GCSP Video | Negotiating Peace: Lessons from the Field

The Geneva Security Debate will focus principally but not exclusively on high stakes negotiations in Ukraine and the Middle East with the aim of providing insights on the complex necessary road to sustainable just peace. Ambassador Thomas Greminger, Executive Director of the GCSP and former Secretary-General of the OSCE, will cover the Russia-Ukraine, and Nomi Bar-Yaacov, a renowned award winning international negotiator, arbitrator and mediator and an Associate Fellow in the Global Fellowship Programme at GCSP will cover Israel-Palestine, and the broader Middle East region. They will discuss their own experiences in both official negotiations (Track I) and backchannel negotiations (Track II and Track 1.5), drawing lessons from failed processes and partial successes, highlighting the necessary components in peace negotiations to ensure long term success.

Our panelists will discuss the necessary steps to get to peace: understanding the history, culture and narratives of the parties to the conflict, the specific reasons that led to the conflict, and the path towards a sustainable peace agreement which must include firm benchmarks and sustainable security guarantees agreed between the sides. They will discuss the need for a clear realistic mandate to any Third Party role in overseeing the implementation of the various stages necessary to get to peace, as well as the nature and scope of security guarantees which need to be tailor-made, and include an effective monitoring, verification and compliance mechanism.

Speakers

Ms Nomi Bar-Yaacov, Advocate, Associate Fellow, Geneva Fellowship Programme
Ambassador Thomas Greminger, Executive Director, GCSP