Human rights in Mediation: The heart of the matter

This research concerns how human rights principles and standards can contribute to the political work of the United Nations, and other entities, to prevent and resolve conflict. The integration of human rights in mediation may well represent the most challenging — and therefore also arguably the most interesting — aspect of the interplay between norms and politics. While the United Nations has made significant progress in effectively integrating human rights in United Nations peace operations, institutionally and operationally, similar inroads remain less advanced in the area of good offices and mediation. Upon taking office, Secretary-General Guterres made prevention across the United Nations system a priority, and emphasized mediation as an important tool to this end.7 He stressed the Organization’s responsibility to “identify and seize any possible window of opportunity for mediation in order to prevent or manage conflict”, and noted his intention to bring together “the capabilities of the diverse actors in the Organization across the peace and security, development and human rights pillars so as to maximize our assets in support of mediation”. This study explores how this objective of the Secretary General can best be realized in practice by analyzing how human rights can support mediation and good offices efforts. Through a selection of eight case studies, the research seeks to highlight how human rights considerations and analysis have directly contributed to mediation efforts since the establishment of the United Nations. Several studies have looked at human rights in mediation and transitional justice processes post-conflict, but very few have analyzed the specific role of human rights in mediation aimed at resolving and preventing conflict.