October 02, 2024

Does negotiation still have a place in the world? In these trying times, with people seemingly so divided, is agreement still possible?

The Pearson Global Forum, to be held on October 18, aims to answer these questions, by bringing together academics, political leaders, policymakers, journalists, and members of the public for a day of discussions. This year’s theme, “Negotiation and Agreement,” was selected given the global backdrop and The Pearson Institute’s desire to touch not only on the major conflicts of the day, but also on issues that are both highly relevant and not necessarily receiving a great deal of attention in the media.

“It's a very complicated moment in the world,” said James Robinson, The Reverend Dr. Richard L. Pearson Professor of Global Conflict Studies at the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy and the institute director of The Pearson Institute. “With the conflicts in Ukraine and in Gaza, the expansion of China, and what seems to be a resurgence of Cold War realpolitik, it's an interesting time to talk about whether there is any real place for negotiation in this world, or whether it is now just about power, [and] how many rockets you have. These topics are of an enormous intellectual and practical interest.”

It's a very complicated moment in the world... with the conflicts in Ukraine and in Gaza, the expansion of China, and what seems to be a resurgence of Cold War realpolitik, it's an interesting time to talk about whether there is any real place for negotiation in this world, or whether it is now just about power, [and] how many rockets you have. These topics are of an enormous intellectual and practical interest.

“Negotiation and agreement are always relevant,” said Sheila Kohanteb, executive director of the Forum. “Unfortunately, there are always conflicts to analyze—ongoing ones in addition to past conflicts. This is important work, and unlike a traditional academic conference where scholars present papers, the Pearson Global Forum prioritizes accessibility: We want everybody, whether you are a policymaker or average Jane citizen, to be able to join, and access the information being shared.”

Topics of negotiation and agreement will not only be explored for places like Colombia and Northern Ireland, but for destinations from across the globe, with in-depth discussions on Congo, Kosovo, Sudan, Haiti, and Israel and Palestine, as well as flash talks from Kathleen Cavanaugh, Executive Director, Pozen Family Center for Human Rights, and Senior Professor in the College, at UChicago; Richard English, Professor and Director, Senator George J. Mitchell Institute for Global Peace, Security and Justice, at Queen's University Belfast; Raúl Sánchez de la Sierra, Assistant Professor, and Pearson Faculty Affiliate, at Harris; and Boaz Keysar, William Benton Professor in Psychology at UChicago.

Two conflicts that have reached resolution provide lessons that will be examined during the October 18 Forum, Kohanteb said. Robinson will be speaking to conflict in Colombia with Sergio Jaramillo Caro, the former high commissioner for peace there, in a panel discussion on “Problems of Negotiation Implementation,” alongside Harvard Professor Melani Cammett and NPR’s Aya Batrawy. In a discussion on “Women Behind the Scenes on the Frontlines,” panelists, including Former US Ambassador for Global Women’s Issues, Melanne Verveer, will discuss the pivotal role of women in the Good Friday Agreement in Northern Ireland, now in its twenty-sixth year of being in effect.

An annual conference that began in 2018, the Pearson Global Forum was designed to convene academics, practitioners, policymakers, and an interested public for the purpose of developing new strategies to prevent, resolve, and recover from conflict.

“It is meant to be a cross-section of academics, policymakers, people from NGOs, and others who've been involved in these processes of peace negotiation and conflict resolution,” Robinson said. “Often, these are people who never meet; academics go to academic conferences where they meet other academics and talk to other academics, and politicians go elsewhere. It’s a unique forum for bringing together this very broad cross-section of people with knowledge and experience on these issues who don't usually talk to each other.”

“The subject of global controversy, familial division, university dispute, and society writ large, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict spans generations and elicits opinion from all corners,” said Kohanteb. “It is through conversations like those we have at the Forum that aggressions can be recognized, fractures between families and friends healed, concessions made, truth, justice, and accountability addressed, and resolution ultimately achieved.”

It is through conversations like those we have at the Forum that aggressions can be recognized, fractures between families and friends healed, concessions made, truth, justice, and accountability addressed, and resolution ultimately achieved.

Entitled “The Future of Peace,” the panel on Israel and Palestine will include Ami Ayalon, the former head of Shin Bet, and former Member of Knesset; Gregg Carlstrom, Middle East Correspondent with The Economist; and Sanam Vakil, the James Anderson Adjunct Professor at the School for Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University and director of the Middle East and North Africa Programme at Chatham House. The panel will be moderated by Luke Baker, the Head of Media Strategy at Portland and a former correspondent and Bureau Chief at Reuters.

“The Pearson Global Forum has found a way to succeed in engaging in a nonacademic environment without making compromises on intellectual seriousness,” said Ethan Bueno de Mesquita, Dean and Sydney Stein Professor at Harris. “They are not just bringing people together, but striving to build communities of trust, where well-intentioned people who are working on important and difficult problems can come together and learn from each other. The Forum has led to very real engagement with non-scholars that has driven my work for years.”

The Pearson Global Forum has found a way to succeed in engaging in a nonacademic environment without making compromises on intellectual seriousness.

Is agreement possible in this age of division and distrust? Bueno de Mesquita thinks that in many cases of global conflict, the possibility for a negotiated peace “seems like an interminable question, and there are not pat answers.” Nevertheless, robust discussion on important and often difficult topics is central to the Chicago Tradition and, as in places like Northern Ireland, perhaps that discussion is one of the steps on the way toward peace.

 

Video from the event will also be livestreamed.

*The Banner Image: The Hands of Agreement is a visualization of the duration of conflicts in Sudan, Northern Ireland, Kosovo, and Israel and Palestine. Date on the duration of conflicts has been sourced from the Council on Foreign Relations' Global Conflict Tracker and verified across multiple sources.