Vital Interests: I would like to discuss peace negotiations and the architecture on which they are built throughout the world. You've been involved in a number of significant peace negotiations. What is the landscape at the moment in terms of where the prospects for an enduring peace are being negotiated?

Paul R. Williams: At the moment, there are a significant number of peace negotiations, in part because there is a substantial level of conflict and human rights violations in the world. There are some bright spots, like Sudan, where in 2019 we had the beginning of a democratic transition following the overthrow of dictator Omar al-Bashir. This brings hope that we will be able to resolve a decades-long conflict in Darfur, plus bring stability to the Abyei, Southern Kordofan, and Blue Nile areas.

On the flip side, the years of ongoing negotiations in Syria suggest a more cynical outlook. Despite multiple attempts at re-starting the peace process, there has not been much progress. There is also the genocide of the Rohingya in Myanmar—mass atrocities that are consistently denied by the Myanmar government, which instead claims to be managing a rebellious faction. 

Today’s conflicts involve an increasingly complex spectrum of actors. Most of the present-day conflicts are spill-in conflicts, which differ from spill-over conflicts of the past. In Syria, for instance, the Turks, the Russians, the Iranians, the Israelis, the Americans, the French, the British, the Jordanians, the Saudis, and Hezbollah are all active in one way or another in the conflict. All of these actors—regional or otherwise—have spilled into the conflict.

The conflict in Yemen, similarly, involves the Iranians, the Saudis, the UAE, the Americans, the British, the French, and others, all of whom are contributing in some ways to sustaining the conflict, while also trying to negotiate the peace. Looking to Sudan, there are enough factions and interest groups within the state itself that make it as complicated as any of the spill-in conflicts previously listed. 

VI: In these situations, is outside involvement a result of conflicts that were initially internal but became opportunities for proxy states to gain some strategic advantage by supporting one side or another?  

Paul R. Williams: Exactly. In the Cold War era, outside parties—usually the United States and Soviet Union—sought to gain strategic advantage through involvement in internal conflicts. In the three decades since the end of the Cold War, there have been many different opportunities for initially internal conflicts to be used by powerful regional states or global states to accomplish their objectives. Whether it is about oil, geography, or maritime routes, there seems to be an endless series of reasons why neighboring countries or regional powerhouses are interested in getting involved in these conflicts. 

They're Gordian knots, and trying to untangle the knots is one reason why so many of these negotiations are entering their sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, or tenth year of attempts at conflict resolution.

VI: Are international entities, like the United Nations, able to work toward solutions to these complex conflicts? 

Paul R. Williams: The United Nations is not as effective at facilitating negotiated settlements to these conflicts as we may have hoped they were when we were undergraduates first learning about UN mediators and blue helmets entering conflict zones to save the day. 

The five permanent members of the Security Council (the United States, Russia, China, the United Kingdom and France) are heavily involved in guiding the activities of the UN. In just about any conflict around the globe, some or all of the “permanent five” are heavily involved. This odd duality of participants in the conflict also serving as mediators or facilitators complicates conflict resolution significantly. 

Early on, during the efforts in Geneva to resolve the conflict in Syria, the Americans and the Russians, in a sense, co-mediated along with the United Nations, even though they were also deeply enmeshed in the ongoing conflict. Currently, the Turks, the Russians, and the Iranians are all play a role in mediating the ceasefire negotiations for Syria (the so called Astana process). All three of them, in one way or another, are also involved in the conflict, while problematically simultaneously serving as guarantors of the Astana peace process. 

Unlike conflicts of the past, when third-parties such as Norway or Finland would provide good offices, the participants of today’s conflicts are also mediating or seeking to facilitate an end to the conflict. On one hand, participant-mediators can guarantee and enforce whatever resolution is negotiated. But on the other hand, parties to conflict at the negotiating table must now consider not only the interests of those sitting across from them, but also the investment in the conflict that the mediators facilitating those negotiations likely hold. It is three-dimensional chess as opposed to checkers.

VI: In the past, major peace agreements were facilitated by concerned third party states like Norway or Sweden. Is it because of the complexity of contemporary conflicts and proxy involvement that they do not have the level of influence that they used to have?

