The Peace Agreement Plan assignment is designed to give students historical and contemporary knowledge of peacebuilding activities to help them better understand theory and practice of post conflict peacebuilding.  We will study and you will integrate into your peace agreement knowledge and best practices regarding the design of peace agreements;political power sharing arrangements after the cessation of hostilities; the disarmament, demobilization and reintegration of former combatants; the provision of truth and justice to address violations of human rights; reconciliation among victims and victimizers; and postwar reconstruction and economic capacity building.  Students will identify a contemporary conflict that they will research and analyze, and for which they will draft a peace agreement that will seek to put an end to the fighting between the government and a non-state, armed actor and design political, judicial, and economic policies that will address the roots of the conflict; any illegal activity that occurred during the war, such as human rights abuses and a plan for future peace and prosperity.
First, students will use the map of the world found below and at UCDP Charts, Graphs and Maps (uu.se) (scroll down to the end of the page and find the color slide at the end) to identify a contemporary conflict to analyze.  Students cannot choose the war in the Ukraine or the war in Gaza. Students’ selection of the conflict to analyze must be approved by the instructor.  I would suggest looking over the map of contemporary conflicts to determine if there is a particular conflict to which you are drawn.  It might be because it is a place you want to visit; a conflict you heard about in the news; or perhaps you know people from the nation?  Do a little bit of research online in easy sources like Wikipedia, before analyzing more in-depth coverage to see if it is something that interests you or perhaps even grabs your attention.  You might look at journals like Foreign Affairs, International Security or Foreign Policy for further information, studies and recommendations regarding these conflicts and their resolution.  You might consult think tanks like the International Crisis Group or the Brookings Institution to learn more about the conflict to find such information as well.  Ultimately you will need 20 sources for your paper.
Second, students must consult the Peace Accords Matrix website https://peaceaccords.nd.edu/ and read at least three peace agreements, especially those in the same geographical region as the conflict you have chosen.  This will give you further ideas on how to design a peace agreement.  Don’t take one agreement as perfect or as a template that you follow to the T.  These other agreements should give you ideas, inspire creative thinking and help you understand what a peace agreement looks like.
Students will design a peace agreement that addresses the following points:
1) Design a power sharing arrangement that roughly reflects the distribution of military/political/economic power in that society between the various actors involved in the conflict, or seems likely given your analysis of the situation.  This will be one of the most difficult parts of the project, and so therefore I encourage you to contact me early and often about the arrangements you make here to design a power sharing arrangement.  This will encompass the executive, legislative and judicial branches of the government and will be designed to give all groups, even those who have committed human rights violations, a seat at that table so that they have a stake in the process. How will you award leadership or design leadership selection processes for the various branches of government?  How will the agreement allocate power, that is, which groups will control how many and which government ministries?
2) Design a transitional justice process that will provide truth and justice for the victims, while providing for some type of lessened punishment for those who have committed human rights violations, but who are willing to confess and speak the truth about what they have done.  You should think about how you will distinguish between justice for the leadership that authorized the illegal actions, and justice for those lower-ranking individuals who carried out their orders.  How will you satisfy the expectations of the wrong doers with the competing demands and interests of the victims for full truth and some type of retributive or restorative redress for the wrongs they suffered?  Should you have a truth commission?  Should you have trials for those accused of wrong doing or some other type of public accounting in a criminal court of some type?  This is the second most difficult part of the assignment, and I encourage you to talk to me early and often about the design of this aspect of the peace agreement.  
3) Design a DDR (Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration) plan for the country that will disarm all non-state armed actors; consider the immediate needs of demobilizing the former combatants and relocating them;and provide a path forward for them to resolve any legal issues (see above regarding transitional justice); psycho-social and medical care; assistance with education and job training, or perhaps even economic capacity building through things like micro credit.  The object of these policies is to provide for the short and medium term needs of former combatants to ensure their commitment to peace and security and provide them with a productive path forward that will avoid any potential toward recidivism.You will also need to be cognizant of how unpopular these programs can be given that most individuals will believe that such resources would be better spent on the victims.  There is also the question of the stigmatization that typically occurs when former combatants move into an area as they are often feared and avoided, and they in turn find it very difficult to reintegrate since they are treated as persona non grata.
4) Design a plan for the rebuilding of the nation’s commercial and economic infrastructure in order to provide sustainable, long-term opportunities for the creation of jobs and economic growth and productivity.  The economic reconstruction plans should play especially close attention to the underlying, socio economic issues that gave rise to the conflict and which likely have not yet been addressed, such as marginalization of certain populations to dangerous or unproductive areas of the country The economic reconstruction should also address other underlying issues that might be present such as inequities in land ownership and other egregious areas of economic inequality, such as in land distribution; workers’ rights, foreign exploitation, environmental degradation through activities like oil drilling, gold mining and other industries where there is evidence of damage in their productive processes.  This is also a difficult subject to capture as you must balance the economic justice rights of many conflict participants with the corresponding need to allow for enough freedom andfair treatment that all are incentivized to engage in productive economic activities.  If you can even wean people, especially those who profit the most from the attractiveness of extractive and illegal industries such as cocaine, opium or legal goods such as diamonds, oil and gemstones, all the better!
Here are some other issues to consider as you design the peace agreement.  First, most likely the country’s economy has been substantially harmed and there will likely be few resources to provide for the implementation of the peace agreement.  Looking for international assistance would be useful.  Second, you may also want to think about international assistance in the DDR phase of the conflict to ensure security for everyone.  Third, be aware that there may still be very contentious issues separating the warring sides that will not be easily and quickly addressed.  Be aware of who their friends, supporters and interested partners are, as well as those states with whom relations are more conflictual or even militarized.  Can you expect these other nations to play a constructive role or one that undermines or seeks to spoil the peace? The more the plan imposes solutions on these types of warring parties that conflict with their deeply felt interests, the more difficult it will be to win people’s cooperation.
Students work will be graded based upon 1) the breadth and depth of their knowledge of the conflict; the conflict actors and their interests and strategies and the corresponding detail and specificity of the peace agreement’s four elements as listed above [34%]; 2) the extent to which your understanding of the design of these four elements accurately reflects the characteristics and challenges of the conflict you are studying[33%] (in other words, “pie in the sky” solutions that imagine everyone will simply get along fine after war are not realistic). In other words, it must be realistic and legitimate; and 3) its foundation and basis in current best practices regarding peacebuilding activities as learned in class and through the students own research [33%].  All students must always provide at least 20 sources, at least 15 must be sources other than online newspapers and other websites that provide ongoing news coverage (nothing wrong with media, just don’t rely too much on it because it is fleeting and subject to shifting and more accurate understandings.  
The paper must be at least 20 pages long, which does not include the reference section and must use 12 point Times New Roman font  with standard double-spaced margins. Excessive margins designed to inflate the paper length will be subject to downgrading.