Environment: the planet
in danger
Sustainable development, or how to
reconcile human needs and the preservation of ecological, social and economic balances.
Within the framework of the G8, France wishes to make its partners aware of the necessity
to enforce the measures in this area adopted in September 2002 at the World Summit on
Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, South Africa. By Muriel Denis, journalist
After several years indifference to the
problems of our planet, the international community finally woke up as the 21st century
dawned. Three occasions have demonstrated the wish of industrialised countries to promote
a different model for growth and development to that adopted over the last fifty years, in
order to limit the burden of risk that human activities are inflicting on the Earth:
global warming, pollution and the exhaustion of natural resources. To prevent, too, poor
countries from continuing to fall by the wayside.
Under the banner of the UN, first there was
the Millennium Summit in New York in September 2000, when ambitious targets to reduce
poverty were set. Next, in March 2002, at the Monterrey conference in Mexico, the
developed countries promised to increase their public development aid. Lastly, the
Johannesburg Summit on Sustainable Development in September 2002, ten years after the Rio
Summit, stressed the necessity of moving toward ecologically responsible growth. In
Monterrey as in Johannesburg, the international community recognised that public
generosity and action could not, on their own, solve the planet’s ills. It was
essential to mobilise the corporate world. This is the general line of the "Type II
Initiatives" adopted in Johannesburg.
In the South African capital, the French
president’s warning cry did not go unnoticed. "Our house is burning down and we
are looking away. The disfigured, over-exploited natural world is no longer capable of
recovery and we refuse to admit it. Mankind is suffering. It is suffering from bad
development, in both the north and south, and we are unconcerned. The Earth and the human
race are in peril and we are all responsible for it," stressed Jacques Chirac. Since
then, France has been fully committed, acting at both European and international level, as
one of the signatory States to the UN Convention on Climate Change and the Kyoto Protocol
on the Reduction of Greenhouse Gasses, testifying to a genuine desire to change the ways
things are.
French initiatives
France, which argues for the creation of a
world environmental body, in January 2003 set up a National Council for Sustainable
Development, which includes environmental and consumer organisations, trade unions and
businesses. Its purpose is to draw up a strategy for the country and for the support of
developing countries. In addition, in collaboration with Sweden and the United
Nations’ Development Programme (UNDP), France has set up an international working
party which deals with the question of "world public assets"*; which should
enlighten decision-makers about the priorities for international cooperation. Lastly, in
his capacity as president of the G8, President Jacques Chirac is determined to promote a
number of other projects this year.
The protection of natural resources and
good management of water and energy figure among these priority objectives. At present,
more than 1 billion people have no access to drinking water and 2.5 billion have neither
sanitation nor modern forms of energy. The consequences are tragic: lack of drinking water
is the most common cause of death in the world. Several million people die every year
because of contaminated water, two million of whom are children under five years of age.
In Johannesburg, the international
community undertook to halve the percentage of the population without drinking water by
2015. The same target has been set in the matter of sanitation. As part of this drive,
France wishes to promote an "international charter for access to water and
sanitation." In the area of energy, it intends to help its Southern partners to
develop clean energy supplies.
Lastly, it supports the concept of ethical,
social and environmental responsibility of all economic players and hopes for the general
adoption of minimum standards in these areas.
Making economic players responsible
French legislation already requires
companies to provide detailed reports on the environmental and social consequences of
their activities. The necessity of making economic players responsible is particularly
pertinent today in the area of maritime safety, after the successive disasters of the
Erika and the Prestige oil tankers on the European Atlantic coast. In December 2002,
France took an emergency unilateral decision to keep hazardous vessels away from its
coasts and to strengthen its controls. Lastly, it successfully argued for the creation of
a European agency for maritime safety and is now battling for a reform of the law on this
subject within the framework of the International Maritime Organization (IMO). All these
are complex matters requiring determination and co-operation on the part of States.
(courtesy: Label France Magazine, No:50
April 2003, Embassy of France, Kathmandu)
Conflict resolution: A
note on some contending approaches
-Dev Raj Dahal, T.U
Noted peace expert Johan Galtung offers an
approach to peace by peaceful means akin to Buddhist and Gandhian conception of end-means
compatibility. He argues that direct violence can be ended by changing conflict behaviors,
structural violence by removing structural injustices and cultural violence by changing
attitudes. High fidelity channels of communication help defuse perceptual conflicts. To
him, the search for positive peace becomes possible with the development of human empathy,
solidarity and community and transforming the structures of imperialism, colonialism,
oppression and exploitation. Offering a critique on “conservative conflict
resolution,” accompanied by an avoidance of issues of necessary social and economic
change, Kevin Clements provides an alternative approach to conflict transformation by
means of strengthening the spontaneous peace-building processes at work within the civil
society and the state structures at the local level. It would be wiser to prevent conflict
in society than to deal with its effects for they involve costs and costs are not without
trade-offs.
