To facilitate and enhance humanitarian action (Negotiations manual Section 2.2

• The overall objective of humanitarian negotiations is to secure the cooperation of an armed group in reaching an agreed outcome or understanding that will facilitate or enhance humanitarian action.
  
• Process-related motivations for humanitarian negotiations with armed groups may. include: (i) building trust and confidence between the parties, and (ii) the process of negotiation can have a multiplier effect in terms of involving armed groups in a wider dialogue that may bring additional benefits.

Substantive Areas for Negotiation

• To secure humanitarian access to reach populations in need;

Ground Rules

• To seek agreement with an armed group on a basic operational framework –consisting of humanitarian principles, operating guidelines and commitments of both parties – to ensure the safe and efficient provision of humanitarian assistance and protection (often referred to as “Ground Rules” agreements). For example, the Ground Rules agreement concluded between the Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM) and Operation Lifeline Sudan (OLS).

Protection of civilians

• To seek agreement on behaviour of belligerents that will improve the protection of civilians in areas under the control or influence of armed groups;

Humanitarian security

• To safeguard humanitarian security;

Special protection areas/periods

• To secure agreement on special protection areas or periods; For example, agreement to facilitate immunization campaigns or food distribution at specific times;

(Negotiations manual Section 2.2.1)

• To secure the release of persons being held by armed groups against their will.

Impact on humanitarian conditions

• When there is the likelihood that negotiations themselves could negatively impact humanitarian conditions, constrain the delivery of humanitarian assistance and protection or jeopardize the security of the beneficiaries.

• When armed groups attempt to use humanitarian negotiations to enhance their perceived legitimacy and/or to promote their political agendas/objectives

• When armed groups are believed to be playing several humanitarian actors off against each other for their own gain.

• When the negotiations put the lives of the armed group interlocutors at risk.

(Negotiations manual Section 2.2.2)

• When the armed group attaches conditions for the implementation of an agreement that could adversely affect the civilian population.

Characteristics of Armed Groups

Key features

• Table 1 hereafter presents some of the key features of non-State armed groups, and what these features mean for humanitarian negotiations with these groups.

• Consideration of the following characteristics of armed groups can increase the efficiency of the negotiations as well as the desired outcomes: (a) motivations;(b) structure; (c) principles of action; (d) interests; (e) constituency; (f) needs; (g) ethno-cultural dimensions; (h) control of population and territory (See Annex I).

Identify one or more lead negotiators
(Negotiations manual Section 2.5)

• The humanitarian actors in a specific context/region should identify one or more lead negotiators, who should act as the primary representative(s) of humanitarian agencies (country team, humanitarian community in a specific context/region).
• The humanitarian negotiations and their underlying humanitarian objectives should remain strictly distinct from political and/or other negotiations.

Keeping humanitarian and political negotiations separate

• Humanitarian agencies should agree on the process and intended outcomes of the negotiation.

What humanitarian negotiators need to be aware of based on these features:

• Humanitarian negotiations do not infer any legal status, legitimacy or recognition of the armed group;
  
• Humanitarian negotiators should explore the driving motivations and interests behind the actions of the armed group (see below);
  
• Humanitarian negotiations do not in any way dilute the accountability of the armed group for past/current/future actions;

• Individual members of an armed group will always have their own 'agendas', however an armed group (different from a group of armed individuals) shares some common history, aspirations, objectives, or needs that are attributes of the group;
  
• Members of an armed group will be strongly influenced by group conformity pressures such as depersonalization of victims; perceptions of impunity; moral disengagement and obedience to group authority;

• This characteristic of non-State armed groups has important implications for enforcing accountability for the actions of members of the group. The 'extra-State' status of armed groups means that the applicable legal provisions relating to the duties and obligations of these groups under international law may differ from the duties and obligations of States, and for certain provisions, there remains some legal uncertainly as to the extent that those provisions apply to armed groups;

• Armed groups may not be under the command or control of the State(s) in which they operate, but they may receive direct/indirect support of the host government or other States;
  
• Humanitarian negotiators need to be aware of the potential for influencing parties that support armed groups; are subject to a chain of command (formal or informal).

• This is an important attribute of armed groups, because it means (at least in theory) that there is some degree of centralized command and control, however limited, over the actions of group members. When this centralized command structure breaks down, it can no longer be considered to be one armed group, and humanitarian negotiators may have to identify interlocutors within several factions of the original group;
  
• When a chain of command (however limited) is functioning, it increases the likelihood that lower ranking members of the group will respect the undertakings and agreed outcomes negotiated by and with their leaders;
  
• In implementing an outcome agreed with the leaders of an armed group, humanitarian workers should attempt to identify the local chain of command to increase the likelihood that any agreed outcome will be respected and implemented by lower-ranking members of the group;