Hybrid Diplomacy with NGOs: The Italian Formula 3030868680, 9783030868680

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Hybrid Diplomacy with NGOs The Italian Formula

Raffaele Marchetti

Hybrid Diplomacy with NGOs

Raffaele Marchetti

Hybrid Diplomacy with NGOs The Italian Formula

Raffaele Marchetti Dept of Political Science LUISS Roma, Italy

ISBN 978-3-030-86868-0    ISBN 978-3-030-86869-7 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86869-7 © The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover pattern © John Rawsterne/ patternhead.com This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG. The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Contents

1 Hybrid Diplomacy Beyond Classical Diplomacy  1 2 Global Politics: From Classic to Hybrid Diplomacy 15 3 Italian Hybrid Diplomacy for Human Rights 51 4 Conclusion117 Bibliography127

v

List of Figures

Fig. 2.1 Fig. 3.1

Types of relationships between public institutions and civil society’s actors. Source: author’s own illustration Increase of abolitionist states for all crimes (1970–2019). Author’s elaboration on Amnesty’s data

35 78

vii

List of Tables

Table 1.1 Table 1.2 Table 2.1 Table 3.1 Table 3.2 Table 3.3 Table 3.4 Table 3.5 Table 3.6 Table 3.7 Table 3.8 Table 3.9 Table 4.1

Independent variables Hypotheses NGOs acronyms Analysis of the campaign on religious freedom Analysis of the campaign on Mozambique peace agreements UN votes on the moratorium (2007–2018) Analysis of the campaign for the moratorium of death penalty Analysis of the campaign for the creation of the International Criminal Court Analysis of the campaign for debt cancellation Analysis of the campaign for the FGM ban Analysis of the campaign for the confiscation of criminal assets Analysis of the campaign for the humanitarian corridors Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) of the campaigns

10 10 28 73 78 81 83 89 96 102 108 113 118

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CHAPTER 1

Hybrid Diplomacy Beyond Classical Diplomacy

A Story to Tell In 1992, the UN Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali defined the peace process that took place between the Government of Mozambique and the guerrilla rebels as an “Italian Peace”, expressing admiration for the special way of combining governmental and non-governmental activities flexibly and informally deployed by the Italian actors involved on that occasion. Following that experience, the so-called Italian formula has been applied repeatedly in other diplomatic situations with significant success. This book is about that formula and how that formula can more generally sustain middle powers in influencing international affairs through soft and hybrid moves. The traditional government-to-government (G2G) diplomacy carried out exclusively by diplomats has been recently integrated with a more encompassing way of interacting with foreign counterparts. Private companies, experts, local authorities, trusts, media and of course civil society organizations (CSOs) have all collaborated in different forms with national governments and international organizations to pursue political goals that would have otherwise been harder to achieve. The broadening of the exercise of diplomacy goes in parallel with the pluralization of international affairs. The phase of global transformations (Held et al., 1999) allowed for the proliferation of a plethora of organizations beyond the Westphalian states that are actively shaping the dynamics of global governance. Today’s © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 R. Marchetti, Hybrid Diplomacy with NGOs, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86869-7_1

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global politics is characterized by the increasing number of relevant actors operating alone and often in partnership with each other. The field of foreign policy and diplomacy has been significantly reshaped by this pluralization. Hybrid diplomacy refers to the synergy that occurs between governments and non-governmental organizations in the international ambition of a certain country. It combines traditional with innovative diplomacy and is centred on the collaboration in network diplomacy that involves, along traditional diplomats and governments, civil society and NGOs, businesses, international organizations and other players. By relying on each other’s strengths, both governments and NGOs enhance their capabilities to make a significant impact on international affairs. Such synergy can be either top-down, namely when the action is promoted by governments, or bottom-up, when instead NGOs take the lead, or levelled, when the action is promoted equally by both. In fact, it can be both ways. At times, civil society organizations need institutional support from governments in order to secure funding, gain access to international fora or simply acquire international credibility. Other times governments seek partnerships with civil society organizations if they need popular support, local know-how, credibility and soft avenues for their international projects, or because they are socialized from below, at times even “infiltrated” by activists who obtain ruling positions through the revolving door practice. Partnerships between governmental and non-governmental actors are hence becoming frequent. Hybrid diplomacy is especially suitable for those liberal middle powers which on the one hand have no significant military power and, on the other, are open to the inputs of their proactive civil society. Canada, for instance, has frequently used such type of diplomacy (A. Cooper, 1997, 1999, 2001; A. F. Cooper & Hocking, 2000), alongside countries like the Holy See (Troy, 2018), whose distinctive style will be analysed in this study and Qatar (A. F. Cooper & Momani, 2011), with its extraordinary sui generis resources. In 2014, Germany launched a project of open diplomacy through a significant engagement with civil society counterparts in order to define a new toolbox to deal with the global challenges: this led to the setting up of a number of “open situation rooms” for co-generation of policy solutions (Kaiser & Ringler, 2016). As a liberal middle power with an intense tradition of civil activism, Italy represents a remarkable case of hybrid diplomacy. In recent decades, Italian actors have repeatedly and successfully enacted international actions by combining governmental and non-governmental efforts on several

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different issues. Renowned for its social activism, soft power and reluctance to use its military tools, Italy, a middle power, has learned to deploy hybrid diplomacy to a very sophisticated level. In the Italian case, hybrid diplomacy has worked as a multiplier of force, in which the government has, at times, played the role of integrative power or system orchestrator, while at other times, it has rather followed inputs from below. Such hybrid synergy has indeed helped to increase the competitiveness of the national ecosystem, as well as its ability to adapt to new circumstances and calibrate the operational speed. In the international arena, Italy has generally been a follower within leading groups. It is a founding member of the European Union and a member of the G7, G20, NATO and other groups that strongly affect international dynamics. Within these groups, Italy plays an active role, especially in the European and Mediterranean areas, albeit it is often unable to express real leadership. Yet, in the past forty years, there have been cases in which Italy has managed to establish itself as a reference point in the international community. This study analyses such instances, with the aim of better understanding the conditions and mechanisms through which a country can make significant contributions to the international community. The study examines the dimension of synergy between the action of Italian public institutions (mostly the government, in particular the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation—MAECI) and the non-governmental action of the Italian Civil Society Organizations that operate internationally. In recent decades there have been cases of positive collaboration between these two actors that have made the country attain a leading role at an international level, that is, from being a subject that follows the rules (rule-taker) to becoming a subject that writes the rules (rule-maker). Despite not being an international great power, Italy has thus made up for its lack of power with a combination of strategy and tactics drawn from public-private partnerships. In the last decades, the Italian contributions to a series of transnational campaigns have had a significant impact on an international level. The cases of freedom of religion, peace in Mozambique, the International Criminal Court, the moratorium on the death penalty, the ban on female genital mutilation, the cancellation of debt, the confiscation of criminal assets and humanitarian corridors illustrate Italy’s role in the policy of change of the international norms that regulate the field of human rights. These mobilizations are the result of the combination of factors that will be investigated in this book. Among the most important distinguishing

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traits of these political actions is the intense synergy that has been established during these campaigns between the action of the Italian government and Italian civil society organizations. Sometimes leadership was held by civil society organizations, other times it was the government to have a proactive role. In all cases, by working together these actors have indeed set out innovative strategies of hybrid diplomacy. The results in terms of regulatory institutional change at the global level are evident. Not only do these results have a clear value in themselves, but they have also strengthened an overall positive governmental and non-governmental image of Italy. Undeniably Italian hybrid diplomacy is broader than the interaction between government and civil society organizations, as cooperation with businesses has a strategic role of great importance, too. On the one hand, the widespread presence of small and medium-sized companies contributes to defining the political image of the country, on the other hand, the action of large companies such as ENI, ENEL or Leonardo crucially sustain the Italian strategic positioning in the global realm. Yet, hybrid diplomacy is not carried out exclusively with NGOs and businesses. Local authorities are also increasingly important: autonomous regions (as per constitutional law), as well as large metropolitan cities, through their relevant diplomatic tools, can affect international processes (Marchetti, 2021). Furthermore, there is a series of different actors, ranging from think tanks to football clubs that with the so-called sports diplomacy manage to develop synergy with government action. Of all these other forms of hybrid diplomacy, this book will focus on the relationship between government and civil society organizations. A note on the boundaries of the present study is necessary at this stage. Hybrid diplomacy should not be confused with a number of other phenomena that may at times overlap with it, but remain conceptually different. Hybrid diplomacy is not activist advocacy (Keck & Sikkink, 1998; Prakash & Gugerty, 2010; Price, 2003) or NGO diplomacy, that is the actions carried out in global politics by NGOs or other civil society organizations independently from governmental actors (Betsill & Corell, 2008; Winter Roeder & Simard, 2013). Activism advocacy, especially in its transnational forms, is centred on the agency of non-governmental actors. They frame issues, raise awareness, mobilize, coalesce and carry out a wide repertoire of action mainly in autonomous ways (Tarrow, 2005). At times, they engage and develop partnerships with national and international public institutions, but only marginally. Activists indeed try to lobby

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governments to pursue their agendas, but typically such actions are perceived as centred on the agency of activism with the government remaining a passive receiver of external inputs and pressures. Hybrid diplomacy is instead entirely centred on the governmental/non-governmental partnership, as viewed from the national foreign policy perspective. In this case, governments are strategically proactive, if not at times on the lead itself. Hybrid diplomacy is not public diplomacy, though the two overlap at times. While public diplomacy refers to the target audience of a diplomatic action often originated by a government (e.g. the use of social media to engage a foreign population), hybrid diplomacy refers to the actors involved as agents, not as targets, and points to the engagement with non-­ governmental actors. In between public and hybrid diplomacy there is also cultural diplomacy, an action developed through the political use of museums (Grincheva, 2019) or pop artists (Jang & Paik, 2012), and sport diplomacy (Murray, 2012), which relies on sport events to enhance the international projection of a country. Hybrid diplomacy should not be confused with digital diplomacy either (Adesina, 2017; The Economist, 2021). While digital diplomacy refers to the new usage by foreign ministries of the different digital platforms and social media, though hybrid diplomacy may at times take advantage of digital opportunities, it remains a distinctive form of action. The intersection of digital and physical diplomacy occurs in different ways. From the most visible instances of web meetings and use of platforms such as Facebook to the most sophisticated deployment of media influencing and cyberweapons by proxies, digital diplomacy is becoming an integral component of the governmental international strategy. However, it remains conceptually different from hybrid diplomacy, with the former focusing more on the tools, the latter more on the actors. Hybrid diplomacy is not hybrid warfare either (Wither, 2016), though the two might collide under specific conflict-related circumstances. Hybrid warfare refers to a military strategy that deploys actors not linked to official armies for the purpose of weakening their counterpart’s security. Notable cases involve the use of private or semi-private hackers to attack and damage critical infrastructure or specific targets of other countries, as an extreme case of digital diplomacy. Hybrid diplomacy looks at the engagement with non-governmental actors for public initiatives for political and peaceful purposes and, hence, it differs from hybrid warfare. However, in an escalating conflict phase civil society actors can at times be used by a government for violent purposes (Marchetti & Tocci, 2009,

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2011a, 2011b). Ultimately, the same logic underpins both hybrid warfare and hybrid diplomacy: in a pluralized world, political effectiveness is achieved only through the use of multiple actors in synergy. This book aims to explore the multiplying effect with the synergy between governmental and non-governmental actors from civil society in mostly human rights-related activities. This book is structured in three parts. The first part analyses the structural changes in international politics over the last decades. Within such framework, the pluralization of global politics and the growing role of private and non-governmental actors in it can be highlighted. Along these lines, the Italian case finds its meaning within global dynamics. The second part of the book collates and examines the eight most important Italian foreign policy actions of the last decades which bear a significant cooperation component between the government and civil society organization. Finally, the third part develops a comparative analysis of these cases to draw conclusions that may stimulate better levels of public-­ private synergies and their effectiveness in terms of international impact.

Research Design and Methodology This study analyses eight cases of interaction between Italian public institutions and civil society organizations in which such positive synergy has helped to generate a significant impact on international politics. These eight cases are only a subset of many other cases of interaction between institutions and civil society. If we look at them on the whole, the level of cooperation has at times been high, at times limited or even sought but not obtained. In some cases, mobilization has been successful on an international level; in other cases it has failed; in some others, the process is still ongoing. The book focuses on a “single country/multiple cases” study. The choice for the single country-approach is due to the need to analyse the actions carried out in a country that has been particularly effective and acknowledged (see the aforementioned quote from Boutros Boutros-­ Ghali) in such cases of hybrid diplomacy. While it is by no means the only country deploying such type of diplomacy, Italy somehow stands out for the variety of actions (i.e. the eight different campaigns), the timing of deployment (more than four decades), the diverse nature of the actors involved (catholic, liberal, communist ones, etc.) and the level of

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socialization of the approach at both government and civil society levels. Furthermore, a qualitative choice was made to deepen the analysis by having a range number of cases and a significant amount of direct interviews with top stakeholders from both government and civil society alike, which would have not been feasible in a multiple country research design. This is a study on political mobilization actions for changing norms, on what is generally called advocacy, namely a study on one of the political dimensions of external action. The study examines how various interest groups influence a country’s foreign policy (Risse et al., 1999) and assesses how civil society actors increasingly contribute to foreign policy. Such actions should not be confused with the provision of humanitarian aid (service delivery), hence with the classic development cooperation, even if intended in a more political sense in line with the new Italian cooperation laws. Nonetheless, development aid will be referred to in several parts of the study as a tool for political penetration, creating alliances, consolidating a local presence, but also as a crucial economic tool for securing partnerships between the government and the world of civil society in Italy. The time span of the study runs for four decades, from the 1980s to 2019. It is precisely from the 1980s that the first public-private partnerships in Italian foreign policy began to be observed. This is in line with the transformations of the international system that, propelled by globalization, pluralizes and supports the inclusion of new non-governmental actors in international political dynamics. Case selection criterion follows the most similar, positive cases model. In this sense, the cases examined are all successful cases. By contrast, some cases on which research has also been carried out were excluded either because they are still in their initial phases, such as the mobilization on early marriages or the one on slow food (Grossi, 2010), or because they have failed, such as the mobilization for the democratic reform of the United Nations’ Reclaim Our UN (Marchetti, 2007; Papisca & Mascia, 2004). The successful mobilizations considered in this study are the following eight cases: • Religious freedom (1978–2012) • Peace in Mozambique (1983–1992) • Abolition of the death penalty (1987–2007) • International Criminal Court (1994–1998) • Debt cancellation (1997–2000) • Ban Female Genital Mutilations (2000–2012) • Confiscation of criminal goods (1997–2014)

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• Humanitarian corridors (2015–ongoing) The study adopts a qualitative and mixed research technique applied to data extracted from different sources. Starting from secondary academic literature, the study develops a qualitative analysis of the data collected with an analysis of the content of documents produced by public institutions (national and international) and civil society organizations, journalistic articles and think-tank reports, interviews with the main actors involved in public-private interactions and a few participatory observations. The interviews were conducted over several years and involved four types of actors involved in the campaigns analysed in this study: politicians (members of parliament and former foreign ministers), activists, public officials (e.g. diplomats from the MAECI or the European Commission) and experts. With this approach, it was possible to break down the information for the sake of validation. Interviews were developed based on a series of semi-structured questions to balance the coherence between the interviews and the flexibility to investigate specific topics. Finally, in a few limited cases it was also possible to conduct participatory observation, which, through attendance at decisive campaign meetings and public-private synergy, helped shed light on the interactions between the various actors. Despite limited resources, the analysis nevertheless manages to provide an accurate picture of the interaction between the Italian public institutions and civil society organizations. More specifically, the research identifies a series of variables as necessary conditions for the realization of public-private partnerships in hybrid diplomacy. Civil society research tends to explain the international impact of non-governmental actors by referring to several specific factors that include both internal and external characteristics. The internal ones include the ability to mobilize resources (McCarthy & Zald, 1977) or to present an adequate cognitive framework (rational and emotional) (Goffman, 1974), while the external ones regard the structure of political opportunities in which they operate (McAdam et al., 1996). Among the various key success factors, the relationship between NGOs and governments is particularly important. In the literature, the focus is generally placed on the state as a target of protest or competition. As suggested by Price: “research on the success or failure of transnational activism often turns to domestic structures and culture to explain variations in success when the targets are states. A key finding is that transnational activism may be insufficient to produce change without the opportunity

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provided by government leaders who are sensitive to their state’s reputation” (Price, 2003, 592). In this context, the research on policy gatekeepers and veto players has been an important line of interpretation (Busby, 2010). A relatively less developed study area concerns the cooperative aspect of the interaction between governments and CSOs (Marchetti, 2013, 2018). From this perspective, the relationship does not take place in a single direction, neither with the CSOs that influence the state nor with the state that co-opts the CSOs. The relationship is rather one of mutual synergy that can improve the political capacity of both actors. Given the predominantly intergovernmental nature of the international system, CSOs must rely on government actors to enter diplomatic negotiation channels. At the same time, governments can benefit from indirect support from CSOs. During the long cycle of policies from agenda formulation, to preparatory work and negotiation phases, as well as during implementation and monitoring, there are many informal opportunities for CSOs to influence the process. This can be done by generating public awareness and support in the countries to be persuaded, by offering technical skills, discrediting competing positions, etc. Finally, public-private synergy can be implemented both nationally within a single country and multilaterally through multi-stakeholder initiatives. What still remain unclear are the specific conditions that enable this public-private synergy which, together with other factors, contributes to generate an impact in political-institutional terms at the international level. In this sense, we can identify a number of independent variables that are relevant for synergy (here understood as dependent variable). They are of three distinct types: related to public institutions (especially government), related to civil society and related to the issue under discussion. Among the variables linked to public institutions, it is worth mentioning those concerning the willingness to finance CSOs, the presence of a broad bipartisan consensus, and access to key decision-makers, namely in this case the foreign minister. Civil society-related variables include the presence of transnational networks, public support and the presence of hybrid coalitions (the latter variable is also shared with the government). Finally, the variables related to the campaign theme include resonance with the institutional paradigm, the nature of non-military issues and the timing of the mobilization. Table 1.1 outlines the eight variables taken into account in this study:

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Table 1.1  Independent variables Variable name

Acronym Type

1 Government funds 2 Bipartisan 3 Gatekeepers

Funds Bipart Gate

Institutional Institutional Institutional

4 Hybrid coalitions

Coalit.

5 Transnational networks 6 Public opinion 7 Resonance 8 Timing

Nets

Civil/ institutional Civil

Opin Res Time

Civil Thematic Thematic

Dimension Material resources Political resources Political opportunities structure Political resources Political resources Political resources Framing Political opportunities structure

Table 1.2 Hypotheses Hp Acronym Hypothesis 1 2

Funds Bipart

3

Gate

4

Coalit

5

Nets

6 7

Opin Res

8

Time

Synergy will occur when public institutions are willing to finance NGOs Synergy will be present when the political system provides broad bipartisan support to the campaign Synergy will be present when direct channels to access senior policymakers (particularly the foreign minister) are available Synergy will be present when institutional partners, other than the national government, foster hybrid coalitions with other governments and international organizations Synergy will be present when other NGOs besides the national ones show interest in the campaign, creating the opportunity for transnational NGO network Synergy will be present when public opinion provides broad support Synergy will be present when there is a resonance between the cognitive framework (framing) of the campaign and the regulatory paradigm of national institutions and culture Synergy will be present where there are favourable political and socio-­ economic conditions (critical junctures)

In relation to such identified variables, a series of hypotheses can be formulated, to be then tested through the case study reported in the second part of this book and finally be potentially confirmed in the comparative analysis in the third and final part of the study. The hypotheses on the conditions (independent variables) that facilitate the government-CSO synergy (dependent variable) are the following (Table 1.2).

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As stated, the study puts these hypotheses to the test through the analysis of eight specific cases that have taken place over four decades. The aim is to establish the relevance of these variables for the synergy to develop. Synergies are indeed important for the final outcome of the different campaigns; however, on this conclusive link, no consolidated results have emerged. Other important factors should be taken into consideration, such as the wider international context, the incidence of specific events, the overall economic costs, although this kind of analysis goes beyond the intended aims. Acknowledgements  This research stems from a long process of knowledge-­ building and developing an analytical perspective on the relationship between government and civil society organizations within Italian hybrid diplomacy. My Initial considerations started within the “FP6 Democracy in Europe and the Mobilization of Society” project, led by Donatella della Porta at the European University Institute of Florence, and by Mario Pianta at the University of Urbino (contract no.: CIT2-CT2004-506026). I then carried on with my research independently at LUISS University, both at the Department of Political Sciences and the School of Government. To this end, the EACEA funding for my Jean Monnet Module “EU’s Engagement with Civil Society” (529096-LLP-1-2012-1-­­ IT-529096-AJM-MO) was useful, alongside being part of the Erasmus Mundus Joint Doctorate “GEM-Globalization, the EU and Multilateralism network”, directed by Mario Telò (159706-1-2009-1-BEEMJD). Furthermore, the US State Department funding of the conference on “Risks and Opportunities in Civil Society-Public Institutions Relationship” (S-IT70015-GR-016) was equally useful. For different reasons, Federica Mogherini and Sid Tarrow were crucial for this study: during a conference on Global Politics and Civil Society at the School of Government, they urged me to explore the issue of civil society’s inputs to traditional Italian foreign policy. I therefore owe a deep intellectual debt to them. Among the many occasions on which I have discussed these ideas, I am glad to mention the conference on “The Italian Left and Foreign Policy” (University of Cambridge) and the seminar of the “Groupe d’études pluridisciplinaires sur l’Italie contemporaine (GREPIC)” (Sciences Po). Thanks to the activists, officials and politicians who have agreed to be interviewed and whose precious time has made this book possible. Given their institutional roles, I am particularly grateful to former foreign ministers Bonino, D’Alema, Frattini, Fini, Mogherini and Terzi. And finally, thanks to all my students and colleagues with whom I have discussed all these ideas: their comments and criticisms have certainly helped me to fine-tune my research.

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Special thanks go to: Thea Restovin for her excellent research assistance on the cases of freedom of religion, confiscation of criminal assets and humanitarian corridors; Valentina Marino for her inputs on the death penalty case; Beatrice Muroni and Thea Restovin again for providing the research materials on the cases of debt relief and female genital mutilation for their degree theses carried out under my supervision. Finally, I wish to thank Manfredi Valeriani and Samson Fagbohunlu for the translation of the manuscript into English and Ilaria Ritella for its final revision.

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CHAPTER 2

Global Politics: From Classic to Hybrid Diplomacy

When we think about international politics our mental map tends to see the world (map) as a puzzle consisting of about 200 pieces. More precisely, we conceptualize the world as being made up of 193 states, that is, the members of the United Nations. From this point of view, to understand international politics, the behaviour of states should be observed and analysed. This way of viewing the world in a state-centric sense derives from the experience of the Westphalian system and the intellectual domination of realism. Yet, throughout history, this has not always been the case. Before the Westphalian system, the world was read as shared among great (supranational) empires and history was regarded as something that was established by them. During the Cold War, the mental map of international politics was essentially split into two major pieces, the two blocs, capitalist and soviet, with their two capital cities Washington and Moscow, plus the inconvenience of the non-aligned countries, in a completely marginal position. From the 1980s until the financial crisis of 2007, the world puzzle tended to consist of eight pieces, that is the member states of the G8 club. The world north, the West in general, led the world no longer by colonial means but through economic control. More recently, it became apparent that those eight states were no longer able to govern the world on their own, so the map was enlarged to a series of countries in the southern hemisphere, primarily to the so-called © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 R. Marchetti, Hybrid Diplomacy with NGOs, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86869-7_2

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emerging powers. The series of G20 meetings would institutionalize this geo-strategic enlargement. As early as the 1990s, however, Huntington had argued that the real puzzle of world politics was not made up of 194 pieces, nor of 2, 8 or 20, but rather, of 9 macro pieces that he calls civilizations (Huntington, 1996). According to the American scholar, history would be decided by the interaction of nine regional macro-areas: (1) the Western one, which would include North America (without Mexico), Western Europe, the Philippines, Australia, New Zealand and Papua New Guinea; (2) the Orthodox one, that would go from Greece to Russia, via Kazakhstan and Bosnia Herzegovina; (3) the Islamic one, that would go from Morocco to Indonesia, via Albania, from Sunnis to Shiites, but without a leading country; (4) the African one, which would include all the sub-Saharan countries; (5) the Latin American one, that would go from Argentina to Mexico; (6) the Hindu one, centred on India; (7) the Sino-centred one of China, excluding Tibet but including Vietnam and the whole Korean peninsula; (8) the Buddhist one, that would include Tibet, Mongolia and other Southeast Asian countries; and finally (9) the Japanese one in its own right. These maps are associated with a series of scenarios that suggest different distributions of power on an international level. A classic scenario (at least for the last twenty years) is the one of American uni-polarism. According to this scenario, the world would continue to be led by the USA as a military, economic and indisputable (although discussed in the facts) political power. This is a traditional and majority view in US government circles. From this perspective, the USA would be destined to lead the rest of the world, given its ultimately unique nature, the “shining city on a hill”, which would place them in a position of responsibility towards the rest of the international community. Such vision on the leading role of the USA is well-spread among both Republicans and Democrats, including many academics and policymakers in the USA. A second highly discussed scenario is the so-called G2 between the USA and China. The two superpowers of our era will face each other in an ever-increasing rivalry, and the fate of the international community would remain dependent on this competition. According to the most reliable estimates, the Chinese economy (aggregately) will become the largest world economy, having already surpassed the Japanese one in 2010. Therefore, after a long period of world economic primacy, the USA will

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drop its leadership in favour of the (re)emerging power that would cover about 23% of world GDP, as it did before the European colonial expansion. According to American liberals, this change in economic leadership will not destabilize the international system. International institutions as they exist today are robust enough to withstand such change, compelling the new leader to accept the existing rules (Ikenberry, 2008). According to the American realists instead, the USA will continue to be hegemonic. And yet, if they were to decline, the international system as we know it would also change radically, as it is the result of the will of the hegemonic power in charge (Kagan, 2012). From the perspective of the G2, much will depend on what kind of relationship will be established between the USA and China, whether win-win cooperation or zero-sum competitiveness. A third scenario sees the world governed by a three-pole system led by the USA, the EU and China. According to this perspective, China would extend its influence in the Asian area, substituting Japan in the old US-EU-­ Japan triad, that would remain substantially intact with most of the economic, military and political interactions between the three macro-regional poles with imperial features (Khanna, 2008). The factor of change, however, would lie in the different political perspectives that animate the three parties. While Japan was aligned with the Western world order vision, with China we would face an unprecedented scenario. A fourth highly controversial perspective sees a multipolar world where the position of emerging countries consolidates alongside the USA and the European Union. It is the case of BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa), but also other countries of considerable economic weight such as the MIKT countries (Mexico, Indonesia, South Korea and Turkey). According to this perspective, the world would accomplish a new distribution of power substantially balanced, yet unprecedented, as, for the first time in many centuries, Western countries would be forced to share power with other countries in the (former) southern part of the world. Finally, there is a fifth scenario which is the one supported by this study: the apolar world (Avant et al., 2010; Haass, 2008; Hale & Held, 2011), that is a world in which power is widespread among many actors, including non-governmental actors. Strongly shaped by globalization and clearly against the realist state-centric perspective, this final approach is in sharp contrast with the scenarios described so far. From this point of view, the best mind map to guide our knowledge and actions in the global era is

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much more complex than the previous six maps outlined. On the one hand, the state as a unitary actor is losing centrality in favour of a breakdown in sub-state authorities with ever-increasing transnational subjectivity. Transnational governmental networks are gaining more and more relevance. Courts, authorities, interparliamentary committees, central banks are all building closer ties with foreign counterparts. Of course, it is worth mentioning that this also entails the risk of a technocratic, supra-­ nationalist and exclusivist drift. On the other hand, there are more and more, diverse non-governmental actors that request inclusion in international decision-making mechanisms or that directly acquire authority, skills and power to influence international affairs regardless of state authority. From international fora such as the World Economic Forum to global terrorist groups such as Al-Qaeda; from philanthropic foundations such as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to social movements such as the Sem Terra Movement; from international NGOs such as Greenpeace and Amnesty International to the Tibetan diaspora; from the media alternatives like WikiLeaks to charity stars like Bono from U2; from think tanks like the Council on Foreign Relations to investment banks like JP Morgan Chase; from rating agencies like Standard & Poor’s to big world media like CNN and new media like Facebook and Twitter, non-state actors are everywhere in global politics. Classical intergovernmental organizations appear increasingly inadequate to handle the major issues of globalization. Multilateral trade negotiations have stalled in the Doha Round. Similarly, multilateral environmental negotiations are also in full swing. The reforming of the global financial system is not taking off. In a world where power is spreading in a thousand streams, the multilateralist way conceived after the Second World War and led by an undisputed hegemon finds itself in a dead-end. Problems arise from the divergent interests of governmental actors and the great imbalance of power that characterizes the relationship between them. Politics in the era of globalization is much more complex than in previous eras (Marchetti, 2016). Different phenomena across the world are often interconnected. A sophisticated capacity for understanding, judgement, and innovation is requested to have political control over a dynamic that spreads over multiple dimensions, levels and places. Unlike the past, in today’s world, US home loans are directly related to the living standards of Icelanders; health infrastructures in Indonesia affect death from flu in Mexico; the rate of car ownership in China is detrimental to the survival of

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the inhabitants of the Tuvalu islands. In such a twine, it is no coincidence that the opinions and forecasts expressed by public figures often end up being miserably wrong. A synthesis perspective between various scenarios is the one offered by the distinguished American scholar Joseph Nye through his metaphor of the chessboards. According to Nye, the best way of dealing with international politics is to conceive it as divided in three chessboards, three games going on simultaneously (Nye, 2004). On the first board, the military one, the system is unipolar, with the USA firmly in the unrivalled lead. On the second chessboard, the economic one, the system is instead multipolar, with the USA having to share power with the EU, China and other major economic powers. Finally, in the third chessboard, the mixed one, the system turns out to be apolar, with power spread on a transnational scale. In this last chessboard, the actors are numerous and among the great powers, only the USA and the EU would be able to affect the balance of the system, as they are the only powers capable of exploiting synergies with non-governmental actors.

