Colombia Negotiation Initiative and Peace Process Open Library

(a Harvard Negotiation Project initiative)
Directors: Jim Sebenius and Sergio Jaramillo

The Colombia Negotiations Initiative documents and draws practical lessons from the pathbreaking peace negotiations that led to an agreement in 2016 that ended a half-century of war between the Colombian government and the FARC guerrilla organization. This conflict claimed over 250,000 lives, displaced over five million Colombians, and resisted many prior attempts at reaching an effective negotiated agreement. Building on the process by which the Program on Negotiation honored President Juan Santos as the 2017 Great Negotiator, this Initiative conducts non-partisan educational research, contributes to case studies, interviews key participants from the talks, and explores deeper insights that can help to advance peace negotiations around the world.

HNP has conducted substantial research on the Colombia Peace Negotiations. Here are some highlights:

  • Bill Ury was a key advisor to President Santos throughout the historic negotiation process and works closely with Jim Sebenius and other members of the HNP team to extract negotiation insights.
  • The HNP team conducted a daylong video interview with President Santos and most of his advisory team to understand their strategic and tactical approach to the negotiation process.
  • Jim Sebenius created a memo for other presidents on using President Santos’ techniques.
  • Deepak Malhotra developed a case study on the Colombia Peace Negotiation.
  • Kessely Hong created a case series on the Colombia Peace Negotiations.
  • Dan Shapiro created a new approach to post-conflict reconciliation, drawing on first hand interviews with Sergio Jaramillo.

To support scholarly understanding of the peace negotiations, HNP has partnered with the University of Los Andes, which has compiled a comprehensive documentary record of the Colombian peace negotiations. For access to this archive, please visit Biblioteca Abierta del Proceso de Paz (BAPP).

Professor James K. Sebenius directs this initiative with affiliated participation of Sergio Jaramillo, former Colombian High Commissioner for Peace, Bill Ury, Kessely Hong, Deepak Malhotra, and Daniel Shapiro.