Dr Asli Ozcelik Olcay
Youth-led peace: The role of youth in peace processes
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More than 600 million young people live in fragile and conflict-affected contexts. Despite being deeply affected by violence in a myriad of ways, young people’s voices are not heard, nor included in the processes of conflict resolution and peacebuilding. The ‘youth bulge’ is seen as a driver of instability, and young people are typically portrayed as perpetrators of violence or potential ‘spoilers’ who should be protected from radicalisation and extremism. The active role young people play as peacemakers, mediators and peacebuilders at grassroots and local levels are under-acknowledged and they are often not included in official peace processes. Beyond peacebuilding, young people display ownership, agency and leadership in diverse areas that are of significance to local, regional, national and international peace and security, ranging from climate change to tackling inequalities. Yet, the achievements of young people are hindered due to the absence of adequate recognition, protection, funding and meaningful partnerships. This report explores the diverse contributions of youth to peace processes and discusses the challenges and barriers young peacebuilders face while working towards peace, based on findings of a consultation with youth-led peacebuilding organisations and a workshop that brought together key actors in the field of Youth, Peace and Security. We then explore the multiple dimensions of inclusion in peace processes and chart potential avenues for future research, policy and practice in light of lessons learned from youth-led peace initiatives.
Entrenching Peace in Law: Do Peace Agreements Possess International Legal Status?
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Some 650 peace agreements have been concluded between governments and armed opposition groups since 1990. These agreements often do not fulfil the criteria of sources in domestic or international law: they are negotiated outside the established lawmaking channels of domestic law and are signed by armed opposition groups, which are traditionally not accorded treaty-making capacity in international law. Yet many scholars contend that the international legal status of peace agreements should be recognised either as international(ised) or hybrid agreements. In some peace processes, negotiating parties also intend to attach international legal status to their agreement. Consequently, a rich repertoire has emerged on the question of the international legal status of peace agreements across the practice of peacemaking, United Nations Security Council (‘UNSC’) practice, domestic and international judicial and arbitral decisions, and scholarship. Providing a comprehensive examination of this repertoire, this article demonstrates that peace agreements are not yet attributed legal status in international law. However, it is also explained that the lack of international legal status of peace agreements does not yield their conclusion and implementation as precarious, as is often feared. Attaching international legal status to peace agreements would neither shield them from all domestic and international judicial challenges nor necessarily function as an incentive to conclude and comply with a peace agreement. The article concludes on the note that the lack of international legal status does not relegate peace agreements to ‘scraps of paper’, as the implementation of peace agreements can be enhanced by incorporation into domestic law and through international oversight mechanisms, including the tools at the disposal of the UNSC.
Melbourne Journal of International, 2020, Vol 21(1)
(Un)constitutional Change Rooted in Peace Agreements
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Peace agreements aiming to end intra-state armed conflicts have often provided for radical constitutional change, with more than 100 peace agreements concluded since 1989 containing provisions on constitutional reform. When such constitutional change is envisaged to take place within the framework of an existing constitution, as opposed to the making of a new constitution, hard-achieved deals between peace-making parties are exposed to ‘the unconstitutionality challenge’. Although there is ample literature on the making of a new constitution during transitions from conflict to peace, implementing a peace agreement within an existing constitutional framework and ‘the unconstitutionality challenge’ to peace reforms have not been fully examined to date. In this Article, we first identify the modalities in which ‘the unconstitutionality challenge’ is directed at constitutional change rooted in peace agreements. We do so through a comparative survey and by particular reference to peace processes in Colombia (with the FARC-EP) and the Philippines (regarding the Mindanao conflict). We then examine the promise and limitations of three legal strategies in addressing the unconstitutionality challenge: (i) recourse to international law in assessing unconstitutionality, (ii) transitionalism in judicial review, and (iii) attributing supra-constitutional or international legal status to peace agreements. We conclude that while each strategy has some merit, their effectiveness may be limited where they lack legal feasibility or political purchase. The resulting intractability of the unconstitutionality challenge, particularly in jurisdictions where there is a strong commitment to legalism, warrants a re-thinking of the link between peace-making and constitutional reform and the importance of taking existing constitutional frameworks in transitional countries seriously.
International Journal of Constitutional Law, 2020, Vol 18(4), pp 1373–1404
The Challenges of Legalised Peacemaking: The Case of the 2012-2016 Peace Negotiations in Colombia
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In Turner, C. & Waehlisch, M. (eds) Rethinking Peace Mediation: Challenges of Contemporary Peacemaking Practice (Bristol University Press 2021)