons, airbase lockdowns, troop redeployments, things such as that nature, whereas ceasefire monitoring is a much broader process that involves the general observation of the compliance or behavior that relates to the ceasefire. So, this involves putting eyes and ears on the ground to observe and report back on incidents that take place following a ceasefire agreement.

So, this can involve reporting back on the party's compliance with the general commitment to stop hostilities, but it also covers wider commitments that might be included in the ceasefire agreement, such as the commitment to refrain from negative propaganda, legal reforms might be necessary, respecting human rights, restoring access to services like the internet or electricity.

This often involves a larger monitoring force that can come from the conflict parties, international actors, civil society, and civilians from the conflict affected communities. As verification and monitoring are two different functions, it is quite possible to have monitoring without verification, as we've seen in the Philippines. Or verification without monitoring as we've seen in northern Ireland. Though commonly, verification and monitoring occur together as part of the ceasefire implementation process.

The key is that verification and monitoring processes involve the parties beginning to take joint responsibility for their security and putting in place a method of managing the inevitable violations that will occur as a ceasefire is implemented. So, to this end, the ceasefire verification monitoring teams typically report their findings to the verification of the monitoring organization, and this body then determines whether any incident constitutes a violation, which in turn reports up to the joint military ceasefire commission. So, this body then determines whether a response is needed and what that response will be. This creates a structure where the parties work together to resolve the inevitable incidences that will arise.

Katie Hetherington: Thank you, Greg. And Rick, is there anything you'd like to add in this regard? 

Rick Lorenz: Sure. Thank you, Katie. And I'll mention that my experience with this type of mission was in 2000 as part of the civilian UN force in Kosovo, and that I was there starting in 2000, which was just about 6 months after the ceasefire agreement that occurred.

One difference between Kosovo and other missions is that it was a hastily completed military technical agreement, which was done rudimentary in a tent which ended the formal hostilities there. And then months later with the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1244, a much more detailed agreement, not just an agreement, a detailed authority was given to the United Nations to move in and under the United Nations authority, we had full executive authority, legislative authority, and judicial authority.

I would say this was very unique. All peacekeeping and ceasefires are unique. This one was different, I think. And I'll also mention that here in Kosovo, we again had a military force, which was K4, a NATO force, and we had the United Nations UNMIC civilian force to implement the ceasefire and ultimately the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1244.

Katie Hetherington: And Rick, the UNMIC civilian force that was heavy on civilian police, right? 

Rick Lorenz: Well, yes, in NATO back in 1996, there was a force here. We did have a civ poll and various nations brought in civ poll officers. It was one of the many challenges that we faced there trying to get qualified police, and here they were actually carrying weapons with the goal of training the police in Kosovo.

The real problem in Kosovo was when the Serbs departed in the summer of 1999; there was a complete vacuum within Kosovo, there was no police force, no one had been training, and so, starting from zero, it was like rebuilding something on the face of the moon.

There was nothing there. So UNMIC and K4 had a lot of challenges. The police was one, bringing in qualified police who could communicate, and we sent back a number of police. There was a mission that came in from a country that had never seen snow before, and they did not have the communication skills. And so, there were about 70 police who were there one week, and reluctantly, we sent them all home because they were not qualified to deal with the problems we had there. So, one of the many challenges was trying to reinstitute a police force in Kosovo when we had nothing to start with.

Why is it important to verify ceasefires?

Katie Hetherington: Thank you so much both for this introduction and context. So with all of this in mind, why is it important to verify and monitor ceasefires? Greg, let me turn to you. 

Dr. Greg Noone: Yeah, really the penultimate question, right? So ceasefire monitoring verification seeks to provide accurate, reliable and timely information about ceasefire compliance.

When do ceasefires break down? They break down when one party is not complying or the other party accuses the other side of not complying. So that's why we need accurate, reliable, and timely information. And then we can look at what's actually happening on the ground.

This ceasefire monitoring verification can perform 4 important functions. The first one is ceasefire verification monitoring can help to rectify ceasefire violations and restore compliance. So, all ceasefires are violated. The challenge for those attempting to implement a ceasefire is how to respond to the incidents in such a way as to keep the process from completely collapsing.

So, verification and monitoring improves the flow of information to the ceasefire management body and helps provide greater understanding of the details when incidents do occur. So, this helps the conflict parties to come to a joint decision on how best to proceed in such a way as to rectify the violation in order to restore compliance.