Paul R. Williams: Correct. There is less space now for third-party facilitators or mediators because none of the UN Security Council permanent five or the regional powers want to put themselves at the mercy of a neutral facilitator. Parties have spilled into these countries because of what they believed were their strategic interests, and how they exit from or resolve the conflict will have a substantial impact on their national security. They do not want to leave anything to chance, so they instead seek to control the process. Unfortunately, as powerful actors on multiple sides of the conflict try to wrest control of the process, the casualty count of the conflict continues to rise.

VI: Regional bodies, say the European Union, the Arab League, the African Union, or the Organization of American States with the Venezuelan crisis, are they capable of exerting any influence to bring resolution to conflicts?

Paul R. Williams: Historically, they have been relatively ineffective in negotiating resolutions to conflict.

The governing entities of the European Union have traditionally been limited in their ability to mediate conflicts that contain an element of self-determination, as they must also contend with EU member states that have their own secessionist movements.

Turning to the African Union, though its has been working for quite some time on the Sudanese peace process, surprisingly, South Sudan has taken over the mediation role. South Sudan has its own peace process it should be addressing, including the process of forming a unity government. Nevertheless, given the momentum in Sudan’s democratic transition since the overthrow of Bashir, South Sudan’s mediator role in the Sudanese peace process has proven relatively effective. In light of the Sudanese transition, regional organizations and actors have their own interests they are attempting to assert in the peace process. 

Looking to the Americas, the Organization of American States has tried quite intensively to resolve the conflict in Venezuela, but because the United States has an outsized role in the OAS, the OAS faces challenges in operating as an effective mediator.

VI: In the case of Sudan, there was a transfer of power with long-time President Omar al-Bashir being forced out amid the prospect of a bloody conflict between reformists and the military. There were mechanisms by which vying parties got together and agreed on a roadmap to move Sudan toward a stable and hopefully democratic country. What were the ingredients of that? Were there outside mediators who came in and assisted these parties to work this out?

Paul R. Williams: What was very successful and very exciting about the 2019 Sudan democratic transition was that the people of Sudan united in opposition to Bashir, took to the streets, and basically toppled the government, even splitting the loyalties of the security forces. Half the security forces still supported Bashir, but the other half of the security forces were aligned with their children who were in the streets protesting for democracy and Bashir’s removal. 

The grassroots movement was instrumental not only in ousting Bashir but also in fighting for a prominent role for civilian leaders in the peace process, leading to the formation of a civilian-led transitional government.  The military first agreed to form a Sovereignty Council, which is made up of a majority of civilian groups and minority representation of the military; however, the military delegated itself the position of chair of the sovereign council for the first 18 months.

The Sovereignty Council then appointed a civilian prime minister, who then created a council of ministers.  An interim legislative body will soon be established. As the democratic movement began to take shape, international and regional actors engaged in Sudan came to the conclusion that Bashir’s days were numbered and supporting him was no longer sustainable. The Gulf States that had provided Bashir financial and political assistance wanted to get on the right side of history—not because of some moral imperative, but because they want to protect their perceived interest in Sudan.

There is a sense that the civilian opposition is quite capable of governing Sudan and can negotiate with the Darfuris and parties in the south, east and the north to bring about a sustainable peace, which was not the case under Bashir. This opposition, because it is democratic and civilian-led, can actually negotiate with the Darfuris and the other parties because it can build trust, unlike the military dictatorship of the past.

VI: Within Sudan there was evidently a vibrant, well-educated professional class that had the expertise and ability to create effective negotiation lines of communication with their opposition. They knew how to do it. Did they bring any expertise from outside?

Paul R. Williams: Professional associations were among the key players in this movement. Lawyers, doctors, and other professionals, together with the youth and other marginalized populations in Sudan, were essential in toppling Bashir. It was the intelligentsia coupled with the activists that enabled this transition.

This professional class has also been very savvy with contacting experts in the field of peace negotiations and transitional governance, including the organization I founded, the Public International Law & Policy Group (PILPG). We were in Addis Ababa last month with the opposition, as well as the civilian members of the transitional government, walking through what some transitional mechanisms might look like. There is a deep interest in learning the lessons of other conflicts and in learning best practices around drafting ceasefires, framework agreements, and interim constitutions.

