Outside the Negotiation Room

Outside the Negotiation Room

Nicole Carle: Hello and welcome to this module on peace negotiation skills. This session focuses on tools that may be used outside of the actual negotiation room. Here, we will overview what you can do outside of the negotiation room in support of a successful negotiation. 

My name is Nicole Carle, and I'm a counsel at the Public International Law and Policy Group, or PILPG. Today, I am so pleased to welcome Matt Simpson, Senior Peace Fellow at PILPG, who is also the Chief Legal Advisor for the Darfuri Delegation to the Doha Negotiations, and Dr. Paul Williams, Founder and President of PILPG. Welcome both. 

Matt Simpson: Thanks so much, Nicole. 

Dr. Paul Williams: Thanks, Nicole. It's great to be here. 

Tools To Use Outside the Negotiation Room

Nicole Carle: Paul, I'll start with you. What are the actions or tools, as we're calling them, that negotiators may use outside of the negotiation room?

Dr. Paul Williams: Thank you, Nicole. I'm really glad you asked me that question because oftentimes parties to negotiations just think about what happens inside the negotiating room. And obviously that's crucial, that's important, but there are a number of constituencies outside of the negotiation room that are powerful and important and impactful.

So, one of those dimensions or constituencies are the diaspora, be it the Kosovo Albanians, the American Armenians, the Darfur diaspora, the Sudanese diaspora, pick any country in conflict. And there's going to be a substantial diaspora and those diaspora can contribute to the peace process, or they can undermine the peace process, and so, managing that constituency is very important.

And in particular, if you're able to manage that constituency to put pressure on the mediators or put pressure on some of the guarantor powers that need to step up their game. That's really important. There's also the media, an external actor that shapes public opinion in the countries that might fund the peace agreement, that might deploy peacekeepers and the perception of the diaspora.

And oftentimes you'll have a wobbly mediator. We've talked about that in some of the other situations and having a media campaign that can keep the mediators committed to the negotiation. And quite frankly, you want them to be aligning with your interests. And then you have a constituency of political friends in most democracies, all democracies, have a variety of political parties and a variety of alignments and interests with your interests as a party.

And you want to ensure that the political actors, even if they're in the minority of a government, are fully informed and fully engaged in terms of your strategy, and your tactics, and what you're trying to accomplish, so that they can represent your interest in their government as well as part of the national security interests of a state.

Risks To Using Approaches Outside the Negotiation Room

Nicole Carle: Now, before we delve further into how to use any of these tools that you just mentioned outside of the formal negotiations, I'm wondering if it is always preferable to do so. Matt, I'll go to you. Are there any risks to using such approaches? 

Matt Simpson: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, as Paul says, ultimately you can't negotiate in a vacuum, right? The negotiations that you're undertaking are grounded in a contextual reality that you need to pay attention to. And so, you have to be thinking both inside the room and outside of the room. Now, how and when you approach the various stakeholders and folks that are involved that Paul just mentioned is a really important decision.

And you can't just randomly or unthoughtly go out and spray information or reach out to folks. You really need to be thinking through, does this make sense? How do I think about whether I engage with outsiders? Who do I engage with and on what level? And so, some of the variables that you want to consider are, will reaching out to folks outside of the room make some enemies or will it cause negative reactions or retaliation?

Do we need to educate the public or provide any additional background? Sometimes the public might not be aware of what's going on and especially for some of our non-state actors that have been fighting you know, as rebel movements in conflict zones, it's been important for them to help the public understand that what they are fighting for and that they are the good guys and not necessarily the bad guys.

The media is always tricky. How and when you engage with the media, what you say to them, you always need to be thoughtful about who you're speaking with and what you're going to say to them. What is the likelihood that they're going to get your story correct? What is the likelihood that they're going to spin it?

And sometimes that's because they might have their own agenda or they might not be as impartial as the media might be in various Western countries or countries that we're used to, but it also might just simply be because of language differences or inexperience with the reporter. 

So, you always need to be really thoughtful about how you're engaging with the media and exactly how you're gonna do it. You always need to think through how the other side is going to react to your external conversations. Are they going to engage in their own media campaigns or campaigns of public opinion?

