Paroles d’intervenants civils de paix : repenser l’impartialité comme espace paradoxal

Most international NGOs active in conflict zones refer to impartiality as a major principle underpinning their work. By impartiality they mean the pursuit of a humanitarian mandate without discrimination or taking sides. Impartiality entails both engagement in the field and cautiousness when relating to conflict actors. Though clearer than neutrality in theory, the idea of impartiality is difficult to implement in complex and unstable zones where emergency combines with danger. It is particularly challenging for NGOs specialized in unarmed civilian protection (observation, mediation, accompaniment, interposition..) often referred to as ‘Unarmed Civilian Peacekeeping’ or UCP today. Yet very few studies examine these conflict transformation practices the heart of which is relationship-building, and even fewer their praxis of impartiality. Building on the author’s experience in UCP training and on several extended interviews of unarmed civilian peacekeepers returning from missions, this article identifies tensions and contradictions that emerge from experiences in countries as diverse as Columbia, South Sudan, Iraq, Kosovo, the Philippines. The author focuses on testimonies on both the concept itself and its implementation. The practitioners’ views are also confronted to several theoretical intuitions on the meaning and the reality of impartiality. The study does not pretend to be statistically representative. It simply identifies key stakes linked to impartiality and offers a new hypothesis for test to the scientific community : the idea that the very tensions raised by the attempt to be impartial create a paradoxical space, itself entailing new local conflict transformation options