One reason why many peace agreements fail is that one of the parties, usually the authoritarian or military party, just wants to paper over a conflict and move on. In the case of Sudan, you have a civilian-led government working with both parties to write a document that will be implementable and will lead to a durable peace. Bashir’s regime was only interested in papering over a conflict, leading to over 30 failed peace agreements since 1989. We at PILPG have worked with the rebel opposition in Darfur and the two areas over the last few years on pursuing negotiations for actual comprehensive, durable, and implementable agreements. Encouragingly, the new civilian-led transitional government is now expressing an appetite for pursuing the same type of implementable and durable agreement.

VI: Were the failures in Iraq important lessons for Sudan?  In that case, the United States had invaded and was involved in drafting a new constitution and setting up a new Iraqi government.

Paul R. Williams: There is a significant difference between grafting on one system of governance to another pre-existing system, as opposed to setting out to learn the lessons from other systems and other experiences. That was the problem in Iraq. The prevailing vision at the time for the future of Iraq involved grafting on a federal system from states like Canada or Spain and establishing a human rights mechanism modeled after ones implemented in other post-conflict contexts.  

In the Sudanese context, the parties are seeking to create documents—including a cessation of hostilities and a constitutional declaration—that meet their specific needs. In order to optimally do so, they are actively seeking out lessons from other countries’ peace processes and learning the core elements of how to approach the issues that may arise. 

One of the things we at PILPG have discovered from working around the globe is that countries will oftentimes draft documents that articulate a desired end state without acknowledging that they are nowhere near that end state. What the Sudanese have been doing instead is drafting a realistic document that will get them through the transition and on the path to the end state that they desire.

VI: So they have a vision?

Paul R. Williams: They have a vision of how to get to their desired end state and of the process they want to implement in order to get there. This is an important distinction in terms of lawyering peace.

VI: In the Sudan situation, the military and security forces were significant players in any transition. Were they seeking or being offered support from near authoritarian regimes like Egypt or the Gulf States?  

Paul R. Williams: There is a hot competition to host and serve as a venue for these negotiations in an effort to have some degree of influence over what may happen. Cairo is making a play to host the negotiations exactly for the reasons you just articulated. Doha is trying to host because Qatar had the earlier mandate for the Darfur negotiations, and it has an interest in being a regional power broker. Abu Dhabi is vying for involvement because of the UAE’s countervailing interest in being a regional player. 

South Sudan, a newer state interested in prestige, got out of the gate first and is now directly involved in the Sudanese mediation process. The South Sudanese know the issues and players at stake in Sudan’s transition and peace process, and by hosting the negotiations, they can, to an extent, shape the outcome. 

VI: Even the military were not going to say, "Okay. Let the Egyptians come in here and help us control the situation?"

Paul R. Williams: The military is still a little bit of a mystery because it is multidimensional in terms of its interest. There are members of the military who have a historical affiliation with the National Congress Party, Bashir's party. There are members of the military who are affiliated with the Janjaweed, although they have been renamed the Rapid Support Forces. Then there are other members of the military whose children took to the streets and protested and they want a secure Sudan that they can be proud of and that returns to the global community. 

The democratic opposition is always fractious because it is democratic. It is interesting to see a situation where the military also is factionalized. I think that will help the process of the transformation so rather than being one side against another, a multidimensional set of interests are being represented. 

VI: Do the Sudanese want to see Sudan be a major player on the African continent, as a functioning, prosperous and democratic nation?

Paul R. Williams: They have the necessary human resources, some oil and mineral resources, agricultural resources, and the confluence of the Blue Nile and White Nile in Khartoum. They would like to regain the regional power, influence, respect that they believe is appropriate for Sudan. 

VI: Another African state, Libya. The Egyptians are pretty active there, right?

Paul R. Williams: The Egyptians, the Qataris, and the Emiratis are active in Libya. Libya is a case with high potential that unfortunately went very wrong. Five million Libyans, many of them highly educated, share a common history of Gaddafi’s decades-long repressive regime and the 2011 NATO intervention. Libya is sitting on billions of dollars in resources that are already being monetized.

VI: They don't have to bring in Exxon/Mobile?

Paul R. Williams: Exactly. But instead of a conflict over resources in Libya, conflict emerged over territorial interests and the mutual suspicion that was sown by Gaddafi. 