Global Governance The current institutional framework is composed of several factors, including state entities, international organizations and transnational actors of various kinds that have been overlapping over the past few centuries. The international counterpart of state institutions is conventionally known as the “system of states”. Developing almost simultaneously with the state itself, the state’s system was based on the institution of classical sovereignty and international law. A clear breaking point took place in the mid-twentieth century with the birth of the United Nations, a corrective institution built on a juxtaposition of classic, liberal and cosmopolitan elements. In recent decades, a new type of international policy has accompanied and challenged the United Nations order, effectively creating a global governance system. The proliferation of intergovernmental agencies (G7/8) and transnational (semi)-private institutions (e.g. the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers—ICANN—or the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication—SWIFT) has put pressure on, when not superseded, the traditional system focused on the United Nations. This has generated alternative mechanisms of global governance.

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The modern system of states, born with the Treaty of Westphalia of 1648, is centred on the absolute sovereignty of the state over its territory. This was in opposition to the medieval “two suns” convention (Alighieri, 1310–13; reprinted 1985), based on the spiritual power of the Pope and the temporal one of the emperor, the cardinal principle of sovereignty. The two suns convention differentiates territorial political units in terms of exclusive dominion legal and moral and has characterized international politics for more than three centuries, generating a number of extremely significant secondary norms in the field of international law. Among these, the following principles stand out as particularly relevant: (a) national sovereignty which does not recognize any authority superior to the state (resulting in an international system completely dependent on the consent of the states); (b) the formal equality that is guaranteed to each state on the basis of the de facto control over its territory; (c) the national jurisdiction according to which international organizations do not interfere with the internal political organization, that is, relations between citizens and the state are entirely delegated to internal law; (d) the principle of non-­ intervention; and (e) the right to self-defence (James, 1986). The first major change in the legal-institutional framework of the international system occurred after the First World War with the creation of the League of Nations in 1920. The League of Nations’ pact in fact changed a number of rules of coexistence of the state system. For example, it introduced limits on the unilateral use of force, a new idea of collective security, and the majority voting procedure according to which the unanimity of the League of Nations Council did not include the votes of the countries involved in the dispute. This marked a split with the absolute sovereignty of the previous classical system but it failed in pursuing a legitimate and effective political framework given the undisputed centrality of state institutions. In this respect, the League of Nations agreement did not provide for any alternative self-defence mechanism beyond war. Moreover, the pact also lacked legal supremacy over other international treaties. Last, but not least, the League of Nations Treaty had been signed by a few countries, and the USA itself was not a part of it. In fact, although American President Wilson had been the great creator and promoter of the project (an effort which granted him the Nobel Peace Prize in 1919), the American Senate never undersigned the League of Nations’ agreements. These were the major factors that weakened the new-born League, leaving the traditional international law between states widely in force until 1945.

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The second and most radical change in the international legal framework emerged after the Second World War with the birth of the United Nations in 1945 (Ziring et al., 2000). With the aim of maintaining world peace and security and fostering cooperation on international issues and human rights (articles 1–3 Charter of the United Nations), the UN charter contained a series of innovative international law principles which helped shifting the international regulatory practice towards a confederal model. Based on the idea of collective security, the first step in this direction consists in the expropriation in favour of the UN of the absolute right of states to resort to the use of force (art. 2). A second important deviation from classical international law consisted in the adoption of a majority voting system, along the veto power by the five permanent members (art. 18 and art. 27.3). Finally, a significant modification of the previous international practice consisted in the recognition of the legal supremacy of the UN charter over any other subsequent treaty (art. 103). Therefore, there are three main dimensions of change brought about by the United Nations Charter. The first one concerns the content of the norms, as the United Nations Charter supports a more incisive collaboration scheme for safeguarding peace and security, solving common problems and supporting universal values. The second one concerns the basis of the rules and related international agreements according to key principles (such as human rights and self-determination) which strengthen a broad notion of global common good. Finally, the third change concerns the issue of implementation through the use of a more effective mechanism for responding to the violation of international law provisions (Hurrell, 2001). The new legal system generated by these changes has seriously affected the authority of state sovereignty as conceived traditionally. In the last decades, a further significant liberal change in the international institutional political framework has occurred, leading to a substantial increase in the mechanisms of global governance (Czempiel & Rosenau, 1992; Zürn, 2018). In the era of globalization, the model of embedded liberalism—a combination of free market and national political system—has provoked a growing need for wider and deeper international cooperation, which has eventually led to the establishment of a network of hybrid mono-functional institutions. A continuous growth of political norms and legal provisions with a low degree of democracy has increasingly characterized the institutional side of contemporary international society, eroding the legitimacy of both the state and the classical international law.

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Governance differs from classical government as it does not require the same level of centralization, formalization and integration. Governance requires principles, rules and procedures to solve problems globally, but it does not require a single centre of power. Let’s take the following cases as examples, as Caporaso suggests (Caporaso & Madeira, 2012): (1) Jody Williams, an American activist who, working from home on her computer, generated a political dynamic that led to the anti-personnel mines ban convention signed by 122 countries; (2) the Red Cross, created by a Swiss banker, which functioned substantially without a real organization and against the will of the great powers; (3) the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE), created in 1973  in a very un-­ institutionalized form and set up only after the end of the Cold War, in 1994 it was renamed Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE)—a Secretariat and a Conflict Prevention Centre were established in Vienna, an Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights in Warsaw, an Office for National Minorities in The Hague and an Interparliamentary Assembly in Copenhagen; (4) Amnesty International, which with around 3 million members works worldwide in defence of human rights. These are just four examples of organizations that have an organizational form very far from the governmental one, yet they manage to affect world politics as (if not more) than many governments. The current global governance system has some very important characteristics. First, governance has a broad outreach as it directly concerns a system of multilateral rules wherever they have an impact, be it at the global, transnational, regional or national level. Therefore, the rules of governance are much more intrusive than traditional intergovernmental ones and generate requests for greater legitimacy. Second, despite its wider scope, the governance system is limited in terms of inclusiveness and participation, as it pertains only to certain issues and agents (stakeholders). Third, with its multilateral nature (including three or more actors) it involves generalized principles of conduct and widespread reciprocity. Furthermore, governance is polyarchic, since it includes several authorities, often on a formally unequal level, such as states, sub-national groups, special interest groups at transnational level and communities, including both public and private subjects. Global governance therefore implies a change with reference to the concept of international subjectivity, to the extent that sovereignty of states loses its privileged status and the United

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Nations system itself becomes increasingly integrated with a number of other multilateral governance structures. The term governance is used in two different ways. In the first one, the term governance is often preceded by the adjective “good”. In this case it is associated with the spread of representative democracy and the market economy and is often used by international organizations such as the WB and the IMF, especially in connection with the so-called conditionality agreements towards developing countries: these can receive aid and assistance provided they meet certain conditions, such as budgetary rigour, offcuts in public spending and trade liberalization. The idea of good governance in this context has the meaning of good management, which implies rule of law, good and transparent administrative practices, accountability of political leaders and, of course, a clear ban of corrupt, nepotistic governments and so on. In the second sense, as in many international relations studies in the wake of the perspective drawn by Rosenau and Czempiel, global governance is defined as a set of regulatory mechanisms that work even if they do not stem from an official authority, but are produced by proliferation of networks in an increasingly interdependent world (Czempiel & Rosenau, 1992). Global governance is not seen as a result, rather as a continuous process which, unlike regimes, is never fixed and does not have a single model or form (Koenig-Archibugi & Zürn, 2006). Furthermore, by focusing not exclusively on intergovernmental relations, it provides for the participation of actors of various kinds, both public and private, who obey multiple rationalities: in particular NGOs, multinationals, citizen movements, mass media and global capital markets. Its adjustment is not arranged in a framework of pre-established rules, but it is done jointly through a permanent game of exchanges, conflicts, compromises, negotiations and mutual adjustments. Global governance has been interpreted differently over the past few years. For some we are witnessing a form of neo-medievalism characterized by the proliferation of multiple authorities with jurisdictional areas that overlap only partially. For others, global governance represents the most advanced form of self-regulation of international affairs in the sense of privatization of public functions. Finally, for others, a post-national scheme is taking shape, characterized by the lack of a central authority, by the presence of highly organized and specialized collective actors (instead of individual citizens), and by a functional differentiation between the

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actors that are motivated more by a problem-solving mindset than by a common identity and a political principle. There are three main causes that explain the great interest in global governance during the 1990s: (1) the end of the cold war, and therefore the expectation that international organizations would play a more significant role in managing the new world order; (2) the development of globalization understood as a significant increase in the flow of goods, capital, services and people; (3) the growing awareness that the planet was tormented by a series of problems (such as environmental ones) that can only be tackled with a coordinated global approach. From a more academic point of view, only in the 1990s the interest in global governance consolidated and then became dominant. In the 1970s the revision of the realist paradigm in its neo-realist version is observed; accordingly, transnational cooperation is unlikely, at best conceivable as a minimalist form of coordination and still remains the result of the balance of power. In the 1980s instead we witnessed the development of the neo-liberal institutionalist perspective, according to which cooperation is possible through institutions as they favour the spread of information, the repetition of interaction and, hence, the change of the context that generates incentives for collaboration and reduces the inclination to deception. The so-called neo-neo (neo-realist and neo-liberal) synthesis of the 1990s no longer discusses the importance of international institutions. Instead, it focuses on the specific mechanisms that favour institutional impact. Yet, right when the theoretical legitimacy of classical international institutions (intergovernmental) is confirmed, the world changes again. This time, new forms of global governance develop completely independently from the will and power of states. In a broad and evolutionary sense, the concept of global governance can express the gradual overcoming of the classical Westphalian system (decentralized with its emphasis on the rights of sovereignty and political independence and on the principle of non-intervention) towards a less conflictual, more cooperative and consensual system. In addition to the different interpretation of global governance, an important regulatory issue revolves around the problem of the legitimacy of these global institutions. As they attach a different political power to the various agents, institutions generate exclusion. Greater global interdependence increases the need for institutions to regulate the interaction between the different international actors. In doing so, it stimulates cooperation that may not be achieved through uncoordinated interest calculations within a

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heterogeneous sphere of political action. In this sense, the value of international global governance regimes remains anchored to their level of efficiency. Despite this, however, a fundamental regulatory question on the issue of participation emerges. When the implementation of international policies was conducted at the government level, for a hegemonic actor it was enough to negotiate with states ignoring the legitimacy claims. Today, the question of legitimacy has regained importance, given that policies have a broader scope (as they need to be strengthened within states) and consequently compel the need to liaise with different types of political actors, beyond traditional governmental ones. Hence, the dilemma concerns the simultaneous need for the intrusive implementation of common policies and the strengthening of legitimacy in terms of political consensus, necessary to obtain efficacy in a complex and pluralistic social system characterized by global transformations (Woods, 2002). In recent years, this challenge has generated intense discussions that are currently at the centre of the public debates (more on this in the last chapter). Five trends characterize the recent forms of global governance: (1) the merging of the national and international spheres; (2) the increased role of non-state actors; (3) the emergence of private governance; (4) the transition to a new way of obtaining respect for the rules; (5) the growing complexity of the institutional horizon. First, national politics is increasingly influenced by international politics. Nevertheless, international politics remains highly dependent on national politics in a bond of reciprocity that seems difficult to solve. In English we use the “intermestic” neologism that combines international and domestic. As early as in the 1970s, Keohane and Nye had begun to study the phenomenon of interdependence (Nye & Keohane, 1971). In the 1980s, Putnam’s famous study marked a stopping point in the debate by suggesting a continuous balance between the two dimensions (Putnam, 1988). Finally, more recently, Slaughter highlighted the relevance of trans-­ governmental networks for understanding both national and international politics (Slaughter, 2004). Second, non-state actors are increasingly becoming political players at the international level. As mentioned, their relevance has been studied, as early as in the 1970s (Keohane & Nye, 1977), but in the 1980s the subject underwent a relative marginalization due to the neo-liberal institutionalist revival. In the 1990s, non-state actors became the focus of major studies again (Keck & Sikkink, 1998), remaining actors who could access international politics only by influencing states and gaining their support. It is

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only in the last decade that we realize that non-state actors are able to affect global politics completely independently from government actors. Third, governance becomes increasingly private. While in the past, traditional international authority rested on the principle of government delegation and institutional form, today we are increasingly seeing the consolidation of new forms of authority that have a far more private nature. Therefore, authority is attached to private subjects not on the basis of political delegation through electoral mechanisms but on the basis of competence (see non-political figures increasingly in power in decision-­ making processes) (Fisher, 1990), on the basis of the moral principles supported (e.g. the prestige enjoyed by charitable NGOs or celebrities) (Kapoor, 2012) and on the basis of the ability to complete a specific task (e.g. the mercenaries contracted for the management of armed conflicts as well as NGOs dedicated to development cooperation) (Hulme & Edwards, 1997). Fourth, compliance with the rules is obtained less and less through coercive power but more and more often with other types of softer authorities. Traditionally, respect for the rules was obtained through a formal sanction. However, today, rules are not necessarily formal and enforcement does not necessarily go through sanctions. Instead, other tools are used such as voluntary regulations, recommendations, dissemination of best practices, transparency and accountability. We then move from the “command and control” model to a “managerial approach” that is substantiated in improving the ability and willingness of the actors to comply with international standards through capacity building and regulatory persuasion. This passage is in some way required by the lack of a single central authority capable of sanctioning and by the practical need for compliance with shared standards. These standards (1) can be created by very different actors, often by non-governmental actors; (2) apply to a very diverse set of actors that requires non-restrictive rules to obtain consensus more easily; (3) imply low costs for their formulation; and (4) are mostly based on persuasion when it comes to implementation. Ultimately, attitudes towards standards contrary to one’s interests can be of three types only: acceptance and payment of adaptation costs; refusal and payment of marginalization costs; promotion of another standard. It is precisely because of the relevance of this third option that the policy of changing norms and standards will be analysed in the next chapter. Fifth, the institutional landscape is increasingly complex. The proliferation of international institutions, whether intergovernmental, hybrid or

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private, is transforming the way of doing politics and the strategies adopted by the actors of global politics. For example, we are witnessing the consolidation of institutional formations composed only of actors with similar political-economic perspectives (like-minded actors). The phenomenon of the so-called forum shopping is more and more frequent. Actors look for the most favourable institutional and jurisdictional field among the many available. However, this comes with an increasing difficulty in assessing the costs and benefits of alternative strategies and the unexpected consequences given by the interaction between the different institutions.

Civil Society in International Politics It is now widely recognized that global or transnational civil society plays a significant role in global governance (Busby, 2010; Keck & Sikkink, 1998; Khagram et al., 2002; Tarrow, 2005). In the past thirty years, especially after the end of the Cold War, the presence of CSOs in international affairs has become increasingly evident. CSOs have become important in setting the agenda, in the legislative functions of global governance, in transnational diplomacy (track II and III) and in the implementation and monitoring of a series of global issues ranging from trade to poverty reduction and development, from democracy to human rights, from peace to the environment, from security to information. In these sectors, CSOs acted as promoters of political solutions, service providers, knowledge brokers or simply controllers of state and intergovernmental actions (Risse, 2002) (Table 2.1). Global activism has gained relevance as a result of a combination of specific political schemes that include a set institutional form and the support of international organizations, globalization processes, the transformation of state functions, socio-economic processes related to education and transport, technological innovation and the domination of a precise political ideology. First, as mentioned, the current global governance mechanisms allow the participation of various non-governmental political actors in decision-­ making processes on the basis of the stakeholdership principle. This means that a number of international organizations have supported the inclusion of civil society actors. Originally, the UN actively promoted cooperation with civil society within the ECOSOC (art. 71 Charter of the United Nations) and then above all in relation to world summits (McKeon, 2009; United Nations, 2004; Weiss & Gordenker, 1996). The European Union

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Table 2.1  NGOs acronyms  •  •  •  •  •  •  •  •  •  •  •  •  •  •  •  •  •  •  • 

INGO: International Non-Governmental Organization IONGO: International Organizations Non-Governmental Organization DONGO: Donor Non-Governmental Organization GONGO: Government Non-Governmental Organization QUANGO: Quasi autonomous Non-Governmental Organization PINGO: Public Interest Non-Governmental Organization PONGO: Party Non-Governmental Organization MINGO: Military Non-Governmental Organization TANGO: Technical assistance Non-Governmental Organization ENGO: Environmental Non-Governmental Organization RINGO: Religious Non-Governmental Organization BINGO: Business (or Big International) Non-Governmental Organization CONGO: Commercial Non-Governmental Organization BRINGO: Brief case Non-Governmental Organization MONGO: My Own Non-Governmental Organization MANGO: Mafia (but also Market advocacy) Non-Governmental Organization CRINGO: Criminal Non-Governmental Organization NNGO: North Non-Governmental Organization SNGO: South Non-Governmental Organization

Table 1.1 Author’s elaboration

has followed a similar approach, integrating different types of CSO into its governance mechanisms of the European Commission (European Commission, 2001; Steffek et  al., 2007). Similarly, other international institutions have opened channels of communication and interaction with the CSOs. Second, the process of privatization of functions previously performed by the state has opened up new political spaces for CSOs. The decline of state resources in the 1980s and 1990s, the resurgence of the ideology of neo-liberalism, the emergence of the “third way” and the partnership between public and private actors (PPP) have all provided fertile ground for an increasingly active role of social actors, including CSOs (Hulme & Edwards, 1997). Third, the globalization process has generated a sense of common purpose among the actors of civil society and has therefore been an engine of internal unification, increasing both the sense of solidarity between the CSOs and the contestation of the socio-economic consequences of globalization (Van Rooy, 2004).

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Fourth, technological innovations in the IT sector have revolutionized organizational models within civil society and they have allowed for more effective transnational communication. Fifth, changes in social behaviour, such as the spread of higher education and the spread of international travel, have offered new opportunities to civil society. Finally, the international system, based as it is essentially on Western liberal principles, has offered a favourable environment for this type of activity (Marchetti, 2015). The widespread recognition of the transnational value of human rights, civic participation, accountability, good governance, democracy and gender equality have increased the chances of CSOs to gain space and legitimacy in the international system beyond the traditional interstate framework. Consequently, there have been countless obstacles to the development of transnational activism. These kinds of restrictions are often caused by the perception of CSOs as foreign agents infiltrated “in disguise” to destabilize and possibly overturn the current political regime. As a matter of fact, funding lines of the European Union such as the European Instrument for Democracy and Human Rights (EIDHR), or American funds within the USAID Strategy on Democracy Human Rights and Governance, precisely aim at stimulating, in a non-coercive and bottom-up way internal democratization processes. What these funding programmes aim to promote is primarily an environment favourable to CSOs activity. In addition to the mere absence of restrictions, this includes good interaction between the different forms of civil society, adequate resources, widespread acceptance of the role of civil society, permanent spaces for dialogue with governments, and laws and regulations that facilitate civil society’s operations. Generally, the recent increase in the presence of civil society in international affairs can be characterized by two main aspects. First, CSOs have played a role in the provision of services. In recent decades, states have diminished their commitment as service providers both nationally and internationally: this has accompanied the wave of “privatization” of world politics. In this context, the seemingly “technical” and “apolitical” organizations of civil society have thrived both locally and transnationally. Second, CSOs have played a more political role in terms of disseminating rules. Their role has been particularly significant, if not controversial, in promoting democracy through the affirmation of human rights. They have played this role both independently and in cooperation with the USA and the EU especially.

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Transnational Networks and Campaigns Global politics is played by both traditional governmental actors and new transnational actors through innovative forms and strategies. Among these, the ability to network, campaigns and public-private partnerships play a prominent role. To be effective, actors must update their repertoire of actions and tactics following these directions. Within global politics, transnational networks play a central role. In this context, a transnational network can be defined as a permanent coordination between different actors, located in different countries. The intent of the network is to develop protests and proposals in the form of common campaigns and mobilizations for common objectives at national or supranational level. These objectives are set on the basis of a common “frame” on a specific global issue. Therefore, transnational networks play an important role in terms of aggregation of social forces and development of common identities that have a decisive weight on the impact on international decision-making processes. The networked form and its variations are probably the most common organizational forms in the age of globalization. Transnational networks, in particular, can take various forms: hybrid, with plural components that include governments, international institutions, multinational companies, civil society organizations, local authorities and so on, or mono-category; they can be generalist or sectoral. The transnational partnership is characterized by voluntary and horizontal coordination, which is based on trust, reciprocity and asymmetry. Networks are in fact eminently non-static organizations: flexibility and fluidity represent two fundamental features of the networked organizational form. A flexible organizational structure increases the ability to adapt effectively to changing social circumstances and political situations at the global level. A fluid organizational structure, on the other hand, allows for porous organizational boundaries which do not require participation ratified by a formalized membership, and which are capable of crossing national and cultural borders. The structure of networks also varies as it can be both direct and indirect, and the links can be centralized or decentralized with different levels of segmentation (Anheier & Katz, 2005; Diani, 2004). The main activities of transnational networks include the dissemination of information, the influence on the media and the diffusion of public awareness. In this sense, networks constitute a sort of global infrastructure for transnational actors. By sharing information, resources and costs, transnational networks generate added

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value for all members in terms of innovation and mutual support and therefore of potential legitimacy and impact in a positive sum game. Lobbying, protest and service delivery are typical activities of transnational networks. A network between actors from different countries is formed when a set of preconditions in terms of values, identity and political projects materializes and when actors converge on the relevance on a specific global issue, on an interpretative framework and on the strategies to adopt. Central to this convergence are the procedures through which the consensus on values, identity and strategies is negotiated, affirmed and reproduced between independent actors that decide to work together. The drafting of a statute, a charter or a programme is generally crucial for the network formation process. The internal dynamics of a global network are determined by the strategic decisions of the actors when entering, staying or leaving the network. Central is the process of acquiring a sense of ownership and sharing (co-­ ownership) of the network in which the investment of political capital and resources by each participant is negotiated with the network coordinator and the other members. Of course, this process varies from actor to actor as each one has purposes that do not completely converge. Therefore, networks are subject to a process of constant evolution through discussion, contention and internal dispute that produces both new “constitutional” elements and new members. In this process, the nature of the network power emerges: the principles are always pragmatically approached with strategic and instrumental considerations, as a do ut des conditionality. The clearest example of this is membership: members are not part of the network until they decide to what extent they want to take part in it, and this depends on what they are to gain from the network in terms of incentives and rewards. Hence, participation is often asymmetric and, anyway, the strategic aspect of the network should not be overemphasized. Strategy is moderated both by the internal discursive process that modifies the interests of the members and by the original agreement on a common regulatory framework. Both the strategic and regulatory components are then balanced by the result-oriented attitude, according to which obtaining concrete results is an important element of the organization’s shape, growth and legitimacy. Each transnational network is characterized by a set of beliefs and values that define its political identity. Networks are dependent on shared values, but at the same time they constitute a key organizational tool for

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the shared construction of these values, identity, mutual trust, and common vision and strategies. Unlike the national context, the members of a transnational network do not share the same interpretative framework, political culture or repertoire of action, nor do they have a common language. On a national scale, the same language, culture and experiences facilitate collective action. Internationally, this common ground is absent, but actors operate in an informal context that offers some interesting opportunities. However, the complexity of the issues and the large resources needed are significant entry barriers. Transnational networks are an organizational method that intend to break down these barriers and facilitate wider participation in global campaigns. In terms of specific actions adopted by non-state actors, these actors have implemented over the years a repertoire of actions that combine traditional forms with innovative action formulas. From the classic street demonstrations to the most recent street occupations, from traditional lobbying and “infiltration” in official government delegations to the most technologically advanced forms of e-mail bombing or mail strike, from traditional boycott to activist certification, from the personal pacifist interposition to public accusations, the forms of political action adopted by the CSOs have been very different. In general, the main activities of non-state actors include actions intended to disseminate information and to educate, to influence the mass media and to raise public awareness, but also actions to provide services, technical training or create an alternative market. Increasingly important in this context are all those actions that can be carried out through new IT opportunities. In terms of activities aimed at institutions, three different models of interaction with public power are generally possible: (a) acceptance, integration or even co-optation in existing power centres, (b) external and critical dialogue for the purpose of reform or (c) the refusal and conflict which seeks radical change. While the models of integration and critical dialogue involve the possibility of re-framing the institutional discourse from within and from outside the political process, the model of refusal leads to political contention. In the political debate at European level, for example, we can easily find the three types. Euro-enthusiastic groups fall into the first category, critical Europeanists in the second, and Euro-­ sceptics in the third (Della Porta & Caiani, 2009). As mentioned, a particularly relevant form of action at transnational level is the development of campaigns. They consist of globally, nationally

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or locally coordinated activities developed within a wide repertoire of actions. Typically, a global campaign requires a clear message capable of mobilizing activists, supporters and sympathizers against a clear injustice and the identification of a well-defined opponent to accuse or a victim with whom to sympathize. Campaign activities tend to be carried out by the network itself in the event of global events and by its affiliated organizations or sub-networks when they take place at the national or local level. In order to maximize both “internal” activism and the potential impact on the external political process, a successful campaign requires the right choice of the actions to use and of the levels of mobilization and opponents targeting to adopt. Many campaigns have been successful in influencing policy on global issues in recent decades. Major examples in this regard are the campaign for the establishment of the International Criminal Court (ICC) (1995) which led to the approval of the Rome Statute (1998); the Jubilee campaign on Third World debt (1996) which prompted creditor governments and the IMF to take measures towards debt relief for highly indebted poor countries; the international anti-personnel mine campaign (1992) which led to the intergovernmental conference in Ottawa and the signing of the homonymous treaty (1997); the campaigns that led to the UN Moratorium on the death penalty (2007), the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989) and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (2007). Other important campaigns of the past are the anti-apartheid campaign, the campaign against the Multilateral Investment Agreement (MAI) (1998), the campaign for the diamond market rules of the Kimberly process (1998–2005) and the fight against the dam in the Narmada valley (India). Nevertheless, it is not only civil society that embarks itself independently to pursue its objectives. Increasingly, both international institutions and national governments are developing cooperative strategies with CSOs, as considered in the next sections.