Charles Osgood offers Graduated
Reciprocation in Tension Reduction Strategy (GRIT). It is a process in which one side
makes unilateral minor concession in the hope that the other side reciprocates. Then begin
balanced concessions, de-escalation and disarmament processes. He argues that
“fractionating” of issues is important for a successful peaceful conflict
resolution. John Burton and Edward Azar apply the fundamental needs satisfaction approach
arguing that subordinate groups’ fundamental human needs must be met by restructuring
the society and providing a sense of justice to all the4 people. They also developed the
idea of Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) which works closely with the judiciary system
but provides an alternative to adjudication. Advocates of ADR believe that
institutionalization of the problem-solving approach requires a change in the judicial
process. To them, the courts should undertake not only negotiable issues but also
non-negotiable issues of human needs satisfaction. The ADR relies on the mediation of
grievances through a procedure for determining rights, arrangement of procedures from low
to high cost sequences, a collaborative design process and a culture of compromise that
balances the interests of contesting parties.
Specializing in Israel-Palestinian
conflict, Herbert C. Kelman developed the problem-solving approach to conflict resolution.
He views that conflict can be solved by the mutual involvement of conflicting parties,
rather than completely crushing the opponent. He and his colleagues organized a series of
“para-negotiation” and “post-negotiation” workshops with socially
influential persons including academics and transferred the conclusion of lessons into
political arena to achieve a win-win outcome. To him, an effective conflict resolution
must involve an opportunity for the parties involved “to penetrate each other’s
perspective and to engage in joint problem-solving designed to produce ideas for mutually
satisfactory agreement between them” (1992:84). Its steps are: analysis of parties
and issues; bringing the conflicting parties at the negotiation table to discuss their
relationships; establishing an agreement about the nature of problems; assessing the costs
of human rights violation and an examination of possible options.
Adam Curle’s approach to conflict
resolution is based on human development. After studying the conflicts in Pakistan,
Nigeria and Croatia, he concluded that conflicts are the processes of social change. He
found the utility to Track II diplomacy by non-official citizens in conflict mediation.
His assumptions are based on four factors: a) building, maintaining and improving
communications between conflicting parties; b) providing information to them; c)
befriending the conflicting parties; and d) encouraging active mediation so that a
willingness to engage in cooperative negotiation emerges. It is for parties in conflict to
have primary ownership of the problem so that they co0mmit themselves to non-violent
solutions. Ownership means their participation in the decisions and actions (social
change, social responsibility, healing, building relationships, monitoring, warning and
social learning).
Falf Dahrendorf provides a social
justice-based approach to conflict resolution. He observes, “For effective conflict
regulation to be possible, both parties to a conflict have to recognize the necessity and
reality of the conflict situation and, in this sense, the fundamental justice of the cause
of the opponent” (1959:225). Elise Boulding invented the idea of imagining the future
so as to stimulate local people, especially women, children and indigenous groups, and
involve them in peace education and research and enlist their cooperation in the conflict
resolution process. The Macedonian conflict resolution represents a “cooperative
multi-track” approach where the US government applied Track-I diplomacy and clinched
the agreement between Greece and Macedonian while an NGO, Search for Common Ground,
applies the Track-III approach and develope3d a long-term program aiming to meet the
common needs of conflicting parties (Miall, 2001:21).
Similarly, Deter Senghass has developed an
the concept of “civilization hexagon” as a means to transform conflicts. Based
on the European experience, he identifies what he3 calls six cornerstones- legitimate
monopoly of force by the state, rule of law, affect control through diverse social roles
leading to the fragmentation of conflicts, democratic participation, social justice and
constructive conflict management – for the non-violent resolution of conflicts
(2001:5-6). Sustainable resolution of conflicts, how3ever, requires wider participation of
all the parties – those that are left out, potential and actual; stakeholders- and
their interest mediation, rather than just those of conflicting parties. Nepalese
negotiators must learn from the mistakes of the power equation approach to conflict
settl3emen that was applied to terminate the 1990 movement for the restoration of
democracy. Peace cannot be created if the outcome of negotiation creates its own enemies.
Below is an analysis of various modes of conflict management.
Conflict Settlement: “Conflict
settlement shall refer to all outcome-oriented strategies for achieving sustainable
win-win solutions and/or putting an end to “direct violence” without necessarily
addressing the underlying conflict causes” (Reimann, 2001:10). Conflict
settlement thus does not necessarily deal with the structural conditions of society that
breed the sources of conflict. Its immediate purpose is to prevent the escalation of
conflict or to reduce its destructive nature. Parties involved in a conflict can reach a
settlement by achieving mutually satisfying outcome. If adversaries can find a variety of
“post-conflict economic and social opportunities, this will generate reassurance and
confidence and a willingness to accommodate the interests of the other in relation to the
specifies of terminating the violence” (Clements, 1997:10) and seeking some long-term
settlement.