So typically violations are dealt with by the verification monitoring organization. In most cases, it is best that the commanding officer of the offending violator take steps to address the violation. Ideally, at the lowest acceptable level of command possible. So, ceasefire monitoring and verification should not then be about meeting out punishment to the other side, but instead building cooperation to rectify violations, restore compliance. 

And then what you would do is you would take the reports and pass them up the chain of command to the broader joint military ceasefire commission that manages the broader ceasefire arrangements, rather than any specific violation. So secondly, ceasefire verification and monitoring can help to build trust between the parties.

They create structures for conflict parties to work together, jointly taking responsibility for responding to investigating compliance, responding to violations, and managing incidents based on mutually agreed on procedures. So a jointly managed verification and monitoring process can encourage conflict parties to work on more effective communications.

They can also address security issues, build trust and confidence in the process as well as each other. In this way, the monitoring is a vital part of the ceasefire implementation process, which allows conflicting parties to consolidate. Progress at the negotiating table incrementally builds trust as the parties move towards that final agreement.

However, it is often in precisely these types of complex and volatile environments where trust building through monitoring is most needed, that it is least likely to function. Thirdly, monitoring can also provide a mechanism to enhance civilian engagement in the peace process. Civilians who bear the most significant cost arising from conflict violence have traditionally been excluded from parts of the process pertaining to security and military matters, simply put, because they're not either. They're just ‘civilians’.

So as a result, the ceasefire processes have often overlooked those issues that are important to the local population, but not recognized or prioritized by armed groups or international actors. So ceasefire monitoring, here, can really serve an important function, providing forums to include citizens within the ceasefire process, either directly or on a parallel track, and increase engagement between civilians and armed groups.

This can also help to develop positive pathways for security imports to security sector reform at later stages. So, as we discuss in more depth in the next video, this is becoming an ever more common function of ceasefire monitoring and presents new opportunities and challenges for peacemakers. 

And finally, let me say this. Ceasefire monitoring is also a tool used to help contain conflict with the conflict parties that are not yet ready to move towards peace. But, where there is a desire for internal or external actors to limit the spread or escalation of the violence. So, in this context, ceasefire monitoring can provide the parties, the public and international community, with objective reports on compliance with agreements, which, while not being sufficient to stop violence altogether, helps to prevent violence from spreading or escalating. 

So, here, it is not a means to prevent violence or to build trust. Instead, it is a conflict management tool used by peacemakers when a conflict seems intractable or risks getting much, much worse. Thank you so much, Greg, for outlining the various reasons why the verification and monitoring of ceasefires is so integral.

Katie Hetherington: Rick, let me turn to you if there's anything you'd like to add on this subject. 

Rick Lorenz: Sure, Katie. Let me give you an example from Kosovo. In my last months in Kosovo, I was assigned to the United Nations office in the north and Mitrovica. I will tell you that Mitrovica was perhaps the flashpoint in Kosovo because the ethnic Serbs were north of the Ivar River, and there were ethnic Albanians to the south. Vicious fighting had occurred there just months before we arrived in the summer of 99. In North Kosovo, there was a separation between the Serbs on the Ibar River and the Albanians to the south.

I was part of the UN mission and the UN office on the south side, and I moved across the bridge. The bridge was a flashpoint because it was the physical separation between the Serbs in the north and the Albanians in the south. The UN Security Council resolution and our mission in Kosovo was to break down all barriers. Freedom of movement within Kosovo was the key aspect that we were there to preserve, but on the bridge, there were so called bridge watchers. They were Serbs and they had radios and there were also French peacekeepers. In this case, it was the Foreign Legion who were monitoring this. One of the legal questions that came up, well, they don't have weapons, these bridge watchers, but they do have radios, and they're reporting anybody who comes across. 

As a civilian UN, they didn't harass me, but if you're an Albanian, you can't get across the bridge, which was one of the things we were trying to deal with. And so, the question was, how do we deal with the bridge watchers. Are they in violation of the terms of the agreement or of the ceasefire? We ultimately determined that the use of radios was not a violation.

However, because we kept peacekeepers, the K4 French Forces on the bridge, they were able to sufficiently monitor and try to avoid an escalation of violence between the Serbs and the Albanians. That's one memory I have of that particular issue.

Should all ceasefires be monitored?

Katie Hetherington: Thank you so much. Now, ceasefires, of course, can occur in a variety of different contexts. So Greg, let me ask you this. Should all ceasefires be monitored? 

Greg Noone: Yeah, it's just a great question. So monitoring is not appropriate for all ceasefire agreements. Monitoring normally requires that the conflict parties have an interest in maintaining a ceasefire and expect and desire to make progress in the peace process.