Public-Private Partnerships Partnership Between International Institutions and Non-governmental Actors The relationship between public institutions and non-governmental actors has grown conspicuously in recent decades. However, this interaction has

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not received sufficient attention in the public debate and its results have been constantly underestimated, if not completely overlooked. Despite pursuing different objectives, political and non-governmental representatives find convergence which, although unstable, produces significant results. This increasingly intense relationship is generating consequences that impact the foundations of the political system in which we have lived during the last century. A profound transformation of the very nature of the political system (especially the international one) is underway. Such radical transformations bring socio-political benefits, though they can also imply serious political costs. It is within this political pattern that the phenomenon of partnership between public institutions and non-governmental actors (be they for profit or not for profit) must be framed. As the image below shows, these two actors can develop many types of relationships. At one extreme, non-­ governmental actors can be created by national (so-called GONGO— Government Non-Governmental Organization) or international (so-called IONGO—International Organizations Non-Governmental Organization) institutions. At the other end, non-governmental organizations can pose a threat to public institutions and enter into a turbulent relationship with them. Partnerships are located between these two extremes and take different forms (Fig. 2.1). A first analysis must be developed on the current configuration of the international system, which, as said, is increasingly open, facilitating the active participation of non-governmental organizations. The global governance framework allows the participation of a number of different political actors (so-called stakeholders) and thanks to this openness it creates a significant space for the presence of civil society. Furthermore, the transformation of authority towards the competence, capacity or moral principles of the actors, together with the greater relevance of regulatory persuasion, have all contributed to create a particularly favourable context for civil society organizations. Therefore, these organizations find themselves in an excellent position to contribute to the decision-making and the implementation of public policies with their “soft” skills. In the complex system of global politics, relations between governmental and non-governmental actors are increasingly central (Marchetti, 2016). In recent decades, global governance has offered new opportunities for non-state actors to influence public decisions internationally. Non-­ state actors are present at all stages of the policy making process—agenda setting, negotiation, policy decision, implementation, monitoring, and

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Fig. 2.1  Types of relationships between public institutions and civil society’s actors. Source: author’s own illustration

evaluation (so-called ANIME). They are present during the preliminary consultations of the think tanks and interest groups, in the determination of the agenda on the many issues of the European governance, in the participation of indigenous and peasant groups in the FAO Food Security Committee. They are also present as experts in the private bodies that set the standards like IOSCO or ICANN, or as a stakeholder in global hybrid initiatives such as the Global Fund to fight AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria which includes philanthropic foundations, grassroots organizations and businesses. Non-governmental organizations are active in financing of international public policies, in the implementation of international public services, often with the formula of the public-private partnership. They also play an important role in humanitarian/development aid, in the promotion of democracy, and in monitoring and evaluating human rights policies. Last but not least, non-governmental organizations participate in more or less formalized scenarios of contention, in which the relationship with public institutions is equally intense. The conflicts in Syria or Ukraine and the grey role played by rebels, fighters and terrorist groups, often characterized by identity or religious characteristics serve as clear examples.

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The term “civil” or “uncivilized” society is omnipresent, sometimes decisive, although its participation often remains highly controversial. The solution to the complexity of global challenges has been increasingly sought in multi-stakeholder networks based on collaboration, participation through power-sharing practices, on learning potentials and on common actions. These networks were created in an untraditional format, a format based on reciprocity (horizontal coordination instead of hierarchy) and equality (collective decisions on the objectives, trust and mutual respect instead of hegemony). Public-private partnerships have also been developed to “save” public institutions by offering them material and political support. As a matter of fact, they were conceived not only to increase the legitimacy of public institutions, but also to access the private capital necessary for public investments. This would have also generated a higher rate of compliance with standards. The recent shift of international politics towards regulatory policies intended as tools to promote public interest soon prompted the recognition of stakeholder involvement as crucial in order to identify, obtain and evaluate public goods in a proper way. The framework of the stakeholder approach derives from the theory of business management. In the political sphere, this approach has been linked to the debate on new public management and participatory democracy. In this context, multi-stakeholder participation generates various benefits by increasing the level of participation. This also helps institutions to better understand citizens’ preferences and therefore it stimulates greater trust and greater respect for decisions leading to less resistance to them. This is the context in which, since the 1980s, public institutions have reviewed their attitude towards civil society. The United Nations, the European Union and also many national governments have developed an increasingly intense relationship with non-governmental actors to pursue their political objectives. From what is commonly called Track I diplomacy (i.e. between government and government, intergovernmental), we have thus moved on to other forms of diplomacy. Track II diplomacy (between government and foreign communities such as public internet diplomacy), Track III diplomacy (between CSOs of different countries, e.g. transnational networks) and hybrid diplomacy that sees governments, international organizations, civil society, and other private actors of various sorts pulling together for common campaigns. Different reasons explain this renewed interest of public institutions towards civil society since the 1980s: (1) at the time, public institutions

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were experiencing political difficulties and needed to strengthen their legitimacy; therefore, civil society seemed the best partner to obtain such legitimacy; (2) institutions needed material support and knowledge (know-how) due to their reduced funds, privatization of their functions and the evident lack of internal skills; hence, subcontracting these tasks to NGOs was the optimal solution to respond to these needs; (3) institutions were looking for non-intrusive political partners and the creation of hybrid coalitions seemed a perfectly viable way to do so; finally, (4) some public institutions maintained that, just like the critical dialogue with other civil society forces, support for CSOs was necessary to revitalize one of the crucial mechanisms for the democratic sustainability of political regimes. This renewed interest has manifested itself in several ways. There are four main types of interactions between international institutions and civil society: (1) consultation (e.g. United Nations public hearings or WB consultations), (2) subcontracting (for instance, the monitoring activities on human rights compliance or the execution of international cooperation projects), (3) financing and (4) formal inclusion in the decision-making mechanisms (e.g. the cases of UNAIDS and the FAO Food Security Committee). For all these (conflicting) reasons and in these different ways, a large number of international and national organizations have supported the inclusion of civil society in their decision-making process. A leading role among them was played by the United Nations which actively promoted cooperation with civil society within the global governance mechanism. On its part, the European Union has increasingly expanded its interaction with civil society. The USA also have a long-standing tradition of attention to non-governmental actors, seen as a central component of American soft power. Finally, more recently, many other public organizations have opened channels of communication and interaction with the CSOs. At the same time, CSOs have actively pursued relationships with public institutions for a number of different reasons. A first, strictly strategic, reason is linked to a specific interpretation of how to promote political change. For some organizations, this change cannot be separated from (or it is only possible through) institutions following a top-down logic: from this point of view, society changes through the change of institutions. A second reason has to do with the external recognition that derives from the interaction with authoritative international institutions. This prestige can be used to increase one’s political weight towards national governments or other political actors, including other CSOs. A third reason

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concerns the possibility of having access to diplomatic channels, some of which are still strictly intergovernmental in nature and precluded to CSOs. Accessing these channels allows CSOs to influence international regulatory dynamics. A fourth reason traditionally behind the interaction between civil society and international organizations concerns financing, as most CSOs depend largely on public funds. A fifth reason concerns the search for political alliances to use in difficult contexts. Typical of these situations is the so-called boomerang effect, according to which activists are able to take advantage of external support to circumvent the obstacles put in place by authoritarian local governments. In this way, CSOs are able to put pressure on national institutions not directly (due to the aforementioned obstacles) but indirectly, through the external support of foreign CSOs, external governments and international organizations that offer different types of aids. These aids may come in many different forms, from weapons to money, from political statements to economic pressure. Finally, despite these interest-based elements, we cannot completely rule out the constructivist hypothesis that interaction with international institutions is sometimes just the result of a long socialization process that makes this contact almost symbiotic. While the growth of partnerships between public institutions and civil society actors at an international level is evident, the phenomenon remains controversial. The biggest controversy concerns the role that non-­ governmental actors play in global governance. The types of criticism made against civil society participation in global governance are similar to those directed against private sector participation. In both cases, the problem is their representation deficit. Since they are not elected, their participation in global governance is said to diminish the democratic quality of the decision-making process, to the detriment of formally elected governments. Similarly, their presence would confirm a widespread lack of trust in the operational capacities of public institutions. There are, of course, other scholars who argue the opposite, indicating the democratic value of stakeholder participation in the decision-making process as a viable (or even complementary) alternative to traditional electoral representation. The long dispute over the legitimacy of civil actors is an important issue in regard to transnational activism. Although it is clear that CSOs cannot aim to replace traditional channels of political representation, it is also acknowledged that they often play a key role, among other things, in conveying the demands seldom included in the political agenda. From the activist’s perspective, the question of political representation should not

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be interpreted as an answer to the question of who they represent, rather of what they want to represent. From their point of view, the issues they face and the values they seek to support are fundamental, perhaps even more than their “voters”. CSOs usually claim to promote public interest. They claim to speak on behalf of no one in particular, but on behalf of humanity. For these reasons they do not seek full political decision-making power, but rather consultative power linked to deliberative and discursive practices. Although for many specific global issues it is not clear what the public interest is, the ambition of civil society is to contribute, to the correct interpretation of what constitutes the public interest in the context of global public opinion. At the same time, civil society also underlines the potential risk of co-­ optation deriving from interaction with institutions. As many political institutions have now learned to strategically exploit interaction with civil societies, for NGOs the risk of being co-opted into the institutional system is always high. CSOs require financial resources, public recognition and political support, all normally provided or facilitated by the political system. In these circumstances, the political system is in a position of strength to exploit the fragmentation and proliferation of social organizations by selecting and choosing, on the basis of political convenience, the groups most likely to collaborate on the institutional agenda. In this way, CSOs could find themselves manipulated as tools to complement the top-down representation of specific interests or to provide specific goods. Their claims could thus be neutralized or at least de-radicalized. The case of government NGOs (GONGO) perfectly illustrates the full integration into the political system. Partnerships Between National Institutions and Non-governmental Actors The interaction with non-state actors is increasingly implemented also at national level. It is clear that this constitutes a departure from classical Westphalian sovereignty. Keck and Sikkink studied a political dynamic that later became known as the “boomerang effect” (Keck & Sikkink, 1998). The assumption of this interpretative model is that we no longer live (if we ever actually did) on islands. On the contrary, we are increasingly tangled in an interdependent world. If a group is marginalized or persecuted by national political decision-makers it can appeal to foreign actors (be they an NGO, a government or an international organization) to pressure the

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national government to open national channels and participation to the public power. An internal-external dynamic is thus configured. Nevertheless, the reality is more complex. There is also an external-­internal dynamic used by foreign actors to induce political changes in a certain country. For example, if these external actors cannot directly influence the government, they could seek support by local civil society capable of putting pressure on the government from below. This is a second type of dynamic that we often observe. There is also a third type that we should take into consideration, the internal-external government-led type. In this case, the national government can itself rely on foreign partners to conduct its political action more effectively. The partnership between national governments and non-state actors is the heart of hybrid or public diplomacy. By public diplomacy I mean, in a minimalistic way, the action taken by a government to interact with citizens of another state. In this way, public diplomacy corresponds to the notion of track II diplomacy. Recently, there has been an intensification of public diplomacy actions, especially by the USA and the EU.  Going beyond traditional government-government diplomacy, with public diplomacy (i.e. government-foreign communities) governments try to influence citizens of another state in order to promote their foreign policy goals. Among the different channels that can be used for the purpose of public diplomacy, two of them are particularly meaningful: direct action through the internet and indirect action through CSOs. Thanks to the new media, governments are now able to open a direct interactive communication channel with foreign citizens, so to receive information in support of their foreign policies and to offer non-invasive help. Through civil society, whether established as local organizations or as international NGOs with local offices, the government is able to provide on-site services but also to promote changes in society that are in line with its vision and interests. National borders are in fact loose and crossed by ideas and information, by migrants, refugees, by foreign investment and money laundering, by political support and terrorist networks, by conventional weapons and cybercrime, by pollution and popular culture. The political question concerns who and what is entitled to cross national borders. Ideas, people, money, political support and weapons do not cross borders with full legitimacy, yet all of them do, regardless of, or often with, the support of foreign governments. We live in a transition period that has intensified in the past twenty years, but we have no guidelines on how to manage it. It

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suffice to think of the cases of Ukraine, Syria, Hong Kong all cases in which foreign influence is reported by one or the other of the parties on the field. Though in different ways, all major players practise this type of influence and all of them condemn it. Albeit controversial, in this context, bilateral or multilateral hybrid partnerships are a central hub of global policy. The increase in the number of non-state actors has generated both national openings and closures. In terms of responses to the presence of multinational companies, a growing trend of openness is in view. In the case of international NGOs, however, a mixed response is present: whereas a generalized opening was available in the 1980s and 1990s, since the late 1990s an increasing number of countries have begun to impose restrictions on the operation of NGOs financed by foreign actors (Dupuy et al., 2016). This restrictive trend parallels the ever-growing number of NGOs accredited to the United Nations’ ECOSOC. What remains highly controversial is the fact that public diplomacy initiatives almost by definition override local governments and are in contrast with national sovereignty. As a matter of fact, public diplomacy often implies a poor consideration of the local government, seen as ineffective, corrupt or simply an enemy. In order to provide on-site services and promote a political project, what (mostly) Western governments increasingly put into practice (but also recognize, within certain limits, as politically legitimate) is a type of local action that goes far beyond the classic Westphalian intergovernmental diplomacy. This innovation is favourable to a liberal perspective where societies are conceptualized as open and with loose boundaries that allow the continuous transnational exchange between actors from different political communities. Following this approach, this situation is positive as it maximizes the opportunity for citizens to exercise their free choice among a (potentially) unlimited set of alternatives that are presented in a non-coercive way. However, by adopting a more realist position, the practice of public diplomacy and the soft diffusion of political values is immediately perceived as a threat. Consequently, public diplomacy is viewed with suspicion and interpreted as an attempt to impose foreign influence on domestic affairs, when instead sovereignty should dominate. When this view becomes paramount, countermeasures to the work of foreign CSOs such as internet censorship, or in extreme cases its ban, are generally adopted. When this type of radicalization occurs, when the context is “securitized”, then the space for CSOs’ action becomes tight.

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In conclusion, what lessons can be drawn from all this? First of all, the role of civil society and other non-governmental actors in the global political system should never be underestimated. Second, the presence of civil society remains a neutral factor that can involve both opportunities and risks. This difference depends on the proximity of one’s ideological positioning towards the CSOs and on one’s ability to interact with them. Public institutions have a great opportunity to receive significant aid from civil society, they can collaborate with the CSOs and, in some cases, they can even manipulate them to pursue their goals. However, institutions themselves can be heavily influenced by civil society actors, for better or for worse.

Global Change Global Strategies of Transnational Actors The CSOs’ decision on the strategy to adopt ultimately depends on which course of action is deemed as best suited, for the specific surrounding political circumstances, to pursue the ultimate goal. The strategic choice relates to the balance between the specific characteristics of the CSO (in terms of political perspective, experience, know-how and objectives) and its external environment. Only by setting a good correlation between factors related to the agent and those related to the context, a mobilization can be successful. To do this, it is essential to set a good timing (think of the pro-Tibet mobilizations coinciding with the Beijing Olympic Games or the pro-LGBT mobilizations coinciding with the Sochi Winter Olympic Games). Any mobilization can in fact have completely different impacts depending on the moment in which it is started. These elements are at the heart of the structure of political opportunities, as developed mainly in social movement theory. The global political opportunity’s structure in which transnational networks act is complex and multilevel. While the issues that motivate mobilization can ultimately be global (although often mediated by national or local dimensions), the possibility for a successful mobilization is rooted in the structure of political opportunities that reconcile the national and transnational sphere of political action. Although success necessarily depends on international circumstances, an important role in the global growth of CSOs is often played by domestic conditions.

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In national contexts, CSOs are rooted in a dense network of common social relations and identities, have access to important resources (human, financial, etc.), though they operate in highly formalized political systems that constrain their mobilizations through a series of political filters. While democratic countries tend to leave more room for activism, in countries governed by other types of regimes, activists’ space of action can be severely limited. By contrast, at the global level, transnational networks face major obstacles and high costs in building cross-border relationships between CSOs with different cultures and languages. In addition, they also face access to limited resources. However, transnational networks also act within a political system where the lack of democracy and the countless failures to tackle global problems create many opportunities for cross-border mobilizations (for instance, the political opportunity offered by the 2008 economic crisis, well exploited by different movements like Occupy Wall Street in the USA, the Indignados in Spain, the Five-star Movement in Italy and Golden Dawn in Greece). The lack of a rigid institutional environment like the national one widens the possibilities for political action. In different ways, international organizations such as the UN or the EU can provide opportunities for political spaces and mobilizing resources for the benefit of transnational networks. These opportunities inspire the adoption of specific political strategies by transnational CSOs. When there is a low level of conflict and institutional alliances are possible, “vertical coalitions” on specific global issues may emerge. Within these coalitions, CSOs can cooperate, or at least liaise, with particular international organizations and with “progressive” governments or regional organizations. For example, this happened to be the case for the International Criminal Court campaign, for the anti-mine or anti-child-labour agreements, but also for the WTO Cancun conference. On the contrary, when the conflict is strong, mobilization aims the highest level, at the heart of the global decision-making process (as in the case of the demos during the G8 summit) with a very visible challenge. During intergovernmental meetings, for example, the weight of street protest can put pressure on enemies and instead support friendly government delegations. In both cases, the results include creating more opportunities for emerging transnational networks, spreading their impact on public opinion as a legitimate and authoritative voice in favour of global interests. Moreover, their action can also influence the local dimension itself, helping to enhance policy opportunities that are present in national

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contexts (as in the ongoing conflict in Syria). For example, CSOs can act as facilitators to provide space for actors who are usually voiceless or left out. Transnational networks can also amplify local voices through “global bridges” and “boomerangs”, framing them in the context of global issues and policies, thus providing greater strength to local or national activism. Scale shifting, moving the battlefield, leapfrogging are all techniques widely used by CSOs. In this way, at the global level, transnational networks can strategically provide “discursive representation” to global interests that generally remain underrepresented in the political system. To sum up, a series of conditions that increase the chances of success for CSOs can be pinpointed. Recent studies have shown that greater effectiveness in transnational civil society action is achieved when the following conditions are met: (1) availability of transnational coalitions and networks on specific global issues, with the participation of CSOs from different spheres of action, as well as the scientific community and the business world; (2) concurrent use of various forms of action (public awareness campaigns, protests, lobbying, alternative policies and practices); (3) adoption of a multilevel strategy (i.e. local, national, regional and global) aligned with the multilevel structure of world governance and exploiting the various opportunities provided by the system; (4) “vertical alliances” created with UN agencies, friendly governments and actors in the business world through the support of key players (gatekeepers) and the defeat of those who could block the change (veto-players); (5) global events such as UN summits take place increasing visibility and creating opportunities for meetings and dialogues; (6) strong leadership with charisma, passion, acumen, determination and thoughtfulness; (7) availability of resources in terms of funds, personnel, information and so on; and finally (8) no (or rather limited presence of) institutional obstacles (Pianta et  al., 2012; Scholte, 2004). This analysis unearths the growing relevance of these actors in all those venues traditionally restricted to diplomatic negotiations. We live in an era where power is spreading in a thousand streams within societies, and societies are becoming increasingly intertwined and porous. In such a context, politics has become an increasingly difficult art to practise as it requires the ability to play on multiple levels and interact, swiftly and in parallel, with different actors. In this sense, CSOs are now an essential element of any global policy action. This centrality of non-governmental actors is highlighted even more if we shift the focus of our analysis to the ideational dimension of global politics. It is precisely in the contest among the

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various globalization projects that we clearly see the contribution, now on a par with that of the state, of non-state actors and CSOs. Global Advocacy and Norm Changing Politics From Antonio Gramsci’s notion of hegemony to Joseph Nye’s argument on soft power, the relevance of ideas in international affairs is now widely established. Without doubt, weapons and money are still significant elements. Yet, the role of ideas on what is good and what is evil is increasingly recognized as a determining behavioural factor for international political actors. Ideas matter not only because they provide a motivational boost for action, but above all because they shape our understanding of the world and, in doing so, they heavily predetermine the understanding and the use of military and economic power. This being the case, the key question to understand international affairs is: who are the best equipped actors to influence the battle of ideas beyond borders? Traditional answers here point to a plethora of different actors, from religious leaders to epistemic communities, from activist NGOs to philanthropic foundations, from media to social movements. Overall, we can refer to them as transnational CSOs. Due to their alleged independence from private and governmental interests, civil society actors are usually considered to be best placed to promote ideas and guiding principles. Instead, while frequently having higher resources, governments tend to have lower credibility, given that their policies are often perceived as implementing double standards. This is the ultimate reason why civil society actors are increasingly heeded by politicians and therefore studied by academia. Generally characterized by the promotion of regulatory change pursued through the use of transnational campaigns, the construction of transnational networks is at the heart of civil society action in international affairs. A typical phenomenon of any transnational process is precisely the sense of instability generated by the emergence of non-institutionalized actors and new (unprecedented) claims of legitimacy in the public sphere. These actors try to improve their political and institutional power in order to adapt it to their social and economic one. Those actors who are generally excluded from the institutional system promote their own admittance through a series of different strategies ranging from mild lobbying to harsh protest.

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Within this context of new political subjectivity in the global public sphere, the state-centric standpoint of international affairs mixes with the new non-state-centric one of global politics, producing a complex map of ideological positions. This was possible through the partial replacement of the Westphalian international system, in which the authority and legitimacy were limited to the territorial jurisdictions and interacted exclusively at an intergovernmental level. Therefore, the global public sphere remains a central place where new dimensions of global legitimacy develop against traditional interpretations. This does not necessarily mean that the reformist or even revolutionary reading of global political legitimacy influences concrete political action. However, the sheer possibility of initiating a change of norms in international politics makes this global public arena and its ideal content extremely important for contemporary global politics. To understand the long-term transformations of global politics, such global public discourse and its components must be considered. The perception of the possibility of change regarding a specific global problem lies at the heart of the dynamics that led to the birth and functioning of transnational activism. This possibility could be due to both the “discovery” of a new matter as significant, and the new interpretation of a long-standing issue. Ultimately, a key component of transnational activism in global governance lies in its relentless attempt to influence the regulatory battle over the legitimate interpretation of key global issues. In this perspective, CSOs must be viewed not only as traditional problem-solvers (such as those who provide solutions that governments are less suited to provide), but also as problem generators (such as those who impose new issues on the international agenda). While the perception of an unjust situation necessarily constitutes a precondition for action, it is only when the actor sees the possibility to positively affect this situation that mobilization can begin. Two elements are necessary for such mobilization: conceptualization and political commitment. Transnational mobilizations on global issues must be interpreted as the end result of several steps. A first crucial challenge for any transnational network is the ability to present the issue at stake in a way that is perceived as problematic, urgent and yet solvable. Every controversial issue must be clearly and individually identified: when the protest focuses on broad or blurred issues, it tends to be less effective. Any issue at stake should be presented to the public as problematic and so requiring corrective action to take. It should also be urgent, meaning it cannot be postponed. Finally, it should also be assessed as feasible, as a problem that can be solved.

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Therefore, the first step of cross-border mobilizations is the production of knowledge and the creation of theoretical frameworks through which the correct interpretation of the issue at stake is proposed. A second step consists in the dissemination and external strategic use of this knowledge. This is a crucial phase because it is here that information acquires an entirely public dimension, and therefore political meaning. Global public opinion must be involved to frame the terms of the conflict, so that the issue at stake is associated with a general public interest that requires commitment. This is when information policy comes to the fore. Often, when networks become active subjects in the epistemic circles of experts on global issues, they tend to be perceived by the public as credible sources of information. Therefore, they manage to increase their influence on the decision-making process. It is at this stage that CSOs need to make the most out of the opportunities the system provides them with. This has to be done to be as effective as possible and reach the right target audience, be it policymakers, opinion leaders or citizens. However, a third phase is also necessary to promote regulatory change. This phase consists of acquiring the legitimate representation of the general interests at stake. Opposing the international affairs’ situation in which states monopolize power and social actors are structurally excluded, the aim here is to achieve a role recognized in the public sphere as legitimate defenders of general interests. Once using the process summarized here, transnational networks manage to formulate a challenge associated with a specific global issue, the political opportunity for the mobilization and construction of the network emerges. Once a norm is consolidated, it enters the institutions and travels between them with a now well-known dynamic. Civil society studies are currently underestimating or simply overlooking the competitive nature of norm changing politics. However, the dynamics that generate new norms are inherently controversial. Whenever a new normative reading is advanced by the CSOs, an opposite interpretation is vigorously promoted by antagonistic socio-economic actors, including other NGOs. The political dynamics in which the CSOs operate internationally, especially regarding the regulatory struggle for new rules, are highly competitive.

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Bibliography Avant, D. D., Finnemore, M., & Sell, S. K. (Eds.). (2010). Who governs the globe? Cambridge University Press. Busby, J.  W. (2010). Moral movements and foreign policy. Cambridge University Press. Caporaso, J., & Madeira, M.  A. (2012). Globalization, institutions and governance. Sage. Czempiel, E. O., & Rosenau, J. N. (1992). Governance without government: Order and change in world politics. Cambridge University Press. Della Porta, D., & Caiani, M. (2009). Social movements and Europeanization. Oxford University Press. Dupuy, K. E., Ron, J., & Prakash, A. (2016). Hands off my regime! Governments’ restrictions on foreign aid to NonGovernmental organizations in poor and middle-income countries. World Development, 84(August), 299–311. European Commission. (2001). European Governance: A White Paper. Retrieved from Brussels. Fisher, F. (1990). Technocracy and the politics of expertise. Sage. Haass, R. N. (2008). The age of nonpolarity: What will follow U.S. dominance. Foreign Affairs, 87(3), 44–56. Hale, T., & Held, D. (Eds.). (2011). Handbook of transnational governance. New institutions and innovations. Polity. Hulme, D., & Edwards, M. (Eds.). (1997). NGOs, states and donors: Too close for comfort? Macmillan. Huntington, S. P. (1996). The clash of civilizations and the remaking of world order. Simon and Shuster. Hurrell, A. (2001). Global inequality and international institutions. In T. Pogge (Ed.), Global justice (pp. 32–54). Blackwell. Ikenberry, G. J. (2008). The rise of China and the future of the west: Can the Liberal system survive? Foreign Affairs, 87(1), 23–27. James, A. (1986). Sovereign statehood: The basis of international society. Allen & Unwin. Kagan, R. (2012). The world America made. Knopf. Kapoor, I. (2012). Celebrity humanitarianism: The ideology of global charity. Routledge. Keck, M., & Sikkink, K. (1998). Activists beyond Borders: Advocacy networks in international politics. Cornell University Press. Keohane, R., & Nye, J. (1977). Power and interdependence. Little, Brown. Khagram, S., Riker, J. V., & Sikkink, K. (Eds.). (2002). Restructuring world politics. Transnational social movements, networks, and norms. University of Minnesota Press.

