DIFFERENT APPROACHES BETWEEN CONFLICT RESOLUTION AND HUMAN RIGHTS FIELDS

The most striking point of tension between the conflict resolution and human rights fields emerged in confronting the dilemma of enforcement with the choice of many human rights activists of a “naming and shaming” methodology.

In a world in which the power structure is still so much unbalanced in favor of powerful ruling classes, frequently against large portions of their own soci­eties, human rights were perceived by many representatives of these powerful elites as merely worthless platitudes. However, the work done by pioneering human-rights-oriented organizations has significantly shifted the power bal­ance. Disenfranchised powerless political prisoners, in regimes that did not respect human rights, were sometimes saved from torture and death by the intervention of foreign human rights activists, who had no other claim for their intervention than the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and subsequent instruments. For example, Amnesty International’s thousands of activists demonstrated that it was possible to bring about change, even in nations very far away from home. Real change, though, did not happen in a moment. Many activists helped a new systemic power to emerge by taking human rights dis­courses seriously. The repressive capacity of states was fundamentally chal­lenged by national and international networks of human rights advocates and activists.

So, it becomes clear that while, superficially, the “naming and shaming” as well as the “coercive” methodologies run counter to the conflict resolution lit­erature, they have contributed in fact to a transformation of powerful and repres­sive forces into more open and benign ones. In other words, forcing states and international actors to take human rights seriously has been an indispensable component of a redistribution of power that has occurred and still needs to occur. The role of human rights organizations, using pressure to force powerful states to reduce violations and reform themselves in such a way that citizens may experience full expression of their rights, has been cardinal.

To justify a war as a way to implement human rights is certainly not a con­sensual position, neither in the human rights community nor in the conflict res­olution one. Rather, many have stressed that less destructive and violent instruments have produced amazing results by respectfully engaging all actors in the processes. Even the proponents of regime change cannot advocate for war easily without at least acknowledging the powerful transformative experi­ences of nonviolent collective action.

Human rights and conflict resolution are at times portrayed as contradictory. On the one hand, there is a perception of human rights as a field, based upon moral principles, that does not accept compromise. On the other hand, there is a perception of the conflict resolution field as working in a murky environment in which actors want to keep everything ambiguous in order to maximize the pos­sibility of politically settling disputes. On the one hand, there is a portrayal of the purity of the human rights principals, while, on the other, there is a claim for political and cultural experience as well as what is possible at a given time.

The aforementioned schemas are clearly stereotypes. Yet, it is common to find authors arguing about the tension between justice and peace in terms of the impossibility of having one, if the other is present. According to one view, the aspiration for pursuit of full human rights will necessarily prompt a less than peaceful state of affairs; hence, a peace, without full justice, is a little more than an appeasement of the powerful. Others believe that adversarial processes, relent­less prosecution, and unforgiving commitments would not bring about peace or justice but rather a destructive conflict.

In our opinion, the realities of justice and peace are complementary. In this view, full justice comes through peace, as well as full peace comes through jus­tice. A systemic approach helps us to craft the understanding of how these two realities get intertwined in a self-reinforcing loop. Rather than looking at peace as something that comes about at the expense of justice, we should recognize that peace requires a period of stability, “devoid” of violence in which there is effective and fair political representation of the interests and needs of the par­ties previously involved in a destructive conflict.

After all, peace is the beginning of justice, not the end. Hence, lasting peace cannot be built by ignoring justice. Disrespecting victims and disregarding inter­national norms of human rights are not solid foundations for any lasting peace. Such a peace would be a mere pause in a conflict. It would not be sustainable over time and it would be rightly described as insufficient. In other words, peace at the expense of justice is a mocking peace; it is fundamentally ignorant of the very components that should constitute a sustainable, acceptable, and lasting peace.

Peace can contribute to justice and its emergence in a society that may have lost its very sense of the “right,” the “legal,” the “just.” Peace is also a complex phenomenon that emerges and is sustained by human interaction. Politically constituted through an endless series of positive, constructive, and free encoun­ters among human agents, peace is a fragile state of affairs constantly under threat. Finally, peace is a human construction that requires great ingenuity and dedication. It is composed of political elements that must be able to control mil­itary, economic, and social interests in a coherent and self-correcting project. Therefore, peace does not come out of the blue; it is never a simple statement of renunciation of hostilities.

In highly polarized societies—in which violence has been used, people have been killed, and human rights have been violated—the very possibility of think­ing of peace is perceived by many as a weakness.

Nevertheless, the capacity to think of peace is a fundamental human capac­ity that people retain even in the midst of the most terrible conflict. It is inter­esting to note that soldiers often have the capacity of imagining the potential of political agreement that would bring the vicious conflict to an end. Moreover, because of this deep knowledge of the horrors of war, soldiers are frequently more able to understand the importance of preventing threats to stability and peace than civilians. Realizing that this is important, the violent can become peaceful again, provided that the conditions are in favor of the discontinuation of violence.

The first and most precious need of all the parties involved (especially the pow­erless victims) is discontinuity. In any abusive system, the first and most impor­tant intervention is toward making sure that the abuse is not repeated, that violence does not occur again, and that victims are no longer victimized. The end of violence is a responsibility of the whole human system around the parties. It is too easy to put the responsibility for protecting victims solely and squarely on the shoulders of the law enforcement agents. Prior to the violence as well as dur­ing the enforcement of its termination, the whole societal system around the par­ties is responsible. Those who could defuse a conflict, but did not do it, are responsible. Those who could address the conflict, but did not do it, are respon­sible. Those who could intervene, but did not do it, are responsible.

This is true at the “family” level, at the community level, and at the inter­national level. Not doing anything or not doing them well places the responsi­bility not only on the parties themselves, but also on the system that allows those parties to behave so destructively. Moreover, negativity breeds negativity and destructiveness breeds destructiveness. Once again, in the presence of wide­spread violence and enmity, the first responsibility is to create discontinuity, to make sure that no further abuses of human rights are perpetrated, that enmity is used no more to justify violence, and that destructiveness toward the other is not condoned any longer as a societal duty.