Ethical Issues in Peace Making

Peacemaking is a third party intervention involving a neutral third party. Peacemaking is bringing hostile parties to a conflict to discuss their problems and to reach a negotiated agreement through dialogue. Mediation requires the neutral to act in a facilitative role to discover and address underlying needs, positions, and interests of the conflicting
parties and to constructively and passionately deal with strong emotions. The third party neutral does not have control over the outcome or the choices that the conflicting party makes in reaching a negotiated agreement. 

The third party must win the confidence of the conflicting party as being neutral and not bias in the process of making peace. Peacemaking involves actions taken to bring hostile parties to agreement, essentially through such peaceful means as foreseen in chapter VI of the UN Charter. Mediation is a voluntary, informal, non-binding process in which the parties to the conflict retain their control over the outcome, although it may include positive and negative inducements.

The role of the mediator is to create the enabling environment for the parties to carry out dialogue sessions leading to the resolutions of pending conflict. 

The mediator tries to calm the temperament of the conflicting parties, works on the communication between them and try to drive the parties towards win-win as opposed to win-lose outcomes. The mediator is someone who does not have or exercise coercive power over the parties and outcome. A mediator may only propose, rather than impose agreements. The assumed moral or legal responsibility, or even liability of the mediators differs drastically in different arenas- for instance, in global political negotiations, it is often difficult to find anyone who is sufficiently trusted by both sides to even get a peace process to begin. Accordingly, liability is not assigned to the mediator no matter how badly things go wrong- doing so would discourage future efforts to help.

The principle of impartiality on the part of the mediator seeks to promote the ideals of justice and fairness on all issues brought to the negotiating table. Confidentiality aims at boosting the confidence of the parties to discuss freely and truthfully amongst themselves without any fear that their positions, claims, defenses or remedies being sought would become known or available to other people who may not be directly involved in the conflict or at negotiations.

Twelve steps to follow for a successful negotiation include:

ü  Get to the table.

ü  Pick the right time to mediate.

ü  Choose the right mediator.

ü  Have pre-mediation conferences.

ü  Set aside sufficient time.

ü  Prepare your clients.

ü  Prepare a good position paper.

ü  Insist on full settlement authority.

ü  Maximize the benefits of the joint session.

ü  Set the tone with your opening statement.

ü  Get into a zone of bargaining as soon as possible.

ü  Do not take the bottom line approach.

UNDERSTANDING ETHICS

Basically, ethics is a systematic study of human actions and intentions in order to determine their goodness or badness, rightness or wrongness, correctness and incorrectness and with attention given to how such course of action and intention being evaluated affects the person who performed the action or showed an intention in question, the person at which it is directed, and the society or environment where the action is performed or the intention is muted (Ayantayo, 2009). The human action is the voluntary actions of man not the one he is coerced to perform. As soon as a person is forced into an action, the effect of such action can never be judged to be right or wrong since such person did not willingly carry it out. In order to determine the rightness or wrongness of an action, we rely on two schools of thought which are the ontological school of thought and the deontological school of thought. The ontological school of thought says that an action is right if only its effect have impact on majority of people as against the minority. In other words, the number of people benefiting from such action determines the rightness or the wrongness of that action. That is such an action is right if it benefits more people and it is wrong if it benefits few people.

The deontological school of thought says that an action is right if only it is right in itself. Here, the question of morality comes into play by following moral standards. We may ask ourselves, who sets the standards? The theological school of thought avers that God is the one who sets the standard. On the account of this, it is assumed that it is what God instructs man to do that he should do and abstain from what he forbids (Ayantayo, 2009). For the philosophical school, the standard is based on logic, i.e. human reason and rationality.  Other schools of thought according to Ayantayo (2009) include:

·         The culturalists who argue that ethics involves consideration of cultural presuppositions based on social custom, which has its root in the culture of the people.

·         The Legalists assert that ethics involves a standard of right and wrong relative to what is required by law.

·         The Free Thinkers see ethics as something involving consideration of a freedom to choose and a responsibility to choose.

·         The Professionals define standard as a code of professional conduct, which contains aspects of fairness and duty to the profession and the general public.

·         The Intuitionists reduce ethical standard to an ability to understand or know something based on a feeling rather than any standard coming from any other sources.

·         The Sociological school believes that the standard is set by society for the benefits of its members.

·         The Artist/Designers defines the standard as self imposed design standard, within which an individual may or may not choose to work.

Aside these, we have the positive moral standard defined by justice, perseverance, truth telling, responsibility, fairness, liberty, equity and freedom. The negative moral standard is defined by injustice, intolerance, discrimination, partiality, lie telling, impatience, irresponsibility, wickedness, coercion, selfishness, vengeance. The truth is that every action becomes a moral matter when it, in one way or the other, affects others in society by either increasing or decreasing their wellbeing, causing harm or benefits.

Ethical Issues in Peacemaking

       The Principle of Audi Alteram Patem (Right to fair hearing)- In a peacemaking process, it is only ethically correct to allow all parties to a conflict speak up on the issue at hand without denying any party the right to speak up since it is a dialogue. All communication should be in a language that is understood by all parties which is fair.

       The Power Approach- It will amount to injustice if one party is allowed to dominate a peacemaking process even if such party is higher than the other party in any form. The situation is even made worse when such party use intimidation, threats, subjugation, and coercion over the other party which makes the other party dialogue in fear or intimidation. This then is an involuntary action as the outcome of such peacemaking process cannot be adjudged to be right or wrong. All parties must dialogue on a common ground as equals not as superior-subordinates to achieve sustainable peace.

       The Principle of Nemo Judex in Causua sua (No man should be a judge in his own case)-In the peacemaking process, it would be ethically wrong for any of the parties to throw blames at the other party while adjudging themselves to be right. The correct thing to be done here is for all parties to accept their fault lines. When this is done, attaining peace agreement will no longer be difficult.

       The Issue of Lies/Truth- In the peace making process, it is ethically wrong to tell lies and ethically correct to tell the truth. All matters in the conflict situation should be presented as it is not as it ought to be.

       Confidentiality- All matters discussed in the peacemaking process should not be discussed with outsiders or those who are not parties to the process. The mediator must maintain absolute confidentiality to win the trust and confidence of the parties to the conflict.

       The Outcome- The outcome of the peacemaking should be followed by signs that agreement have been reached and that peace is restored. It could be by smiles, shaking of hands, embrace or other signs as the parties so wish.

Reference

Ayantayo, J. K. (2009) Fundamentals of Religious Ethics. Ibadan: End-Time Publishing House Ltd

Best, S. G. (2014) Introduction to Peace and Conflict Studies in West Africa. Ibadan: Spectrum Books Ltd.