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Khanna, P. (2008). The second world: How emerging powers are redefining global competition in the XXI century. Random House. Koenig-Archibugi, M., & Zürn, M. (Eds.). (2006). New modes of governance in the global system: Exploring publicness, delegation and inclusiveness. Palgrave Macmillan. Marchetti, R. (2015). The conditions for civil society participation in international decision making. In D. Della Porta & M. Diani (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of social movements (pp. 753–766). Oxford University Press. Marchetti, R. (2016). Global strategic engagement. States and non-state actors in global governance. Lexington Books. McKeon, N. (2009). The United Nations and civil society: Legitimating global governance – Whose voice? Zed. Nye, J. (2004). Soft power: The means to success in world politics. Public Affairs. Nye, J., & Keohane, R.  O. (1971). Transnational relations and world politics. International Organization, XXV(3), 329–350. Pianta, M., Ellersiek, A., & Utting, P. (2012). How can activism make change happen? In P. Utting, M. Pianta, & A. Ellersiek (Eds.), Global justice activism and policy reform in Europe (pp. 297–322). Routledge. Putnam, R. D. (1988). Diplomacy and domestic politics: The logic of two-level games. International Organization, 42, 427–460. Risse, T. (2002). Transnational actors and world politics. In W.  Carlsneas, B.  A. Simmons, & T.  Risse (Eds.), Handbook of international relations (pp. 255–274). SAGE. Scholte, J.  A. (2004). Democratizing the global economy. The role of civil society. Centre for the Study of Globalisation and Regionalisation, University of Warwick. Slaughter, A.-M. (2004). A New World order. Princeton University Press. Steffek, J., Kissling, C., & Nanz, P. (Eds.). (2007). Civil society participation in European and global governance. A cure for the democratic deficit? Palgrave. Tarrow, S. (2005). The new transnational activism. Cambridge University Press. United Nations. (2004). We the Peoples: Civil Society, the United Nations and Global Governance (A/58/817/2004). Retrieved from New York. Van Rooy, A. (2004). The global legitimacy game: Civil society, globalization, and protest. Palgrave. Weiss, T. G., & Gordenker, L. (Eds.). (1996). NGOs, the UN, and global governance. Lynne Rienner. Woods, N. (2002). Global governance and the role of institutions. In D. Held & A. McGrew (Eds.), Governing globalization (pp. 25–45). Polity Press. Ziring, L., Riggs, R., & Plano, J. (2000). The United Nations: International organisation and world politics. Harcourt College Publishers. Zürn, M. (2018). A theory of global governance. Authority, legitimacy, and contestation. Oxford University Press.

CHAPTER 3

Italian Hybrid Diplomacy for Human Rights

Traditionally, the Italian role in international affairs has been interpreted through the lens of government diplomatic action. With very few exceptions (e.g. Enrico Mattei’s so-called “ENI diplomacy”), the action of the Italian government has always been considered the only mode of Italian participation in the international system. However, this type of interpretation is proving increasingly limited in heuristic terms. Indeed, a perspective solely focused on government dynamics cannot provide a complete picture of Italy’s impact on international affairs. In a world increasingly characterized by pluralistic forms of global governance, clinging on to a state-centric interpretation of international political interactions seems to be rather obsolete. On the one hand, several sub-components of the national public structure are launching themselves in international politics: from regional authorities to city councils, as well as various other state entities, such as national agencies. On the other hand, non-governmental actors, such as businesses organizations, trade unions, political parties, think tanks and, hence, civil society organizations increasingly play a significant role in the international arena. It suffices to think of the eloquent cooperation agreement between the UN and Sant’Egidio (“the small UN of Trastevere”) on the promotion of world peace, signed in June 2017. As the first agreement of this type at the UN level, the strategic letter of understanding foresees exchanges of information on specific dossiers (primarily for the Central African Republic, but also for South Sudan and Libya), mutual support in local activities for dialogue and mediation and © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 R. Marchetti, Hybrid Diplomacy with NGOs, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86869-7_3

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mutual exchange of best practices.1 Only by considering this type of actor too, it is possible to fully grasp the global impact of Italian political action at the international level and recognize the new ways to enact diplomacy through hybrid partnerships. Studies on Italian civil society organizations and social movements with an international dimension have contributed to the contemporary international debate (Cugliandro, 2009; Pianta, 1998). Above all, studies have focused on globalization and war, as well as on the various demos against neoliberal globalization, in particular the movement for global justice and the events of the 2001 G8 summit in Genoa (Reiter et al., 2007). Similarly, extensive studies have been conducted on the pacifist mobilizations from the 1980s onwards, those concerning the Balkan conflict up to those on the war in Iraq (Ruzza, 1997). Furthermore, some noteworthy studies have been carried out on specific campaigns (Marchetti, 2016; Marchetti & Restovin, 2017), or on specific actors of civil society, such as the Community of Sant’Egidio (Giro, 1998; Morozzo della Rocca, 2010) or the fair-trade movement (Rosi, 2003). The missing piece in the debate so far, however, is a dialogue between the studies on Italian foreign policy and research on Italian civil society. Foreign policy analysts have so far tended to underestimate, if not completely overlook, the contribution of non-governmental actors to the overall impact of Italian foreign policy (Brighi, 2013; Marchetti, 2015). This is mainly due to a disciplinary bias that focuses more on bilateral and multilateral intergovernmental interaction than on pluralistic forms of global governance. Instead, civil society scholars are likely to interpret civil society organizations and social movements as actors playing on a different level compared to the government. This is largely due to Western prejudice which tends to see civil society and social movements as radically independent from political systems, although always at risk of being co-­ opted by it. This book supports the need to overcome such disciplinary limits in order to develop a more complete understanding of the Italian contribution to international affairs. The study of the Italian case can only be seen in a wider context. As a matter of fact, there is no doubt that the development of hybrid diplomacy is by no means restricted to Italy. Instead, it must be seen within the wider international dynamics of change of the past thirty years (Baumann & 1  See https://www.avvenire.it/mondo/pagine/intesa-onu-sant-egidio-pace-africacentrafrica

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Stengel, 2014). In many countries there is a progressive integration of government action with non-governmental action in all the different phases of the public decision-making process: from the problem detection and agenda setting, to the actual decision, implementation and evaluation, CSOs are more and more accounted for. If we think about the English economic diplomacy (Breslin, 2004) or the German humanitarian diplomacy (Stengel & Weller, 2010), we easily notice similarities with the Italian case. Moreover, internationally, there are various factors behind the circumstances that have favoured hybrid diplomacy in Italy and elsewhere. Among these, we find the development of international institutions and their opening towards the so-called world of stakeholders in the system of global governance, the spread of generally defined liberal values that legitimize the presence of sub-state actors and their principles in the international arena, the evolution of information technologies, the tendency to privatize state functions and the growth of a middle class with an international vision. At the same time, one must also bear in mind that the concept of hybrid diplomacy is broader than the government-civil society relationship per se. Companies, local authorities (regions, provinces, metropolitan cities and municipalities), cultural institutes and universities, sports organizations are all subjects that contribute to the international projection of our country. Companies play a leading role in the hybrid strategy of Italian foreign policy. This applies to both large and medium-sized enterprises. The very close relationship between large companies and the government is well known. Partially public companies such as ENI, Enel and Finmeccanica have always been a strategic foreign policy partner (Renda & Ricciuti, 2010), sometimes even acting as a parallel state. These relationships are very close, and the partnerships are almost institutionalized through the role of diplomatic advisors seconded to private companies (and local authorities). According to the Prime Minister’’s Directive of 1 August 2008, diplomatic advisors are currently seconded to ENI, ENEL and UniCredit in order to enhance a systemic action to defend and promote national interests and therefore increase Italian competitiveness in an increasingly difficult international context. Given the importance of exports in the Italian economy, it became necessary to institutionalize forms of continuous coordination with the private sector. Embassies have been increasingly encouraged to promote

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Italian businesses. In 2011 the Farnesina2 created the General Directorate for the Promotion of the Country System. Moreover, between 2011 and 2012 the Control Room for International Italy was also established to provide guidelines and strategies for the internationalization of businesses. The Control Room is co-chaired by the Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, the Minister of Economic Development and, partially, by the Minister for tourism (Ferrucci, 2016). In a not entirely symmetrical way, Italian hybrid diplomacy has also developed through the partnership between the government and local authorities, primarily with those that have expanded their internationalist know-how in recent years by developing what is sometimes called para-­ diplomacy (Alfieri, 2004; Palermo, 2007). The so-called “La Loggia” law (law n. 131 of 5 June 2003) gives Italian Regions and Autonomous Provinces the power to negotiate with other States agreements implementing existing international agreements, of either a technical-­ administrative nature or a programmatic nature aimed at promoting its economic, social and cultural development. The approval of such agreements is subject to compliance with the Constitution (Article 117 in particular), along with the constraints deriving from the EU system, international obligations and Italian foreign policy guidelines. The national government was late and only partially aware of the opportunities of a “widespread foreign policy” (Ciaffi, 2004), but from 2003 onwards partly pushed by the Europeanization process, the regions’ initiative has grown relentlessly in many directions: relationship with European institutions, bilateral twinning and transnational networks, trade promotion, decentralized cooperation, relations with Italian communities abroad and regulatory promotion as in the case of laws on peace and human rights. Each region has its own department for international affairs, a sort of representative office in Brussels and in some cases in other non-EU countries, too. Lombardy and Liguria regions also have a diplomatic adviser on secondment from the Farnesina: their link with the MAECI remains an institutionalized point of reference, though not always implemented. Unlike for regional governments, the case of metropolitan cities seems more controversial. Although municipalities do not have internationalist power, large municipalities, especially metropolitan cities, are rather engaged in international activities. All of them have special offices 2  The Italian Ministry for Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation in Italian is often referred to as “Farnesina” due to the name of the area its building is located in Rome.

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(and in the cases of Rome and Turin, a Diplomatic Advisor too) and a budget specifically allocated for this type of activity. A recent case is that of the mayor of Milan, Beppe Sala, who has even hired a former foreign minister, Bonino, as councillor in his administration, to manage the international relations of the municipality. Cities develop international networking activities, are part of the European political dynamics, promote trade and tourism, while also promoting human rights, too. Here again, local governments should coordinate with the MAECI, but in reality this rarely happens. In general terms and based on other countries’ cases, we can perhaps predict that sooner or later there will be a legislative revision that will assign metropolitan cities internationalist functions. Another dimension of hybrid diplomacy is that related to the promotion of “Italianness”. On the one hand, this is managed by the various Italian cultural institutes abroad and, increasingly, by several Italian universities that develop international partnerships supported by the Italian diplomatic network. Italian is the fourth most studied language in the world and, on the other hand, the promotion of Italianness naturally starts by boosting the relationship with local Italian communities. Italy has 4.5 million citizens abroad; those with Italian backgrounds are likely to be 80 million worldwide. In size, the Italian diaspora is second only to the Chinese one. There is a cluster of 250 million people who are Italian-­ speaking or in some way linked to Italianness. This is certainly a key hybrid diplomacy resource with enormous potential in terms of soft power: a geopolitical tool as affirmed by the former Deputy Minister Giro. Hybrid sports diplomacy should not be underestimated either. Italian sportsmen can help promote a positive attitude towards the country and sports clubs can foster strong ties through international projects. This is the case, for example, of Juventus’ partnership activities with UNESCO or Inter’s intercampus. What is seldom highlighted is the synergy that occurs among these different types of hybrid diplomacy. In contrast to the image of Italy struggling to act as a country system, what emerges from the cases studied in this research is instead a significant integration not only between foreign policy and the world of civil society, but with the world of corporate business and that of military missions. There is no doubt, for example, that the long-standing presence of the Community of Sant’Egidio in Mozambique and its role as mediator in the peace process (outlined in the following pages) have generated institutional trust towards our country, to the benefit of other governmental and private actors, too. In such a perspective,

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the significant presence and operations of ENI in that country must also be interpreted. A different case that confirms the value of the effects of Italian civil society organizations’ activities in LDCs is the case of La Repubblica’s journalist Daniele Mastrogiacomo, who was kidnapped in Afghanistan and released to the Italian intelligence services after a mediation carried out with the help of the NGO Emergency. On the same note, the Community of Sant’Egidio acted as facilitator of a humanitarian agreement signed in 2016 that foresaw an international presence in Southern Libya, a strategic area for energy and security interests, as it is a channel for migratory flows from central Africa and a logistical base for terrorist groups. The expectation is that all this will contribute to strengthening the governmental actions in Libya. All in all, taking into account official visits under the Renzi presidency to Africa, it is easy to identify a number of countries such as Mozambique, Angola, Egypt, Algeria and Nigeria where the presence of corporate companies, NGOs and Italian military has generated a systemic dynamic.3 In the last decades, Italian hybrid diplomacy with civil society has intensified. The case studies analysed in this chapter date back to the 1980s, in line with the mentioned increasing role of civil society on an international level. However, in the Italian case there are further specific reasons that explain why such political developments have occurred in those years. In addition to circumstantial reasons, two aspects of the post-Cold War dynamics allow us to better understand such developments. On the one hand, under the pontificate of John Paul II (elected in 1978) Catholic activism became more and more international, creating synergic opportunities with the Italian government. On the other hand, the end of the cold war opened doors for international activism which the Italian government has learned to exploit via the relationship with non-governmental actors. Rome is bound to have a particularly significant strategic potential as a hub for transnational Christian networks, a feature that has even intensified with the current pontificate of Pope Francis. Rome is that special place where the knowledge of “peripheries” brought by the capillary network of associations and Catholic congregations is connected with the Italian diplomatic service. Furthermore, the internationalization of the curia (an ongoing process in an increasingly decisive way) will make Catholic networks even more internationalized in the future (de Charentenay, 2015; Ferrara & Petito, 2016). 3

 For a critique perspective, see Martone, 2016

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It should also be noted that the process of integration of CSOs in the area of development aid, believed to be by many as the keystone for international growth of Italian NGOs, started taking place only in the 1970s and culminated with the 2014 reform. The 1990s marked a level shift from subcontracting cooperation projects to establishing campaigning partnerships aimed at changing the regulatory framework of international life. Yet, a clear difference remains between the way the Farnesina interacts with companies, thoroughly organized through a consolidated coordination table, and the way it cooperates with CSOs, in an apparently more fragile pattern. An important contribution to the strengthening of this relationship finally came with the reform of the development aid sector. Based on a public-private partnership logic, the reform formally set up the joint committee on development cooperation, which represents a springboard towards greater integration with CSOs in the more strictly political context described here. The eight campaigns outlined in this study are the most significant ones in terms of hybrid diplomacy for Italy, notwithstanding the political importance and social impact of other campaigns carried out by Italian CSOs with various levels of government interaction. Suffice it to mention the powerful campaigns carried out by Italian pacifists in connection with the conflict in the former Yugoslavia which, despite their modest institutional impact, certainly had a considerable social impact.

Italian Civil Society Organizations Engaged in Hybrid Diplomacy This section provides brief profiles of the CSOs which promoted the eight campaigns analysed in the study. They are real bios intentionally copied from the various organizations’ websites, so to represent the self-­perception each of them wishes to communicate. Amnesty International Italy Amnesty International is an independent non-governmental organization, a global community of human rights defenders who recognize themselves with the principles of international solidarity. The association was founded in 1961 by the English lawyer Peter Benenson, who launched a campaign for the amnesty of prisoners of conscience. Currently, Amnesty

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International is a global movement of over 7 million people campaigning for a world where human rights are enjoyed by everyone. It is a global movement of over seven million supporters, members and activists in more than 150 countries and territories, engaged in campaigns to end serious human rights violations. In Italy it counts on 65,000 members and supporters. Ecclesiastical Committee for Debt Reduction The committee directed by the IBC (Italian Bishops’ Conference) has the purpose of coordinating all the components of ecclesial society during the mobilization for debt reduction. All the Italian dioceses took part in it. The Committee gave indications that four of the diocesan offices in particular (Caritas, the former Justice and Peace Office, now known as the Pastoral and Social Work Office, the Missionary office and the Jubilee office) would work together. Next to the dioceses there was also the whole set of religious congregations and those with an exclusive missionary vocation (such as the Comboni Missionaries). Finally, another important component was that of secular orders and groups (such as ACLI, Catholic Action, Community of Sant’Egidio and Focsiv), which were precisely involved with the idea that the Committee should bring together all the different elements of the religious world. Caritas Italiana, the IBC’s pastoral body for the promotion of charity, played an important role. It has the purpose of promoting “the testimony of the charity of the Italian ecclesial community, in forms appropriate to the times and needs, in view of the wholesome development of individuals, social justice and peace, with particular attention to the poor and with a largely pedagogical function” (art. 1 of the Statute). It was funded in 1971, as solicited by Pope Paul VI, in the spirit of the renewal initiated by Vatican Council II. It operates thanks to the 220 diocesan Caritas scattered around the country, engaged on the territory with the local ecclesial and civil communities and promoting pastoral services: welcome centres, advice bureaux, poverty and resources parish offices and so forth. The connection with other national Caritas departments is constant, as well as with the Caritas Internationalis network, which gathers 162 federal organizations and with Caritas Europa, which encompasses 48 of them.

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Communion and Liberation Communion and Liberation is an ecclesial movement whose purpose is the Christian education of its adherents to collaborate on the mission of the Church in all areas of society. It was founded in 1954 in Italy, when Don Luigi Giussani (1922–2005) launched an initiative of Christian presence, starting from the “Berchet” secondary school in Milan, using the pre-existing name Gioventù Studentesca (GS). The current name, Communion and Liberation (CL), appeared for the first time in 1969. It encapsulates the belief that the Christian event lived with the communion is the foundation of the authentic liberation of the man. As Benedict XVI claimed, Communion and Liberation “today offers itself as an opportunity to live the Christian faith in a profound and contemporary way, on the one hand with total fidelity and communion with the Successor of Peter and with the Pastors who ensure the government of the Church; on the other hand, with spontaneity and freedom that allow new and prophetic apostolic and missionary achievements“ (Audience with CL, March 24, 2007). Don Giussani summed up the purpose of his attempt by saying: Since my first hour in the classroom I have always said: ‘I am not here to make you adopt the ideas I will give you as your own, but to teach you a true method for judging the things I will say. And the things that I will say are an experience, which is the outcome of a long past: two thousand years.’ Respect for this method has defined our commitment to education since the beginning, clearly indicating its purpose: to demonstrate how faith is relevant to life’s needs. Because of my formation at home and in seminary, first, and my own reflections later, I was deeply convinced that, unless faith could be found and located in present experience, and confirmed by it, and useful for responding to its needs, it would not be able to endure in a world where everything, everything, said and says the opposite; Demonstrating the relevance of faith for the needs of life and, therefore (this ‘therefore’ is important for me), demonstrating the reasonableness of faith, implies a precise idea of reason. To say that faith exalts reason means that faith corresponds to the fundamental and original needs of the heart of each person. (Giussani, 2005, 20–1)

To date, Communion and Liberation operates in about ninety countries on all continents and is led by Fr Julián Carrón, who succeeded Fr Giussani after his death in 2005. There is no form of membership, but only free individual participation. A fundamental tool for the personal

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development of its members is the weekly catechesis called “School of Community”. The Movement’s official monthly magazine is the international periodical Tracce - Litterae Communionis. Community of Sant’Egidio The Community of Sant’Egidio was created in Rome in 1968, the day after Vatican II. Today it is a secular movement committed to spreading the Gospel and charity in Rome, Italy, and in more than seventy other countries. It is acknowledged by the Pontifical Council for the Laity as a “public association of church laity”. It is organized in smaller communities scattered around the world, which share the same spirituality and foundations that characterize the path of Sant’Egidio: • Prayer, which accompanies the life of all its communities and represents its core element. Prayer is the centre and primary place of the overall orientation of community life. • The spread of the Gospel, at the heart of community life, which extends to all those who seek and ask for meaning in life. • Solidarity with the poor, lived as a voluntary and free service, in the evangelical spirit of the Church, perceived as “The Church of all and particularly of the poor” (John XXIII). • Ecumenism, lived as friendship, prayer and search for unity among Christians of the world. • Dialogue, advocated by Vatican II as a way of peace and collaboration between religions, but also as a way of life and as a method for reconciliation in conflicts. The community has grown considerably and today it operates in more than seventy countries, involving around 60,000 people, though the number of those involved in different service activities is much larger, as well as those who collaborate in a continuing and proactive way specifically in the service to the poor. Among the foundations of the Community, in fact, there is the conviction that “nobody is so poor that they cannot help others”. In this way, as Pope Francis underlined in his visit to Sant’Egidio on 15 June 2015, “those who help get mixed up with those who are helped”. The poor, the disabled, the people reached by community solidarity are brothers and friends.

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Libera. Associations, Names and Numbers Against Mafias Libera was established on 25 March 1995 with the purpose to urge civil society to fight the different types of mafia and promoting legality and justice. Nowadays, Libera is a well-established network of over 1600 associations, groups, schools, grassroots organizations locally committed to building political-cultural and organizational synergies capable of spreading the culture of legality. The law on the social use of assets confiscated from the mafias, education in democratic legality, commitment against corruption, anti-mafia training camps, work and development projects, anti-usury activities are some of Libera’s hands-on projects. Libera is recognized as a social promotion association by the Italian Ministry for Social Solidarity. In 2008 it was included by Eurispes among the Italian “best-in-­ class” organizations. In 2012 The Global Journal included it in the list of the hundred best NGOs in the world: it is the only Italian community empowerment organization on such a list, the first one dedicated to the non-profit sector. Its international branch, Libera International, is accredited and enjoys consultative status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC). Hands Off Cain Hands off Cain is an international league of citizens and parliamentarians for the abolition of the death penalty in the world. It is a non-profit association founded in Brussels in 1993 and embodying the Transnational Radical Party. Its name derives from Genesis. The Bible does not only claim “eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth”, but it also says: “The Lord placed a mark on Cain, so that whoever found him would not kill him.” Hands off Cain hence stands for justice without revenge. No Peace Without Justice No Peace Without Justice (NPWJ) is an international non-profit association, founded by Emma Bonino and funded in 1993 as the outcome of the Transnational Radical Party (TRP) campaign for the promotion of human rights, democracy, rule of law and international justice. As an international committee made up of parliamentarians, mayors and citizens, NPWJ operates through three main thematic programmes:

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• International criminal justice programme • Gender and human rights programme • Democracy in the Middle East and North Africa region programme, with a special project on Iraq For each programme, the priorities for action are based on the locally identified needs, including all sectors and categories involved in the analysis and implementation of its activities. The strategy of “No Peace Without Justice” is aimed at increasing knowledge and information on the different political aspects addressed by the different programmes, fuelling public debate through political campaigns through meetings at regional and international levels. Meetings are organized in collaboration with the host government, with the aim of promoting partnerships between public institutions, non-governmental organizations and other sectors of civil society. In addition, NPWJ conducts a technical-legal assistance programme by providing interested governments, legal experts for drafting bills and advising during negotiations on legal instruments to ensure the respect of human rights. Finally, NPWJ has acquired unique experience in the field of “conflict mapping”, a large-scale documentation technique of humanitarian law violations in conflict-affected areas, as well as in conducting public awareness programmes on international criminal justice issues for local communities in war areas or in post-conflict situations. Sdebitarsi Sdebitarsi has been a coalition of Italian secular and religious organizations, voluntary work, cooperation, environmentalists, trade unions and civil society, united in asking that one billion people can start the new millennium free from the debt burden. Sdebitarsi was part of the international “Jubilee 2000” campaign, and it is now dissolved. Its national coordination was entrusted to Movimondo and it included associations like ACLI; ADOCS, AEFJN, ARCI, ASD, Altri Mondi Roma, Beati i Costruttori di Pace, Campagna per la Riforma della Banca Mondiale, CARITAS Italiana, Centro Nuovo Modello di Sviluppo, CGIL INT., CIPAX, CISPI, CISL Int., CISL, COCIS, Comunità Bahà’i, Comunità di Capodarco, COSPE, Centro Internazionale Crocevia, Crocevia Abruzzo, Federazione delle chiese evangeliche in Italia, FISAC CGIL Roma e Lazio, Fondazione Internazionale Lelio Basso, Generalato delle Suore Bianche,

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Giovanni Verdi, Globalizzazione dei Popoli, Greenpeace, ICEI, Lega per i diritti dei popoli, Legambiente, Mani Tese, Missionari Comboniani/ Missionarie Comboniane, Missionari della Consolata/Missionarie della Consolata, Missionari Saveriani, Missionari del PIME, Missionari Verbiti, Missionarie dell’Immacolata, Missionarie di Maria, Missionarie Maristi, Missionarie Nostra Signora degli Apostoli, Movimondo, Pigrizia, Padri Bianchi, Pax Christi, Progetto Continenti, Progetto Sviluppo, Ricerca e cooperazione, SEDOS, Servizio Civile internazionale, Società missioni africane, Suore Missionarie di Nostra Signora d’Africa, Tavola della Pace, UIL Int., VIS, Volontari nel Mondo FOCSIV and WWF Italia.

Freedom of Religion Freedom of religion is now an important part of the universal legal systems that protect and promote respect for human rights. Although at times religious freedom is still limited on a regional scale due to the lack of homogeneity of cultural, historical and philosophical paths, over the years national, regional and international instruments have been created so to enhance it. For example, at international level, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states, “Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change faith or belief, and freedom, either alone or collectively with others and in public or private, to manifest their religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance“ (Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights). Within the United Nations, this principle has been further elaborated via the 1981 Declaration on the elimination of all forms of intolerance and discrimination based on freedom of religion or belief. At the same time, at regional level, various conventions on human rights inspired by similar values have also been adopted, for example, article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights. Despite these shared legal references, during the cold war, the issue of religious liberty was seen by the West in a predominantly anti-Soviet way. The first Italian interest on this issue arose roughly after the signing of the 1975 Helsinki Accords that entailed respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, including those of thought, knowledge, religion or creed. It is no coincidence that at that time, the signing of the agreements coincided with the communist persecutions and with greater attention paid to this issue in the context of international politics and agreements. According to Don Angelo Romano of the Community of Sant’Egidio, in

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the cold war era religious freedom took on a political significance as it implied the ongoing ideological war between Western and communist Eastern Europe. It was mainly thanks to Pope John Paul II that the principle changed its meaning and gained the broadest connotation of dialogue between religions. The Meeting for Peace organized by the Pope in 1986 created a paradigm and a new method for addressing the issue of interreligious relations, laying the foundations for a respectful and peaceful dialogue. Anticipating the future reappearance of religion in the sphere of politics, the Pope provided theoretical-religious foundations apt for interpreting the principle of religious freedom within the Church. Despite support by the Church and organizations inspired by it, for a long time this issue was not included in the Italian political discourse and, although the fight against communism had made it popular in the European context, the Farnesina only recently started to embedding it its political agenda. The 9/11 terror attack in the USA contributed to this turning point. Its Islamic matrix propelled the issue of religious extremism in the international, European and Italian political debate. Understanding its causes in search of a solution proved to be an emergency that politicians from all over the world could no longer avoid. This is why from that moment onwards religion entered the political discourse in a predominant way and its connection with international politics started to be studied. Through the campaign for freedom of religion and belief (2002–2013),4 Italian foreign policy turned the issue of faith into a priority for bilateral and multilateral relations, within the EU and beyond. On a practical level, this meant promoting the right to religious liberty at both European and international levels, so to ensure the adoption of legal instruments for validating it in the various policies. The peak period of activism occurred between 2003 and 2013, preceded by a long phase of political focus and followed by a constant yet lighter commitment. The campaign on religious freedom was first set up by religious groups and only later it became a government theme, solicited by an aware and supportive civil society. However, this campaign remains somehow atypical, as in this case the driving force was the government and its foreign ministers, though the synergy created between governmental actors and civil society certainly contributed to its success. The difference between this and the other cases lies in the fact that the participation of the Church 4  In this chapter I use indiscriminately the terms “religious freedom”, “freedom of religion” and “Freedom of Religion and Belief” (FoRB).