Are they going to reach back out to the other government officials that you've reached out to? Some of those friendly democracies that you might be trying to engage. You need to anticipate their reaction, ideally before you go out, so that you can try and position your message as clearly and succinctly as possible in anticipation for their rebuttal.

Confidentiality, can't say it enough, right? Many of these negotiations are intended to be confidential. The benefit of that confidentiality is that it often allows people to speak more freely. If the opposing party sees you out there using confidential information in the media or sharing their positions that they weren't comfortable sharing originally, You can really erode the trust that you build up in those negotiations.

And so, that can be a very negative impact that you perhaps didn't didn't intend to make. But on the flip side, sometimes showing progress is really productive. Even though the negotiations are confidential, you might want to say, hey, look, we just had a breakthrough, we're making progress, and it allows those that are supporting you, especially state governments and other organizations around the world that might be funding or supporting the talks to continue and support the funding. It shows your people in your constituencies that they need to continue to believe in you, and perhaps it puts some pressure on your opposing party to keep up the momentum once you've announced that there is some.

And then finally, you really have to think through what resources we have for engaging with the media, or outside sources. You can't simply take any random person from your delegation or your team and stick them in front of government officials or the media. You need to be thoughtful, they need to be prepared and you need to make sure that you're putting your best foot forward in any external conversations.

Any of those considerations can lead towards speaking with outsiders and using them as a helpful tool in your negotiations process. Or on the contrary, they can suggest that perhaps this might not be the right time. There is no clean or simple answer, as is often the case in peace negotiations, but there's a variety of different things you need to think about when deciding how and when to engage with external folks. 

Do’s and Don’ts When Engaging with the Media During Negotiations

Nicole Carle: Thanks for going through that thought process. Now, you've both mentioned the use of the media. Paul, I'll go to you. Can you speak more on the do's and don'ts for parties when engaging with the media during negotiations?

Dr. Paul Williams: Yeah, Nicole, I think it's important for the mediator as well as the parties, whether they're a state party or an opposition party or non-state armed actor, to think about the media as something that needs to be managed. It's an important external tool, as you mentioned in your earlier question, that should be proactively, thoughtfully, and effectively managed.

I've been surprised on, Matt and I have done a number of negotiations together, and I've been surprised at how often there's a lack of a media strategy from the mediators or from the parties. And so, part of the media strategy is there should be two people that have access to the media.

There should be the formal spokesperson who's in the delegation, who speaks every day at a press conference, whether it's the mediation or whether it's a party. And then there should be an informal conduit of information outside of the process. 

So for instance, when we were representing the Kosovar delegation at Rambouillet, the Kosovars were under Chateau arrest, they couldn't leave the Rambouillet Chateau and they could only speak at orchestrated press conferences. And so, the Kosovar delegation had an Italian press officer who basically hung out in the coffee shops of Rambouillet all day with the media. And the Kosovars or myself would ring out and share updates and talking points.

And so, there was that constant level of communication, which led to trust and led to access outside of the negotiations as well as the more formal ones inside the negotiations. You then want to make sure that it's only those two that are speaking to the media because the media are looking to fill airtime, they're looking to fill their 124 characters or whatever it is. They're looking to fill column inches in the news. And they will put a microphone in front of anybody with a mediation badge or a delegation badge. And if someone puts the microphone in front of you and asks you a question, you start talking, especially if it's on TV, if it's on tape, you really have to work so that you have a consistent message.

You know, we talked earlier about managing the diaspora, managing allies, managing potential funders and peacekeepers. You want well crafted talking points, and they need to be consistent and coherent. I would suggest that the mediators do a daily press conference, four out of five times it'll be pretty boring, but then there's no dramatic expectations. 

Matt and I've been in negotiations together where there'll be a press conference called at five and then it's moved to seven and then it's moved to nine o'clock at night. And then there's all of this expectation, but whatever they were trying to negotiate didn't come through and then it's a huge letdown. Versus if there's a press conference every night at seven o'clock and four out of five times, yeah, we're making progress, yep, we're negotiating. And then, oh yeah, we have a ceasefire. Then you can announce the ceasefire when you have it and you don't distort your negotiating process by an artificial timing of a one off type of press conference.

Matt Simpson: Yeah, that discipline and routine is so critical in engaging with the media. I mean, first of all, on the routine, I fully agree with what Paul said. Setting that up, there are reasons why sophisticated governments have daily press conferences where they engage with the media. Negotiation should be no different.

