Conflict Resolution & Mediation

Conflict Resolution and Mediation are subjects that have fuelled academic treatises, articles, opinions, tomes and very many suggestions – they are of especial importance to world federalists as they are the Philosopher's Stone whose alchemy is a necessary precursor to a world of peaceful global governance subject to the rule of law. While unresolved conflict remains there can be no foundation that will endure as a basis for world government. Successful conflict resolution, of course, rests on all parties abiding by the result which, whether enshrined in treaty or agreement, means abiding by the rule of law. That law, like constitutions, will change as circumstances and mores change (Edmund Burke’s famous admonition that a state without the means of some change is without the means of its conservation) but it relies on scrupulous observance of its terms by all.

The UK Attorney-General Lord Hermer has recently delivered in London the RUSI (Royal United Services Institute) Annual Security Lecture in which he warned that threats by politicians to “abandon” international law such as the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) should be compared with 1930s Nazi Germany. He considered the role of international law in dealing with current global geopolitical challenges, including conflict in the Middle East and Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine, pointing out that these circumstances have reinforced the inexorable link between national security and the preservation of the existing multilateral system and international legal order. He said that “The international rules-based order soon breaks down when States claim that they can breach international law because it is in their national interests. That is the exceptionalist argument that Russia makes.”

It was chilling that this came the day after White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt accused “activist” judges who had ruled unlawful President Trump’s executive orders on tariffs as being beyond the scope of a national emergency of a “brazen abuse of judicial power” and stated that there is a “trend of unelected judges inserting themselves into the Presidential decision making process” which is undermining the authority of the United States. History is strewn with examples of autocrats humiliating and scapegoating judicial authorities that have stood in their way and then bypassing them altogether. Once the rule of law (properly tested in the courts with legal argument and the appeal process) is rubbished then we shall have no protection and everyone’s rights are imperilled. The law is there to protect the weak especially against the powerful but its abiding legitimacy is that its universality applies to all equally. 

Some of you may be familiar with the wonderful play (later made into a film) by Robert Bolt “A Man for All Seasons” in which he puts into the mouth of celebrated scholar, lawyer, and Lord Chancellor, Sir Thomas More, the rebuke to his putative son-in-law Will Roper who has just told Sir Thomas that he would cut down every law in England to get after the Devil - to which Sir Thomas responds “Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned 'round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man's laws, not God's! And if you cut them down, and you're just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake!”

Any conflict resolution or mediation, therefore, must have at its backbone the authority of legally enforceable law (even if, practically, this is moral rather than enforceable – and world federalists will understand only too well the frustration of a lack of enforceability as WFM has always campaigned for the mandatory jurisdiction of the ICJ or World Court). 

History, again, can be a guide to show us what characteristics make conflict resolution durable and which are likely to lead on the further conflict. These issues are existential as the world seeks, seemingly in vain, for a peaceful outcome to the conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza. We know that the Treaty of Versailles was a contributory factor in the rise of Nazism and belligerence leading to the Second World war because it left Germany with a sense of unfairness and vindictiveness on the part of the victors in loss of territory and reparations. This was a factor in the totally different approach towards Germany after the Second World War with the western half being welcomed into the allied nations, the Marshall Plan for its rebuilding etc (albeit motivated also by a desire to create a buffer and counterforce to the Soviet Union which was regarded as a serious threat to ongoing armed conflict). It may well have prompted Churchill to write in his History of the Second World War that one of the morals is ““In War: Resolution, In Defeat: Defiance, In Victory: Magnanimity, In Peace: Good Will.” Far too often the victors in a conflict have failed to show magnanimity towards the conquered.

Every successful conclusion of a conflict is based on compromise – a resolution in which all parties have had to give up something which acts as the glue of mutual dissatisfaction tempered by the knowledge that there is a quid pro quo for every loss. It is an axiom built into the human temperament. I know from my practice as a barrister that this applies at the individual level as well as internationally. It requires an understanding and appreciation of what the other party’s goals are as well as their red lines. Again, my training as a barrister enjoins me to put myself into the position of my opponent – not least so that I can examine the strong and weak points from that perspective. The positive outcome from what may appear to be a negative approach is a compromise which all agree is fair in the circumstances.

