Provisions on SSR and DDR in Peace Agreements

THEMATIC BRIEF Provisions on SSR and DDR in Peace Agreements Jasper Linke 1 About this thematic brief This brief was produced as part of DCAF’s preliminary research project “SSR in Peace Processes”. The project was realized with the support of the Swiss Federal r Department of Foreign Affairs. e a The views expressedl are those of the author alone and do not necessarily ireflect the views of the institutions referred to or representedz within this publication. e Note d The content of this publication may be cited only with the written consent of the author and of DCAF, and with acknowledgment of the source. About DCAF DCAF – Geneva Centre for Security Sector Governance is an international foundation whose mission is to assist the international community in pursuing good governance and reform of the security sector. DCAF develops and promotes norms and standards, conducts tailored policy research, identifies good practices and recommendations to promote democratic security sector governance, and provides in-country advisory support and practical assistance programmes. ISBN: 92-9222-497-2 © 2020 DCAF – Geneva Centre for Security Sector Governance Introduction Security sector reform (SSR) and related post-confict recon- struction activities (e.g. disarmament, demobilization and reintegration (DDR), Mine Action, and small arms and light weapons (SALW) control) are commonly addressed in peace processes, whether to support the outcomes of negotiations or enhance the quality of their implementation. In particular, SSR and DDR are closely related because they both aim at enhancing human security and strengthening the state’s monopoly on the legitimate use of force.1 In other words, they both shape how, by whom and to whom security is provided in post-confict states. DDR may lead to short-term security gains for the population and state institutions, the development of local institutional capac- ities, and a shift in the balance of power in favour of legitimate and accountable state security forces. SSR seeks to build on these gains to enhance state capacity to provide security and legitimize government rule through good security sector governance (SSG). Despite their relevance for transitional and long-term SSG, there has also been a lack of understanding of how diferent sectoral SSR components and DDR commonly feature in peace agreements. In order to contribute to an informed and empirically grounded debate about questions of SSG in peace processes, this thematic brief summarizes some of the key patterns identifed from a mapping of the peace agreements that were produced in the context of intrastate armed conficts2 over central government control between 2000 and 2015. Data on these 301 peace agreements was retrieved from the PA-X Peace Agreement Database3 at the University of Edinburgh. The results of this mapping show how police, defence, justice and intelligence reform, as well as DDR, feature in diferent “stages” of peace agreements (as categorized by the PA-X database): pre-negotiation agreements, ceasefre agreements, substantive framework agreements and implementation agreements.4 The brief is structured around fve guiding questions. The frst two sections address the question of how frequent and how comprehensive provisions on sectoral SSR components commonly are. The third section examines the stages of a peace process at which these SSR components are usually considered. Fourth, the brief analyses whether justice reform is a common aspect of SSR in peace agreements. The fnal section broadens the perspective of SSG in peace processes by asking how DDR features in peace agreements in comparison with SSR. * The author expresses his gratitude to Elodie Convergne for her contribution to the research design of this mapping of peace agreements and to Vincenza Scherrer for her helpful comments on a draft of this thematic brief. 3 Key defnitions Good security sector governance (SSG) describes how the principles of good governance apply to public security provision, management and oversight. The principles of good SSG are accountability, transparency, the rule of law, participation, respon- siveness, efectiveness and eficiency.5 Security sector reform (SSR) is the political and technical process of improving state and human security by making security provision, management and oversight more efective and more accountable, within a framework of democratic civilian control, the rule of law and respect for human rights. SSR may focus on only one part of public security provision or the way the entire system functions, as long as the goal is always to improve both efectiveness and accountability.6 Disarmament, demobilization and reintegration (DDR) is the process of comprehensively disarming combatants, formally discharging them, preparing them for civilian life and providing them with opportunities for sustainable social and economic reintegration.7 Intrastate confict over central government control is defned as armed violence between a government and at least one non-state armed group, causing more than 25 confict-related deaths in one year and concerning the type of political system, the replacement of the central government, or the change of its composition.8 A peace process is a formal attempt to bring political and/or military protagonists of confict to some sort of mutual agreement as to how to end the confict.9 A peace agreement is a formal, publicly available document, produced after discussion with confict protagonists and mutually agreed to by some or all of them, addressing confict with a view to ending it.10 4 How often are elements of SSR addressed in peace agreements? Peace agreements in intrastate conficts frequently refer to police, defence and justice reform. Almost half of the analysed peace agreements mention a sectoral sub-component of SSR. At the same time, intelligence reform is rarely addressed in peace agreements, when compared with other sub-components (fgure 1). Either governments are not willing to give up their access to sensitive information (which secures their personal and political survival) or, compared with other security issues, intelligence reform might simply not be a priority of the confict parties and third parties assisting the peace process. Peace Agreements 30% Figure 1: Proportion of peace agreements 25% featuring provisions on diferent SSR components 20% n = 301 peace agreements (2000–2015) 15% 10% 5% 0% Defence reform Police reform Justice reform Intelligence reform provisions provisions provisions provisions Despite signifcant yearly variation, in the long run, the frequency of SSR provisions has not changed signifcantly between 2000 and 2015 (fgure 2). The proportion of peace agreements that mention SSR peaked in 2005 – which can be explained by both the peak in the number of comprehensive peace agreements in that year and the focus of international security and development policy on state-building and state fragility in the mid-2000s.11 Even after comprehensive peace agreements had become less frequent, the proportion of peace agreements with SSR provisions did not decrease signifcantly in the long run. 5 Peace Agreements 60% Figure 2: Proportion of peace agreements featuring provisions 50% on diferent SSR components, by year 40% n = 301 peace agreements (2000–2015) 30% 20% 10% 0% 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 Police reform Defence reform Justice reform Intelligence reform provisions provisions provisions provisions How comprehensive are SSR provisions? Peace agreements that target only one sectoral sub-component of SSR are the rule rather than the exception. Of those accords that include SSR provisions, 48 percent address exclusively police or defence reform, compared with only 37 percent that mention both components, 25 percent that also address justice reform and 8 percent that simultaneously address intelligence reform. As fgure 3 shows, this pattern is consistent across time. At the same time, throughout the period of observation (2000–2015), the majority of conficts (17 out of 26) featured peace agreements that, taken together, jointly addressed police, defence and justice reform. Still, only few conficts (9 out of 26) resulted in peace accords that jointly addressed all four SSR components, including intelligence reform. In other words, while provisions on police, defence and justice reform are seldom included in the same agreement, they commonly all feature in the same confict. This could be based on the preference of the confict parties to pursue diferent components of SSR at diferent stages (or outside the peace process). 6 Peace Agreements featuring provisions on SSR components 70% Figure 3: Proportion of 60% all peace agreements featuring simulta- 50% neously: (1) police and defence reform provisions, (2) police, 40% defence and justice reform provisions, and 30% (3) police, defence, justice and intelligence 20% reform provisions, by year 10% n = 301 peace agreements (2000–2015) 0% 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 Police and Defence reform Police, Defence and Justice Police, Defence, Justice and provisions in same reform provisions in same Intelligence reform provisions peace agreement peace agreement in same peace agreement Whenever defence and police reform are both mentioned in an agreement, provisions on justice reform are usually (in 69 percent of such agreements) also included. While it would seem plausible that police reform is simply often linked to larger justice

Load more