Sometimes, you're just putting out some normal information. It's process driven. Again, as Paul says, it's not very exciting or interesting, but there are times when there will be important things and you want to make sure the message comes through loud and clear. The routine also encourages discipline because folks in the media will understand where they're getting their information from, who to expect it from, and that formal channel becomes recognized and routine, and that allows you to control the message in a very productive way. And I think that's really important for both the mediators as well as those that are engaging in it. It encourages that discipline so that everybody stays on message, there's a single source, at least on the public side of life, that is sharing and gathering that information.

And it also at times allows you to share some bad news in ways that seem less dramatic. You know, we're all focused on the good news and the progress, but sometimes you're not making progress. And sometimes there is a back step in the process or things aren't going as well, and it allows you, especially if you're the mediation team, to try and take some of the sting out of that or the alarm if it's part of a routine press conference as opposed to something that is more ad hoc and comes in out of nowhere.

And just to reiterate, especially for those that are engaging in the peace process, as well as for mediators who are supported by a variety of different constituencies, when we certainly saw this on Darfur from the mediations perspective, there was both the UN and the African Union that were mandated to run the peace process, and it was being heavily supported by the Canadians, the Americans, the British, and a variety of other state governments.

Having folks stay on message, or at least share some sort of a consistent message is incredibly helpful. In Darfur, it's no surprise for those that were involved that it was very undermining when some of the senior folks disagreed with each other publicly on the purpose or the timelines or the intent of some of the negotiations that we were having. The mediation itself fell apart at times because of the inconsistent messaging among those important players.

The same goes true for any of the rebel groups and others engaging in peace processes. I've yet to see a peace process where there was a single homogenous group negotiating against a single homogenous group. In Darfur, in Doha, we had three recognized rebel groups, but at one point there were anywhere near 30 different rebel groups that claimed some degree of authority over the voice of the Darfur people.

In Kosovar, I believe it was five. Paul can correct me if I'm wrong on that. And others, yeah. And you know, getting everybody to stay on message, not just those that are directly participating, but also those back home, those in the diaspora, the civil society, those in academia and others that are trying to help encourage your cause, you really need to make sure that they're staying on message and that it's a consistent message throughout the process. 

Dr. Paul Williams: Nicole, I just wanted to jump in and amplify two points that Matt had made. And one is that there is the clear constituency of the internationals and the domestic constituency.

You won't have a durable piece without both of those constituencies being fully informed or feeling fully informed and in the know as to what's happening in a negotiation. Obviously, in most cases, the negotiations are isolated venues, even if it's in Geneva, which is accessible, the negotiations take place within the U.N. Peace Palace. For Dayton, it was an air base. Rambouillet was a chateau. For Columbia, it was in Cuba in some isolated venues. 

You're going to want to bring the domestic constituency along. Matt and I have  both been in so many peace processes where you realize you're making momentum getting to yes inside the negotiation room, and the mediators have lots of strategies and tactics for bringing the parties together, but then they look over their shoulder and they realize they've left their constituencies behind only because their constituencies are not informed about the concessions they're making.

So, for instance, when I was advising one party, the very first day, I said, I'm your lawyer, I got my laptop, I'm happy to write down your positions. They said we want independence, we want the president of the country to be tried for war crimes, and we want our rebel faction to become an army.

I'm like, okay, I can write that. But what are your fallback positions when that's rejected? They said, no, we don't have any. That's what we told our people we were going to come here to get. We can't go home without that. Now, they ended up getting a draft agreement which provided for a referendum after three years to resolve the question of final status. They transformed their non-state armed actors into essentially a National Guard, a Protection Corps, and eventually, the president of the country ended up being tried for war crimes before an international tribunal.

But looking at the agreement, it was hard to find those three things in plain English in the agreement. And so it was crucial that literally every day, they had conversations with their domestic constituency about moving this forward. It may not be recognizable, but it is not a compromise, but it was a peace agreement language way of getting what we want. Because otherwise, they would have been a run out when they went back and said, look, we got this great agreement, it wasn't obvious that those three things were there.

Separately, with the international community. And this was what Matt was getting at with Darfur. They're going to send in their peacekeeping troops. They're going to pay hundreds of millions of dollars. They're going to send in their diplomats, their civil servants to help rebuild the country.

