Implementing Peace Agreements

When warring parties sign an agreement relief and the sense of hope often masks the reality of the challenge of implementation of the agreed peace. Reaching an agreement means little if implementation of the said agreement proves to be problematic (Richmond and Newman 2006). While implementation is rarely effortless, the lessons drawn from the challenges faced and overcome furnish concerned policy makers, civil society, politicians and academics with a shared understanding of how an agreed peace can be delivered. Nonetheless, as a subdivision of the broad field of conflict resolution which focuses more readily on mediation and management, implementation of peace agreements has been more readily practiced than analysed. With the immediacy of having to respond on the ground to a new set of security and political considerations in the birth of an agreement often it is the case that little attention is given to analysing and documenting the hazards of implementation and the cases of good practice. Unfortunately this hinders what can be shared across the communities and societies engaged in implementing peace. Commissioned by the Northern Ireland Community Relations Council in March 2012, this research conducted a “review on international peace agreements and lessons that have been learned from other post-conflict societies on how these agreements have been implemented.” The research proceeds by providing a critical overview of existing literature and policy documents to draw lessons from the four case studies under investigation. Following this the research draws conclusions which consider the challenges for implementation as well as analysing what Northern Ireland can learn from these case studies and contribute to the wider understanding of how peace can be implemented.