Dilemmas of multiple priorities and multiple instruments: the Darfur crisis
Alex de Waal (2008)
What incentives, sanctions, conditionalities and guarantees were utilized by the international community to encourage the parties to the conflict in Darfur to reach a solution to the crisis? And why have those instruments had such limited impact on the war to date? Alex de Waal assesses the international efforts to address the Darfur crisis, noting the multiplicity of goals and mechanisms (especially instruments of pressure), and arguing that these impeded the search for a practical solution to the conflict. The effectiveness of such tools was mitigated by three factors: the subordination of the goal of achieving peace to the objective of dispatching a UN peacekeeping and protection force; the breakdown of trust between Khartoum and Washington DC; and the Darfurian armed movements leaders' inflated expectations of what guarantees should be on offer from the international community, stemming from the aspirational language of the 'Responsibility to Protect.' De Waal emphasizes that the objectives and political context in which policy tools are applied are crucial to whether they yield the desired outcome.