They have to know that they have partners in peace. And, if you've got different media talking points or different members of the delegation saying different things, those that sort of underwrite the financial security dimensions of a post conflict transition, they're going to have difficulty signing up for that.

So, you may get to yes at the peace agreement but turn around and have lost your international constituency. And this is on the mediators. The mediators need to constantly bring their international partners along with outreach. 

Matt Simpson: Yeah, again, just quickly adding to that a couple of points. It goes back to the point that you're not negotiating in a vacuum, right?

There is context and there are others, you will never have every influential person in the room, which means there's a fundamental obligation to keep them informed. And by definition, those that are negotiating on behalf of the parties are representatives of those parties and they only have credibility and validity in what they're saying as long as their position continues to represent that of their constituencies. 

And, that's not to say that these processes aren't iterative and that concessions aren't made. They certainly are. You need to be fluid and need to be negotiating. And sometimes you are going to be compromising a position, and it's incredibly important to keep people back at home for whom you represent and elsewhere in the diaspora and otherwise informed of how you're progressing.

And again, the tone and the language that you use is critically important, which is why it has to be sophisticated and not just simply a, hey, we talked about this today and we gave this point. You need to think through the messaging and how you're going to deliver it. And to the point on how you're going to deliver it, the different forms of communication, with technology being the way it is, there's obviously any number of different ways that you can communicate, and you're going to want to pick and choose the right means of communication or the correct audience.

So for instance, when dealing with heads of state and governments that are supporting a peace process, obviously there's official channels that you might want to tap into, but they might also lean on opinion leaders and other commentators that are speaking on the subject.

The New York Times, in particular, was at times during Darfur, a helpful conduit for us, as was Al Jazeera. The folks on the ground though that are fighting a war against an oppressive government, they're probably less concerned with what the New York Times has to say. And so, finding other means of communications, local media to the extent that there is any local engagement with civil society, influential individuals, etc.

You've really got to pick and choose the right means of communication. The right language is often critically important. And you should be thinking through how and which ways you communicate with different audiences because it's never going to be a one-size fits all solution. 

Nicole Carle: Thank you both for those extensive answers. You've touched on something really important, which is communicating with the constituencies at home. 

Engaging The Wider Public

I want to stay on this theme and think beyond communication and working with the media. Could it ever be useful to engage the wider public outside of the negotiation room? 

Dr. Paul Williams: Nicole, I think one of the things from a mediator's perspective is you have to assess to what degree, if any, you want to limit the parties to the negotiation in their communication. There's the formal press conference which the mediation team can do, the parties can participate in that, or they can have their own press conferences. We've talked about having an informal person outside.

There's a real debate about whether or not you confiscate the phones, whether you take them to an off site where they're excluded from the ne'er do well influences of the other constituencies or whether, no, you want to give them as much airtime as they want to be ringing up on their cell phones to be informing the constituencies and to get information back. 

And I think this is a conundrum that every mediator faces. I tend to err on the side of, look, you want as much communication as possible. Yes, they will be influenced by people on the outside. Yes, you're getting them close to a deal and they'll bring up and ask one of their constituency members, okay, what's public opinion like in the country.

And public opinion is always negative on a peace process because you go in and you don't get everything you want, and so you sell us out. Pick a peace process where people are like, yeah, you're doing a great job, and there are people, keep it up. But you want them to be able to have that access so that they can reality check their peace process and their positions.

Yes, it makes it more complicated. Yes, it makes it more stressful. But parties do not respond well to being contained or to being shut off from access to their constituents, or from their ability to shape public opinion. So that's a very practical thing. You'll have a bunch of folks that say, let's go somewhere where there's no cell phone connections and let's isolate them. It never works. 

Matt Simpson: Well, just to quickly add to that. I fully agree with what Paul said, and there can also be a variety of different approaches that you take. You can stagger the communication, for instance, the idea that you're going to sequester people, peace processes take a while.

For anybody that thinks you can get this done, and I once had the chief of staff to the lead negotiator call me up and say, this will be done in a month it's going to be super easy. And about two years later in Doha, we were still going strong. It takes a lot of work. It takes a lot of time and a lot of effort.