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and Catholic activism have proved to be predominant. On the one hand, the nature of the subject implied it. On the other hand, the case confirmed how closely the Catholic world is tied to the choices of Italian politics and how much it is able to influence its workings. The Background to the Campaign for Religious Freedom: Government and Civil Society Organizations Among Italian foreign policy priorities on human rights, freedom of religion and belief is today considered essential. However, during the Christian democratic governments of the first republic this did not use to be a focal point of Italian foreign policy in the context of international relations. An organic draft law on religious freedom, contained in a first draft from 1990 on behalf of the then President of the Council of Ministers Giulio Andreotti, existed already but was never adopted. With the new millennium the situation changed. There were two moments during which freedom of religion was politically integrated into the country’s foreign policy (Annicchino, 2013). The first one coincided with the intervention of Frattini, who, even before being nominated foreign minister for the second time, as European Commissioner from 2004 to 2008, started to develop a particular interest in FoRB and human rights protection—something which contributed to the creation of the European Fundamental Rights Agency. The second one is the one carried out by Terzi, appointed as foreign minister by Mario Monti in November 2011, who endorsed the previous government’s views and adopted a similar approach. In particular, the strength of Frattini’s work not only contributed to a greater awareness on the topic in Italy and in Europe, but it also strongly contributed to the achievement of an important objective during the subsequent Terzi mandate, namely the EU Guidelines for the Protection and Promotion of Freedom of Religion or Belief, the first document highlighting the priority of freedom of religion and belief in the Union’s foreign policy agenda. Along these institutional facts, some specific external events have turned out to be relevant: the increase in cases of persecution of Christian minorities abroad, the intensification of religious frictions due to terrorist acts, as well as the Pope’s appeals and the consequent political pressure following the violence suffered by Christians in various parts of the world. These have all contributed to the design of the campaign. It is not surprising that in Italy the issue of defending religious freedom coincided initially with that of defending Christians abroad. In such a context, when the newly

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appointed Minister Frattini was asked about the reasons why Italy had chosen this campaign among others, he stated that “not only historical reasons dating back to Leopold of Tuscany, the first governor in the world to have recognized freedom of worship, require it”, but it is also a matter of supporting the “many Italian Christian missionaries abroad who are the pride of Italy but find themselves in danger”. The specific interest of Frattini for the condition of Christian missionaries abroad can be attributed to his belief that Christian minorities are the most discriminated in the world and that the Italian government has a special responsibility to defend them. Frattini’s action continued with Terzi who supported freedom of religion within the human rights framework, as a “fundamental catalyst for the promotion of human rights” and called on governments to fight prejudices and forms of religious extremism. At the same time, he explained how this principle was understood by Italian diplomacy: “Freedom of religion must not be limited to freedom of worship alone, much less can it be confined to the individual and private sphere, or be reduced to simple formal recognition by the State. (...) Freedom of religion must include the right to believe or not to believe, to convert, to pray even publicly, to educate and be educated, to contribute to public reflection and to participate in political choices.” It is a conception of religious freedom which includes both the freedom to profess a faith and not to do so, as well as the right to externalize one’s religious affiliation. In this way, Italy adopts the definition that extends this freedom to non-religious positions such as atheism and humanism. It is interesting to notice the coexistence of different conceptual framings used during the campaign. Frattini and, to some extent, Terzi often referred to the concept of religious freedom as protection of Christian minorities abroad, continuing to include this concept in the human rights framework. Instead, the diplomatic officials paid more attention to interreligious dialogue, basing their thinking on the role of religion in international foreign policy, while religious civil society referred to both approaches. It is important to note that focusing on different aspects of FoRB does not mean excluding or not sharing other interpretations. In fact, despite their different approaches, the promoters of the FoRB collaborated so that religious freedom had greater resonance both in Italy

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and abroad.5 Indeed, all the actors ultimately agreed that freedom of religion, whatever meaning it is given, is a fundamental human right no less important than others. The Italian government and civil society have supported each other on many international campaigns. However, while for some cases such as the death penalty and female genital mutilation, the collaboration has been evident and outspoken, for others such as the freedom of religion, it has rather appeared vague though still impactful. The political pressure and the Catholic push on this issue were surely relevant, with the Holy See encouraging Catholic associations to work for the cause. In addition to the Italian Bishops’ Conference (Bertone, 2012), the theme of religious freedom saw the mobilization of other components of the Catholic world. It is no coincidence that in 2010 and 2013 Minister Frattini attended the Rimini Meetings, organized by the influential catholic organization Communion and Liberation, dedicated to “Religious Freedom and Political Responsibility” and “Religious Freedom, via della Pace”, while in 2012 the invitation was also extended to Minister Terzi for the panel “International Politics and Religious Freedom”. These panels were often organized in partnership with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs responsible for selecting the speakers, sometimes contributing to cover part of their costs.6 According to Fontolan, CL’’s support for various initiatives promoted by the Church in defence of religious freedom lies in the very mission of his Movement, founded by Don Giussani in the midst of the Cold War and, thus, particularly sensitive to these issues: “The theme of Christianity in Eastern Europe was becoming very popular, especially because of the freedom of worship and the possibility that Christians could 5  Annicchino alleges that the freedom of religion and belief has been contextualized in different ways worldwide, according to the distinct geographical or ideological areas of belonging: “It is important to note the terminological differences because they explain the framing in which religious freedom was inserted. The differences mainly depend on the nature of the actors. In fact, the United States uses the wording ‘“Freedom of Religion’”, also considered the most used or so-called mainstream form, while the European Union uses ‘“Freedom of religion and belief’”, a more inclusive formula that therefore guarantees this right for everyone, even to atheists. The Catholic Church often uses the term ‘“religious liberty’”, understood as freedom to teach religion. In fact, the Vatican does not take sides with the United States and the European Union for the guidelines adopted by the EU because both the EU and the USA have an individualistic view of religious freedom, unlike the Vatican, Russia and the Organization of the Islamic Conference which instead have a more collectivist approach” “(interview Pasquale Annicchino). 6  Interview with Roberto Fontolan.

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express a presence in public life and declare their faith. Only after the 2000s did the attention to religious freedom move from the countries of the East to those belonging to the Islamic world.” This is testified by the activity of the Rimini Meeting which, since the beginning of the new millennium, has made its own themes on Islam and has hosted guests from many regions of the Middle East such as Syria, Iraq and other neighbouring countries. Promoted through dialogues, reports and testimonies collected over decades, the topic has developed through a dense network of small and medium-sized cultural centres affiliated with CL that take care of promoting it on several fronts. The Community of Sant’Egidio had a good relationship with the government, which materialized through the organization of meetings and events, but were limited by the absence of a well-structured collaboration plan. For the Community of Sant’Egidio, the most fruitful collaboration with the Italian government authorities, in the context of the protection of Christian religious minorities, remains the one dating back to the 1980s. At the time, with the support of the Scalfaro government, the organization succeeded to rescue a number of persecuted Christians by intervening on the Turkish-Iranian border. During the long conflict in Iraq, with the Italian state supporting the military coalition and Sant’Egidio lined up on the opposite pacifist position of the Pope, worried about the consequences for Iraqi Christians, the differences between the various institutions went through a period of tightening. Only in recent times have they loosened up, following the government’s admission on the failure of the war and the awareness of the need for damage buffering. The new collaboration between the Holy See and Sant’Egidio on one side, and the Government on the other, has once again stimulated dialogue and a common promotion of the themes of religious freedom. The Campaign and the EU Guidelines on the Promotion and Protection of Freedom of Religion or Belief The Farnesina decided to promote and protect freedom of religion through precise political actions that took into account both approaches: the one held by Frattini, focused on the protection of Christian minorities abroad, and the one held by diplomats, aimed more at the protection of human rights. The political action pursued two objectives: the creation of norms and tools to protect religious minorities in every country and the development of social awareness of the issues of tolerance and respect for

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different faiths. As specified in an official document published by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs dated 2012, the action developed on three levels. First, through its diplomatic channels, Italy worked hard to solicit the international community’s attention to approve UN resolutions and EU policies and sign bilateral agreements. Second, through civil society, Italy placed the issue of religious freedom among the priorities for cooperation projects. Third, training and educating teachers and students, Italy has done its utmost for a widespread action on the national territory. There were several strategies adopted by the ministry, so that freedom of religion would become a priority not only in Italy, but in Europe and beyond. As Frattini himself pointed out: “Italy has followed three different paths: firstly, we decided to promote a series of opportunities for dialogue, with initiatives developing from a national to a European level. For example, we encouraged dialogue initiatives on how the EU could reconcile the principle of the state’s secularism with its historical values rooted in Christianity. We have collaborated with the European Fundamental Rights Agency. (...) We have also undertaken initiatives with other countries, for example with the Pakistani Minister for religious minorities Shahbaz Bhatti, to prevent the approval of blasphemy laws used to blame people of other religious beliefs. The second path we followed was to raise awareness at European level. The Zapatero government opposed the proposal to raise awareness among the UN staff in third countries on the conditions of the local religious minorities because they did not perceive it as a task for the EU. We nevertheless managed to convince all EU countries that this was an important problem to deal with. As a matter of fact, the EU now monitors and provides ad-hoc reports on the subject. The practical action was modest, but it certainly was a long-awaited start. The third path we followed was with regards to initiatives with international organizations (2009-2010-2011). For three consecutive years, the UN approved a resolution in the General Assembly in December on the issue of religious freedom, sponsored by countries such as The Netherlands, Czech Republic and Canada but largely led by Italy. Finally, we dealt with the ECHR judicial case related to the use of the crucifix, which we lost in the first instance but then won in the second appeal, given that the crucifix, the ways we deem it, is a symbol of union and not of division”.

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August 2009 marks the dawn of Italian leadership in the international arena for the FoRB campaign. In Pakistan, India, Iraq and Somalia there were countless religious atrocities and Frattini declared his firm intention to make 2010 the year of freedom of religion, working to ensure that the activities he was planning in Europe and the UN were supported by civil society. Frattini recounts how the Italian government was regularly in contact with CSOs through collegial meetings on various issues, including that of international politics and development. It was a solid synergy, allowing both actors to work in different ways on multiple fronts, as Frattini is keen to specify: “A balance between critical and diplomatic forces is needed to achieve concrete international policy goals.” The influence of the Holy See and Catholic organizations on Italian domestic and foreign policy has always been a factor of considerable importance: since the beginning of the campaign and particularly on issues related to freedom of religion, the synergy between government, diplomacy, the Church and civil society has been very strong. For the project’s success, the network of non-governmental organizations fully useful for relationship-building has indeed proved to be essential. CL, for example, can count on the collaboration of many Catholic groups, including “Aid to the Church in Need”, a foundation of pontifical right that deals with religious freedom and draws up an annual report on freedom of religion in the world. It has had several contacts with the Italian government, given the positions held in the Chamber and in the Senate by its president and member of the Catholic Alliance, Alfredo Mantovano. Another prominent CL member is Mario Mauro, European Member of Parliament (EMP) for Forza Italia and Popolo della Libertà, who from 2009 to 2011 became personal OECD presidency’s representative against racism, xenophobia and discrimination, with regard to intolerance and discrimination of Christians and members of other faiths. The role was subsequently held by the sociologist Massimo Introvigne, who, not surprisingly, was appointed member of the new Observatory for Religious Freedom set up in Rome, as suggested by the Minister Terzi and Mayor Alemanno. The institutional milestone came on 4 June 2013 when the EU Guidelines for the Protection and Promotion of Freedom of Religion or Belief were approved. Despite not being binding for European countries, they represented a strong political signal in support of freedom of religion and a regulatory tool for the European External Action Service voicing the will of the Union to embed this principle, in policies and relations with global actors. Nonetheless, the value of the document could potentially be

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jeopardized by the failure to fix a system of penalties in case of violations. In this sense, its real effectiveness depends above all on its level of implementation. Despite such limitations, the guidelines are considered a success by Italian diplomacy for their clear political value, as the result of a long process of Italian and European political negotiation, as well as the product of a network of direct and indirect, official and unofficial relationships between the plurality of actors who supported the cause. It was also the broad political support guaranteed by the Italian civil society then that allowed the adoption of the document, without whose backing, political actors such as Frattini and Terzi would have found greater resistance in making freedom of religion a priority of Italian and European foreign policy. Terzi confirmed Italy’s leadership in the battle for freedom of religion in Europe. However, he also stressed that the government had always tried to keep a low profile to avoid jeopardizing the campaign’s success: “Italy has tried to exercise leadership, never officially admitted and declared because protagonism is never a good thing when it comes to human rights but on the contrary, working in the shadow pays off.” It was necessary to create an alliance without generating the clamour that the sensitivity of the issue could create. It was necessary to extend the times to convince even those who showed themselves resistant to any compromise, as initially not everyone in Europe was in favour of adopting the document. Terzi also recalls that there were two clear factions: the first one consisting of sceptical countries, representing the majority; the other one including those in favour and representing mainly southern European countries, such as Malta, Cyprus, Portugal, Spain, Greece and Italy. Thanks to these counties’ insistence, within the space of six months in 2012, an EU Task Force was set up governed by the then EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Catherine Ashton. The scope of the taskforce was to clarify the EU strategy on the FoRB and introduce it among the Union’s foreign policy priorities. It was the tragic evolution of international affairs that demanded to quickly reach an agreement and adopt guidelines: the religious killings of Christians abroad increased exponentially and the media hype around them had attracted great attention in public opinion. This is how, in early 2011, the European Parliament asked High Representative Ashton to approve a permanent instrument within the Human Rights Directorate of the European External Relations Service. In addition, the cause also mobilized Brussels civil society, with its churches, NGOs and various religious

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organizations. At the same time, awareness of the emergency and of the need to act quickly was growing within the Union. This led to the approval of the Strategic Framework for Human Rights which identified three European actions: the adoption of the Guidelines, the presentation of European initiatives at the UN level (i.e. in the General Assembly and in the Council for Human Rights) and the promotion of initiatives in the OECD and in the Council of Europe. Even at an extra-European international level, Italy has been among the most active countries in promoting increasingly precise resolutions. Each year, the European Union presents two resolutions on FoRB: one to the United Nations General Assembly and the other to the Human Rights Council, both always being adopted by consensus since 2011. To date, the goal of the European Union is to strengthen the language of human rights used in the resolution year after year. At the same time, the goal is to reaffirm EU support on the issue of freedom of religion and worship. A 2015 resolution of the UN General Assembly explicitly refers to the need to protect people, minorities and religious communities who are potential victims of religious extremism because of their religion or belief. Although after Terzi’s mandate, Italian activities on the issue of religious freedom have slowed down, the country continues to engage and promote its importance in various contexts. For example, (financially) supporting the publication of a report by the International Development Law Organization (IDLO), which analyses the different legislative contexts of the FoRB, identifies best practices and provides final recommendations. To date, Italy in the international arena continues to uphold the principle of freedom of religion together with the fight against religious extremism and the promotion of interreligious dialogue. To do this, it makes use of the collaboration with various religious leaders and civil society. De facto, we are witnessing a convergence towards the generalist approach promoted by the diplomatic corps (Ferrara & Petito, 2016; Petito & Thomas, 2015) (Table 3.1).

Peace in Mozambique The relations between the Community of Sant’Egidio and the Italian government on the subject of peacebuilding is another less evident, yet very incisive, case of Italian hybrid diplomacy. Among the activities of Sant’Egidio, mediation between parties in conflict represents a central element (Bonini, 2008; Giro, 1998; Morozzo della Rocca, 2010; Riccardi,

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Table 3.1  Analysis of the campaign on religious freedom Variable

Acronym

Present

Government funds Bipartisan Gatekeepers Hybrid coalitions Transnational networks Public opinion Resonance Timing

Funds Bipart Gate Coalit. Nets Opin Res Time

X X X X X X X X

Absent

1997). Sant’Egidio has been involved in conflict mediation attempts with generally positive results in various theatres, including Albania, Algeria, Burundi, Congo, Ivory Coast, El Salvador, the Philippines, Guatemala, Guinea Conakry, Kosovo, Liberia, Central African Republic and Uganda. The latest case was in Libya, with the final agreement being signed in Sant’Egidio’s Trastevere7 headquarters back in 2016, later celebrated at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. It was signed by various groups in southern Libya allowing the international humanitarian presence in the Fezzan area. In twenty-five years, Sant’Egidio has proven itself as a best-in-class model worldwide of non-governmental action for peace promotion. Therefore, it is no coincidence that in June 2017, the UN itself signed a strategic cooperation agreement with the NGO and it is not surprising that it enjoys the admiration of the American administration, proven by regular visits to the Trastevere headquarters during official tours to Italy. However, whilst the cases analysed in this study are advocacy actions, with more or less concrete institution-building effects, the cases promoted by Sant’Egidio are rather different as they express concrete peacebuilding and mediation actions, hence showing different characteristics. For example, in mediation cases, negotiations are generally held behind closed doors, if not in secret, in an informal and low-profile setting in a neutral territory and often avoid transnational networks; on the contrary, the other cases outlined here based on opinion campaigns require strong publicity, which grants prestige, and often take place in institutionalized formats.

7

 A neighbourhood of Rome

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The first and certainly best-known success of Sant’Egidio’ led to the 1992 peace agreements in Rome between the parties in conflict in Mozambique—a successful example of the synergy between the Italian government and a Catholic NGO. During its nearly twenty years of violence, the civil war in Mozambique (1977–1992) had been the subject of numerous peace initiatives. Among them, the mobilization launched by Sant’Egidio in 1983 was decisive (Anouilh, 2005; Gianturco, 2010). The mediation reached its peak during the negotiation phase between the two conflicting parties that took place at its Trastevere headquarters between 1990 and 1992 and led to the signing of the peace treaty. The conflict in Mozambique presented some sui generis characteristics, as if on the one hand, it was the classic conflict between two actors with diametrically opposed visions typical of the cold war period, on the other, despite various external regional influences, it was a marginal conflict with respect to the wider international politics. In this way, the conflict carried on for many years without an effective solution. It is in this context that Sant’Egidio intervened, moved by the unacceptable suffering and poverty that the war had generated and by the intuition that there was room for action on the deteriorated local dynamics. The Action of the Community of Sant’Egidio and the Background Synergy with the Italian Political World It took more than a decade to build trust between the Community and the conflicting parties, with some Initial contacts happening in the late 1970s and a real political dialogue only taking shape in the following decade. The first focus was on humanitarian aid: as the first international donor, the Italian civil society enjoyed privileged access to the local context. In the 1980s, the Community raised the level of political dialogue between the two forces in the field: the Frelimo Marxist party (Frente de Libertação de Moçambique) and the Renamo guerrilla movement (Resistência Nacional Moçambicana). A first opportunity was offered by a couple of meetings hosted in Rome by the Community in 1982 and 1984 between Enrico Berlinguer, the then leader of the Italian Communist Party, and an authoritative Mozambican bishop, Jaime Gonçalves, who had ties with Frelimo. In 1985 via a different political support, another important meeting was staged in Rome between the Pope and the Mozambican president Machel. In the following years, the Community continued to strengthen the bond of trust with the parties at war by

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extending contacts to the rebel front of Renamo. The meeting with its leader, Afonso Dhlakama, in 1988 opened up the possibility of a real political dialogue with the guerrilla movement. A few months later the Pope visited the country and met its new president Joaquim Chissano. Meanwhile, the humanitarian aid provided by the Friends of Mozambique Committee, an Italian civil platform, continued to consolidate the direct relationship with the Mozambican government. These high-level meetings, together with bottom-up humanitarian aid, proved to be pivotal for consolidating the credibility of the Community in the eyes of both sides. The outcome of this process was the invitation for Sant’Egidio’s leader, Andrea Riccardi, to take part in the Frelimo Congress in 1989 and, following that, a visit by Dhlakama in 1990 to Rome. During the 1980s, many regional and international conflict resolution efforts were attempted with no success. Among others, mediation attempts were made from Kenya, Zimbabwe, South Africa and Malawi. However, by the early 1990s, the parties in conflict had enough trust in the Community of Sant’Egidio to accept a negotiating table (initially secret, then made public) in Rome (Gentili, 2013). After fourteen years of struggle, the peace negotiations started in July 1990. Four negotiators were accepted by the parties: two members of the Community (Andrea Riccardi and Matteo Zuppi), a representative of the Italian government (Mario Raffaelli, Undersecretary for Foreign Affairs and later president of Amref Italy) and Bishop Gonçalves. The institutional “lightness” of this environment provided by its impartial, super partes actors, was fundamental for fostering a flexible, honest and behind-the-scenes dialogue. The Italian lightness was undoubtedly a strength as it was evident that there were no double ends, nor could force or weapons be used to influence the negotiations. Starting from the connection offered by the PCI and continuing with the formal support and a limited financial contribution from the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the external support of the Italian political system was important for the path that led to peace. The support was across the board since both the communist party and Christian democratic party (the then two leading forces in Italy) supported the process. This gave continuity to the synergy between the Community and its external political support. The Italian government provided logistical, moral and financial support to the peace process.

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Peace Negotiations in Rome Negotiations lasted for twenty-seven months with eleven working sessions. The negotiations were an example of sobriety. The accommodation was basic, everything was set on a voluntary basis, nobody was paid: all far from the so-called businessmen of peace. In any case, the negotiations were lengthy and with no guarantee of success, with plenty of ups and downs. Every setback was criticized by the press as a failure. However, time allowed for the transformation of the parts on the ground who slowly adapted to each other creating a suitable environment for peace. As in many civil conflicts, the issue was mainly related to political recognition. On the one hand, the government of Frelimo did not want to recognize Renamo’s status as an armed dissident group and, on the other, Renamo considered itself the legitimate government in exile thanks to its control of large parts of the national territory. In the negotiation phase, the anthropological and psychological understanding of the parties was vital. The transition from a logic of war to a logic of political opposition marked a turning point in the will to carry out the negotiations. Moving from a logic of existential threat, by which the counterpart is seen as incompatible with one’s own existence, to a logic of commonality, “being children of the same land” with ultimately common interests, was an essential transformation. Renamo agreed to recognize Frelimo as the legitimate ruling party, accepting the idea that a legitimate state existed, while Frelimo recognized Renamo as a legitimate opposition party. The mediators assisted to facilitate such dialogue, but did not propose, nor was there ever any attempt to dictate the rules. Rather than being imposed from above by the international community or encouraged by the “stick and carrot” policy of economic aid, this peace agreement slowly emerged through a process of trust-building and a sense of ownership in which persuasion and mutual recognition were genuinely intertwined. Thanks to the mediators, the two sides gradually developed a sense of mutual trust. As commented by Giro, the unofficial diplomacy of the Community was particularly important in the “reconstruction of the bonds of isolated realities that had slipped away from the control of the state system” (Giro, 1998, 89). Once this fundamental internal result was achieved, official diplomacy was recognized, and the country was brought out of war (Morozzo della Rocca, 2010).

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There are three peculiarities of the “small UN of Trastevere”, as the Community of Sant’Egidio was later called, that facilitated the mediation process in the Mozambican case and in many other (e.g. Niger, New Guinea and Guatemala) over the following twenty-five years: human wisdom, confidentiality and independence. Catholic-inspired human wisdom that allowed for anthropological understanding and emotional sharing with the parties involved. Confidentiality that allowed to accept the non-­ disclosure requests made by the negotiators. And finally, the independence from political powers; as claimed by the chair of Sant’Egidio Marco Impagliazzo, “We act in the name of humanity, not pursuing political or economic interests, and this allows us to present ourselves also in the eyes of groups not recognized by the international community but protagonists of a conflict, with more credentials.”8“ This independence is also true with regard to the Vatican towards which the community speaks of autonomy and complementarity. The UN secretary general defined the peace process as an “Italian peace” and expressed admiration for the “Sant’Egidio formula”, that is, for this special way of combining governmental and non-governmental peace-making activities flexibly and informally. The UN invested one billion dollars for the reconstruction of the country. The peacekeeping contingent sent to Mozambique (ONUMOZ) by the UN included the Italian-led Albatros mission. An Italian politician, Aldo Ajello, was appointed head of the UN mission, for both political and military aspects. The mission involved 7000 men and was aimed at substantially covering the five strategic corridors of the country. Therefore five battalions were needed and Albatros was the first and most important of these. The agreement was overarching, there had been no divisions, so it was easy to implement. It also had legal supremacy over all domestic laws, including the constitution (Table 3.2).

Death Penalty The goal of the abolition or moratorium on the death penalty represents a key aspiration for human rights activism (Hodgkinson & Schabas, 2004). Although the issue had been discussed for centuries, significant institutional changes have only occurred in recent decades in the form of repeal 8  See http://www.lavocedinewyork.com/onu/2017/06/09/comunita-di-santegidiocelebra-allonu-25-anni-di-miracoli-per-la-pace/

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Table 3.2  Analysis of the campaign on Mozambique peace agreements Variable

Acronym

Present

Government funds Bipartisan Gatekeepers Hybrid coalitions Transnational networks Public opinion Resonance Timing

Funds Bipart Gate Coalit. Nets Opin Res Time

X X X X

Absent

X X X X

120 100 80 60 40 20 0

Fig. 3.1  Increase of abolitionist states for all crimes (1970–2019). Author’s elaboration on Amnesty’s data

of the death penalty from many national systems. The trend is very clear. Before 1950, only eight states could be ranked as abolitionists for all crimes. In 2019 the number of abolitionist countries reached 106, the majority of UN member states being against death penalty (Fig. 3.1). Based on this, Italian civil society mobilized and through a twenty-year journey managed to achieve a historic victory in the UN General Assembly, where in 2007 for the first time a majority of member states consolidated in favour of the moratorium. The victory proves even more impressive considering that almost all the great powers, including the USA, China, India, Japan, Saudi Arabia and Iran (initially Russia too) are retentionist (i.e. foreseeing capital punishment within their legal system), hence capable of exerting political pressure and imposing costs on the abolitionist

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side. The vote was then repeated in 2008, 2010, 2012, 2014, 2016 and 2018 with an increasing number of votes in favour of the moratorium (United Nations General Assembly, 1971, 1977, 2007, 2008, 2010, 2012). The Italian Campaign and the Synergy with the Government The campaign for the moratorium developed from the encounter of three distinct actors of the Italian civil society, the Community of Sant’Egidio (Marazzitti, 2010, 2015), Hands Off Cain (Nessuno tocchi Caino, 2007; Perduca, 2019; Zamparutti, 2007) and Amnesty International Italia (Amnesty International, 2005, 2007), with the international role played by the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty (WCADP; Sculier, 2010). The campaign dates back to 1987 when the “do not kill” network was created in response to the Paula Cooper case, a fifteen-year-old American woman sentenced to death, managing to obtain its switch into sixty years of imprisonment. The mobilization grew and prompted the Italian Parliament to pass a motion that bound the government to promote the moratorium on an international level. The shift from the abolition to the moratorium was considered by many activists as a strategic Trojan horse to advance the ultimate cause of the abolition. Activism at European level developed at the same time as at national one. If on the one hand, Italian civil society looked for the support of European civil partners, on the other the support of the European institutions was rightly considered essential, too. This explains the rationale behind the European launch of the “Hands off Cain” campaign in Brussels in 1993 and the continuous contacts with the EU. On another level, the Catholic mobilization led by the Community of Sant’Egidio continued to be active. On Easter 1994 there were various demonstrations at city level and the Pope expressed support for the campaign, a crucial element for the spread of the campaign among the many Catholic countries and for the development of an inter-confessional dialogue on the issue. In 1994 there was a first-scale shift of the mobilization with the delivery of a proposed text for the moratorium to the UN. In June of that year, the Italian parliament passed a motion with a large bipartisan vote calling on the government to bring the matter forward at the UN. However, eventually, the UN General Assembly rejected the motion by only eight votes, yet still giving a sign of political viability for the campaign.

