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Governance Components in Peace Agreements: Fundamental Elements of State and Peace Building?
May 27, 2009. This new comparative study by the Conflict Research Unit (CRU) looks at the very roots of every post-conflict reconstruction process, whereby a new governance system is expected to be established. Based on the analysis of five peace agreements (i.e. Cambodia, Mozambique, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Burundi and Sudan) and one negotiation process (i.e. Sri Lanka – now dramatically collapsed and overtaken by the Sri Lanka government’s announced military victory), the study carefully explores those agreements and negotiations in search of possible causal relations between the presence of governance components and the development of proper state and peace building processes.
But what are exactly those governance components and how have they impacted on the transitions following a peace agreement? And do they all carry the same weight, or can we notice differences in the kind of influence they tend to exert on those transitions. And again, can we identify trends in the way conflicting and mediating parties have tried to take into account those components in their strategies towards settling a conflict and starting a process of sustainable state and peace building?
These are some of the key questions that the report has tried to address and to respond to, among others, through the formulation of a set of basic recommendations.