Peace Agreements and Civil Wars in Africa: Insurgent Motivations, ...

In the first case, a mediator may enter into a conflict to protect its national interests. Thus, a solution to the conflict is important to the mediator because the conflict—from a purely cost benefit point of view—may be a threat to the third party. Moreover, the conflict may threaten the mediator’s citizens, may interfere with its trade interests or destroy its investments, or may become a source of refugees—if not in its territory, then in the immediate region.

In another study, Charles King has asserted that a concern over human rights violations, the threat that a civil war will spread to regional states, and the regional and international consequence of violent internal conflicts has encouraged some states to take active intervention measures. Since 1991, for example, King writes, Russia has intervened directly to prevent domestic conflicts in Georgia, Moldovia, Tajikistan, and Chechnya from escalating, while France has acted unilaterally to foil a number of rebellions in central and west Africa.⁹ Also, a conflict between members of an alliance or a regional organization may weaken the alliance or the regional body. Another self-defense function of mediation is to prevent the conflict from becoming a window of opportunity for rival powers to spread their influence.

The second reason mediators intervene in conflicts is because they are interested in extending their influence. In this sense, the mediator sees the process of mediation as an opportunity to develop closer ties with the parties. Moreover, a mediator may hope to win the gratitude of the party that feels that it has secured a better agreement than it would otherwise have done in bilateral negotiations.¹⁰ Mediators can also increase their influence by becoming guarantors to the eventual peace agreement.

Impartiality

Third-party impartiality has traditionally been cited as important in the success of mediation. Oran Young defines impartiality as “a situation in which the third party favors neither side to a crisis and remains indifferent to the gains and losses of each side.”¹¹ When an intervening third party is perceived as partial to one side or the other, it loses its status as a true third party and becomes “more and more assimilated to one or the other of the protagonists for all practical purposes.”¹²