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In the search for alternative strategies, two major successes were achieved in 1997 and 1998 at the UN Human Rights Commission based in Geneva. First, a text on the moratorium on the death penalty was presented and voted by a majority. This renewed hope to many activists and at the same time it helped to include the issue of death penalty in the UN agenda, moving it from the legal chapter (linked to sovereign positions) to that on human rights (by definition more universalist and sensitive to external pressures from activists). In 1998 the three main leaders in the campaign (Hands off Cain, Amnesty International Italy and the Community of Sant’Egidio) worked together for the first time in the joint signing of an appeal for the suspension of the death penalty starting from 2000. In 1999, the text of the resolution to the Commission on human rights was presented and voted on by the EU.  However, its transition to the General Assembly in New  York was prevented by retentionist countries that managed to pass a couple of amendments posing the question of the death penalty on national sovereign jurisdiction against forms of Western imperialism and in any case subject to the question of development and stability. In the late 1990s, the civilian campaign intensified. During the Jubilee of 2000, Pope John Paul II explicitly supports the cause and, on the same note, a petition of more than three million signatures is presented to the General Assembly with the support of various Nobel laureates, the Dalai Lama, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Jimmy Carter, Bruce Springsteen and other renowned names. With the provocative 2006 campaign “Nobody Touches Saddam”, Hands off Cain managed again to attract public attention on the subject. Relying on the votes of members of the Radical Party in the parliament, the Italian government formally asked for the issue of the moratorium to be included in the 2007 General Assembly meeting agenda. The United Nations Moratorium on Capital Executions At this point, the activists intensified their lobbying in Brussels and, following internal discussions on whether to postpone the matter, the EU Council decided to present a motion in 2007, instructing the Italian government to seeing to its draft. Meanwhile, the Italian Parliament voted for the total abolition of the death penalty from its legal system. So, a favourable political course of events materialized: the repeated successes at the

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Geneva Human Rights Commission, the EU’s commitment, the Italian government’s support and finally the vote in the WCADP assembly of a joint motion in favour of the moratorium (instead of abolition). Thanks to Amnesty International’s technical consulting and to the wide popular mobilization by means of a petition signed by more than 5 million, in November 2007, the III UN Commission voted in favour of the resolution, which on 18 December, the UN General Assembly approved with 104 votes in favour, 54 against and 29 abstentions (United Nations General Assembly, 2007). The margin then increased over the years with the repetition of the vote in 2008, 2010, 2012, 2014, 2016, 2018 and 2020 (United Nations General Assembly, 2007, 2008, 2010, 2012, 2014) (Table 3.3). Between pressure and persuasion, it is clear that the main approach of the campaign consisted of lobbying at local, national, European and world levels with persuasive purposes. In terms of objectives, the campaign aimed above all at influencing public institutions and their decision-makers. Obviously, this decision depended largely on the type of goal that the campaign had. The death penalty, having an impact on the very existence of citizens, is at the heart of every country’s legal system. Given this, it is obvious that any change in the regulatory framework in this regard must necessarily go through public institutions, the only subjects legally entitled to execute death sentences. Therefore, the multilevel institutional lobbying strategy seemed the most appropriate. Two strategies were of particular importance for the campaign: framing and story-telling. Through them activists managed to build a message pointing to hearts and minds alike, using rational and emotional elements at the same time. On the one hand, planning the cosmopolitan framework based mostly on universal human rights, understood as rational tools to legally challenge the traditional concept of death penalty as a prerogative Table 3.3  UN votes on the moratorium (2007–2018)

Absent Abstention Against For

2007

2008

2010

2012

2014

2016

2018

2020

5 29 54 104

6 34 46 106

7 35 41 109

7 34 41 111

4 34 38 117

5 31 40 117

6 32 35 120

2 24 38 123

Author’s elaboration on UN data

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of sovereignty (Marchetti, 2016). On the other hand, the “humanitarian missions” conducted by activists in swing countries were framed as emotional tools to persuade gatekeepers and institutional veto-players to change their positions in favour of the moratorium. The first strategic dimension refers to the framing of the campaign. The death penalty was presented as essentially opposed to universal human rights, and sometimes followed by a religious or fallibility element. The right to life is understood as an inalienable right that cannot be expropriated by the state. Therefore, the death penalty was not presented as evil in itself, but more as a violation of a fundamental right. While in religious contexts, life was presented as a gift by God, and thus not subject to worldly authorities, in civil contexts the argument developed around the principle of presumption of innocence, clashing with the imperfections of legal systems which in this case could cause irreparable damage (Baumgartner et al., 2008). In addition to these two, arguments based on discrimination, cruelty and ineffectiveness of the death penalty were also used. The absence of competition within the campaign was noteworthy, since the different understandings of the death penalty harmonized without too many tensions. Tensions have instead arisen in the retentionist side which developed its framing, this time in favour of the death penalty. The arguments used appealed to the sense of injustice associated with impunity, the sovereignty of countries against Western imperialism, the specificities of individual countries, religious reasons and the relevance of public opinion in favour of the death penalty (United Nations General Assembly, 2011). The second strategic dimension of the campaign concerns the persuasion tactics based on the emotions that the CSOs developed towards institutional gatekeepers, especially at national level. This is the so-called “humanitarian diplomacy” carried out by individual CSOs separately but in conjunction with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. This parallel diplomacy was exercised on presidents, prime ministers, ministers of justice or judges of the constitutional court of countries where a positive outcome was considered likely. To this end, the testimony of former death row inmates or of their family members was indeed crucial. The personal account of real cases unfolded the drama linked to the death penalty. Furthermore, the campaign made use of several other traditional activities such as petition gathering, celebrity appeals, hunger strikes, mass demonstrations and media coverage.

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Table 3.4  Analysis of the campaign for the moratorium of death penalty Variable

Acronym

Present

Government funds Bipartisan Gatekeepers Hybrid coalitions Transnational networks Public opinion Resonance Timing

Funds Bipart Gate Coalit. Nets Opin Res Time

X X X X X X X X

Absent

Finally, it is worth mentioning that most of these initiatives developed in strong synergy with public institutions that could guarantee political, administrative and financial support. CSOs were crucial, but the collaboration with the city councils, national government and parliament, the Vatican State, other European governments, the Council and the European Parliament, the Commission on human rights and the UN General Assembly were certainly key to the campaign’s success. As with other campaigns, synergy with the Italian government has been particularly significant. De facto, the CSOs were able to reach the institutional counterparts of the in-between countries and persuade them to vote in favour mainly by way of the diplomatic channels offered by the national government itself. In these cases, the multi-track strategy adopted combined institutional pressure on third countries through Italian and European diplomacy (track I), pressure of civil society on governments and the EU on local populations (track II) and advocacy activities by CSOs on society (track III). Through this initiative, the Italian government managed to increase its visibility within the UN, a precious tool for other potential goals, such as its election as a temporary member of the Security Council (Table 3.4).

International Criminal Court The ambition to create a world criminal court tasked with judging the most serious crimes of interest to the international community has a long history. An important step in the contemporary history of the idea was marked by Gustave Moynier and the International Committee of the Red Cross he founded in 1872. It is from this Committee that the first

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important treaties of international humanitarian law originated. Later called Hague Conventions (1899 and 1907), the treaties established a right and identified a crime, though not providing for the establishment of a court. After the First World War it was the Interparliamentary Union and the Association of International Law who made innovative proposals towards the creation of an international court. During the Second World War the idea of a permanent court was rejected in favour of ad-hoc courts that materialized in Nuremberg and Tokyo. After these experiences, the idea was kept alive by various organizations such as the Association Internationale de Droit Pénal, the International Law Association and the World Federalist Movement. Significant were also the so-called Russell Courts, civic peoples’ tribunals that helped to spread awareness of humanitarian issues among the wider public. The original idea behind these courts was then brought back in the experience of the Permanent Peoples’ Courts founded in Rome in 1979 by Lelio Basso and its foundation. An important institutional step towards the realization of an international court was taken by Arthur Robinson, president of Trinidad and Tobago, and university colleague of Robert Woetzel (one of the leading experts on the subject). In 1989, Robinson proposed a resolution to the UN General Assembly to entrust the International Law Commission to study the idea of an international court judging international crimes, “including” those of international drug trafficking. The Commission started the works. However, its results remained limited to the circles of professionals. It is at this point that CSOs began to play a greater role in the affair. The campaign that gave a strong impulse for the first drafting of the 1998 Rome Statute and, after national ratifications, for the creation of the International Criminal Court unfolded in the 1990s of the last century. More than all other cases examined in this book, this is a campaign that has been carried out through a very transnational mobilization in which Italian civil society has played an important but certainly not exclusive role. Among the Italian promoters of this transnational campaign for the so-called first segment of the international jurisdiction is the NGO No Peace Without Justice (NPWJ) which played a significant role thanks also to the synergy with the Italian government (Perduca, 2019). Similarly to the post-Second World War courts in Nuremberg and Tokyo, two international courts were established in the 1990s in relation to crimes committed in the former Yugoslavia (International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, 1993) and Rwanda (International

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Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, 1994). The latter caused a heated debate on the need to create a permanent institution capable of judging the most serious violations of international humanitarian law in relation to war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. At the same time, the end of the Cold War and the beginning of the unipolar American influence set the conditions for a greater reforming momentum beyond the typical crossed vetoes that characterized the Security Council during the Cold War. The mobilization of international civil society must hence be interpreted within this context. While many organizations were already active on these issues, it is largely thanks to the ability to exploit the structure of political opportunities offered by the events of those years, that the CSOs managed to carry out a campaign capable of affecting intergovernmental dynamics and thus strengthening the dynamic in favour of the creation of a permanent international criminal court (ICC). The Campaign for the Establishment of the ICC and the Synergy with the Italian Government The campaign for the establishment of the ICC developed in parallel with the annual work of the UN General Assembly of 1994, which endorsed the draft statute of a potential Court as it was compiled by the Commission on international law. After the General Assembly decision, interest in the Court increased especially in Europe and the Caribbean area. Nevertheless, resistance from countries such as China, Cuba, India, Pakistan and the USA also increased in intensity. As a compromise between these positions, it was decided that an ad-hoc committee of states would study and discuss the draft drawn up by the Commission. Consequently, CSOs mobilized to influence the debate and to react to the disappointment caused by the choice of a simple state committee. In February 1995 a transnational network, the Coalition for an International Criminal Court (CICC), was created by a group of NGOs led by the World Federalist Movement. At the beginning, the coalition consisted of a small number of mainly Western international NGOs with a representation at the UN headquarters. Among them, No Peace Without Justice immediately played a significant role. At the time of the final conference of 1998, the number of NGOs had risen to more than 800–a clearly higher number than government delegations–and their base grew to cover all areas of the world in a representative way, with an Asian and MENA region sub-representation.

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An initial success to which the Coalition contributed was the transformation of the Committee of States into a Preparatory Committee with the mandate to discuss the draft and prepare a project of the court. This was perceived as an important first step towards convening a diplomatic conference with the aim of signing a founding treaty. The coalition progressively organized itself strategically into three types of structures: regional groups with the task of influencing the states of their region, focus groups on the most relevant issues and twelve working groups which mirrored the governmental working groups, and which produced regular reports that kept Coalition members (but also less organized states) informed. In 1996, NPWJ launched its first international appeal signed by more than 30 leaders and 600 MPs from all over the world. Delivered to the president of the General Assembly, the appeal was addressed to UN member states asking for the convocation of a conference to establish an international criminal court. In December 1996, the General Assembly renewed its mandate to the Preparatory Committee to finalize the draft to be discussed at the plenipotentiaries’ diplomatic conference to be held in 1998. However, the work of the Preparatory Committee had to face several technical and political obstacles, to the extent that a unique text for the final draft did not seem achievable. In order to indirectly influence the works, NPWJ along with other NGOs organized various thematic conferences in Malta, Syracuse, Montevideo, Atlanta, Rome and Brussels. In 1997, a high-level delegation led by Emma Bonino finally hand-delivered a second “no excuse, no alibi” appeal, signed by sixty world leaders, to the then UN Secretary General Kofi Annan. This final push solicited the effective convening of the diplomatic conference to be held in Rome from 15 June to 17 July 1998. In February 1998 NPWJ organized yet another conference in Senegal to increase the support by African countries and to call for a conference qualified to set up a fair, independent and effective court. In this way, the coalition and particularly NPWJ managed to influence the process that led to the conference as well as to affect the work of the conference later on. Civil society put into practice a very rich range of actions starting from lobbying to street demonstrations, from the organization of public conferences to restricted focus briefings, from the dissemination of information to a wide audience to the offer of specific expertise conveyed through experts and interns (Glasius, 2006).

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The lobbying effort certainly constituted the most important activity for most of the CSOs involved in the Coalition. Jointly, and more often individually, NGOs tried to influence national delegations at the official PrepComs and the Diplomatic Conference. However, they also engaged in restricted meetings with delegations from the ministries of justice, foreign affairs and defence of individual states. Important contacts were established during countless conferences, including the particularly successful ones organized by Cherif Bassiouni at the International Institute for the Higher Criminal Sciences in Syracuse. Much specialist documentation was produced by NGOs in the form of articles in specialized journals, especially legal journals, and reports on specific topics. At the same time, actions targeting a wider audience were undertaken. Particular attention was paid to mass media with the publication of expert articles and with the delivery of media kits to the various newspapers. The Coalition was initially self-financed and only later it managed to attract external funding from private sources, such as the Ford Foundation, Open Society Institute and the MacArthur Foundation, and from some public institutions, such as the EU and various national governments. “Socialization” with national delegations also occurred through the incorporation of external experts within official delegations which, at the time, was a revolutionary practice. This strategy allowed delegations to participate in a larger number of meetings, but also to better develop their position on individual technical points. Finally, demonstrations, torchlight processions, hunger strikes, and “tactical encirclements” have been repeatedly organized by various NGOs with the triple purpose of growing their activists base, putting pressure on delegates and amplifying their political message to reach a wider audience. Throughout the campaign, the CICC worked closely with the group of the most supportive states, the so-called Like-Minded Group (LMG), led by Australia, Canada, South Africa, Senegal, Trinidad and Tobago and several European countries. At the Rome conference “the two acted as a single group .… they frequently consulted each other and developed combined efforts to exert the maximum possible influence on the attending delegates” (Cakmak, 2008, 387). NGO members even participated in ordinary intergovernmental sessions as they were appointed as delegation members from the smaller countries that lacked experts in international humanitarian law.

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The role played by NPWJ within the CICC has been significant. NPWJ was a founding member and remained active throughout the campaign by supporting collective actions as well as organizing its own initiatives. Perhaps the most defining aspect was the collaboration between the NPWJ and the Italian government. This collaboration ensured that the conference venue was Rome, acted as a bridge between the national political sphere and the world conference, offered considerable funds and generated bi-directional (both governmental and non-governmental) pressure both on the multilateral work of the conference and on individual governments bilaterally. The almost unanimous consensus between the Italian political elites and the profound resonance of the campaign’s framing with the Italian political thought (deeply influenced by Catholic and liberal principles, by the horrors of Nazi-fascist crimes and more recently by crimes in the former Yugoslavia) guaranteed a continuous support for the campaign. Besides, contacts with the institutional world have never happened without the Radical party’s help. As for NPWJ, institutional dialogue was certainly favoured by its founder, Emma Bonino, who had held numerous and prestigious positions within Italian and European institutions. At the time of the campaign, Emma Bonino was European Commissioner for humanitarian aid and consumer protection under the Jacques Santer administration, thus in a very influential position to foster synergy between civil society and public institutions. Furthermore, the NPWJ Governing Council could rely on other useful institutional contacts among its members, like Giuliano Amato (former prime minister), Giovanni Conso (former president of the constitutional court and later president of the diplomatic conference itself) and various other institutional personalities. NPWJ acted in many fields, lobbying throughout the whole process, raising technical awareness through the legal assistance programme for countries that had skills shortages (the so-called Judicial Assistance Program—JAP), and producing ad-hoc conferences. One of these was staged in Rome in July 1998 and counted among its speakers, Minister of Foreign Affairs Lamberto Dini, Minister of Justice Giovanni Maria Flick, Minister of Justice and President of the Diplomatic Conference Giovanni Conso, the head of the US delegation in Rome David Sheffer, Senegal’s Justice Minister Jacques Baudin, South African Minister of Justice AM Omar and many others.

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The Establishment of the ICC The continuous lobbying, the torchlight processions, the publication of the Terra viva periodical, the judicial assistance programme, the conferences, the call for action and other activities developed in synergy with the Italian government have certainly contributed to the success of the adoption of the Statute with 120 favourable votes, 7 against and 21 abstained. The No Peace Without Justice campaign was followed up by a second campaign: Ratification NOW. This second campaign aimed at creating an effective judicial system for the entry into force of the Rome Statute for the ICC. To achieve this goal, three primary objectives were identified: the signing and ratification of the Rome Statute by a sufficient number of states to create the ICC, the conclusion by the year 2000 of the UN negotiations on the Rules of Procedure and Evidence and the Elements of Crime, and the strengthening of the role of international criminal tribunals. In this case too, the strategy used by NPWJ was the same: regional conferences, participations in UN negotiations, publications, offer of pro-­ bono legal advice to government delegations and the creation of parliamentary and city networks to increase public and political awareness of the importance of a true international criminal court. This is how NPWJ contributed to the establishment of the ICC in 2002, which coincided with the ratification by the sixtieth member state. To date, it includes 123 member states, more than the majority of UN member states. The USA remains against it for different reasons, including their refusal of the idea that US soldiers could be judged by an international court for their missions abroad (Table 3.5).

Table 3.5  Analysis of the campaign for the creation of the International Criminal Court Variable

Acronym

Present

Government funds Bipartisan Gatekeepers Hybrid coalitions Transnational networks Public opinion Resonance Timing

Funds Bipart Gate Coalit. Nets Opin Res Time

X X X X X X X X

Absent

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Debt The debt that the countries of the southern hemisphere have accumulated since the 1970s represents an enormous and growing burden on the shoulders of their citizens—a burden for which they are not responsible but that they still have to pay. The foreign debt of developing countries went from 1.1 (billion or trillion) in 1986 to 7.8 trillion in 2018.9 For several decades, they disbursed creditor countries more than what was given to them, ending up in a perennial trap. Debtor countries began to accumulate it by taking advantage of the great availability of liquidity thanks to the petrodollars in the 1970s. By far exceeding the national needs, this large mass of money was put on the international market, landing on the developing countries accounts in the form of loans. They took up these loans with the expectation of quick and easy repayments. However, the macroeconomic situation changed radically and for many countries the only way to honour their debt was by opening other lines of financing, further worsening their financial exposure. Then came the era of insolvency starting with Mexico in 1982. Thereupon, in the 1990s an international movement calling for the cancellation of Third World debt by the year 2000 (the Jubilee year), hence the name Jubilee 2000, was set up in London. In 1994, a group of non-governmental organizations called Debt Crisis Network mobilized in England: it included high-level subjects like the New Economics Foundation, the World Development Movement and various religious organizations such as Christian Aid (for the Anglican church), Catholic Agency for Overseas Development (CAFOD) and Tearfund, all members of the European Network on Debt and Development (EURODAD). The movement linked the issue of debt cancellation to the biblical meaning of the Jubilee: as Leviticus prescribes, every seven years, in honour of the Lord, a sabbatical year occurs, that is, a year of complete rest; instead every fifty years the year of the Jubilee occurs, which, extending the meaning of the sabbatical year, implies the restitution of the lands to the ancient owners, the release of slaves and, above all, the remission of debts. Therefore, applying the concept of the Jubilee to the modern world, what the Jubilee 2000 campaign appealed for right from the beginning, was the debt 9  https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2019/10/02/debtstocks-of-developing-countries-rose-to-78-trillion-in-2018-world-bank-international-­debtstatistics

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cancellation of poor countries by, precisely, 2000, the year of the Jubilee (CIDSE & Caritas Internationalis, 1998). At the strategic level, fundamental importance was given to the extension of the campaign. To maximize it, beyond the international movement, several national campaigns were developed. Between 1996 and 1997, the coalition was rebranded as Jubilee 2000 Coalition and began to grow internationally (scale shift) via the development of local chapters. In Italy, it articulated through two parallel campaigns, “Debt Free” and the “Ecclesiastical Campaign for debt relief of the poorest countries”, with the outstanding and highly influential support of, above all, Pope John Paul II. Since the mid-1980s the pope urged the international community to tackle the issue of third world debt: through his 1994 Tertio Millennio Adveniente letter, the pope invited world leaders to look at the imminent jubilee year as the perfect opportunity to remit the debt burdening on the shoulders of the populations of developing countries. Other elements that contributed to the international spread of the campaign were certainly the development of the internet and a particularly favourable international context, given that centre-left political forces were taking over in most European countries and in the USA, after the conservative wave of the previous decades. The question of framing was once again fundamental. It was crucial for the success of the campaign to present a clear message in answer to the most obvious objections: if someone owes me money, why should I cancel their debt? Papers such as “Putting Life Before Debt” not only explained in a simple way how the debt crisis arose, but also upheld that debt relief was not simply an economic issue, but a question of justice, solidarity and respect for human dignity (CIDSE & Caritas Internationalis, 1998). At the framing level, the profound and astute idea of linking the issue of debt cancellation to the biblical concept of the Jubilee was matched with the equally smart choice of a chain as the campaign logo: not only it symbolized the union and the feeling of solidarity that bound the activists of the international movement, but it also recalled, once again, the colonial past of Third World countries and the current condition of slavery in which the debt forced them. Another important strategy, particularly in terms of legitimacy and authority, was the search for support and the use of world public figures and celebrities: in this sense, alongside Pope John Paul II, the involvement of international stars, such as Bono Vox, Muhammad Ali,

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Quincy Jones, Bob Geldof, the Dalai Lama and many others was equally important.10 The campaign achieved important milestones during the G7/G8 international summits. In 1998, at the international Birmingham G8 summit, the heads of state (including Italy) pledged to cancel US$50 billion worth of third world debt. In the Cologne G8 summit in 1999, this figure rose to US$100 billion, to finally reach US$110 billion in December of the same year. This was a first achievement, which had to be followed up by specific national decisions in the form of bills, as the Italian campaign managed to achieve in the year 2000. The Italian Campaigns for Debt Cancellation and the Relationship with Institutions The Italian national chapter of Jubilee 2000 was called “Sdebitarsi” (Debt Relief), which was soon joined by the “Ecclesiastical campaign for debt relief for the poorest countries”, launched by the Italian Bishops’ Conference. The first significant mobilization in Italy aimed at promoting debt relief was the “North-South Campaign” in 1988, which contributed to the appointment of the Italian socialist leader Bettino Craxi as UN special envoy on Third World debt in 1990. Another mobilization took place during the 1994 G7 held in Naples, with the scope of raising public awareness on the question of debt cancellation. The Sdebitarsi campaign was launched in September 1997, when the first International Debt Forum was held in Rome with the contribution and patronage of the city council. The Forum attracted a diversified mix of over sixty Catholic and secular organizations of different nature: a well-­ structured missionary delegation (Comboni Missionaries, Consolata Missionaries, Xaverian Missionaries, etc.), a trade unions contingent (CIGL, CISL, UIL, etc.), along with the main charities and NGOs of the likes of Greenpeace, Legambiente, COCIS, Mani tese, WWF Italia and religious ones, such as CARITAS Italiana, Volunteers in the World Focsiv, White Fathers. Furthermore, the movement included partners like the Lilliput Network, special initiatives sponsored by popular periodicals like Donna Moderna and Marie Claire, parliamentarians and local administrations. In short, it was a movement that saw the participation of different souls and  The picture where Pope John Paul II is wearing Bono’s sunglasses made history.

10

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that was, in this sense, “a secular platform in the noblest sense of the term, where we were, we worked together, beyond the cultural religious and political references”.11 Its very diverse composition certainly favoured widespread awareness on the issue of debt. In addition to the lobbying activity on political decision-makers, Sdebitarsi had coordination, promotion and representation functions at both national and international level. The main awareness-raising strategies were the traditional ones of the 1980s, and 1990s: standard communication, printed media and magazines. Technically, the main mobilization tool used was the petition (with more than 400,000 collected signatures, later added to the Jubilee 2000 international petition) in paper format at signature collection tables, since the internet and online petition were still rare at the time. Another challenging aspect of the Sdebitarsi campaign is that was fully self-financed, until at least it started receiving EU grants after the charity-­ financing applicable law was approved. In 2000 Sdebitarsi began a communication campaign based on celebrity advocacy guaranteeing high media coverage of the debt issue, and, consequently, greater public awareness and pressure on political institutions. In this respect, it was unprecedented in Italy. Before the debt relief campaign, as De Fraia explains, there had never been true “ties between the campaign and celebrities”, which instead in this case publicly positioned themselves in favour of debt cancellation. A key event was, in this regard, the fiftieth edition of the Sanremo Music Festival in February 2000, during which, artists such as Bono, Jovanotti, Pavarotti and Fabio Fazio (the show moderator), gave their support to the cause. In particular Bono, as “ambassador” of the Jubilee 2000 international coalition, agreed his performance with the Festival producers on condition that the then Prime Minister D’’Alema would meet him to discuss the Italian government’s commitment to the issue. Popular Italian artist Jovanotti also took advantage of the said opportunity to address the millions of spectators with an appeal, in the form of the rap track “Cancel the debt”. Both singers, the following day, managed to secure an invite at Palazzo Chigi, where Massimo D’Alema pledged to bring the issue of debt relief to the forthcoming G7 summit and to extend the list of eligible countries for the Italian initiative (in the legislative decree on debt cancellation which was under discussion at Parliament).  Interview with Luca de Fraia.

11

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As said, Sdebitarsi was not the only Italian campaign created around the debt problem. The Italian Bishops’ Conference officially launched a campaign for the reduction of foreign debt of the poorest countries on 1 March 1999, so relatively late compared to similar initiatives but still rather impactful, thanks to the church’s vast and robust network (much more than the Sdebitarsi one). It was the first and one of the rare cases of ecclesial commitments involving all of the ecclesiastical society’s segments in a coordinated way. All the Italian dioceses took part in it and the campaign committee requested that the four central diocesan offices (Caritas, the Justice and Peace Office/Pastoral and Social Work Office, the Missionary office and the Jubilee office) worked together. The dioceses were also joined by the many religious congregations worldwide and those with an exclusive missionary vocation (such as the Comboni Missionaries). Finally, another important segment was that of lay groups (such as ACLI, Catholic Action, Community of Sant’Egidio, Focsiv), which were particularly keen on the idea that the Committee should bring together all the different units of the religious world. The ability to organize a widespread campaign with branches, along the entire Italian religious fabric, had a strong impact on the achievement of its goals. There was a strong investment in popularization tools, deciding not to appear on television, but rather establishing a direct dialogue with individuals. Therefore, there were countless local meetings throughout Italy: “the theatres where we held our presentations were full, with people often queueing up. We had never seen such a thing … We estimated that the number of people attending at least one meeting was more or less in the 5 million mark, that is, almost 1 out of 10 citizens.”12. Rather soon, the two campaigns started to pull together and overcome initial disagreements. Despite their differences in nature and backgrounds, they shared the same goal and this meant that, sooner or later, they had to communicate a single message. The ecclesiastical IBC campaign stems from a different framing compared to the Sdebitarsi one, as it aimed more at a reduction rather than the actual cancellation of the debt: a debt conversion, precisely, which consisted in allocating the debt-related sums to social development projects, carried out by the governments with the important contribution of local civil society. Initially, this point generated disagreements between the two movements, a sort of competition at the framing level. According to Sdebitarsi’s secular positions, in fact, this  Interview: Riccardo Moro.

