Ali Bin Musa, Faozi Al-Goidi, and Abdalftah Hamed Ali
Libya has been in the grip of armed conflicts that have led to the collapse of state institutions and the fragmentation of central authorities among multiple, externally supported actors.
Over the past decade, international efforts have proven insufficient, on their own, to resolve these protracted conflicts and achieve comprehensive peace in these countries.
This has brought to the fore local mediation mechanisms, which show potential as key ways to manage and resolve domestic conflicts at the grassroots level.
In environments characterized by protracted conflict, the proliferation of armed forces, and the fragmentation of the ruling system, local mediation can complement or provide an effective alternative to international and national efforts, which often find it hard to address the root causes of conflict in a way acceptable to all sides.
In Libya, local mediation in the form of reconciliation committees has in many cases helped prevent armed clashes from escalating, as well as helping reopen roads between cities and regions, and mediating the exchange of bodies, prisoners, and detainees.
The work of these committees has often come as a complement to existing truces, which are mainly established between the leaders of armed militias and military units. Yet although their achievements may seem small, their impact in terms of alleviating suffering and saving lives is significant within the context of Libya’s long-running political impasse.
Local mediation differs from international efforts in several ways. The former relies on actors from within the conflict-affected community, drawing on local customs and values. Agreements are often verbal, underpinned by customary traditions, and aimed at containing escalation or restoring the situation to the status quo prior to the conflict.
International mediation, on the other hand, depends on a foreign third party, is often limited to a specific timeframe, and seeks technical solutions derived from diplomacy and international law or norms. This often attracts suspicion from local parties to the conflict, or from their competing external backers, lest their interests be threatened.
The process of mediation starts when the conflicting parties come together, or the mediator enters talks with each party separately. This stage involves each party listening to the others’ narratives and establishing the facts. This leads to the proposal of compromise solutions such as the payment of compensation and damages in cases of killing, establishing pathways for care, or temporarily halting the fighting until national law can resolve the conflict.
The agreement is usually announced to the community, and sometimes written down, making it binding on all parties. Local administrations or committees then monitor implementation and impose fines on those who violate the agreement.
This makes such a mechanism effective, in the short term, in reducing violence or mitigating its humanitarian impact. However, the absence of an institutional framework to protect these solutions leaves them in a fragile state when the balance of power shifts and the conflict expands. This means it is essential to consider ways to integrate them into broader national and regional peace processes.
The paper argues that when the state weakens, local solutions based on customary, tribal, and religious mediation mechanisms step in to fill the void created by the absence or weakness of a central authority. Through our analysis, we aim to draw practical lessons for policymakers on how to support, activate, and ensure the sustainability of local mediation, alongside formal conflict resolution processes.
Diverse Mediation Mechanisms
Between East and West
Following the fall of Moammar Gaddafi’s regime in 2011, Libya descended into a maelstrom of armed conflict. While the international community focused on formulating a plan for a political transition and national elections, local mediation efforts flourished on the ground, going some way to reining in the country’s descent into total chaos.
As security institutions collapsed, many communities were forced to rely on tribal customs and local reconciliation committees to settle disputes and provide some semblance of security within the community. Libya has a long history of tribal traditions for resolving disputes, especially in rural areas.
These include the practices of al-mīʿād and jabr al-khawāṭir, which involve tribal elders meeting to settle disputes and promote harmony in the event of a community-level conflict over a certain issue. After 2011, new entities such as municipal councils and civil society organizations emerged and came to mediate in such conflicts.
Between 2011 and 2018, at least eight reconciliation agreements were concluded between local Libyan groups linked to various armed militias from various Libyan regions and cities and with differing objectives and loyalties.
One of the most prominent such agreements was the Misrata-Tawergha Agreement (2016–2018), which led to the return of thousands of displaced Tawergha residents to their city after seven years of forced displacement.
A senior UN official remarked that “Local mediation is the best thing that has happened in Libya since the revolution.” Similarly, mediation efforts led by tribal councils in the southern region of Sabha resulted in a peace agreement between armed groups from the Tebu and Tuareg communities in 2015 after repeated bouts of armed violence.
While successive governments have failed to unify and rebuild Libya’s security institutions, such grassroots reconciliation efforts have played a crucial role in containing localized conflicts and preventing them from escalating. That said, their impact has often remained limited, and their success has varied across both space and time due to the absence of a unifying national framework.
A Mix of Traditional and Modern Actors
Local mediation in Libya is organized at the group level, often through “reconciliation committees” comprising tribal elders and sheikhs, religious figures, local council members, and civil society activists. These bodies are typically formed in response to armed clashes, whether on a large scale or within a certain locality.
They often include real or nominal representatives of the conflicting parties, along with “neutral” figures and dignitaries not affiliated with any side.
A string of ceasefire agreements in western Libya in 2014-2015—between the Misrata and Warshafana militias; Misrata and Zintan; Zintan and Gharyan; Zuwara and Zawiya; as well as neighboring towns in the Nafusa Mountains—serve as pertinent examples of the role of mediation committees in containing conflict and de-escalating tensions in western Libya.
