The War in Ukraine

Lessons for Mediators

Abstract

Margaret Atwood may have put it best: “War is what happens when language fails.” As mediators, we can add that war is what happens when people are demonised and disrespected, when needs remain unaddressed and interests unsatisfied. It is what happens when pressing problems are ignored, when intense emotions are left unheard and unacknowledged, and when conflicts are allowed to fester, turning small, preventable, easily resolvable differences into immense, unavoidable, intractable crises in which violence seems the only way out.