Building the Peace by Mandating Reform
United Nations-Mediated Human Rights Agreements in E1 Salvador and Guatemala
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4499986 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Susan D Burgerman (Columbia University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2000 |
| Volume | 27 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 63-87 |
| Publication date | 2000-05-01 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Latin American Perspectives (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0094-582X • E-ISSN: 1552-678X |
| Publisher | SAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1177/0094582x0002700304 |
| OpenAlex | W2072658821 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 6 |
| References cited | 8 |
One of the novelties of post-cold war conflict resolution is direct intervention in the settlement of civil conflict by the United Nations (UN) SecretaryGeneral. The peace processes in El Salvador and Guatemala are to date the most illuminating examples of this innovation. This article examines the role of UN mediation in these negotiations, focusing on the peace accords' mandates for postconflict institution-building and protection of human rights. Because of the strong orientation toward human rights advocacy on the part of members of the UN delegations to the talks and the volume of international human rights mobilization associated with both conflicts, the negotiations produced UN peace-building missions (the UN Observer Mission in El Salvador and the UN Verification Mission in Guatemala) that set an important precedent for international promotion of human rights principles and democratic institutions. In both cases, the UN mediator's activities extended beyond the role of good offices to initiating independent proposals, including recommendations for disarmament procedures, military restructuring, and judicial and constitutional reform measures. The UN was able to take a proactive role in these negotiations because of a combination of unusually conducive domestic and external conditions. I argue that an examination of these factors will contribute to a better understanding of the conditions under which the UN can diplomatically intervene to promote human rights in other cases of internal conflict. However, despite shared permissive conditions, differences in the composition of the domestic ruling coalitions, especially with regard to the position of the military, caused the peace processes to differ markedly. In the Salvadoran case, the military's
Conflict resolution · Democracy · Disarmament · Human rights · Mediation · Negotiation · Peacebuilding · Peacekeeping · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Global Peace and Security Dynamics · Law · Peacebuilding and International Security · Political Conflict and Governance · Public Administration
| Citations per year | 0.24 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2001 - 2021 (21) |
| Highly cited | No |