So, the idea that you're ever going to successfully sequester a group of individuals to negotiate a peace process for an extended period of time is highly unrealistic. And I agree with Paul, all the negatives. That doesn't mean, however, that you can't grab them for two days and say, okay, let's go off for two days and see what progress we can make on this topic or that topic.

Again, you can take a sophisticated approach to engagement where you're generally allowing folks to communicate freely, but also recognizing that focus is an important factor. And to me, it's less about the external communication and more about the focus. External communication is a phenomenal distraction for folks.

If you are engaged in a peace process and you're actively negotiating, it is exhausting. It is time consuming. You're negotiating all day and then you're staying up all night with your constituents to try and form your position based on that day's negotiations and what's coming up next. The mediators are working around the clock.

And so, giving folks a clear space to focus can be productive. But there's an obvious tension with that and allowing them to engage with externals. So to the extent you can just design a process in a system that allows both for environments that allow for focus as well as active communication with all the various public stakeholders and other constituencies that people need to communicate with, I think that's gonna be your best bet. 

Dr. Paul Williams: One of the dimensions of dealing with these outside forces is to bring them close to the negotiation. And this has been used quite effectively in a number of instances. So when we were representing the Syrian opposition in the Geneva negotiations, on a very regular basis, the Syrian opposition would host round tables, workshops, communication events, about the atrocities, which were occurring against the civilians of Syria.

So, you're inside the peace palace negotiating with the Syrian government and there was a think tank house that was actually on the grounds of the U. N. but outside of the security umbrella, and they would talk about sexual and gender based violence that was being perpetrated against the people of Syria.

They would talk about the barrel bombs, and so there was a constant running narrative which reinforced the delegation, provided a bridge of communication, and actually gave them a voice in the process. In the Doha talks where Matt and I were present, there was a similar situation where the UN brought in 500 representatives of refugees and 500 representatives of IDPs, and they were in close proximity to the peace process and they were being consulted and doing workshops and public presentations and conversations and things along those lines. So, they weren't in the negotiation room, but they were adjacent to the talks. And I think that type of outside influence pressure inclusivity was very helpful.

In Juba, the Sudan revolutionary front on a number of occasions brought victims from Sudan to Juba to, actually on a couple of occasions, join for the day as special guests of the delegation to share their views and then to sort of observe. Now, they weren't permanent observers, but it was literally like being an observer for a day in the peace process so that they could feel and see it and then go back and report. Okay. Our voice is being heard. Our voice isn't being heard. There's an equal structure. There isn't an equal structure, but it demystifies the peace process to bring the outside communities in.

Briefly, can I just add, it also elevates the peace process when you not only bring in the perspectives of the folks that are on the ground, the civil society, as we did in Darfur and the other groups that you talked about, but also some of the international community. You know, I remember, in particular, when UN women got engaged in Darfur, they were present in Doha with us at the peace talks, and they provided extensive commentary on the peace process, on the documents, on the agreement itself, which really did elevate the quality of the document when it came to the treatment of women and children in a post conflict situation. That was all because of the effort that they put in and the role that they played, which was completely informal and unofficially recognized, I suppose. But they were there, they were walking around the Sheridan coffee shop in Doha and contributing valuable insights from their perspective as some of the leading thinkers on how to treat women in post conflict in conflict zones. 

Dr. Paul Williams: That's really helpful and important. I was pivoting back to Rambouillet and switching to a different constituency, and as a mediator or as a supporter of a party, don't underestimate the ability to have powerful friends and allies come and be adjacent for a brief period of time. So for instance, during the Rambouillet negotiations, it was in the Rambouillet Chateau, it was very elaborate, the Serbian delegation had done these negotiations so many times with the Croats, with the Bosnians, that they were literally professional negotiators. And the Kosovar Albanians, as you mentioned, had five different factions, all competing to represent at the same time while they were in the Chateau on two different occasions.

One, Senator Mitch McConnell came to Rambouillet and sat with the Kosovar delegation in one of the evenings and, just tell me what's going on because he was, he had an affinity for stopping the genocide or the potential genocide against the Kosovars and was heavily engaged in the Bosnian situation as well, and that put a spring in the step of the Kosovar delegation and realized, okay, if we come together, we have some powerful supporters and allies that also helped McConnell keep Madeline Albright and others from going too far in making concessions to Serbia. And then you had Congressman Eliot Engel, and at the time, Congressman Susan Collins, before she became Senator, participated in a European Albanian protest march in France and gave presentations again, showing that allegiance and that, that helped keep the Kosovars at Rambouillet. Because they knew that if they could get an agreement, they had powerful backers in the executive legislative branch in the United States to help it be implemented. And if it fell apart, this might've been their one chance at getting an agreement, so mediators can be very thoughtful about how they bring in allies and supporters to be near adjacent to the negotiations.