If the conflict parties lack the willingness to commit to the peace process, monitoring itself is unlikely to prevent a return to violence or to build trust between the parties. When a ceasefire monitor mission is rushed, imposed, or quickly broken down. It can actually cause more harm than good, undermining the party's confidence in the peace process, serving as a way to blame each other and harden the conflictual relationships. In this case, no matter how well designed an agreement or monitoring mechanism might be, it's more likely to undermine the party's confidence, both in the ceasefire and in the overall negotiations. On some occasions, it's clear that a monitored ceasefire is not possible.

For example, it may not be possible when an agreement is only intended to last a short period. And we see this a lot. We see 24 hour cease fires, 72 hour cease fires, cease fires that are set to a certain period of time; we're gonna have a cease fire over Ramadan. And so, the shorter the period, there's just not sufficient resources to implement a monitoring mission, or the conflict parties remain reluctant to work together. So, on these occasions, alternatives, such as a phased approach could be considered. 

So, where dispute resolution and de escalation can be initial objectives and local community networks and civil society support the implementation. So, in these instances, parties' commitments may still be measured by their cooperation with the monitoring mechanism, their willingness to engage their counterparts to resolve problems, and other indicators that demonstrate a good faith effort to respect the ceasefire rather than monitoring individual violations. 

So, in this sense, there's still monitoring, but the monitoring is focused more broadly on party intent and commitment to conflict de escalation or resolution than discrete acts. So, it's not always easy to determine when monitoring is appropriate or inappropriate, while there might be a shared interest in maintaining a ceasefire when an agreement is signed, this might well change over time.

So, given the time it takes to establish a monitoring mission, support for the monitoring mission may have already waned by the time the mission is deployed. Yet, it's often not possible to simply terminate the mission if conflict parties support declines, meaning monitoring missions can end up operating within an inappropriate context by virtue of the evolving political and conflict dynamics.

Katie Hetherington: And Rick, let me turn to you now if there's anything you'd like to add on this point. 

Sure, let me give you another example of the implementation process in Kosovo related to security and monitoring. We found in Mitrovica in 2000, there had been hundreds of families displaced from one side to the other.

The Serb families had moved to the north side of the river, vacating their homes in the south. The Albanian families had moved to the south side of the river, leaving entire apartment buildings empty, which are now filled by the parties from the other side. And so we were in a difficult situation related to security and monitoring the parties. The families did not feel safe going back to those buildings, even though we had made those apartments available, and the buildings were empty.

There was a confidence building question of what you can do to get them back into those buildings, and that involved a partnership between the military force, which was the French portion of K4 and the United Nations, which I was part of at the time.

We attempted in one case, we decided that it was not safe to bring the Kosovar Albanians across the bridge, which was monitored by bridge watchers. So, the French actually built a footbridge just South of the bridge as they monitored, so they created a little island of Albanian Kosovars secured by the French with barbed wire to let them go back into their own homes. But that was an example of a related example of the challenges of peacekeeping and implementation. 

How do you deal with displaced persons? How do you get them back into their homes? Very complicated, and it's the beginning of a long term process of ceasefire and peacekeeping management. 

Who should monitor a ceasefire?

Katie Hetherington: Thank you so much, Rick. Now Greg, you mentioned that it's not always easy to determine when monitoring is appropriate. I imagine a similarly difficult decision is working out who should monitor a ceasefire.

Dr. Greg Noone: Yeah, no, absolutely. And every question that you're posing is the next step of the process, right? So, if we decide that it needs to be monitored, then the next follow-on question is, by who? And the most appropriate composition of a monitoring force is really shaped by the preferences of the actors involved, as well as various contextual factors.

It's always important that conflict parties take ownership of the monitoring architecture. To function effectively, monitoring should be deployed by, or at the invitation of the conflict parties who require a clear understanding of the commitments that they're signing up to. So, when parties are not clear what type of monitoring they would like, then the peacemakers need to work with the parties to develop an acceptable monitoring approach. 

So, effective monitoring requires the active participation of the conflict parties. Joint monitoring increases ownership of the ceasefire implementation process, thereby, increasing the likelihood that the parties will accept information produced by the monitoring team and offering an opportunity to work on security issues and develop institutional structures and build interpersonal relations to manage violations and prevent future incidents. 

Despite the advantages associated with conflict parties taking ownership of their ceasefire, in many cases, it may not be possible for the actors engaged in this violent conflict to coordinate and collaborate on ceasefire monitoring without some type of assistance.