In 1974, a pair of researchers –Kenneth W. Thomas and Ralph H. Kilmann – studied workers and their routine conflicts in the workplace. Over time, they were able to observe a pattern of ways in which people resolved conflict; most methods could be distilled down to five core methods. These five options formed the basis of the Thomas Kilmann Conflict Model Instrument and the Thomas Kilmann Conflict Resolution Model which has the five modes: competing, avoiding, accommodating, collaborating, and compromising. Space here does not admit of my examining this further – but you will get the idea.

How can we apply these principles to the two major conflicts I identify above? There is impasse in both cases. In Ukraine it is evident that President Putin’s aims have not changed nor his opinion (expressed for all to see and to take note if only they had) in an article a year before the invasion 2022 in which he refused to recognise Ukraine as a sovereign state (despite the Budapest agreement) and laid claim to it all as still part of Mother Russia. On the other hand, despite the Russianisation of Crimea (in which, with mass deportations of Tatars and indigenous Crimeans since the Second World War and further exodus after the 2014 invasion and their replacement with Russians) Ukraine is highly unlikely to accept permanent loss of any territory. The Kremlin wants Ukraine demilitarised and a puppet state and Ukraine wants membership of NATO as a security guarantee. These are incompatible aims and positions. What price compromise? Maybe the loss of Crimea and the creation of an autonomous zone in the Donbas in return for the rest of Ukraine to have an associated security guarantee from NATO with a review in five years’ time could lead to a temporary settlement – but it would be an uneasy peace (especially if Putin were, in the example of Hitler which he seems to be following, to rebuild its military and launch a further assault during or at the end of that time). We now have David Petraeus, former CIA Chair, warning that Putin would march into Europe's Baltic states and especially Lithuania about which he has often spoken – perhaps we need to read his outpourings more carefully.

Is the Middle-East any easier? It seems not. On one hand, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is clinging to office and prolonging the war so as to avoid being tried for war crimes and is also facing multiple corruption charges in Israeli courts, sustained in office by a few hard right and uncompromising politicians while at the same time intending to establish 22 further (internationally illegal) settlements in the West Bank. We have seen those settlers use force with impunity against unarmed Palestinians and are determined to defend their new homes from the barrel of a gun. A humanitarian disaster denying the Palestinian people of means of survival has swung international opinion against Israel, thereby losing the narrative of the initial provocation of the unwarranted and brutal attack, murders and hostage taking of Hamas that, despite the levelling of Gaza, remains elusive and still in action. Can any Israeli Government survive pulling out the settlers and, in any event, would the settlers comply? In 1995 Yitzhak Rabin paid with his life in trying to trade land for peace. Can the Palestinian Authority reassert itself sufficiently to be a credible representative of the Palestinians and replace and isolate Hamas? Has so much bloodshed now removed any possible future trust and cooperation between Israelis and Palestinians thereby making a two-state solution irretrievable?

Do we, as world federalists, have any answers? Our principles are to establish federal government with as much autonomy at the local level as possible, referring to a higher authority only the issues which are beyond that scope due to their magnitude or geopolitical considerations. Would it be possible to envisage a federal structure in Ukraine in which autonomous regions of Crimea and the Donbas would have representation in both a Ukrainian and Russian federal institutions? Can we envisage an Israeli-Palestinian federal structure where both are represented in a Middle-Eastern federation that might include Lebanon, Jordan and other willing Arab states?

These are questions that I cannot answer – but perhaps we should give them some thought.

Keith Best TD, MA is a former Conservative Member of Parliament (MP) for Anglesey/Ynys Môn and served as the Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Secretary of State for Wales. Major in airborne and commando (artillery) forces, practising barrister, liveryman (Loriner), and Freeman of the City of London, Keith was named one of the 100 most influential people in public services in the UK by Society Guardian. Keith has made significant contributions to international refugee and human rights initiatives, including serving as Vice Chair of the European Council on Refugees and Exiles and as a member of the Foreign Secretary’s Advisory Panel on Torture Prevention. He is the Chair & CEO of the Wyndham Place Charlemagne Trust, Chair of the Universal Peace Federation (UK), patron of TEAM Global, and a trustee of several national and international organisations. 

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