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The Revitalised Agreement on the Resolution of the Conflict in the Republic of South Sudan (R-ARCSS)

Countries
South Sudan
Sources
PRIO
Publication date
Origin
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Stamnes, Eli; & Cedric de Coning

Executive Summary

Brief Points

  • The process leading up to the signing of the Revitalised Agreement on the Resolution of the Conflict in the Republic of South Sudan (R-ARCSS) involved significant pressure put on the two main parties to the conflict, the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-in-opposition (SPLM-IO).

  • The two peace negotiators, Sudan’s President Omar al-Bashir and Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni, possessed significant leverage over the main actors and used this to force an agreement.

  • The negotiation process was thus not characterized by inclusiveness, but rather by pragmatic considerations such as to how to effectively halt the widespread violence and suffering. As such it represents an interesting case in the discussion of what fairness means in peace negotiations.

Only two years after South Sudan gained its independence in 2011, the power struggle between President Salva Kiir and Vice President Riek Machar resulted in an atrocious civil war. In 2015, the signing of the Agreement on the Resolution of the Conflict in the Republic of South Sudan (ARCSS), which was brokered by the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), led to a temporary pause in the fighting, but it was reignited within a few months. New efforts at peace negotiations followed, eventually resulting in the Revitalised Agreement on the Resolution of the Conflict in the Republic of South Sudan (R-ARCSS), finalized in September 2018. These latter negotiations are the topic of this case brief