30. Adam Cooper - Mediation, Diplomacy and Digital Conflict

My guest today is Adam Cooper. He is the Director of Digital Conflict for the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue, or HD. Adam has been with HD for over a decade and now oversees a global programme of work mediating offensive cyber operations and disinformation on social media. He also hosts ‘The Mediator’s Studio’ podcast, which provides some incredible insights into what happens behind closed doors when peace agreements are negotiated.

Prior to his current role, Adam managed HD’s Myanmar operations. And before joining HD, he coordinated election observation missions in Asia and served as an adviser to former Maldivian President Mohamed Nasheed. He has degrees from Oxford University and the Harvard Kennedy School. Adam is a Thai and UK national and currently lives in Brussels. Some of the topics we covered are:

• Adam’s journey into the world of conflict negotiation
• Private mediation and the work of HD
• Why confidentiality is important when looking for alternatives to military only solutions
• Straddling multiple diplomacy tracks
• Lessons learned from senior negotiators
• ‘Peace is made in stages’
• Dangers of not negotiating with the ‘enemy’
• Adam’s experience in Myanmar
• Digital conflict, digital threats and understanding the problem
• Challenge of establishing norms of online behaviour
• ‘Freedom of speech’ vs. ‘Hate speech’
• Responsibility of social media organisations
• Experimentations of ‘Peace Tech'

To find out more about the 'ups and downs' of conflict mediation, listen to 'The Mediator's Studio', available here.