Introduction

In his press briefing following discussions on Syria in April 2018, the president of the United Nations (UN) Security Council said that ‘only the UN has the legitimacy and credibility needed for a viable, enduring political solution’. This statement indicates the importance attributed to legitimacy in UN mediation. As Arnault says, the legitimacy of a peace process is ‘critical to public support, always threatened by the inevitable setbacks, delays and impasses that are common in any civil war settlement’.

The judicial legitimacy of the UN to mediate is enshrined in its Charter. Articles 2 (§3) and 33 urge member states to settle disputes by peaceful means and article 99 confers to the UN Secretary-General good offices responsibilities. The Secretary-General usually appoints mediators as his Special Representatives or Special Envoys and drafts their terms of references. The UN Security Council further specifies their political mandate in resolutions related to the conflict they mediate. Whereas the attention of international actors has for a long time almost exclusively remained on this judicial legitimacy focusing on the legal-rational dimensions of the term (see introduction to this book), since the so-called ‘local turn’ in peacebuilding, inquiries into local legitimacy have increased.

One of the most prominently mentioned sources of such local legitimacy of peace processes is the participation of civil society. Pouligny defines civil society as ‘the arena of voluntary – uncoerced – collective action around shared interests, purposes and values’. This broad definition can include a wide range of actors collectively engaging around shared values, such as women's group, business actors, elders, local leaders and youth. Participation of these actors is considered to increase the legitimacy of a peace process provided that they can relevantly influence it. This is based on the argument that for a peace agreement to be sustainable, not only the actors who are able to stop the fighting should be included, but also those needed to build peace in the long term.

While civil society participation has become considered as an important source of local legitimacy, it is only one part of the story. This is because whether the broader population in a given context considers a peace process as legitimate does not only depend on whether civil society actors participate or people feel represented through them, but also what results it produces.