During a negotiation, there is seldom the time or capacity for parties to reach a full and complete agreement on a comprehensive legal framework for postconflict governance. Instead, the parties often agree to a preliminary set of principles coupled with a general governing framework. They then set forth an agreed process for negotiating, designing, and implementing a national dialogue, the drafting or amending of a constitution, and elections. This chapter explores the puzzle of whether and how to address constitutional modification during peace negotiations in a manner that promotes a durable peace. It reviews the peace processes related to conflicts in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Colombia, East Timor, Guatemala, Iraq, Kosovo, Macedonia, Nepal, Northern Ireland, Somalia, South Africa, Syria, and Yemen to explore whether and how to address constitutional modification during the peace process; the timing of determining and executing a postconflict constitution-drafting process; whether to draft an interim constitution; whether to accomplish constitutional reform through amendments or by drafting a full constitution; how to approve and finalize constitutional modifications; and whether and how to incorporate issues of human rights.

Self-determination and sovereignty-based conflicts are widespread throughout the globe, and are particularly durable and deadly. These conflicts may be resolved through military victory, through some form of enhanced internal self-determination, or through a path to external self-determination. This chapter explores the puzzle of whether and how to provide for external self-determination as a means for ensuring a durable peace. This chapter reviews the peace processes related to conflicts in Bosnia, Indonesia/East Timor, Israel/Palestine, Kosovo, Northern Ireland, Papua New Guinea/Bougainville, Serbia/Montenegro, Sudan/South Sudan, and Western Sahara in order to understand how the parties seek to most effectively share sovereignty in the interim; build sustainable institutions; determine final status; phase in the assumption of sovereignty; condition the assumption of this newfound sovereignty; and, if necessary, to constrain the exercise of sovereignty of the new state.

Nearly all contemporary conflicts are driven in part by political marginalization. This political marginalization amplifies the consequences of economic and cultural marginalization. To craft a durable peace, the parties to peace negotiations often spend considerable time and effort crafting power-sharing arrangements that balance the pull of some parties for greater diffusion and devolution of political power with the pull of other parties to maintain a degree of political centralization, for the sake of efficiency and effectiveness, and to preserve their prior political privileges. This chapter explores the puzzle of whether and how to create a vertical power-sharing arrangement that leads to a durable peace. It reviews the peace processes related to conflicts in Bosnia, Colombia, Indonesia/Aceh, Iraq, Macedonia, Nepal, the Philippines/Mindanao, South Africa, Sudan, and Yemen to understand how parties have grappled with the thorny set of conundrums, including the choice of state structure; the allocation of legislative and executive powers among the levels of government; the degree of political, administrative, and/or fiscal decision-making authority to be devolved; and the timeline for implementing any agreed plan for decentralization.

As the introduction notes, no corner of the globe is exempt from the scourge of deadly and durable armed conflict. Yet in the face of seemingly intractable conflicts, state and nonstate parties are time and again able to reach a negotiated compromise that leads to a durable peace. At other times, unfortunately, the process is rushed or misconceived and the peace is short-lived or never reached. In both cases, there are lessons to be learned with regard to how to solve the various puzzles and associated conundrums faced by parties seeking to design resilient peace agreements and establish a durable peace.

The need to rebuild the security infrastructure in a postconflict state is of paramount importance for ensuring a durable peace. This chapter examines the complicated tradeoffs parties face sharing and/or reestablishing the monopoly of force, including when sharing force with the international community; the questions of the consent of the state, and often the consent of the nonstate parties; the nature and configuration of the international forces, including the command structure of the international forces; and the mandate of those forces. The chapter also analyzes cases during which the state seeks to integrate nonstate armed actors into the national forces, when parties are faced with the questions of how best to provide for the disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration of nonstate forces, coupled with security sector reform for the national forces. The chapter additionally examines the questions that arise when the state seeks to restore limited control over the monopoly of force by permitting nonstate actors to come under the umbrella command of the national forces, including to what extent to promote some degree of integration among special units of the state and nonstate forces, as well as a timeline for the eventual integration of forces.

Access to natural resources and the allocation of revenue generated by resource exploitation is at the core of many conflicts and plays an important role in many others. Yet natural resources can also be a key factor in promoting a durable peace. This chapter explores the puzzle of whether and how to address natural resource ownership, management, and revenue allocation in a manner that promotes durable peace. This chapter reviews the peace processes related to conflicts in Papua New Guinea and Bougainville, Indonesia and Aceh, Iraq and Kurdistan, the Philippines and Bangsamoro, Sierra Leone, Sudan and South Sudan, Sudan and Darfur, and Yemen to understand if and when parties broach the subject of natural resources in the peace process, and how they then decide upon matters such as the ownership, management, and revenue allocation.

No corner of the globe is exempt from the scourge of conflict. Every year, hundreds of thousands of civilians die as a consequence of armed conflict, and millions more are displaced. These conflicts are brutal, durable, and global. Oftentimes, they are characterized by genocide, as in Bosnia, Darfur, Iraq (ISIS), Myanmar, and Rwanda, or widespread atrocity crimes, as in the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Libya, Syria, and Yemen. As is often said, it is easy to start an armed conflict, but excruciatingly difficult to end one. In any given year, there are nearly four dozen active armed conflicts around the globe. While some of these conflicts may transpire over a relatively short time (3–5 years), others remain active for a decade or more, and still others are “frozen” for decades on end, continuing to contribute to instability and insecurity.