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good offices |
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Diplomatic intervention by a neutral third party (or ‘facilitator’) in an international or intrastate conflict which is usually limited to providing assistance in bringing the rival parties into direct negotiations but may extend to suggesting a formula for a settlement. Good offices (bons offices) do not, however, extend to active participation in discussions once they are beyond the procedural stage; if this develops, as sometimes happens, the provision of good offices has changed into mediation. In his Guide to Diplomatic Practice, where he devoted separate chapters to ‘good offices’ and ‘mediation’, Satow was rightly impatient with those who could not grasp this distinction, and added the acute observation that, unlike mediation, good offices could be exerted at the request of only one party to a dispute, ‘since the essential character of such a step is the presentation to the other party of reasons for a particular course of action which he is invited to take into consideration and adopt’. This is the earlier notion of good offices. See also venue.
A synonym for mediation. Support for this usage pre-dated Satow and is now, largely thanks to the UN, widespread. Gone is the separate chapter on good offices in the latest edition of Satow\'s Guide and the extremely active role of the UN Secretary-General in the Cyprus conflict is officially described as his ‘mission of good offices’. |
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