Backchannel Negotiations

Nicole Carle: Now, we've mentioned here and elsewhere how important the coffee shop is or how much happens outside of the negotiation room itself and off the record. Matt, can I turn to you? Can you speak a little bit more about what happens during these backchannel negotiations? 

Matt Simpson: Yeah, as I mentioned earlier, I've never seen a process where two homogenous groups negotiated against each other, which means you and your side might have varying different positions, but that also means that the opposing side in a negotiation will also not necessarily be of one mind all the time.

And so, one of the successful techniques that we've tried to deploy historically is trying to identify somebody in the opposing party that is sympathetic to maybe not all of your delegations' positions, but some of them. And somebody that is willing to engage with you in these back channel conversations.

And there's a lot of benefits to being able to have these back channel conversations. One can be the no risk testing of proposals and ideas and the brainstorming that is often required of negotiators to come up with some middle ground that might work for everybody. If you have somebody on the opposing delegation that you can talk to, you can run an idea by them and they can blow up and yell at you and say, that's a horrible idea and you know how it might land in the meeting. But perhaps they don't. Perhaps there's some okay, that could work. Let's work with this. And then they help you develop it, which allows you to then come into the formal conversations with a more moderated position that has a higher likelihood of success than had you just gone straight into the conversation without running it off the side through the other side.

You can also have off the record conversations to help try and explain why we are taking this position, what's really going on, what's really driving this. Obviously, there's, there tends to be an altruism for folks that are involved in these peace processes and that governs it at a large scale, and that's probably the predominant reason why many of these people are engaged.

But there are always secondary and tertiary reasons why people are engaged in peace processes, and they bring, as human beings, into a negotiation, their own personal positions and beliefs. And sometimes, there are positions that might not be as clearly understood without a bit of an off the record context conversation. 

This person, he's more religious and therefore he's taking this position because he believes it's a religious duty for him to argue this position, or this person has family members that were involved in this, or has a background in economics, or an oil and gas, or whatever it might be having a an opportunity to understand where the positions are coming from.

And those off the record conversations can be incredibly helpful and productive for moving the larger conversation along. Backchannel conversations are a key piece of this. It allows you to cut through some of the noise. It's risky finding somebody that you can trust. You always need to gauge your trust and understand how much you trust them.

Obviously not share too much, recognize the position of vulnerability that they might be in, whether their team recognizes them as the backchannel liaison or not, are they speaking out of turn when they talk to you? Those are all variables that you need to take into consideration when you work with an inside advocate or discuss through back channels, but they can be incredibly productive for the mediators as well.

While there's a formal mediation negotiation that'll happen during the day. Often, we've seen mediators try and deploy backchannel conversations through to various groups within individuals within each of the parties to try and make progress and better understand how today's negotiations have gone, and where should we go tomorrow?

Inside v. Outside Advocates

Nicole Carle: Matt, you mentioned the term inside advocate. Paul, can I ask you now to talk a little bit more about the role of those who are outside of the room, or we may call outside advocates, who have some influence over the process itself? 

Dr. Paul Williams: So, Nicole, I think one of the outside advocates that we haven't talked about yet, and they wouldn't see themselves as advocates, are human rights NGOs, security NGOs, NGOs which think about and in a sense, advocate, but they don't advocate for a particular party, they advocate for an outcome, you know, stop the war, protect human rights, hold perpetrators of atrocity crimes accountable. You also may have some institutions like the International Criminal Court, the UN Human Rights Council, other institutions, and these actors can play a pretty important role.

Let's just talk briefly, the International Criminal Court has indicted heads of state, most recently in the situation of Russia's aggression against Ukraine, they indicted President Putin, plus two of the chief of staff, two staff officers, and this is going to limit the ability of whoever ends up mediating the conflict.

