Intractable conflicts in Africa: The international response to the Darfur and South Sudan crises

This article considers the intractable conflicts and human rightssituations in Darfur, Sudan and South Sudan, respectively, against theinternational responses they elicited. Intractable conflicts are conflicts that havelasted for a long time with resistance to settlement despite various attempts atintervention and conciliation. These conflicts from neighbouring nations haveboth elicited extensive engagement from the international and regionalcommunities but, while some clarity regarding the direction to be taken has beenachieved in the case of South Sudan, the situation in Darfur remains dire. Thearticle analyses the difference in the peace-building approaches in the twoconflicts and how these approaches have contributed to the different outcomes inDarfur and South Sudan. Following an exposition of intractability in theintroduction, the second section applies the factors identified to the case ofDarfur, confirming that this indeed is an intractable situation. It then considersthe international response to the conflict in Darfur and the mechanismsemployed by the global and the regional community in an attempt to addressthis conflict. The third section considers the situation in South Sudan and theinternational response, noting that efforts were led by the regional and sub-regional bodies, with the UN’s role being to complement these efforts. Themethodology employed is a comparative analysis, in which the internationaland regional legal and institutional responses to the crisis in South Sudan areanalysed with a view to identifying the lessons to be applied in addressing thesituation in Darfur, utilising theoretical and functional approaches to legal andpolitical interventions. The final section draws from the insights gained incomparing the international response in Darfur and South Sudan, and concludesby attempting to extract general principles about intractability and theeffectiveness of international responses to situations considered to be intractable,noting in particular the importance of regional and sub-regional bodies takingthe lead in efforts to resolve intractable conflicts.