12

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proposal legitimized the debt, which they instead unequivocally saw as unjust and, therefore, to be entirely cancelled. Instead, on the ecclesial side, the idea of conversion represented a viable solution (the actual cancellation in the reality of the facts was substantially impossible, given that the creditors would have never agreed it) and implied increased awareness of the local governments. The IC campaign was rather concerned with how the money released in a responsible and socially useful way would be used. Through dialogue, the idea of conversion was eventually embraced by Sdebitarsi, too. As for the Italian participation in international meetings, although from the formal point of view the Jubilee 2000 Italian partner was Sdebitarsi, the representatives of both campaigns took part in them. Hence, there was not, even at an international level, any distinction between the two campaigns. Law 209/2000 and Debt Cancellation The most important achievement by the two Italian campaigns was the unanimous approval by the Italian Parliament, in less than a year, of Law 209 of July 2000 (“Measures for the reduction of the external debt of the lower income and more indebted countries”). The law established the cancellation of debt for an amount of approximately 6 billion euros. If Italy distinguished itself in the international arena as the first industrialized country to adopt a legislative tool in response to the debt problem, thus becoming an example for other Western nations, the campaign advocates who spread the message and established positive relationship with political institutions are all to be credited for. The parliamentary proceeding was launched on 30 December 1999 and ended by July 2000. It was in such timespan that the influence of the two Italian campaign actors was felt the most, both through hearings (which included various representatives of civil society) and through lobbying. The bill’s final text allocated a sum to the credit cancellation, somewhere between 4 and 6 billion euros. In addition, this law referred IDA-listed countries only, that is, those seventy eligible exclusively for funding from the International Development Association. Conditions for obtaining this cancellation were the respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms and the rejection of war as a means of resolving disputes (so to prevent money to be spent on weapons and warfare). Great attention was then given to the destination of the resources: the notion of debt conversion was integrated within the law.

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Table 3.6  Analysis of the campaign for debt cancellation Variable

Acronym

Present

Government funds Bipartisan Gatekeepers Hybrid coalitions Transnational networks Public opinion Resonance Timing

Funds Bipart Gate Coalit. Nets Opin Res Time

X X X X X X X

Absent X

Key in the campaign was the lobbying activity with the politicians. Initial reactions of the political world were of “annoyance” and proposals were rejected, but over time the government’s position changed, above all thanks to the establishment of a critical dialogue built through repeated public and private meetings alike. Another major factor in shifting the political orientation was the broad support from the Italian general public (proven by the church’s fundraising success and by the signatures collected for the Sdebitarsi international petition). Above all, there was the crucial support of the Vatican (distinct from the Italian Episcopal Conference, which had originated the ecclesial campaign), directly through Pope John Paul II. Celebrity diplomacy was also added to these elements in the form of support and activism of artists, such as Bono and Jovanotti (Table 3.6).

Female Genital Mutilation The phenomenon of female genital mutilation (FGM) is widespread in many African countries and in some Asian and Middle Eastern regions and it refers to practices originated in tribal cults that modify the external female genitalia. Every year, millions of girls from zero to fifteen years are subject to these risky, painful and extremely invasive practices. It is often women themselves who support their perpetuation, because it is often considered a necessary part of raising a girl, and a way to prepare her for adulthood and marriage. An estimated 200 million women are involved in the practice of FGM in around thirty countries, including Europe to a lesser extent as young migrants are sometimes forced to undergo this procedure during trips to their countries of origin.

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The first transnational mobilization against female genital mutilation was launched in Africa in 1984 by the Inter-African Committee on Traditional Practices Affecting the Health of Women and Children (IAC). The campaign developed through a slow process of awareness in different, mostly African contexts, with NGOs involving other civil, governmental and communications actors who could potentially agree with the regulations. The actions mainly used were public meetings, expert conferences, political meetings, school teaching, mass petitions, cultural events, street demonstrations and institutional lobbying at national and UN levels. From this regional context, the mobilization escalated through the support of many European CSOs part of the European Network for the Prevention and Eradication of Harmful Traditional Practices (Euronet-­ FGM). In 1995, contacts were merely based on sheer information exchange. A group of women comprising Suzanne Mubarak, Chantal Compaoré, Khady Koita and Emma Bonino were the first to gather the interest of several associations devoted to the depletion of FGM.  From 2002 onwards a real transnational network was established. The idea of a UN-led campaign to ban FGM practices was born in 2009 at the Ouagadougou Conference. Originally named STOP FGM, from 2010 the campaign was renamed Ban FGM. The final success came in 2012 when the UN General Assembly passed by consensus a resolution for the universal ban on female genital mutilation (Resolution A/RES/67/146 of 20 December 2012). The Italian Role in Mobilization and Synergy with the Government In Italy, Emma Bonino and her No Peace Without Justice (NPWJ) organization joined the campaign in 2000 and since then played a leading role in close collaboration with the Italian government and associations such as the Italian Association of Women in Development (AIDOS). The interest of No Peace Without Justice started in the late 1990s when its founder Emma Bonino became aware of such practices through meetings with African activists advocating against them. In 2000, the European Parliament, upon Emma Bonino’s and other Radical MEPs’ proposal, adopted a resolution condemning FGM practices defining them as violations of fundamental human rights. In 2002, NPWJ, AIDOS, Euronet-FGM and eight African NGOs launched the “Stop FGM!” Campaign with two main objectives: to induce

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governments to introduce laws against such phenomenon and to convince governments to grant asylum or residence rights to girls victims or at risk of FGM. In 2003 the Cairo Declaration for the Elimination of FGM was adopted by international and national actors, including AIDOS and NPWJ.  The declaration testifies the will of the Egyptian government, NGOs and attending states, to establish suitable legislative instruments for the prevention of FGM.  In the Cairo conference two of the highest religious authorities of Islam and Christianity intervened together and affirmed that female genital mutilation does not arise from any religious principle or holy text—something which had enormous importance for the development of the campaign. On 11 July of the same year, an additional protocol to the African Charter of Human and Peoples’ Rights was adopted by fifty-three heads of state and government of the African Union through a document now commonly known as the Maputo Protocols, that is, the first covenant issued by the African Union classifying FGMs as a human rights violation. During this period, various meetings and demonstrations were organized in Africa to urge states to apply the Maputo Protocol through national laws, creating a fruitful synergy between states and NGOs. In May 2010 another important step was the final Dakar Declaration which proved a large consensus in the African continent and urged the UN to adopt a solemn resolution to globally prohibit genital mutilation. At the end of 2010, the “BAN FGM” campaign for the adoption of a resolution to ban FGM was officially launched by NPWJ, Euronet-FGM, La Palabre and the IAC in NY.  In 2011, members of the Ban FGM Coalition, including No Peace Without Justice, took part in the proceedings of the fifty-fifth session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSD), whose report established that female genital mutilation is degrading of human dignity and fundamental women’s rights and therefore to be eliminated. The seventeenth African Union summit in 2011 decided to call for a UN General Assembly Resolution to ban FGM. In Brussels, following the lobbying from the Ban FGM Coalition, the European Parliament unanimously approved a resolution calling for the abolition of female genital mutilation and asking the Commission and the European Council to act along the same lines. The final crucial stages of the Campaign before the Resolution took place in New York. First, in July, the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) accepted the invitation of the Commission on the Condition of Women to put the theme of FGM on

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the General Assembly’s agenda. Finally, following full endorsement by the General Assembly’s Commission for Social, Humanitarian and Cultural Affairs, the African group deposited a draft resolution on 26 November 2012 allowing it to be discussed and voted in plenary session. In each of these steps, NPWJ and its leader Bonino played a key role as a bridge between the African and European mobilization and as a seasoned institutional advisor. At the UN, in fact, NPWJ worked directly with various entities, including the missions from countries where the practice was still in use, and various UN agencies. The objective was to generate broad support for the FGM ban. In this case, advocacy activities and initiatives for the campaign’s visibility were organized. Moreover, NPWJ also contributed to the mobilization of African parliamentarians and activists involved in the campaign to encourage them to talk about the problem and the consequences of the resolution in their respective countries. Differently, in Italy the main objective of the campaign’s activities was to relaunch and support a political mobilization at national level. The strategy was to involve the public opinion in the campaign to support the activities of the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. To achieve this goal, No Peace without Justice acted in three ways: through a public information campaign, a campaign of cooperation with Italian local and regional administrations and, finally, with a campaign for a motion to the action of the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and a resolution of the European Parliament calling for the ban of the FGM at the United Nations. In 2001, upon Emma Bonino’s initiative, the European Parliament adopted Resolution 2001/2035 which condemns female genital mutilation and solicits EU member states to enact laws that classify FGMs as a crime to be prosecuted. Such appeal has been of fundamental importance for the legitimacy and the funding of the Ban FGM campaign13 and, beyond the EU support, the campaign achieved some of its most important goals thanks to the joint backing of various United Nations agencies 13  In Europe, in addition to Euronet-FGM, another campaign was launched in 2009: “END FGM”. The campaign was carried out by Amnesty International Ireland in collaboration with fourteen non-governmental organizations and thirteen EU countries. This European campaign is a separate and distinct project from the campaign launched by the Ban FGM coalition. While both fighting for the abolition of female genital mutilation practices, they have two different approaches regarding the methods to be used and the contacts were rare. However, it is mainly thanks to these two campaigns that the European Parliament adopted the resolution asking member states to respect international obligations regarding legislative measures, prevention and protection of women victims or at risk.

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(OHCHR, UNAIDS, UNDP, UNECA, UNESCO, UNFPA, UNHCR, UNIFEM and WHO). The Italian government is among those governments that strongly supported the campaign given that, since the early 2000s, the Italian authorities collaborated and largely financed NPWJ and the IAC so that concrete results could be obtained. African activists and associations have repeatedly expressed their gratitude to the Italian government, which over the years has never stopped advocating and promoting the campaign against FGM. The very close relationship between NPWJ and the Italian government played an important role for the campaign. Italian institutional support for the campaign was bipartisan and generally in line with the Italian political culture. Under pressure from NPWJ lobbying, various foreign ministers supported the campaign and helped bilaterally and multilaterally (at the UN and EU levels) to broaden consensus on the declaration. From the beginning, NPWJ could count on the political and economic assistance of the Italian government which, through the Development Aid funding, financed numerous projects and activities in support of the campaign. Since 2004, Italy has been actively committed at the United Nations to ensure that the issue of FGM was discussed and addressed by all government representatives, with the goal of ensuring that national laws prohibiting the practice were applied. On 9 January 2006, the Italian parliament passed a law entitled “Provisions concerning the prevention and prohibition of female genital mutilation practices”, also known as the “Consolo law”. This law is very strict for those who perpetrate FGM (with sentences for up to twelve years of imprisonment) and was cited by the United Nations Secretary General as “a model of one of the most advanced regulatory instruments in the world”. Finally, the help and contribution of some Italian local and regional administrations in supporting the Ban FGM campaign was also significant. The United Nations Resolution on Banning FGM On 20 December 2012, the UN General Assembly adopted the Resolution entitled “Intensify Global Efforts for the Elimination of FGM” (A/ RES/67/146). The Resolution calls on states to ban FGMs as they are violations of human rights and represents a step of considerable value in the struggle for equality. It bans the practice of FGM, asserts their inconsistency with the ideal of inalienable rights, reinforces the legitimacy of national laws and strengthens the efforts of activists and politicians in

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anti-FGM at national and local levels. The resolution has a mere symbolic and political value as it is not binding for member states and represents a relevant legal act of the UN. It expresses the political will of the states that for the specific case have shown that they want to implement all the necessary measures so that this malpractice can be eradicated. It is worth mentioning that the Resolution was approved unanimously, which means that it was not necessary to vote to verify its adoption by a majority and that the resolution passed by consensus of all member countries. In addition to passing with the approval of all states, the resolution also had many ““co-­ sponsors”, providing even more relevance and political weight to its scope. So, adoption by consensus and the 110 co-sponsors obviously strengthened and amplified the success of the campaign, which was exactly the goal of the activists. This extraordinary result was achieved thanks to the advocacy and lobbying work that NGOs, associations and activists have carried out over the years. The strategy adopted by the campaign had institutional objectives. It consisted primarily in passing anti-FGM legislation at national level in enough countries to then move the political struggle to the UN level. At the UN, government delegations, the Commission on the Status of Women, UNICEF and later the General Assembly have all come under political pressure. The success of the campaign is the result of the work of the Ban FGM Coalition as a pluralist group: originally, African organizations and associations dealing with FGM had their own methods and programmes and had not developed many ties but the contact with NPWJ and Euronet-FGM had a catalysing effect generating a worldwide collaborative network. Since 2000, the strategy implemented by the activists considered cooperation between the militants as an essential element for the success of the campaign. Indeed, the joint work of African and European activists and associations proved vital for mobilizing the population, the international community and the national governments. The global scale shifting was crucial, as it contributed to the change of framing from one centred on women’s health (African original framing) to one centred on women’s human rights, hence aligning the campaign with the dominant paradigm within the UN and facilitating fundraising through increased institutional support. Furthermore, the inclusion of Western NGOs contributed to the increase in the institutional skills needed to navigate procedures through the UN. Finally, it has made it easier to gain support from many Western countries (Table 3.7).

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Table 3.7  Analysis of the campaign for the FGM ban Variable

Acronym

Present

Government funds Bipartisan Gatekeepers Hybrid coalitions Transnational networks Public opinion Resonance Timing

Funds Bipart Gate Coalit. Nets Opin Res Time

X X X X X X X

Absent

X

Criminal Assets An interesting case of hybrid diplomacy is the transnational mobilization carried out by “Libera Associations, names and numbers against mafias” (Libera) and other partner associations for the social reuse of assets confiscated from criminal organizations. The campaign has achieved important regulatory results, both in Italy and in Europe. Following the major mafia crimes in 1992–1993, a spontaneous movement of rebellion against organized crime emerged in Italy. Libera acted upon this request for social justice and was able to catalyse the political mobilization, widely contributing to the approval of law no. 109/1996 on the reuse for social purposes of assets confiscated to the mafia. Based on the Italian law model, eighteen years later, an EU directive concerning the confiscation and social reuse of assets confiscated from organized crime was issued (EU Directive 2014/42 of the European Parliament and the Council). The Italian mobilization broadly stimulated the creation of the European FLARE network, whose goal was to pursue the objective of the directive. Although present since the initial stages of FLARE, the MAECI (i.e. Ministry of Foreign Affairs) did not directly focus on promoting this issue in Brussels (as it typically is a Home Office issue) but, somehow, individual political pressure and the judiciary involved in the national mobilization have subsequently intervened so that this issue could be addressed by the European institutions.

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Law 109/96 on the Seizure and Confiscation of Mafia Assets In January 1992, following the ruling of the Court of Appeal for the ““maxiprocesso”“ (the utmost important trial against organized crime), several mafia attacks that deeply shocked the nation took place. Many citizens decided to react to such violence by pulling together in organized actions to counter mafia (Frigerio, 2009) and the birth of Libera in March 1995 was precisely the expression of that mobilization from below. With the aim of creating an anti-mafia association network, Libera immediately made the theme of the reuse of assets confiscated from the mafias as its main mission. Between 1994 and 1995, Libera launched a national petition to collect signatures advocating for a bill that would introduce such scope. Libera was born to create “an association of associations”, establishing a real network of associations which would coordinate and solicit the commitment of civil society, not so much “against” mafia and corruption, but “for” social justice and legality. The idea was to create an anti-­ mafia movement that would enhance existing initiatives and bring together associations from the third sector and those devoted to fight organized crime by promoting a culture of legality and justice. Libera sees in the principle of legality, a personal and social responsibility of citizens who are all required to respect it and by which they are collectively protected. According to Don Ciotti, Libera’s leader, involving ordinary people was necessary to make them understand that the fight against the mafia is not only a problem for prosecutors, but above all it concerns the responsibility of citizens. To understand the reasons for Libera’s success, it is essential to mention, in addition to the mobilization from below, the support of individual politicians and magistrates the association could count on. Just to name a few: Luciano Violante, one of the founders of Libera, President of the Parliamentary Anti-Mafia Commission and President of the Chamber of Deputies; Manuele Braghero, vice-president of Libera and political advisor to the Vice-President of the Chamber; Rita Borsellino, sister of the assassinated judge Paolo Borsellino, former PD MEP and vice president of Libera; Gian Carlo Caselli and Nino Caponnetto, Italian senior judges engaged in the fight against the mafia; and Nando Dalla Chiesa, Italian writer, sociologist, politician and Honorary President of Libera, son of the late General Carlo Alberto Dalla Chiesa, also assassinated by mafia. There is no doubt that the support of such prominent and well-respected

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personalities belonging to high-ranking institutions heavily contributed to the approval of the law. Between 1994 and 1995, a number of meetings and events in support of the petition took place throughout the Italian territory. By the end of the campaign, the popular petition had collected more than one million signatures, stimulating the process for law 109/1996, whose support in Parliament was from side to side. The law was passed on 7 March 1996 according to a special procedure envisaged only for bills of particular national relevance and with unanimous approval. The final text had as primary objective to simplify the bureaucratic-administrative seizure procedures and speed up the time for the allocation of illicit assets. The aim was to transform the confiscated assets into resources to the benefit of local communities, offering employment and social opportunities in areas under pressure by mafia. The law has a strong ethical implication: it aims to dismantle the social control by criminal organizations, showing that crime does not benefit the community rather, on the contrary, it destroys it. The International Mobilization: The UN Convention, National Laws in Foreign Countries and the EU Directive Since the 1990s, Libera had been developing an international network of eighty international organizations in thirty-five countries, in Europe, Africa and Latin America. In 1997, immediately after the legislative success in Italy, for the first time Libera took part to a public hearing at the European Parliament regarding the action plan against organized crime (adopted in November of the same year), as testimony of the important work done in Italy against criminal organizations. At that time, in fact, Libera was advocating for the adoption of more concrete measures at European and global levels too, insofar as it was clear that the issue was far beyond the local phenomenon. It is in this period that the need to deal with the transnational aspect of the mafias and their growing economic and financial power acquired acknowledgement. Globalization, with the free movement of goods, the opening of markets and foreign investments, has easily favoured the accumulation of illicit profits and money-laundering. This increased economic capacity has allowed mafia organizations to expand and establish collusive relations with institutions, businesses and individual citizens. In 2000 Libera engaged in the UN World Conference in Palermo against organized crime which led to the UN Convention against Transnational

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Organized Crime, hence called the Palermo Convention. The overall Italian government experience of fight against organized crime and the specific actions promoted by Libera on the confiscation of criminal assets were important contributions to the conference proceedings, hosted in Sicily not by chance, and the Italian judicial expertise in this realm has continued to be a reference point for law enforcers in many countries. Aware of the increasingly clear transnational and international dimension of criminal organizations, in the years between 2004 and 2005, Libera decided to scale shift and increase its international commitment by setting up Libera International, with the specific objective of creating a network of associations founded on the same values, for the transnational fight against corruption, drug smuggling, human trafficking and the promotion of a culture of lawfulness through educational activities, social prevention measures, support for victims, memorial days and the promotion of activities originating from the confiscation of mafia assets. The idea was to create a global strategic network for the exchange of information, experiences, good practices that would strengthen the commitment to fight mafias with particular interest in Europe and Latin America. In Latin America in the year 2010 Libera launched ALAS—Latin America Alternativa Social—a network of twenty-one organizations in Mexico, Colombia, Honduras, Guatemala, Ecuador, Argentina and Brazil: ALAS is engaged in the dissemination of a culture of peace, lawfulness and social justice and in promoting respect for human rights through the exchange of information and good practices, encouraging laws on the reuse of confiscated assets and carrying out research and investigation activities. In some cases, ALAS works on corruption or reparations to mafia victims, in others, it tries to improve the existing legislation. Nevertheless, the first ambitious international projects originate in Europe through FLARE “Freedom Legality and Rights in Europe”: it is a network officially created on 10 June 2008 by the will of Libera and Terra del Fuoco, a Turin-based association funded in 2001 engaged in active citizenship and the defence of dignity and civil rights. FLARE’s task was to coordinate civil action in favour of democratic legality at European level and to represent an alternative model of contrasting crime, integrating the institutional action. Three meetings took place ahead of the formalization of the European network (respectively, one in November 2007 in Berlin, then one in January 2008 in Krakow and the final one in Bari in March 2008), which altogether involved about forty NGOs from Europe, the Mediterranean area, the Russian Federation, the Caucasus area and the

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Balkans. The meetings had the purpose of helping participants acquire the soft power tools to influence legislative processes at European and local levels, organize awareness campaigns, encourage collaborations and start new projects. Franco Frattini, the European Commissioner for Justice, Freedom and Security at the time, also supported the initiative through a keynote speech via video link during the first meeting. FLARE was also supported by the then Minister of Foreign Affairs Massimo D’Alema and Sandro Calvani, at the time Director of UNICRI. The birth of the network was announced at the “Contromafie” event held at the European Parliament in Brussels from 8 to 10 June 2008, which was attended by about fifty NGOs from over thirty countries across Europe. Don Ciotti’s words at the event confirmed that FLARE’s first major objective was to request that “the Italian legislation on confiscation and social use of assets seized from the mafia is extended to the European level”. Hans-Gert Pottering, President of the European Parliament and Franco Frattini, former vice president of the EU Commission and Minister of Italian Foreign Affairs were among the many personalities welcoming the initiative. Meanwhile, in different European states new informal groups and associations were joining Libera as local affiliates, promoting its primary objectives on their national territories: Libera Brussels, Friends of Libera Switzerland, Libera France, and Mafia? Nein danke!. FLARE collaborated with all these local chapters for various local initiatives, setting the conditions for putting pressure on individual EU governments. Together with Mafia? Nein danke!, in 2009 FLARE contributed to the approval of a law prescribing the confiscation of mafia assets in Germany. This first success is partly the result of the lobbying exercise by FLARE on the SPD government, largely achieved thanks to the involvement of local and national German civil society organizations. After promoting the legislation in Germany and shortly before its approval, the head of justice for the SPD, German MP Klaus Uwe Benneter, visited the Libera headquarters in Italy meeting Tonio dell’Olio, head of the international sector and Davide Pati, manager of the confiscated property sector. Two years after its foundation, the FLARE network decided to speed up the mobilization process of its core objectives at European level and, on 9 December 2010, it ran an event by the name “Organized Crime, corruption and illegal economies: confiscation and social reuse as a European countermeasure” at the European Parliament in Brussels in pursuit of its ultimate ambition, namely an EU directive, along the lines of the Italian law. The purpose was to discuss the relationship between globalization

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and transnational organized crime and to reflect on the contrasting instruments at EU level. The event was staged jointly with Transparency International, Global Human Rights Defence and Terra del Fuoco, thanks to the collaboration of five political groups within the European Parliament: European People’s Party (EPP), Socialists and Democrats (S&D), Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE), Greens and Unitary Left (GUE). Civil Society and institutional participation to the event was extensive given that, along with Libera and the other hosting CSOs, several EMPs, including Monica Macovei, Dennis de Jong, Luigi De Magistris, Claude Moraes and Raul Romeva Rueda, attended the event. On that occasion, the European Commissioner for Justice, Cecilia Malmstrom, announced via video link her intention to draft a directive to coordinate procedures for seizing mafia assets at European level. In Summer 2011, FLARE launched a petition across Europe with the aim of collecting a million signatures to further appeal for the European directive. Hence in 2012, following said FLARE’s mobilization and the pressure of a European Parliament Resolution of 25 October 2011, a proposal for a directive was put forward and, on 3 April 2014, EU Directive 2014/42 on the freezing and confiscation of instrumentalities and proceeds from crime in the EU was definitively approved by Parliament and the Council. Its objective is to pursue “the adoption of minimum rules” to standardize the systems of all member states on the freezing and confiscation of assets. An important element taken from the Italian legislation is that of the social reuse of confiscated assets to the benefit of the general public although, unlike the Italian case, the directive provides but does not impose such social use of real estate—a difference given by the many compromises made among member states, considering some domestic laws which, for example in countries like France, already provide for the sale of confiscated assets. Libera later admitted that reaching a common directive based on the Italian model had proved to be a long and difficult process. Above all, a major challenge stemmed from the inclusion of the terms “social use” and “mafias”: the former seemed to create distrust by representatives of Eastern European countries since, in their opinion, such terminology evoked a socialist past which they did not want to refer to; while the latter, the term “mafias” was perceived as a specifically Italian phenomenon which other states did not believe they had to deal with. The framing strategy implemented by Libera was therefore fine-tuned in the years preceding the adoption of the directive, reforming the terminology,

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customizing it for MEPs and persuade them to vote in favour of the directive (resonance). Libera worked extensively to raise awareness among media and academics so that everyone could contextualize the issue bringing it closer to their national communities: this explains why in different contexts, greater emphasis was put, for example, on corruption, whilst in others on the lack of rights, or in others on gambling managed by organized crime. It was a two-way adaptation process, whereby Libera did its part by gradually abandoning the term “mafias” in favour of “organized crime” within the context of European institutions. As a self-defined non-partisan and a-religious second-level association, Libera acted according to a precise multi-level strategy. It kept a constant dialogue with the Italian government, though not seeking any financial support, and at the same time it channelled its actions through its international affiliates in order to operate within the different local contexts and, at the European Parliament level, it worked closely with the single EMPs to achieve the European directive. While compared to the other campaigns outlined in this study, the Libera initiative received less evident governmental support, the boost it gained was still quite remarkable for European Council standards and internal dynamics. Within the UN, where it enjoys consultative status, Libera actively participates in activities relevant to its scope, such as the Merida Commission which led to the signing of the UN Convention on Corruption in 2003. Therefore, through multi-level activism, Libera continued effectively in its activity of spreading a model of citizenship which is national, European and global at the same time (Table 3.8). Table 3.8  Analysis of the campaign for the confiscation of criminal assets Variable

Acronym

Present

Government funds Bipartisan Gatekeepers Hybrid coalitions Transnational networks Public opinion Resonance Timing

Funds Bipart Gate Coalit. Nets Opin Res Time

X X X X X X X

Absent X

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Humanitarian Corridors Refugees and the “Italian Solution” in Synergy with the Institutions The year 2015 will be remembered as one of the most tragic years for migrants. In that year alone, thousands of people died in Mediterranean waters. While the EU, solicited by Italy and other governments, was searching for a solution, an innovative initiative came about in Italy in the pursuit of providing legal and safe passages for migrants. The project was developed, at least in its initial phase at no cost to the Italian government, by three Christian organizations: the Community of Sant’Egidio, the Waldensian Table and the Federation of Evangelical Churches (FCEI)—in collaboration with MAECI, Ministry of the Interior, OIM and UNHCR.  The “corridors” draw on private and community reserves to allow relocation with the support of private citizens and, in this specific respect, of various religious organizations. The project also marked an innovative ecumenical partnership between the Catholic and the evangelical churches. This pilot project follows the hope to avoid massacres during sea crossings in dangerous and human conditions. In addition to the prevention of massacres, the corridors also aimed to combat the deplorable business of human trafficking, and to grant a legal entry via a humanitarian visa (and the following possibility to seek asylum) to victims of persecution, torture and violence, families with small children, single women, the elderly, the sick and the disabled. The agreement that allowed the project’s implementation was signed on 15 December 2015 by the interested parties. It gave rise to a significant collaboration between governmental actors and Italian religious civil society. This agreement allows groups of migrants to arrive in Italy through regular and safe channels and be hosted at accommodation mostly provided by parishes. The involved charities, through direct contacts in the countries of origin or upon alerts by local actors (local NGOs, associations, international bodies, Churches and ecumenical bodies, etc.) select a number of potential beneficiaries to be examined by the MAECI and then approved by the Ministry of Interior. Finally, the Italian consulates in the applicable countries issue Visas with Limited Territorial