If up to them alone, conflict parties also tend to favor narrow agreements in limited monitoring arrangements that focus only on certain forms of military action and excluding a range of broader issues like civilian protection and humanitarian access. So, there often needs to be a counterbalance to the conflict parties' tendency to limit involvement and monitoring with third parties who bring different resources and a greater appetite for a broader range of provisions.

Katie Hetherington: Thank you, Greg. And Rick, is there anything you'd like to add in this regard? 

Rick Lorenz: I can give another example of some of the implementation questions. Often neglected early on, is the court system and the judicial system. Again, in Kosovo, in some ways, all the Serb military forces had long been withdrawn, but there were Entities still active, particularly in the north, that had the potential for violence and had the potential for breaking the terms of the agreement.

In the North, we had a court system that we were trying to revive. Interesting problem, how can you maintain security and order in a post ceasefire agreement when there's no court system? What do you do about violations of the law? And we made extraordinary efforts to try with the assistance of the French military to get the courts in north Mitrovica going again.

And it's an interesting loop of, in order to achieve security in the longer term, you need a court system, you need a confinement system, and without that security, you'll never ultimately achieve that goal. I can tell you that peacekeeping forces don't want to be apprehending civilians and keeping them.

Where do you keep them? How do you resolve the issues related to ceasefire violations or criminal violations generally? So, one of the complex follow ups is how do you get the courts going? And, we made some progress there in 2000 in the north. In fact, even getting the French to escort the vehicles, I had six vehicles each weekday morning with Albanian court personnel who had to be escorted into the north for safety reasons because we were concerned about an attack on them in the courthouse in the north, which was operating fine with Albanian personnel until the war. So, it was another example of the complexities and the need to establish security.

You have to think in the long term, beyond ceasefire, you have to think about security, courts, and jails. 

How are international actors involved?

Katie Hetherington: Thank you so much, Rick. Now, throughout this conversation we've touched upon this, but Greg, you mentioned that there's often a need to counterbalance the role and involvement of conflict parties and third parties. Let me ask you this, how are international actors brought into the fold alongside conflict parties?

Dr. Greg Noone: So that's a great question. So, trusted international actors are often asked to monitor and support a ceasefire, in order to provide a level of third party objectivity. The UN and other international actors, regional bodies, such as the African Union, or the organization for security cooperation in Europe have all been involved in ceasefire monitoring and support.

So, international monitors have several advantages and Rick has identified some of them throughout this video. They are often perceived to be impartial and generally, though, not always, are trained and well equipped for the task. And their presence demonstrates a significant commitment from the international actors in the international community writ large who are providing these personnel.

Yet, international missions have their limitations as well. So operating without the active participant of the conflict parties, can have the unintended effect of undermining the conflict parties responsibility for the ceasefire and thereby reducing the effectiveness of monitoring and potentially threatening the safety of the monitors themselves.

So, international monitoring missions are also expensive and are more likely to be withdrawn if monitors get caught up in the violence. Therefore, we reduce the flow of information at that point, and when the information is most needed. While international missions might benefit from higher levels of impartiality, this can be challenging to maintain when the conflict parties involvement in atrocities is uneven.

So, it's particularly the case when an international monitor is also the mediator, which creates a conflict of interest around reporting violations that might undermine the process, so a common method of leveraging the benefits of both conflict parties and international actors is the old three in a jeep method.

So, this model of monitoring verification involves a representative of each conflict party and a third party monitor. So, the three in a Jeep label comes from when representatives of the three groups will quite literally travel in the same Jeep when engaged in monitoring activities. So perhaps, the best example of this process is the Nuba Mountains ceasefire as part of the Sudan peace process. In which the conflict parties took primary responsibility for monitoring and verification within international actors playing a supportive role. This was a big success, and it played an important role in the peace process.

Yet, despite clear advantages with the three in a Jeep approach, in many contexts, this approach is not relevant or feasible today. Joint monitoring is more challenging in fragmented conflicts with multiple armed actors and non-state actors, specifically. And where conflict parties are unwilling or unable to protect civilians located in their territory.

So, the three in the jeep method, similar to a conflict party or internationally led set up, has also traditionally promoted a certain exclusivity in the monitoring process, often failing to leverage local involvement, which can deliver important functions and expertise to ceasefire monitoring, including active citizen participation, territorial access, knowledge of local languages, cultures, terrain, and understanding of how forms of conflict and non conflict violence linked or frankly mutate in ways that the monitoring must adapt to address. 

