Category: Negotiation

Shaking Hands in Dayton and Singapore: Symbolic Representations of Peace Processes

Balkans, Eastern Europe, Edinburgh, Global Justice Academy, Negotiation, Peace, Peace Processes, USA

In this post, PSRP researcher Laura Wise reflects on symbolic representations of handshake moments at high-level peace summits, and what we miss when we consistently focus on comprehensive peace agreements. This is a longer version of remarks delivered at the IICR 2nd Annual Conference ‘Networked Cultures: Translations, Symbols, and Legacies’, as part of a session convened by the IICR Cultures of Peace and Violence Network. PSRP and the Global Justice Academy are proud members of this interdisciplinary network that enables discussions on how symbolic representations constrain or facilitate cultures of peace and violence, and we look forward to participating in future events. 

Kim and Trump shaking hands on the red carpet during the DPRK-USA Singapore Summit on 12 June 2018

Handshake moments are currently a hot topic, as journalists rush to interpret the symbolism of the Singapore Summit between North Korea and the United States. From the diplomatic menu to the moment the leaders of each country make physical contact, no aspects of negotiation process are above being scrutinized for what they can tell us about the potential for achieving peace. Meanwhile, participants and commentators often hail the agreements themselves as historic and comprehensive even before crucial details of a done deal are released to the public, with parties keen to credit themselves as having achieved what no other figure has managed to do thus far.

Over twenty years ago, another high-level summit was capturing the world’s attention, as leaders from the former Yugoslavia and other interested parties gathered at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton, Ohio, to negotiate yet another comprehensive peace plan for Bosnia and Herzegovina.

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Educating Human Rights in Post-conflict Settings

Conflict, education, Human rights, Negotiation, Peace

sm-blogSean Molloy is a Principal’s Scholar in Law at the University of Edinburgh, where he is completing his PhD. In this blog, Sean reflects on discussions about Peacebuilding and Education in South Sudan held during the Inclusive Political Settlements Summer School. He goes on to discuss the relationship between human rights and education in post-conflict settings from a critical perspective.

I had the pleasure of attending the Inclusive Political Settlements Summer School at the University of Edinburgh last June. While there in the capacity as a rapporteur for the third day, I found myself becoming increasingly engrossed in the discussions and presentations in what proved to be a highly informative and constructive day. While each individual presentation warranted further discussion, one presentation in particular invoked a series of questions pertaining to the place of education in societies attempting to emerge from the shackles of violent conflict.

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Recognising the Ordinary Heroes among us: multimedia as a tool for reconciliation in Bosnia and Herzegovina

Art and Photography, Case Studies, Conflict, Eastern Europe, Engagement, Human rights, Negotiation, Peace, Response

On 26-27 February 2015, the Post-Conflict Research Center from Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, visited the University of Edinburgh to present its award-winning “Ordinary Heroes” project. “Ordinary Heroes” won first place in the 2014 UN Alliance of Civilizations and BMW Group Intercultural Innovation Award in a ceremony hosted by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon in Bali, Indonesia. The Global Justice Academy at the University of Edinburgh sponsored PCRC’s travel to Edinburgh.

Mina Jahić is a widowed octogenarian from Rogatica, in eastern Bosnia and Herzegovina, whose husband and two sons lost their lives in the wars that followed the violent dissolution of Yugoslavia in the early 1990s. She lives by herself in an upper floor of a prefabricated apartment block not far from the capital Sarajevo. A devout Muslim, Mina’s hope for the future of her country lies in the youth, who she believes still have the power to change the ethnocratic system that has blocked any attempts for reconciliation and reform since the end of the war in 1995. What Mina’s wartime experiences separate her from her neighbours, however, are the risks she took to save a stranger escaping his execution. Mina is an ordinary hero.

Ferid Spahić, a gas station attendant in Ilijaš, a small town to the northwest of Sarajevo, was in his mid-twenties when the first shots were fired in Bosnia by Serb paramilitary forces bent on “cleansing the land” for a “Greater Serbia” under the guise of preserving Communist Yugoslavia from dissolution. A Bosniak Muslim, too, he and his neighbours were targets of ethnonationalist destruction that quickly engulfed Bosnia’s three main ethnic groups – Serbs, Croats and Bosniaks. One day in June 1992, a Serb man from his village, whom he had seen as a trusted neighbour, rounded the local Bosniak men into buses, telling them as they were separated from their wives and children that they would be transferred to Skopje, Macedonia, and later reunited with their families.

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When will we start to address the security of aid workers through a gendered lens?

Conflict, Human rights, International development, Negotiation

This guest post is by Dr Alice Gritti. Alice holds a PhD in social psychology from the University of Milano-Bicocca. Her research focuses on gender studies and international aid workers. She arrived at the University of Edinburgh as a visiting researcher in 2013.

It has already been a month since the kidnapping of two female Italian aid workers in Syria last August. It was striking how the media reported the news of Greta and Vanessa, and how the world of social and the industry insiders commented on it. Before that of a respectful silence, it took the shape of a blame game, with only a few speaking up in defence of the two aid workers, admiring and sharing their values​​, while many were blaming the two with judgemental comments, and often sexist. Yes, of course. The two at issue are indeed “two girls”, and their female identity was what the “accusers” mostly made relevant in their notes: “two young girls”, “very young and inexperienced”, “naïve”, “the blonde and the brunette”, “they should have played with Barbie when they were little instead of playing at the little humanitarians”, and so on.

Greta Ramelli (L) and Vanessa Marzullo (R). Source: ANSA.it

Greta Ramelli (L) and Vanessa Marzullo (R). Source: ANSA.it

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Reflections on Edinburgh Peace Initiative Conference

Citizenship and Belonging, Conflict, Negotiation, Peace

On October 19-20 the Edinburgh Peace Initiative hosted its second annual conference, with support from the Global Justice Academy. Below, Kasia Musur, Conference Rapporteur and Edinburgh student on the MSc Global Crime, Justice and Security, gives her reflections on the event.

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The weekend of the 19th and the 20th of October brought on exciting opportunities for individuals and organisations concerned with human rights, global justice and peace, as Edinburgh hosted the Global Citizenship Commission and the Edinburgh Peace Initiative’s Voices in Conflict: Rights, Realism and Moral Outrage conference.

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