New “fast-track negotiation” model announced in groundbreaking White Paper
Paris and Barcelona (17 January 2025) – The dominant but slow-moving negotiation model used for preventing and resolving situations of large-scale violence is a mismatch for most modern conflict and crisis situations. A new model is needed and today the Institute for Integrated Transitions (IFIT) and the Institut d’Études Avancées de Paris (Paris IAS) are pleased to release the groundbreaking White Paper, “Fast-Track Negotiation: A 21st Century Paradigm for Negotiating Peace and Stability”.
“In today’s fragmented conflict and crisis landscape, we cannot afford to negotiate as though time is on our side. It’s not,” says Mark Freeman, Founder and Executive Director of IFIT and author of the White Paper. “We need to expand the toolbox of conflict resolution and incorporate a negotiation model that offers more balance between process and outcome, idealism and realism, product and market. Fast-track negotiation aims to do just that.”
The arrival of fast-track negotiation adds new options without removing existing ones. It offers an organised set of principles, practices and assumptions purpose-built to facilitate greater negotiation speed and pragmatism and thus help to produce more agreements and restore the missing utility of negotiation in preventing and ending situations of large-scale violence.
“The discomforting truth is that today’s dominant but slow paradigm of negotiation rarely produces a settlement, thus eviscerating the underlying promise that legitimacy of process produces sustainability of implementation,” says Freeman. “It’s time to return to first principles by recreating a model that prioritises the reaching of settlements. It’s time to acknowledge that sustainability is a vacant ideal in the absence of negotiated outcomes.”
For speaking engagements and media requests or to book a fast-track training session, please contact [email protected].
About IFIT. The Institute for Integrated Transitions (IFIT) is an international non-governmental organisation with peace projects worldwide. Often working behind the scenes to bridge political and social divides, IFIT’s 350+ local and global experts are recognised leaders on negotiation and transition. More information can be found here: https://ifit-transitions.org/. To read more about the Fast-Track Negotiation Initiative in particular: https://ifit-transitions.org/initiative-on-fast-track-negotiation/.
About Paris IAS. The Institut d’Études Avancées de Paris (Paris IAS) is a global research centre comprising 14 universities and scientific institutions in the Paris region and supported by the City of Paris, the French Ministry of Higher Education, Research and Innovation and the European Commission. More information: https://www.paris-iea.fr/en/
About Mark Freeman.Mark Freeman is the Founder and Executive Director of IFIT. A leading expert in political transitions and high-level peace negotiations with more than 30 years of experience, Mr Freeman is regularly consulted for advice on crisis management and conflict resolution. He has worked in countries including Ukraine, Venezuela, Colombia, Afghanistan, Bolivia, Bosnia, Burundi, DRC, The Gambia, El Salvador, Kenya, Mauritania, Morocco, Nepal, Serbia, Sri Lanka, Syria, Tunisia, Turkey, and Zimbabwe. His most recent book is Negotiating Transitional Justice (Cambridge, 2020), which draws upon his years as an adviser inside the Colombian peace talks in Havana.
Negotiation is among the best known and most used tools for advancing peace and political transition. Yet, the dominant model of the last few decades is built on methodological premises which, in aggregate, produce very slow negotiation.
A new and different paradigm – “fast-track negotiation” – offers enlarged options for reaching agreements and surmounts the problematic overdependence on a single model.
Fast-track negotiation relies on principles, practices and assumptions that promise greater speed and realism and thus help to restore the missing utility of negotiation in preventing and ending situations of large-scale violence.
“The discomforting truth is that today’s dominant but slow paradigm of negotiation rarely produces a settlement, thus eviscerating the underlying promise that legitimacy of process produces sustainability of implementation,” says Mark Freeman, Founder and Executive Director of IFIT and author of the White Paper. “It is time to return to first principles by recreating a model that prioritises the reaching of settlements. It is time to acknowledge that sustainability is a vacant ideal in the absence of negotiated outcomes.”
Paola Fernández Ortega is a Finance Intern at the Institute for Integrated Transitions (IFIT). She is currently finishing her bachelor’s degree in International Business Economics at Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona, and expects to graduate in July 2025. As a part of her bachelors, she spent a semester studying at HEC Montreal, where she took courses on society, sustainable development and the global business environment.
Prior to joining IFIT, she completed an internship at a private consulting firm based in Barcelona. After graduation she is planning to start a Masters degree in Global Development in order to solidify her knowledge and pursue a professional career in the field.
Camila Rivera González is an Associate at the Institute for Integrated Transitions, where she coordinates the Territorial Brain Trust (FTCH) in Colombia.
