A volume on innovations in mediation would be amiss without a section addressing the potential and risks of digital technologies. Technology and innovation are entwined, both because technological advances are the result of innovative industry, and because technological advances very often catalyse the need for innovation in processes and practices. Digital technologies in turn are now inextricable from mediation, being intrinsic too to how wars are being fought and peace needs to be made.

A decade ago, in the adjacent fields of peacebuilding and humanitarian response, interest in digital technologies sparked a new wave of innovations. Many of these were premised on the idea that new technologies were democratising access to information and communication tools, enabling a multiplicity of actors to make use of their potential to increase their impact. Enhanced data management held out the possibility of delivering better understanding, and communications and networking platforms of delivering greater participation and inclusion. While many actors participating in this initial wave of ‘digital peacebuilding and humanitarian response’ were aware of the risks that came along with these opportunities, the underlying premise was that new technologies were a tool of great potential. What mattered was how we chose to use them.

The mediation field entered the digital debate somewhat later but adopted a similar framing. The 2019 Digital Mediation Toolkit was a collaboration between the UN Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs and the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue to assess opportunities and risks related to the use of digital technologies in mediation. The toolkit is foundational in setting out four areas where mediators might innovate their practice using digital technologies: conflict analysis, engagement with parties, inclusivity, and strategic communications.

This framework encourages practitioners to balance the risks and opportunities of (otherwise neutral) technology tools. In recent years this framing has been challenged by increasing concerns about how the design and affordances of digital technologies, especially digital media platforms, are impacting conflict dynamics. As misinformation, hate speech and polarisation manifested on these platforms in ways that directly impacted the work of peacebuilders, humanitarians and mediators, organisations with strong digital practices, such as the International Committee of the Red Cross, warned that these new technologies were not just neutral tools with risks to be managed, but new conflict landscapes to be understood, mitigated, and at times mediated.

Experience and work on the implications of digital technologies for mediation accelerated rapidly under Covid-19, incorporating this more nuanced approach and considering the new conflict drivers that emerge as technologies become ubiquitous in conflict contexts. The Libyan peace process that unfolded in 2020–21, as reflected in articles by Govinda Clayton, Sean Kane and Maude Morrisonon, and by Julie Hawke, was a neat summary of this new understanding of the reasons mediators need to adapt and innovate in respect of digital technologies. It demonstrated that digital technologies offer new opportunities for mediation, but also create new spaces and dynamics that require mediation. The Libya ceasefire agreement that resulted from UN-led negotiations in 2020 is the first in UN history to include a clause that explicitly mentions behaviour on social media.

Beyond Libya, the pandemic was pivotal in forcing many mediators to consider the pros and cons of digital technologies. What started as remedial for the impossibility of in-person meeting became an asset in itself, even when social distancing was no longer required. Concurrently, as more of our lives have moved online, many mediators are becoming aware of the prevalence of harmful digital behaviours that may be relevant at the negotiating table.

The mediation field is still coming to grips with what cyber warfare or cyber risks to peace really entail. Harmful digital behaviours that may be relevant to negotiations need to inform the conflict analysis that underpins the engagement of a mediation team, but some of them may also be mediatable. As Clayton, Kane and Morrison describe, a number of social media agreements have been brokered, and clauses covering digital technologies are making their way into broader peace agreements. In a significant contribution to the field, they introduce process design questions for mediators to consider when managing the digital dimensions of conflict.

In a timely example of the adaption of existing practice to new contexts, Camino Kavanagh describes how confidence-building measures (CBMs) originally conceived during the Cold War to ease East–West tensions have become a core feature of international and regional security discussions on information and communication technologies (ICTs) and cyberspace. Looking forwards, experts are considering how cyberrelated CBMs can also be applied in internal conflicts.

While digital tools are unsafe and may be inaccessible in some circumstances, especially for women, they are, as Hawke demonstrates, nonetheless able to address concrete barriers that otherwise hinder participation, such as geographic distance, language needs, limited access to information, low literacy, and siloed networks. Case examples now available suggest that digital inclusion is creating new standards of practice in dialogue and mediation and helping foster greater participation in peace processes, particularly by women, youth, and marginalised groups. 

Among positive examples, Sadraki Yabre describes how a geographic information systems (GIS) location app, the ‘Mine Alert System’, in Burkina Faso has been used to share information and prevent and mitigate conflicts between artisanal miners, local communications and industrial corporations.

The complex impacts of social media on violent and non-violent mobilisation in Nigeria, analysed by Medinat Malefakis, are illustrative of its multiple ramifications in other contexts, as well as the mixed trajectory of government attempts to curtail its use. Mediators are frequently called on to address the conflict-escalating potential of social media and questions relating to its use by conflict parties. But they may also be seeking to harness the communicative power it offers for the benefit of peace, or to engage directly in the mediation of its use. Bringing an insider’s perspective, Ravi Iyer draws on his experience within a social media company to advise on how peacemakers could and should do more to work with such companies to limit harm.

In a final contribution to this section, Martin Wählisch speculates on what AI may hold for the future of mediation. While international attention is focused on the need to regulate the risks offered by AI, its capacity to process and analyse vast amounts of data can help mediators’ understanding of complex conflict dynamics and inform the strategies they pursue. A calibrated approach to the exploration of its potential for mediation would encourage innovation but advance incrementally, informed by continuous evaluation.

Digital technologies affect not only how we communicate and who we connect with, but also how we understand the world around us, and ultimately ourselves. From Colombia, to Ukraine, to Yemen, people find ways to stay connected online. We can no longer consider the digital ecosystem a separate category, outside of our ‘normal’ offline lives. In a recent paper on postdigital peacebuilding, Andreas Hirlbinger calls this the ‘normalcy of the digital condition’. The articles in this section highlight through theory and experience that the field of mediation needs to be digital by default, considering opportunities and managing risks, just as it considers all other aspects of human interaction and power dynamics that impact the prospects of peace.