Personally, I think in a good way. If you've committed atrocity crimes, you should be indicted, you should be tried. And if you have done it, you should serve time. But it complicates the situation for the mediators of some of the parties being indicted. 

We see this at the moment in Sudan. There's plenty of evidence that the heads of the Sudanese armed forces and the rapid support forces are committing atrocity crimes. How do you get to yes? How do you negotiate when an outside actor has intervened in the process? And so, that's something that I think the mediators are going to have to bear in mind and the and the parties are going to have to bear in mind again.

I think it's a positive development. My friends who are mediators are a little less enthusiastic about justice finding its way so quickly into their peace processes. 

Matt Simpson: And I think just quickly adding on to that, there's never just two sides to any negotiation. And so a lot of those outside organizations that have specific positions that might want to take other government influences. We've seen this in a variety of negotiations where neighboring governments had very strong opinions on how the process should unfold and the outcomes of the negotiations, and they need to be taken into consideration.

You can't simply ignore them. But it's the job of the mediator to design a process, as we've said earlier, that takes into account a variety of different voices, while ultimately moving the primary objective along and engaging with those that are most focused on the process. You always have to be thoughtful about those neighbors that, you know, I remember getting handwritten notes from Idris Debbie, the then president of Chad, on a markup for part of the peace agreement.

Different constituents and different outside individuals will engage differently. And we took some of the comments. We didn't take them all, but they were productive and you have to respect folks that are looking to engage productively towards peace.

Negotiating Fairly

Nicole Carle: Now, you've been talking about all these negotiation approaches that occur outside of the official negotiation room itself. My last question, is it correct to assume that parties may not use these approaches or channels perhaps fairly?

Dr. Paul Williams: I think one of the oldest tricks in the book is for one party to try to unsettle another party by undertaking some activity outside of the negotiating room that distracts the other party. One of the common practices, unfortunately, is for a state to attack the village of the chief negotiator or to arrest family members of the chief negotiator of the non-state actors or and also vice versa.

Sometimes non-state armed actors will undertake some daring activities to try to inflict high profile casualties or damage on state personnel or state infrastructure. And they'll do that if they're not getting what they want on paper, if they're not getting what they want in the negotiation room, they'll use violence outside of the negotiating room in order to distract the other party or to cause the other party to walk out. And how do you not walk out? We've spent time together today talking about bringing your constituencies along, communicating with them, sharing with them, the concessions that they bring you up and say, the government just attacked our village and just arrested three of your cousins.

Oh, don't worry about it. We're good. We're making good progress on external self determination. No, you have to react. You have to at least walk out for a period of time, and then that may give the opportunity for the other side to walk out and not come back. So, there is a lot of nefarious activity that takes place in and around negotiations. 

Misinformation

There's also a lot of leaking of misinformation, mischaracterizing the other side's positions, mischaracterizing the neutrality or perceived lack thereof of the mediators. Look, if you're willing to kill people from the other side, outside of the negotiation room, what's a little misinformation? What's a little character assassination? What's a little dirty trick inside of the negotiation room? They pale in comparison to the atrocities that are being committed outside of the negotiating room. So be prepared for that. And I think that's where you can also lean on your advisors, right?

That's a source of great pride for myself and I know others in PLPG, but fundamentally our role in these peace processes as lawyers, for instance, for the times that we were actually engaged as legal counsel to a delegation, we have ethical obligations to that delegation to advise them to the best of our ability.

For the purposes for which they are moving forward, the client determines the object of the representation is what we all learned in first year of law school. And that's really important because of some of these external actors, some of the nefariousness will come in blatant, obvious ways like Paul just described where villages are being attacked or there's something very clear. But when it comes to the misinformation or other biases that especially some of the non-state groups or foreign governments or others that are trying to engage and influence the process, it might be less clear, it might be less transparent. And so, having advisors whose sole job it is to advise you and have a loyalty to you, but at the same time understand how some of these games are played, have that history of negotiating peace agreements in other contexts, and can share with you contextual best practices for how other negotiations have gone on these various topics and perhaps what to consider or not to consider when you're hearing things from seemingly credible outside sources. Having advisors that you trust is a critical element from my perspective of any of these peace processes. 

Nicole Carle: Thank you for that last answer. And on that note, that brings us to the end of today's discussion. Thank you both so much for joining this session, and I hope it was useful to our listeners.