The tumultuous launch of ADRg Ambassadors gives way to a requirement to write an article for DIPLOMAT magazine about Diplomats and Mediation.

One interesting theme is ‘neutrality’. Is it possible for any international mediator in a dispute or problem to be truly impartial, and does it matter if that is not achieved or achievable?

It is probably possible for diplomats to be adequately neutral for most practical purposes if they have no evident axe to grind in the dispute concerned. Hence small smart countries geographically removed from a problem can have an impressive impact – a classic modern example being the way Norway used diplomatic nimbleness to broker the Oslo Accords.

On the other hand, one of the hardest tasks facing a mediator is not to get personally ‘involved’. Hence mediators who are seen as impartial (enough) on the substance themselves usually have reputations to win or lose, so they might end up over-pressing one or other of the parties to reach a settlement – itself a form of non-neutrality.

Is this a bad thing? Maybe not, when issues of war or peace are at stake. On the other hand, a party which feels that it has been coerced or bamboozled into a settlement against its better judgement or instincts may just not try to implement that settlement, so the much-praised deal falters anyway.

Then there are mediations where divisions between the mediators themselves start to affect the outcome. See this fascinating account of how a German, American and Russian team of senior diplomats tried to broker a deal between Kosovo and Serbia. The Kosovo/Serbia problem in effect became a new place for their other rivalries playing themselves out.

Another option is to outsource mediation efforts to non-diplomats, people who are skilled, modest and anonymous – people who derive their authority as mediators from really being detached from the politics of it all, and who look rather at the emotional and even spiritual factors at play.

Such as the Quakers, who have had a long and usually creditable record in trying to find common ground in some of the world’s toughest hot-spots, relying on sophisticated ‘impartial listening’.

One important part of their method lies in denying to themselves as far as possible any sense of satisfaction, one reason why career diplomats tend to have no understanding whatsoever of this sort of work – diplomats are impressed by their own cleverness, or at least are told to bring home some glory for their Minister:

If a conciliator believes in confidentiality, he or she must deny themself `many elements of ego satisfaction’, maintains Mike Yarrow in his book, Quaker Experiences in International Conciliation. `It takes a certain amount of courage to intervene in a complicated, dangerous situation,’ he continues. `To keep it up the conciliator needs some sense of satisfaction. All this can readily build up to a feeling that the individual is essential to the resolution of the conflict, and even that he or she has the solution. Such feelings are fatal to this kind of unofficial effort.’

Conclusion?

None, other than to point to the array of examples of mediating interventions which have made a difference, and the many more where despite heroic efforts by well meaning mediators to help the parties identify sensible outcomes, the problem just keeps dragging on. And all concerned lose out.

Perhaps this happens because, as we all know, issues are like Shrek the Ogre. They have layers:

Shrek:     Ogres are like onions.
Donkey:   They stink?
Shrek:      Yes. No.
Donkey:   Oh, they make you cry…
Shrek:      NO. Layers. Onions have layers. Ogres have layers. You get it? We both have layers.

And you have to be a superhuman mediator to be able to identify all those stinky tear-inducing layers, and then help the parties to deal with them simultaneously.