When the PILPG team was in Libya working on the constitution and the transition for a Libya post-Gaddafi, I spoke with a community leader and I asked, "Why is it your interest to be in charge?" The answer was, "Well, it's not that we want to be in charge, we just don't trust anybody else to be in charge." 

That may have been a rationalization, but his concern was clear: that the only way he saw he could protect his community would be to ensure that his community is in charge. That concern does not make for a functional democratic transition. 

What we see now is a Libya fractured in three. The challenge is to bring these groups together and to form a workable government.

VI: Who is involved in trying to bring this about in Libya? 

Paul R. Williams: The UN is trying to create a Libya-wide grand coalition that includes Khalifa Haftar, head of the Libyan National Army, and his forces out of Benghazi which are supported by a number of external actors; the UN-recognized Tripoli based “government”; and the southern part of Libya, which acts with a greater degree of autonomy because of the geographic and economic remoteness of the region and the presence of Al Qaeda groups. 

The international community is divided over who should mediate these discussions. There is a UN appointed mediator, but the African Union contended that he was not being effective. The African Union then attempted to appoint a joint AU-UN envoy, but that was rejected by the Security Council.

Most of the international presence in Libya is actually in neighboring Tunisia or in Malta, hindering the possibility of hosting the parties to the conflict at the embassies in an effort to promote discussion. We all say that a military solution is not viable, but most of the regional players are putting their money on a military solution one way or the other.

One of the things that I have found so surprising in the last quarter of a century of doing peace and conflict work is that by and large, powerful actors do not act according to their self-professed commitment to peaceful conflict resolution Though they say that peace negotiations are the only way to resolve conflicts, these actors simultaneously put a tremendous amount of resources into the military for fear of losing a future military fight over the same issues. To achieve durable peace, all parties must decide that peace truly is the only option. Otherwise, conflict and resorting to military might will remain the norm.

VI: And there's no shortage of arms?

Paul R. Williams: That is for sure!

VI: Tanks, planes, missiles - lots of arms?

Paul R. Williams: The world is much more awash with weapons than I think any of us realize, and the ability of belligerent warring factions to access these weapons is astounding.

VI: Just to finish off a survey of North Africa - Tunisia and Algeria, will they remain stable?

Paul R. Williams: Tunisia is everyone's success story. Tunisia’s peace will likely hold because the Tunisians see the cost of failure all around them in the region. Its peace may not be as successful and as complete as the people of Tunisia would like, but Tunisia has largely been able to effectively navigate its challenges. Tunisia also has its economic relationships with the French and the United States that are not as predatory or based on resource extraction, like some of its neighbors. 

Algeria is larger and it has a history of bitter conflicts during decolonization and a protracted civil war. Algerians are well aware of the costs of conflict, which I think keeps them from moving toward any internal conflict. The Algerians know from experience that it is easy to start a war, but it is hard to end one. I think in Libya, there was a sense of, “let's give this a try and see what happens,” and it has been very difficult to escape the consequences of the return to use of force.

VI: And in Tunisia and Algeria, the Islamist factions are under control?

Paul R. Williams: Yes in Tunisia. More or less in Algeria. 

VI: But maybe not necessarily in Libya?

Paul R. Williams: ISIS was rampant for a while in Libya. It then came under control, but in any place where there is conflict, extremist groups can re-emerge and regain territory. 

These groups have their own agendas, and they have their own geographic space to operate. They thrive in chaos. A dangerous void developed as a consequence of the failure of the international community and regional powers to resolve the conflict in Libya. Even if parties can ultimately agree to resolve the conflict, by not having tended to the conflicts sooner, they have created a long-term ability for ISIS or other fundamentalist terrorist organizations to operate. In contexts like this, simply washing your hands of extremist groups and saying, "It's someone else's problem" does not succeed in the long run. It becomes your problem pretty rapidly.

VI: Coming back to the elections and what the candidates and the American people should think about in the coming year. These are obviously complex situations you've been talking about and, for the most part, the United States is not at the table. Is it important for Americans to participate in peace negotiations in far parts of the world? Or should the United States pull back and let others deal with these age-old conflicts over “bloody sand that is 7000 miles away?”

