ABSTRACT
The disputants' views of mediation have been accorded little or no attention in the debates surrounding the subject, which have tended to examine the process from an external point of view. Yet the disputants' views are an integral part of the dynamism of the process and, as such, provide important insights. As Bercovitch has stated, multiple approaches are needed towards the analysis of mediation to enhance our understanding of the process and, with respect to this analysis from the point of view of the disputants, are long overdue: 'We can make . . . progress by adapting . . . a research perspective that permits us to evaluate how mediation effects, and is effected by, the context, the participants [my emphases], the strategies, and the nature of conflict." While mediation is a reciprocal process, much of the literature tends to present the process as static and one-way. Yet mediation often fails when the disputants make different assumptions about the process and have different expectations regarding its outcome.' Conflicting views, perceptions or misperceptions 3 of the mediator may represent an obstacle to successful mediation, regardless of whether success is defined as agreement on a compromise solution or merely the establishment of a negotiation culture. Thus, as Bercovitch argues, one misses much if one ignores the reciprocal interaction between the mediator and the mediated upon. This is particularly significant if international mediation is to be able to contribute to the functioning of the international system in the manner that was envisaged in Articles 3 and 33 of the UN Charter. The success of mediation in an interstate and an intrastate context has been made more vital in the post-Cold War international system in which the status quo is no longer underwritten by a bipolar balance of terror.