In most of these cases, the truces were supported by confidence-building measures, as stipulated in the peace agreements signed by committees representing the belligerents. These measures typically included a ceasefire, prisoner exchanges, the withdrawal of armed forces from contact zones, the reopening of closed roads, compensation for victims and the return of displaced persons, among other things.
This approach made a notable contribution to installing a general state of peace in western Libya which paved the way for the signing of the Libya-wide peace deal known as the Skhirat Agreement, in December 2015.
The United Nations Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL) later played a bigger role in supporting these local mediation efforts. From 2015 onwards, it began to rely partially on local mediators in its own efforts, providing them with technical expertise or even accompanying them with observers on national reconciliation committees, to give the latter international momentum.
Another important mechanism in Libya is that of the tribal social councils, which were resurrected in certain cities and regions after the 2011 uprising. For example, the Warfalla Tribal Social Council managed the affairs of the city of Bani Walid with a fair degree of independence from the main power centers of eastern and western Libya, helping to resolve conflicts between armed groups in the city through the historical legacy of local and tribal customs.
In summary, local mediation mechanisms in Libya have evolved from traditional meetings in private living rooms into national reconciliation conferences sponsored by the government and the international community, mainly seeking to prevent local disputes from escalating or spreading.
Challenges and Lessons Learned
The successes of local mediation efforts in Libya have several key characteristics and offer important lessons that can be built upon.
Firstly, cultural and social legitimacy is a vital key to success. Besides adding national ownership to peacebuilding, it also gives mediators a form of influence that international institutions cannot provide.
Secondly, experience has shown that the tactical flexibility of local mediation allows it to contain escalation quickly, even if these solutions are temporary and partial.
Thirdly, while it is clear that local mediation cannot replace the state and its institutions in addressing the root causes of conflicts or putting in place a sustainable peace, it is nonetheless a key piece of the puzzle, one that complements national and international processes.
Finally, the contribution of women and civil society, even if limited, has increased the effectiveness of mediation and given it wider legitimacy by bridging the gap between traditional structures and new actors.
In short, despite its fragility, local mediation has shown its value and made a tangible difference in people’s lives, representing an indispensable building block in any comprehensive peace process.
These modest successes notwithstanding, local mediation mechanisms face challenges and obstacles stemming from the broader conflict environment, and lack the tools to ensure that their achievements are sustainable and become integrated into broader, national processes.
The first challenge is the lack of financial and logistical resources. Local mediators—whether tribal elders, community leaders, or civil society activists—operate in impoverished environments and often lack institutional support. They frequently embark on mediation efforts with their limited personal resources, making them hostage to local circumstances and unable to expand or sustain these efforts for extended periods.
This vulnerability leaves mediators susceptible to burnout and a loss of capacity to follow through, especially when dealing with agreements that require long-term monitoring and implementation.
The second challenge lies in the direct security threats mediators face. In Libya, armed groups often view local mediators as obstacles to expanding their own military and economic interests, and have resorted to intimidating them. As a consequence, this dangerous environment undermines public trust in the process itself, as people fear engaging in a process that could lead to personal repercussions. Political interference presents a third, equally serious challenge.
The absence of guarantees is a fourth challenge that threatens many locally mediated agreements with collapse. Accords brokered through local efforts are often verbal or undocumented, relying more on trust and moral commitment than on institutional, executive, or judicial mechanisms.
In Libya, too, many ceasefires have disintegrated in cases of significant imbalances of power between the warring parties; in Sudan, local ceasefire agreements are frequently violated due to the ongoing war.
Conclusion
Local mediation efforts in Libya reveal that such tools are not merely a traditional mechanism for resolving minor conflicts, but a vital tool that has kept community life going during moments of complete state collapse.
These processes have achieved tangible breakthroughs in protecting civilians, opening roads, negotiating prisoner exchanges, and ensuring the delivery of humanitarian aid. However, they have notable limitations, namely their inability to address the root causes of conflict or to ensure the sustainability of agreements in the face of the whims of major political and military powers.
These findings highlight the need for a new approach that sees local mediation as an essential component of peacebuilding, not merely a temporary solution to crises. No national or international agreement can succeed unless it is rooted in legitimacy with the local community and the latter’s own mechanisms for conflict resolution.
Furthermore, ignoring these mediation mechanisms means leaving vast areas of conflict unmanaged, inevitably leading to a resurgence of violence later on.
Based on these findings, we recommend that international and regional organizations provide sustained financial and technical support to local mediators, including training in negotiation skills and protection mechanisms, without attempting to impose external control over them.
Local agreements should be formally recognized and integrated into national political processes, transforming them from ad hoc achievements into the building blocks of a comprehensive peace process.
It is also essential that local mediators are provided with effective protection, through international and regional monitoring mechanisms that prevent them from being targeted or blackmailed by armed groups.
There is also a need for stronger partnerships between civil society and traditional structures, creating bridges between modern and historical legitimacy.
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