Recent experience in Columbia does show that the three in a jeep method can still be very effective and can be adapted to better incorporate civilians in civil society. With that said, the three and a jeep method really is a concept in the pre-digital age, and it generally fails to take advantage of new technologies that can be potential positive multipliers because they’re dealing with facts or frankly, negative multipliers of information because they're dealing with falsities and lies or disinformation. 

But, as we evolve this three in a Jeep concept, just understand that there are new technologies that can be added to assist and improve upon what we're trying to do. 

Katie Hetherington: Thank you Greg. Now, Rick, you have touched upon throughout our discussion today, the interplay between conflict parties and international actors. So, is there anything you'd like to add to Greg's discussion on this point?

Rick Lorenz: That's a key part, the only point I would make is that every mission is different. I would say in my case, we had the international authority in Kosovo; we had extraordinary powers. The challenge is actually implementing those powers. We had executive authority. We had the authority to implement the police, but it fell short in many regards when we face reality. I think we had money and authority to deploy 1500 civilian police from all over the world. We got about 200. Why? Because, how do you find policemen qualified to do that? 

Katie Hetherington: Thank you so much, Rick. 

What is the role for technology in ceasefire monitoring?

Katie Hetherington: Now. A final question before we conclude the session and Greg, let me turn back to a point you made just a moment ago regarding the fact that many of these techniques are really from, as you said, a pre digital age. So, I wonder if you can talk to us a little more about the role for technology in ceasefire monitoring.

Dr. Greg Noone: Yeah, it's really ever-evolving, right. And of course, there are limits to the human capabilities and monitoring missions. Especially difficult when you're monitoring a sizable geographic space that's covered in a ceasefire agreement. So maintaining a 24 hour presence is not feasible or cost effective, and maintaining a presence during intense periods of violence is frankly dangerous and challenging.

So in these cases, technology can help to improve the coverage of the monitoring mission. So increasing attempts are being made to overcome contemporary monitoring challenges with technological solutions. These types of technologies in use are extensive and vary across context, but they include, cameras, smartphones and apps, videos and photos, acoustic sensors UAVs, unmanned aerial vehicles, often referred to as drones, and then apps that detect what the sentiment is on social media, and of course, good old fashioned satellite imagery.

So, technology can contribute to improving the reach of monitoring operations and the quality of the information from the conflict areas by providing more accurate real time information. For example, through satellites and UAVS. So, for ceasefire management structures, the boom in technology has sped up the transmission of information, which enables more time sensitive and potentially informed decision making around contentious issues, such as identifying and managing violations. 

So, monitoring using technology can often be deployed faster and much more safely than deploying humans, and it also allows for more structured and systematic analysis of ceasefire violations in order to gain a deeper understanding of who is often involved, where and what patterns or trends there are across time.

Technology can also help in the communication around monitoring missions, helping to share the scope of the mandate and in particular, key details around prohibited actions and how to report violations. This is especially important in contested spaces where the monitors are likely to be operating, but also again, broadening it so that the civil society and the citizens who are often bearing the brunt of these violations know how and what the rules are, and then know how and who to report any violations to. 

So, technology can also promote the inclusion and transparency supporting war affected communities, as I just mentioned, to have more timely information, and actively contribute to monitoring compliance. For example, through app-based incident logging, it can be used to create more informal collaboration in real time.

However, an overemphasis on how technology can reduce the quality of processes and ownership of outcomes and over-reliance on technology can also weaken the confidence building function of monitoring operations. By reducing the opportunities for the parties to act jointly and collaboratively, especially if there's no ceasefire management process through which the data is collected using new technologies, and that can then process it and follow up on with the conflict parties. Common fear is that the more technologies used, the less parties engage and own the process. It's really the same conversation we have with everybody looking down on their cell phone instead of talking to the person next to them and building that relationship.

At the same time though, technology can create problems by undermining the quality of information. For example, we've seen the use of DeepFakes that are quite good and quite convincing, and they create an abundance of data that is challenging to assess. So, technology is therefore a complimentary tool, but can never be a replacement for human effort or political will; it's a supplement rather than a substitute. 

Face to face interactions between the conflict parties within a monitor mission and the monitors and civilians are likely to remain the key confidence building tool and are essential for full understanding of a conflict’s context.

Katie Hetherington: This brings us then to the end of our discussion on ceasefire verification and monitoring. Thank you so much, Greg and Rick, for joining us. And to those of you watching this session, thank you so much for your time. In the next session, we will discuss civilians and civil society support for ceasefires.

Thank you so much.