Paul R. Williams: It is important for a number of reasons for America to be at the table. The U.S. has undeniable strategic interests. The United States was globalized before the globe became globalized. The U.S., as part of its post-World War II political economic expansion, was everywhere. The United States built its economic and security successes around being a globalized power. America faces undeniable economic and security costs if it retrenches from globalization. The idea that America’s interests end at its shores has not been true for over 80 years. There is no going back—especially now that the rest of the world, including terrorists, have globalized.

An important reason is, quite frankly, the United States is skilled at being at the negotiating table. Like it or not, the United States is able to deploy the economic power, the political power, and the talent—at least until recently, the diplomatic talent—to solve complex global problems.

Our Washington-based Public International Law & Policy Group is a mixture of American and non-American in terms of our staff and our funding, and so often Europeans or others will ask us about our work and say, “Oh, well, do you get any pushback for being American?” In fact, we have to tell our pro bono clients that we are not associated with the U.S. government because otherwise, they assume we are going to help deliver the U.S. government to assist in solving the conflict.

The United States may be retrenching its engagement on the global stage now, but no state has replaced the U.S. with the talent, the economic stature, the political ability to get parties to agree and then to guarantee the implementation of these agreements. 

The United States and the European Union have historically believed in global security in order to protect their own security interests. Other states ascribe to the strategy of only protecting their own security interests. The Russians, the Chinese, the Turks, and the Iranians seek a very limited approach to protecting their security interests, which does not bode well for those with interests that differ.

Ultimately, the void left by the United States will be filled by these other states. Iran's security interests are oftentimes promoted by fomenting conflict in other places, such as by keeping Saudi Arabia busy in a proxy war in Yemen. Similarly, Russians have used and have sustained the Syrian conflict as a way of promoting their re-engagement in the Middle East. 

There is no security interest in the United States that is promoted by sustaining a conflict somewhere else. That is not in America’s security, trade, or economic interests. Keeping this in mind, it is important for the candidates who are seeking the presidency to articulate a clear rationale for being engaged with the world community and provide a clear path for how to do it. 

In September, I was on a radio program and a colleague of mine who recently retired from the State Department made the following argument: We have to stop being shy about making the moral case. It has become out of fashion to say, “We have a set of moral principles that guide our behavior.” It is important that we engage in addressing the Rohingya genocide, it is important that we confront the war crimes committed by Assad in Syria, and it is important that we engage with the plight of refugees and acknowledge atrocities because it is simply the right thing to do.

In essence, he suggested that American policymakers should move beyond security and economic conversations and just be honest: in many cases the moral case represents who America is, and that America should act upon this core principle of its identity. 

Historically, the United States has taken the good Samaritan parable to heart, and unfortunately, it is out of fashion to be a good Samaritan in terms of foreign policy. That is not right or sustainable, and that's not what America has stood for as a global leader.

My State Department colleague was very clear that current U.S. foreign policy is an aberration. American policy will return to the guiding ideals of economic security and moral underpinnings if given the opportunity and space. I hope he is right.

Dr. Paul R. Williams holds the Rebecca I. Grazier Professorship in Law and International Relations at American University where he teaches in the School of International Service and at the Washington College of Law. Dr. Williams is also the co-founder of the Public International Law & Policy Group (PILPG), a pro bono law firm providing legal assistance to states and governments involved in peace negotiations, post-conflict constitution drafting, and the prosecution of war criminals. As a world renowned peace negotiation lawyer, Dr. Williams has assisted over two dozen parties in major international peace negotiations and has advised numerous parties on the drafting and implementation of post-conflict constitutions. Several of Dr. Williams' pro bono government clients throughout the world joined together to nominate him for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Dr. Williams has served as a Senior Associate with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, as well as an Attorney-Adviser for European and Canadian affairs at the U.S. Department of State, Office of the Legal Adviser. He received his J.D. from Stanford Law School and his Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge. Dr. Williams is a sought-after international law and policy expert. He is frequently interviewed by major print and broadcast media and regularly contributes op-eds to major newspapers. Dr. Williams has authored six books on various topics concerning international law, and has published over three dozen scholarly articles on topics of international law and policy. Dr. Williams is a member of the Council of Foreign Relations, and has served as a Counsellor on the Executive Council of the American Society of International Law. More information about Dr. Williams can be found at www.drpaulrwilliams.com.