Introduction

Different actors involved in peace mediation, above all the United Nations (UN), have started to articulate a normative framework for their activities in recent years, seeking to promote professionalism and to provide normative guidance to mediators. The most prominent example consists in the publication of a document entitled Guidance for Effective Mediation, annexed to the Secretary-General's 2012 report on the mediation activities of the UN. Within this framework, international legal norms, such as the prohibition to include in peace agreements amnesties for alleged perpetrators of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes, play a particularly prominent role. Other organizations, including regional organizations and specialized non-governmental organizations (NGOs), have also adopted and publicized guiding principles and codes of conduct that govern their activities.

This trend of rendering explicit certain norms pertaining to peace mediation is not only intriguing from a scholarly perspective; the articulation of a normative framework can also affect the practice of peace mediation and, ultimately, the success of negotiations. Therefore, it seems useful to try to understand the reasons for rendering explicit what used to be largely implicit. Indeed, given the apparent imperative to make these norms explicit, something seems to have changed, at least in the perception of mediation organizations. As will be argued, however, norms have never been absent from an intermediary's attempt to resolve armed conflicts through peaceful means, and peace mediation has always been governed by certain principles. Moreover, presumably universal rules, such as the (non-)neutrality and impartiality of a mediator, have never existed as absolutes and have always been qualified in some way.

Scrutinizing the main documents promulgated by organizations that have developed a particular expertise in the field of peace mediation, namely the UN, the European Union, the African Union and the NGOs Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue and Crisis Management Initiative, the chapter demonstrates that peace mediation is increasingly presented as a professionalized activity to be carried out by experts. Certain more specific principles, such as those pertaining to the impartiality and (non-) neutrality of mediators, have been engaged with and further defined, and the relevance of existing norms, in particular those stemming from international human rights law and pertaining to rendering peace negotiations more inclusive, is increasingly highlighted.