Conflict Transformation: “Conflict
transformation refers to outcome, process and structure-oriented long-term peace building
efforts which aim to truly overcome revealed forms of direct, cultural and structural
violence” (Reimann, 2001:13). It refers to an improvement in the nature of a conflict
due to de-escalation, the altered nature of relationships between the parties involved and
reconciliation between rival parties of the conflict. This means conflict transformation
tries to seek an attitudinal change of those forces locked into seemingly old intractable
conflicts into a new productive relationship. It does not aim to eliminate conflict but
tries to utilize it for non-violent change. The process of political change can be
facilitated by the legal process, social reforms in a normal way or by an intermediary.
Raimo Vayryne argues that the
problem-solving strategy requires an understanding of conflicts and its elements such as
parties, issues and interests. Due to the changing nature of political reality, however,
conflict and its components are constantly transforming. This transformation process can
bring resolution to intractable conflicts of values and interests. To him, transformation
can happen in four realms:
Actor transformation means change within
the parties or the emergence of new players.
Issue transformation means finding common
ground, which might require fundamental political changes within the parties.
Rule transformation changes the norms of
the parties’ interactions.
Structural transformation is the most
significant way of changing the nature of the conflict.
Conflict Resolution: Conflict management
(settlement) and conflict resolution are not synonymous terms. “Conflict resolution
refers to all process-oriented activities that aim to address the underlying cause4s of
direct, cultural and structural violence” (Reimann, 2001:12). It involves a deeper
process than conflict management or settlement. Louis Kriesberg defines conflict
resolution as the “process of concluding a dispute or conflict in which the adversary
parties, with or without the assistance of mediators, negotiate or otherwise strive toward
a mutually acceptable agreement or understanding, taking into account each other’s
concerns” (1999:413). In a tribal society, the mode of conflict resolution involves:
consensus, arbitration, decisions by authority and compromise through the use of superior
social authority. In a modern society, according to Jurgen Habermans, conflict resolution
involves at least three assumptions:
Members must assume they mean the same
thing by the same words and expressions;
They must consider themselves as rationally
accountable; and
They must suppose that, when they do arrive
at a mutually acceptable resolution, the supporting arguments sufficiently justify a
(defensible) confidence that any claims to truth, justice and so forth that underline
their consensus will not subsequently prove false or mistaken” (Regh, 1996:xv).
Galtung says, “A conflict resolution
can be defined as a new formation that is acceptable to all actors and sustainable by all
actors” (1996:89). But, the sustainability of solution has to be
“endogenous,” being rooted in the formation of conflict itself. If outside
parties, sometimes called mediators, use carrots and sticks, paying the parties for
accepting and punishing them for not, then there is not acceptability or sustainability,
unless one assumes that the ‘mediators’ are parts of the conflict formation, not
outside, and certainly not ‘above’ (Galtung, 1996:89). Fixing agendas, setting
goals and designing legitimate actions- are usually involved in the problem solving
(Simon, 1981:1) approach to conflict resolution.
Conclusion
There is no single best way of resolving
conflict. Most of conflict resolution techniques try to eliminate the causes of conflict
by satisfying the needs, concerns and interests of not only the conflicting parties but
also all those affected by it. Conflict resolution, according to Jurgen Habermans,
“refers to the stabilization of behavioral expectations in the case of disagreement,
collective will-formation to the choice and effective realization of consensual
goals” (1997:139) through action coordination based on a code of conduct. A new
distribution of power in the state and increased interdependency among hostile parties can
induce substantial changes in the pattern of relationships among them. Interdependence, in
conjunction with the parties’ interests, might create different patterns of conflict
development. For example, a high level of interdependence, but with opposite interests, is
a sign of political instability. Transformation of interests can be pursued as a way of
improving the patterns of conflict structure. This can be done by means of increasing
convergence of interests in the context of nurturing the parties’ interdependence.
Conflict transformation aimed towards peace
can be a deliberative process which aims to devise mutually shared constitutional rules of
the game and conduct activities within that framework. According to John Burton’s
problem solving approach, the solution is not the final end-product. Every solution
generates its own problems. This means sustainable solution requires “a new synthesis
of knowledge or techniques and a change in theoretical structure: (Reimann, 2001:25). And
this process contributes to effective restoration of peace (peacemaking), ending violence
and preservation of peace (peacekeeping) and undertaking peace building projects- relief,
construction and development for the consolidation of peace. Every post-violence
transition requires addressing the question of reconciliation upon which the state moves
from the divided past to a shared further and becomes capable of creating a just order as
well as performs its basic state functions.
Excerpts from the authors’ article
on the said topic printed in a book” Conflict Resolution and Governance in
Nepal” recently published by NEFAS/FES. Editor |
