Peace Agreements: Their Nature and Legal Status

Abstract

The last fifteen years have seen a proliferation of peace agreements. Some 50 percent of civil wars have terminated in peace agreements since 1990, more than in the previous two centuries combined, when only one in five resulted in negotiated settlement. Numerically, these settlements amount to over three hundred peace agreements in some forty jurisdictions. International standards have even begun to regulate peace agreements. United Nations guidelines, guidelines and recommendations of the secretary-general, and Security Council resolutions have all normatively addressed peace agreements: both the processes by which they are negotiated and their substance, particularly with relation to accountability for past human rights abuses.