Camila is a political scientist with a minor in anthropology from the Universidad de Los Andes and a Masters degree in Cultural Studies from Javeriana University. During the past 12 years, she has worked in different areas of public policy related to inclusion and ethnic rights in Colombia, and on implementation of the peace agreement between the Government of Colombia and the FARC. Among other roles, she served as a senior advisor to the Colombian High Commissioner for Peace and to the Colombian Minister of the Interior, where she was in charge of the Vice Ministry of Participation and Equal Rights.
More recently, Camila was part of two research teams with the Colombian Commission for the Clarification of Truth, Coexistence, and Non-repetition. Her last position before joining IFIT was as an Advisor on Ethnic Affairs to the National Director of the Unit for Attention and Reparation to Victims of the Armed Conflict.
Genwa Hassan is a global intern at the Institute for Integrated Transitions (IFIT), based in its headquarters in Barcelona. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Political Science & International Relations from the Catholic University of Portugal in Lisbon.
Upon concluding her studies, Genwa completed an internship with the Diplomatic Mission of Palestine in Portugal. More recently, she collaborated with the NGO Nexus 3.0, assisting the integration of higher education students from conflict zones. Additionally, she worked as a Cultural Mediator at the Portuguese Refugee Council.
Calls for dialogue to address Zimbabwe’s multi-layered political, social and economic crises have been numerous, repeated and diverse. Yet, the attempts to date have consistently failed to sustain long-term activity and results. At the community level, by contrast, there is a rich culture of dialogue to engage and resolve disputes. Though varying in scope and subject, these dialogues represent a bottom-up approach where local constituents are not just participants but drivers of conversation and change.
This publication contains findings from an investigation of 13 diverse community dialogues in Zimbabwe that took place between 2017 and 2023 at the ward, village, or district level. It seeks to 1) identify successful positive strategies for non-partisan, community-level dialogue and 2) consider their potential replication at the national level to help catalyse meaningful issue-based dialogue among different actors, including political ones.
By delving into the nuances of these local dialogues, the study offers insights into the mechanisms that foster agreement and resolution, the challenges and barriers encountered, and the strategies that drive long-term success.
IFIT
/ WELCOME TO The Initiative on Fast-Track Negotiation
The Initiative on Fast-Track Negotiation
Negotiation is among the best known and most used tools for advancing peace and political transition. Yet, the dominant model of the last few decades is built on methodological premises which, in aggregate, produce very slow negotiation. A “fast-track” model is needed to match the more urgent local change needed in the majority of crisis and conflict situations.
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March 2024
Millennial in origin, peace negotiation is the lifeblood of conflict resolution. There would be far less peace in the world without it. Yet, as explained in “Fast-Track Negotiation”: A White Paper (M. Freeman, January 2025), negotiation in the 21st century is stumbling badly on account of two interrelated but fixable problems: 1) practice is dominated by a single model of what is considered effective and legitimate negotiation; and 2) the dominant model’s underlying tenets, in aggregate, produce a form of negotiation that is very slow.
Fast-track negotiation is a model of conflict resolution broadly oriented toward the goal of “negative peace” (i.e., the absence of direct violence). That is because the predominant choice in most conflict and crisis situations is not between the heavenly ideal of “positive peace” and the practical need for “negative peace”. It is between negative peace and no peace.
The discomforting truth is that today’s dominant but slow paradigm of negotiation rarely produces a settlement, thus eviscerating the very case for its core principles, practices and assumptions – namely, that legitimacy of process produces sustainability of implementation. It is time to return to first principles by recreating a paradigm that prioritises the reaching of settlements. It is time to acknowledge that sustainability is a vacant ideal in the absence of negotiated outcomes.
Justin Kosslyn is a Product Direction Consultant, and was formerly the Director of Product Management for News Ecosystem at Google, spanning a set of products including Google Trends, Search Console, Reader Revenue Manager, Site Kit, Pinpoint, and R&D explorations with Generative AI.
He previously served as Head of Digital Products at TED, the organization behind TED Talks. Earlier in his career, he spent a decade at Google Jigsaw, where he oversaw a range of software tools to improve digital and information security. In addition to building and leading teams, he directly managed projects including Google’s warnings for targets of government-backed cyberattacks, and ClaimReview, a tool for global fact-checkers now used across most major tech platforms.
Justin graduated summa cum laude from Yale University with a BS in Computer Science, and lives with his wife and two children in NYC.
Written by Mark Freeman, Founder and Executive Director of the Institute for Integrated Transitions (IFIT), this short guidance note highlights the importance of secret and confidential actions and initiatives in preventing political violence and overcoming situations of conflict and crisis. The note focuses on the role of ‘civic diplomats’ and draws directly on IFIT’s dialogue and trust-building work worldwide.