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Validity, pursuant to Article 25 of Regulation (EC) no. 810/2009 of 13 July 2009 related to the Community Visa Code. The Regulation gives Member States the possibility to issue visas for humanitarian or national interest reasons or by virtue of international obligations, by way of derogation under the entry conditions ordinarily provided for in the way by the Schengen Borders Code. The initiative is part of the Mediterranean Hope project set up in 2014 by FCEI to deal with human losses during the so-called journeys of hope from North Africa, sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East. The project is aimed at welcoming and integrating refugees planning to stay in Italy. Like Mediterranean Hope, the humanitarian corridors initiative also has no burden for the Italian state since it is entirely financed by the religious organizations involved in the project. As a matter of fact, most funds come from the “8 per thousand voluntary contribution” of the Waldensian Church and the rest from various donations. Beyond funding, much more is managed by civil society. For example, the selection of migrants is mostly carried out by civil society associations working in local refugee camps or through direct contacts in the countries involved in the project. Personnel, NGOs, local churches and international bodies in the area create a list of potential beneficiaries. The selected candidates are then taken to the Italian consulates for fingerprints and the necessary security checks. Each person is double checked, first by the sponsoring associations and then by the Italian authorities. Upon arrival in Italy with regular scheduled flights offered by the Italian carrier Alitalia, migrants are brought to their respective accommodation provided by the various religious organizations, who also see to their inclusion and integration by granting them education, language courses and job training, as well as legal assistance. To provide such services, the religious organizations involve other non-profit organizations. Among these, the Adecco Foundation for Equal Opportunities, whose main objective is to train disadvantaged individuals in their search for work, has brought together several companies across the country to support the Mediterranean Hope—Humanitarian Corridors project by way of donations and specific initiatives: work orientation days, guided visits to company premises, internship opportunities, in-house events to raise employees’ awareness on inclusivity issues and so on. The initial funds allocated to this project amounted to approximately €1 million, to the benefit of around 1000 refugees from Lebanon (600),

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Morocco (150) and Ethiopia (250). The first beneficiaries landed in Rome airport and were hosted in the regions of Lazio, Tuscany, Emilia Romagna, Trentino Alto-Adige and Piedmont. The very arrival was a Syrian family with a child suffering from cancer, who was given urgent medical care at Rome’s children hospital, while the first group of ninety-three migrants (including forty-one minors) landed in February 2016: the leading figures of the project (i.e. Mario Giro, Deputy Foreign Minister and member of Sant’Egidio, Andrea Riccardi, founder of Sant‘Egidio and former Minister of International Cooperation, pastor Luca Maria Negro, president of the FCEI, and Paolo Naso, Tavola Valdese) welcomed the party for the airport meet and greet service. Within the first year, through the humanitarian corridors, Italy hosted more refugees than any other EU member state. As of July 2020, almost 3000 migrants have availed of humanitarian corridors to flee from violence. Such initiative has shown how civil society actors can successfully act as policy entrepreneurs in the migration field, once they are given the opportunity to set up proactive pathways of protection through the rethinking of legal avenues for migrants. Looking for the Scale Shift at the European Level This ecumenical initiative is a novelty on the European landscape and the outcome of lengthy and complex negotiations between the two ministries and the CSOs involved. Although its limited numbers may seem like a drop in the ocean compared to the total of arrivals, it is an unprecedented humanitarian effort with a revolutionary potential, in contrast to the general climate of fear and rigidity that seem to dominate Europe. It is a “bottom-up” project that could become a good practice to be embraced by other European countries, too, like some have already done (Ricci, 2020). This project obviously also enjoys the Pope’s full support and praise, describing it as a “sign concrete commitment to peace and life and which combines solidarity with security”. With reference to the crisis in the UN and the EU in dealing with the situation, Cardinal Scola commented that “a new world order is needed and Italy has the task of making a leading project for the continent on immigration, becoming an accountable leader for the Mediterranean area”. The humanitarian corridor project has already been replicated in other EU countries. On 14 March 2017, France welcomed its first 500 refugees

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thanks to its four sponsoring organizations: the Community of Sant’Egidio, the Protestant Federation of France, the French Bishops’ Conference and the Entraide Protestante et Secours Catholique. To date, Spain is implementing a similar agreement, with Belgium and Andorra following suit, along with San Marino and Germany where the initiative is currently debated.14 The sponsoring organizations regularly stage various events and conferences aimed at promoting the spread of this humanitarian and political model in Europe through the privileged channels of the various episcopal conferences. In May 2016, Sant’Egidio gathered diplomats from sixteen different European countries for a meeting at the European Commission’s office in Rome; while in June, Ursula Kalb from Sant’Egidio outlined the project at the Catholic Academy of Berlin. Shortly after, the European Parliament hosted a conference entitled “The humanitarian corridors: a replicable civil society initiative in the migrant crisis”, which took place before Vice President of the European Parliament Antonio Tajani, who lauded the initiative as a best practice in Europe, hoping other countries would replicate the same measures. Hence, the project also received EU funding. Beyond the European remit, the project was also presented at UN level in June 2016 through two events on “Humanitarian Corridors for refugees: a good practice of international solidarity” sponsored by the involved organizations and by the Permanent Mission of Italy to the UN, which took place both in Geneva and soon after in New York. On both occasions, deputy Minister Giro spoke about the “Italian solution of humanitarian corridors”, defining the involvement of civil society in the project as a crucial factor. A similar presentation was given by Sant’Egidio and government representatives to the UN humanitarian summit in Istanbul on 23 and 24 May 2016, where Giro, further highlighted the importance of CSOs’ involvement and described the human corridors initiative as an integral part of Italy’s concrete contribution to honouring the Agenda for Humanity called by the Secretary-General of the United Nations. In 2019, the humanitarian corridors initiative received the Nansen Award by the UNHCR (Table 3.9).

14  https://www.ecre.org/humanitarian-cor ridors-an-italian-model-for-theeuropean-union/

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Table 3.9  Analysis of the campaign for the humanitarian corridors Variable

Acronym

Present

Government funds Bipartisan Gatekeepers Hybrid coalitions Transnational networks Public opinion Resonance Timing

Funds Bipart Gate Coalit. Nets Opin Res Time

X X X X X X X

Absent X

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Cugliandro, D. (2009). New actors on the horizon: The international outreach of Italian CSOs. The International Spectator, 44(1), 185–198. de Charentenay, P. (2015). Religione e politica estera: il caso Italia. La Civiltà Cattolica, 3957, 238–246. Ferrara, P., & Petito, F. (2016). An Italian foreign policy of religious engagement: Challenges and prospects. The International Spectator, 51(1), 1–16. Frigerio, L. (2009). La confisca dei beni alle mafie. Luci e ombre di un percorso civile. Aggiornamenti Sociali, 1, 38–48. Gianturco, L. (2010). La pace in Mozambico. In R. M. della Rocca (Ed.), Fare pace. La Comunità di Sant'Egidio negli scenari internazionali (pp.  19–50). Leonardo International. Giro, M. (1998). The Community of Sant’Egidio and its peace-making activities. The International Spectator, 33(3), 85–100. Giussani, L. (2005). Il Rischio Educativo. Milan Rizzoli. Glasius, M. (2006). The international criminal court: A global civil society achievement. Routledge. Hodgkinson, P., & Schabas, W. A. (Eds.). (2004). Capital punishment: Strategies for abolition. Cambridge University Press. Marazzitti, M. (2010). Diplomazia umanitaria contro la pena di morte. In R. M. della Rocca (Ed.), Fare pace. La Comunità di Sant'Egidio negli scenari internazionali (pp. 293–324). Roma. Marazzitti, M. (2015). Life. Da Caino al Califfato: verso un mondo senza pena di morte. Mondadori. Marchetti, R. (2015). The conditions for civil society participation in international decision making. In D. Della Porta & M. Diani (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of social movements (pp. 753–766). Oxford University Press. Marchetti, R. (2016). Advocacy strategies for human rights: The campaign for the moratorium on death penalty. Italian Political Science Review, 46(3), 355–378. Marchetti, R., & Restovin, T. (2017). La campagna internazionale del governo italiano e del mondo cattolico per la libertà di religione (2003-2013). Rivista di Studi Politici Internazionali, 84(336), 597–619. Morozzo della Rocca, R. (Ed.). (2010). Fare pace: La Comunità di Sant'Egidio negli scenari internazionali. Leonardo International. Nessuno tocchi Caino. (2007). La campagna del Partito Radicale e di Nessuno tocchi Caino per la moratoria ONU La pena di morte nel mondo. Rapporto 2007 (pp. 218–275). Nessuno tocchi Caino. Palermo, F. (2007). The foreign policy of Italian regions: Not much ado about something? The International Spectator, 42(2), 197–207. Perduca, M. (2019). Farnesina radicale. Memorie scelte di vent'anni in giro per il mondo per il Partito Radicale. Reality Book. Petito, F., & Thomas, S. M. (2015). Encounter, dialogue, and knowledge: Italy as a special case of religious engagement in foreign policy. The Review of Faith and International Affairs, 13(2), 40–51.

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Pianta, M. (1998). Imagination without power. Notes on contemporary social movements in Italy. Soundings. A Journal of Politics and Culture, 10, 40–50. Reiter, H.  W. M.  A., della Porta, D., & Mosca, L. (2007). The global justice movement in Italy. In D. Della Porta (Ed.), The global justice movement. Cross-­ national and transnational perspective (pp. 52–78). Boulder, CO. Renda, F., & Ricciuti, R. (2010). Tra economia e politica: l'internazionalizzazione di Finmeccanica, Eni ed Enel. Firenze University Press. Ricci, C. (2020). The necessity for alternative legal pathways: The best practice of humanitarian corridors opened by private sponsors in Italy. German Law Journal, 21(2), 265–283. https://doi.org/10.1017/glj.2020.7 Rosi, M. (2003). Etica e pratica: il modello di protesta del movimento del Commercio Equo e Solidale. Quaderni di Sociologia, 33(47), 71–83. Ruzza, C. (1997). Institutionalization of the Italian peace movement. Theory and Society, 26, 1–41. Sculier, C. (2010). Towards a Universal Moratorium on the Use of the Death Penalty. Strategies, Arguments and Perspectives. Retrieved from Chatillon: Stengel, F., & Weller, C. (2010). Action plan or faction plan? Germany's eclectic approach to conflict prevention. International Peacekeeper, 17(1), 93–107. United Nations General Assembly. (2007). Resolution adopted by the General Assembly on the Moratorium on the use of the death penalty. Retrieved from New York. United Nations General Assembly. (2008). Moratoriums on the Use of the Death Penalty: Report of the Secretary-General. Retrieved from New York. Retrieved June 1, 2012, from http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/docid/48e4c49d2.html United Nations General Assembly. (2010). Resolution adopted by the General Assembly on the Moratorium on the use of the death penalty. Retrieved from New York. United Nations General Assembly. (2011). Note verbale from the Permanent Mission of Egypt to the United Nations addressed to the Secretary-General. Retrieved from New York, NY. United Nations General Assembly. (2012). Moratoriums on the Use of the Death Penalty: Report of the Secretary-General. Retrieved from New York, NY. United Nations General Assembly. (2014). Resolution adopted by the General Assembly on the Moratorium on the use of the death penalty. Retrieved from New York. Zamparutti, E. (Ed.). (2007). “La pena di morte nel mondo” Rapporto 2007 Nessuno tocchi Caino, Hands off Cain. Reality Book.

CHAPTER 4

Conclusion

This study has aimed to analyse the practice of hybrid diplomacy in Italy, with a view to broaden its relevance to a larger scope. In particular, the study has focused on the relevance of eight variables deemed as useful in understanding the conditions which allow the synergy between government and civil society organizations to develop. As defined in the introduction, the variables are:

1 2 3 4

Variable name

Acronym Type

Government funds Bipartisan Gatekeepers Hybrid coalitions

Funds Bipart Gate Coalit.

5 Transnational networks 6 Public opinion 7 Resonance 8 Timing

Dimension Material resources Political resources Political opportunities structure Political resources

Nets

Institutional Institutional Institutional Civil/ institutional Civil

Opin Res Time

Civil Thematic Thematic

Political resources Framing Political opportunities Structure

Political resources

These variables are matched by a set of hypotheses which have been tested through the analysed case studies. • H1 funds: synergy will be present if public institutions are willing to finance NGOs; © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 R. Marchetti, Hybrid Diplomacy with NGOs, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86869-7_4

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• H2 bipart: synergy will be present if the political system provides broad bipartisan support; • H3 gate: synergy will be present if there’s a direct channel to political leaders (particularly, the foreign minister); • H4 coalit: synergy will be present if other institutional partners facilitate the creation of hybrid coalitions with other governments and other (parts of) international organizations; • H5 nets: synergy will be present if foreign NGOs join the campaign, hence leading to the creation of a transnational NGO network; • H6 opin: synergy will be present if there is broad support by the national public opinion; • H7 res: synergy will be present if there is a resonance between the campaign’s cognitive framework (framing) and the regulatory paradigm of national institutions and culture; • H8 time: synergy will be present if there is a favourable political and socio-economic situation (critical junctures). Through the comparative analysis of the case studies, it is clear that such hypotheses are largely relevant. In particular, the study fully confirms a subset of hypotheses as to the factors that facilitate cooperation between government and civil society organizations. The study notes that these factors are present in the cases examined. The following truth table shows the dichotomized values of the variables underlying the investigated hypotheses (Table 4.1). The major result emerging from this study is the presence of five specific elements in all of the analysed campaigns. These elements refer to the variables of bipartisan support (H2), channels of access to political leaders Table 4.1  Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) of the campaigns H1 H2 H3 H4 H5 H6 H7 H8 Funds Bipart Gate Coalit Nets Opin Res Time Religious freedom Mozambique peace Death penalty International Criminal Court Debt Female genital mutilations Criminal assets confiscation Humanitarian corridors

1 1 1 1 0 1 0 0

1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

1 0 1 1 1 1 1 1

1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

1 1 1 1 1 0 0 1

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(H3), international coalitions (H4), support by public opinion (H6) and resonance with the regulatory framework (H7). In other words, we could state that these eight campaigns prove that synergy between government and civil organizations happens by: 1) broad bipartisan political support, likely when politicians are direct members of the various NGOs or supporters of the campaign in general and that easily turns into institutional cooperation or benefits of various kinds. 2) direct access to the key institutional decision-makers. In most case studies, the foreign minister, if not the prime minister, as well as MPs or EMPs were all fundamental institutional partners. Direct access to them through no middlemen gives intensity and prestige to the campaign, allowing to overcome obstacles (in the case of veto players). Without direct contact, intermediate players in the institutions would not have the ability to act. 3) international institutional partners. The presence of hybrid coalitions that can count on foreign governments or international organizations among their members appears to be an important factor for the occurrence of the national public-private synergy. Such international backing provides a conducing factor thanks to the credibility it generates. 4) broad support in national public opinion, an essential factor to give credibility to the mobilization and, at the same time, to increase political pressure on institutions. 5) resonance between the campaign’s cognitive framework and the regulatory paradigm of the institutions. Our case studies show that this resonance is often achieved through a process of slow, gradual “approximation” by way of campaign reframing operations, up to full congruence with the main principles of the political-regulatory context favouring the institutional support. This is the case, for example, of the human rights petition’s framing. These elements suggest a set of factors that seem “almost” necessary, though not sufficient, to develop the synergy between the governmental and the non-governmental world. They mark a path that future mobilizations may want to follow if they wish to benefit from the resources generated by this synergy. As to the other hypotheses, special arguments must be developed.

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Government funds (H1) appear to be an important element but in some cases not necessarily the utmost defining one. The humanitarian corridors case, as well as that the debt relief one, for instance, suggests that an important and impactful mobilization can be set up even with no government funds, as long as minimal alternative funds can be obtained via the fiscal deduction mechanism such as the “8x1000” or “5x1000” schemes. The presence of other NGOs joining the campaign besides the national ones (H5) remains an important element. Yet, in others, such as in the case of the Mozambican peace process, having a limited number of interlocutors helps to guarantee confidentiality of the negotiation rounds and, therefore, their success. Finally, timing (H8) appears as a significant, but not common, element. Although knowing how to exploit a particular structure of political opportunities remains an important factor, the cases show that even in the absence of particularly favourable events (critical junctures) it is still possible to successfully carry out a campaign. This is the case of the campaign against female genital mutilation or the one on the social reuse of mafia assets. Besides these factors which (after empirical confirmation) may be applied to other countries too, a series of other elements of a distinct national nature can help to understand the peculiarities of the Italian case. a) the close and growing alliance between the world of activism and institutions and their significant team effort in foreign policy (revolving doors). In this respect, it suffice to think of the case of former activists who held top positions at MAECI: Emma Bonino (Radical party)—Foreign Minister; Mario Giro (Sant’Egidio)—Deputy foreign minister; Benedetto della Vedova (Radical party)— Undersecretary for Foreign Affairs; as well as Andrea Riccardi (Sant’Egidio)—Minister for international cooperation and integration; Vittorio Agnoletto (Genova Social Forum)—MEP; Sergio Andreis (Kyoto Club)—MP; Sergio D’Elia (Radical party)—MP; Mario Marazziti (Sant’Egidio)—MP; Giulio Marcon (Sbilanciamoci)—MP; Francesco Martone (Greenpeace)—MP; Marco Perduca (Radical party)—MP and so on. b) the large number of Italian citizens taking part in volunteering programmes: in 1999, about one-third of Italians claimed to actively work for charities or NGOs (IREF, 2000, 253)—yielding a general

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sense of trust in the non-profit world (G.  Moro & Vannini, 2008, 170). c) relative weakness of umbrella organizations that create incentives for the individual action of Italian NGOs (Moro & Vannini, 2008), despite the rare case of the debt relief campaign. d) the involvement of the Vatican and Catholic networks that mobilize a large critical mass having a significant influence in contexts such as Africa or South America. e) the hybrid nature of the Italian Radical party, a party with various internal identities that are non-governmental in nature, a transnational outlook and an accreditation to the United Nations’ ECOSOC, as well as a classic international NGO. f) The Italian position of middle power that mitigates the ever-present suspicion in the southern hemisphere towards the “neo-colonialist” West. At the same time, this status generates incentives for the use of soft power (given the absence of alternative military or economic instruments) and the search for collaboration with international organizations, primarily the EU and the UN, for the pursuit of their foreign policy purposes. More generally, in light of such conditions, we should think of the synergy in relation to the campaigns’ success. Although, through this analysis, it is not possible to identify the degree of its relevance for the final outcome in comparison with other factors, we may certainly say that synergy has been crucial to the successful outcomes achieved by all eight campaigns (freedom of religion, peace in Mozambique, International Criminal Court, moratorium on the death penalty, ban on female genital mutilation, debt relief, confiscation of criminal assets and humanitarian corridors). In all these cases touching the issue of human rights, the role played by Italy in the policy of changing international standards is marked by the more or less intense cooperation between public institutions and the non-­ governmental world. The creation of hybrid and often informal coalitions with the government has helped Italian NGOs to enter the intergovernmental arena through the provision of financial and procedural resources and a form of diplomatic “respectability”. Government support was also useful for other reasons, including increasing support on a national basis. Not only it indirectly created the conditions to preserve local support and entice new activists, but it also acted as a sort of “coral reef” (Tarrow, 2001, 15). It

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facilitated the line-up of trans-ideological coalitions among various Italian NGOs, as in the case of the campaign for the moratorium on the death penalty. The cases studied also show the importance of the local/national dynamic in transnational mobilizations. The structure of international political opportunities is a complex multidimensional chessboard that activists must skilfully navigate by balancing actions between the different local, national and international levels. Just like the value of synergy, the national dimension remains crucial for the development of transnational campaigns that aim to impact human rights standards. A further finding of this study is the government benefits that derive from synergy with civil society. In most cases, the Italian government has gained a leadership role by cooperating with the Italian NGOs and their transnational coalitions. It is precisely in the creation of hybrid partnerships that the government has taken the opportunity to deploy its normative power. This comes as a surprise considering the country’s rather marginalized position in the key decisions of the international community. Although it is undeniable that these mobilizations would have not succeeded without a series of favourable external conditions of the international system, it is equally unquestionable that without the Italian push (the combined push of government and NGOs) such successes would have been much harder to gain. It is clear, for example, that many of the issues addressed by these campaigns would not have been included in the international agenda without the powerful combination of advocacy actions (by Italian NGOs) and lobbying activities (by the Italian government). The government also had other reasons for engaging with NGOs in these campaigns, likely to do with questions of political opportunity: supporting certain campaigns means securing a share of votes; supporting some NGOs means consolidating government alliances. The popular pressure that the government has felt on certain occasions (i.e. “the Catholic vote”) has indeed contributed to push the government closer to the activists’ objectives. There are also reasons for external advantages, whereby support for some campaigns is seen by some as a means to indirectly increase the country’s visibility and its negotiation power in view of other objectives, such as the election for a non-permanent seat on the UN Security Council. Supporting the campaigns, especially in the case of promising campaigns, also means increasing prestige and authority as a country with international leadership skills. Finally, the activist nature of

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Italian NGOs has contributed over the years to “socializing” a part of the Italian diplomatic and political bodies that, nowadays, feel more ““naturally”“ in line with human rights policies, like the ones expressed by the campaigns. Obviously, there is still room for improvement. Parts of the Farnesina are still reluctant to cooperate with NGOs: on the one hand, there is no willingness to give up on the prerogative of being the sole holders of the diplomatic field; on the other, there is still little knowledge and appreciation of the skills and potential that civil society organizations can offer to foreign policy. The new law for social enterprises and third sector goes in the right direction in the pursuit of greater public-private interactions, though restricted to the humanitarian and development aid, leaving out the advocacy and policy dimension where actually this synergy could be more fruitful. It is clear that the lack of a regular dialogue between the Farnesina and NGOs poses serious constraints for a more sophisticated cooperation. This is partly explained by the recent but growing decrease in role and resources (shifted to the Prime Minister’s Office) that the MAECI has been lamenting. Hence, institutional-financial restrictions necessarily have an impact on the synergy with civil society. As to the civil society, there are both challenges in adjusting to the modus operandi of the ministry and a scepticism, if not an aversion, deriving from the general tendency to preserve its autonomy. In fact, many would argue that the interaction with ministries and politics altogether often leads to the making of unacceptable compromises. A further problem in the world of Italian NGOs regards size, as they tend to be small organizations, compared to large international NGOs, and they generally, unwillingly focus more on development cooperation than on advocacy so to avail of greater financial resources. This means that only a limited number of organizations can commit to political advocacy at the international level autonomously, whilst the majority end up joining international networks with a follower role. As our case studies show, the actors tend to repeat themselves: the acquisition of specific skills on international mobilizations, national and international credibility and the access to institutional channels mean that the international institutional activism of Italy is populated by a limited number of NGOs. This is in contrast with the intense international activism of social movement organizations which, however, tend to stay away from acting in synergy with the MAECI. Finally, as for most countries, the track record in terms of human rights promotion has always to be balanced with other forms of foreign policy

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action that might clash with it. While Italy has a significant track record in UN-sponsored peace missions and has a constitutionally imperative defensive stance in foreign policy, it has participated to other actions beyond the UN mandate. The country remains a significant weapon exporter despite its stringent normative constraints on how and to whom armaments can be sold. And it does deal with both democratic and undemocratic regimes, with both human rights-compliant and non-compliant countries. The list can continue. While the campaigns here analysed show a significant and positive pro-human rights attitude in the different Italian governments and civil society organizations alike, in order to draw more general conclusions on the country’s human track record, a more comprehensive approach should be adopted. In sum, the cooperative relationship between MAECI and the Italian civil society is now a concrete reality that cannot be ignored when evaluating Italy’s overall foreign policy. The synergy between the two sides is being repeated mobilization after mobilization and, with this reiteration, it is consolidating. One could argue, it is almost institutionalizing. For example, setting up coordination committees on individual campaigns is no longer a new and partly destabilizing idea. Even the idea of a permanent committee with a strategic perspective of policy advocacy seems plausible. Within MAECI it has increased the awareness of the benefits in terms of effectiveness and international credibility that derive from carrying out international campaigns with positive results. For civil society, the many success stories illustrated in this study show that partnerships with national public institutions and direct access to leaders remain crucial for increasing their chances of a strong impact. From the politician’s perspective too, the synergy between institutions and civil society is increasingly supported by public opinion, even if for different reasons that range from pure opportunism to the genuine support for the causes advocated by activists.

Looking Towards the Future This book has examined eight mobilizations where the synergy between public institutions and Italian civil society organizations helped deliver significant results at the international level. These campaigns offer us a rich repository of good practices that government and NGOs can refer to over time to develop other positive advocacy initiatives on a European and global scale. These stories reveal how politics is done in an increasingly

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pluralistic and globalized world (Marchetti, 2014, 2016b), stories that we would be wrong to undervalue. These stories can foster a process of cross-­ fertilization between the various actors involved in hybrid diplomacy. The primary lesson we draw from these experiences is precisely that public-private, institutions-social actors collaboration constitutes a very important element in international political dynamics (Marchetti, 2017a, 2017b). Just like the (better-known) relationship with businesses or the (less developed) one with local authorities, the relationship with civil society organizations is nowadays a crucial way to carry out international operations effectively. But, as the case studies suggest, in order to create partnerships between national public institutions and NGOs, it is first of all vital to solicit bipartisan support among the political elite and in public opinion; it is essential to have access to key decision-makers; it is also crucial to know how to create broad institutional alliances at the international level; and it is also equally indispensable to formulate one’s campaign in such a way that it resonates with principles and values already endorsed at the socio-political level. In addition to this, of course public funding, NGO networks and timing remain important additional elements. The political struggle in the contemporary world can only be truly won if it is also overcome on an international level. Although the local and national dimensions remain important, perhaps even indispensable, unless organizations are able to up-level and internationalize their action, their efforts may be undermined in the medium to long term. Moving up a level and carrying out international action is obviously not easy. It is no coincidence that only a few Italian NGOs are able to assume international leadership on advocacy issues such as those presented here. While many Italian organizations are part of transnational networks, only a few have been able to promote successful mobilizations in the first ranks. Good internal leadership, resources, contacts with the political world and, above all, experience of international mobilizations are essential internal drivers for civil action across borders. It is no coincidence that the NGOs featured in this study have animated more than one campaign precisely because of the technical and political knowledge that is essential for successful international action.

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Participant Observations Demonstration Reclaim our UN, Perugia, 11 September 2005. Meeting Exigir nosso seminário internacional da ONU: sobre o futuro da ONU e as instituições internacionais, Porto Alegre, 28 January 2005. Meeting Exigir nossa agenda da ONU 2005: por uma ordem internacional justa, pacifica e democratica, Porto Alegre, 28 January 2005. Seminar on the future of the United Nations, Reclaim Our UN, Padova, 19–20 November 2004. Sixth Assembly of the United Nations of Peoples, Save our UN, Perugia, 8–10 Sept. 2005. Task Force on death penalty, MAECI, Roma, 10 September 2014.