Avoid the Rabbit Hole in Real Conflict Markets

🛑 Veto Restraint

Limiting paralysis when atrocity risks arise. Making veto power accountable, restrained, and morally visible.

🤝 Mediation Acceleration

Preventing peace talks from becoming rent-seeking arenas. Funding outcomes, not attendance.

🚑 Humanitarian Carve-Outs

Ensuring aid can reach civilians without financing armed actors or entrenching war economies.

🛡 Ceasefire Support

Designing ceasefires that protect people, not just pause bullets or freeze injustice.

📡 Technology & Accountability

Using credible data to expose silence, trace responsibility, and make inaction visible.

How Each Action Can Be Captured — And How To Prevent It

🛑 Veto Restraint

Intended Purpose	How It Is Distorted	How It Gets Captured	What We Must Build
Limit paralysis at UNSC during atrocity risks	Restraint becomes symbolic — soft pledges	States use procedural veto, delay, selective interpretation	Trigger-based restraint & public veto explanation system

🤝 Mediation & Peacebuilding

Intended Purpose	How It Is Distorted	How It Gets Captured	What We Must Build
Enable rapid mediation to reduce harm	Talks become rent-seeking arenas	Participation rewarded more than peace outcomes	Outcome-based funding & anti-rent criteria

🚑 Humanitarian Carve-Outs

Intended Purpose	How It Is Distorted	How It Gets Captured	What We Must Build
Protect aid access in sanctioned settings	Aid corridors exploited by regime/brokers	Carve-outs become regime oxygen & control	Third-party monitoring & accountability tracking

🛡 Ceasefire & De-escalation

Intended Purpose	How It Is Distorted	How It Gets Captured	What We Must Build
Protect lives in escalation phases	Ceasefire as rearming pause	Conflict actors consolidate territory & war economy	Monitoring with sanctions & civilian protection criteria

📡 Technology for Accountability

Intended Purpose	How It Is Distorted	How It Gets Captured	What We Must Build
Expose atrocity risks & make silence visible	Tech becomes performance & “innovation theater”	Platforms replace moral action — dashboards instead of decisions	Action-linked alerts & ignored-warning tracking

The Political Marketplace Cycle

How armed actors use violence to gain bargaining power, legitimacy, and material advantage — and why incentives drive conflict more than ideology.

1️⃣ Violence

Used as a bargaining signal to demonstrate control, create urgency, or block rivals.

2️⃣ Recognition

Armed actors are invited to talks, ceasefires, or given a seat at negotiation tables.

3️⃣ Legitimacy

Recognition turns into political status, office, or de facto governance power.

4️⃣ Access

Access to aid corridors, diplomatic channels, exemptions, or transitional funding.

5️⃣ Resources

Money, aid rents, cabinet posts, security contracts, or control over land/minerals.

⮕ These incentives reinforce each other — creating a self-sustaining conflict marketplace.

How the Five Actions Can Be Distorted – And How to Prevent It

Context: The Political Marketplace Problem

In many conflict settings, politics functions not through institutions and norms, but through transactional bargaining. Violence, loyalty, and legitimacy can be monetized, exchanged, or manipulated. Any well-intentioned mechanism for peace or protection can be captured, co-opted, or turned into a rent.

The Five Actions in Short

These core actions aim to protect civilians, strengthen accountability, and accelerate response when atrocity risks emerge. They are powerful tools — but without safeguards, each one can be distorted or instrumentalized. The Spirit of Dag must design them with architecture, not idealism alone.

Action	Purpose
Veto Restraint in Atrocity Situations	Limit paralysis at the UN Security Council when mass atrocity risks are present.
Peacebuilding and Mediation Acceleration	Enable pragmatic, timely mediation and prevent process-based manipulation.
Humanitarian Carve-Outs	Ensure aid can reach civilians even in sanctioned or high-risk contexts.
Ceasefire and De-escalation Support	Stop violence, protect civilians, and avoid destabilizing war economies.
Technology for Early Warning, Transparency, Accountability	Strengthen visibility, trace responsibility, and make silence harder.

Veto Restraint in Atrocity Situations

Veto restraint can protect lives — but it can also become political theater. Without real triggers, transparency, or consequences, it risks becoming symbolic endorsement without impact. To work, it must expose misuse and change behavior.

How it can be distorted

Issue	Distortion Mechanisms
Symbolic restraint	• States sign pledges with no operational intention. • Veto power is simply exercised through technical or procedural means.
Selective application	• Restraint is used only when rivals commit atrocities. • Allies’ abuses are ignored, reclassified, or downgraded.
Process replaces responsibility	• Endless debates on thresholds block action. • Diplomacy acts as moral anesthesia.

What you must do to prevent this

Issue	Prevention Measures
Symbolic restraint	• Tie restraint to atrocity triggers verified by independent mechanisms. • Require public explanations for every veto used in atrocity settings.
Selective application	• Use uniform definitions across contexts. • Publish annual Veto Accountability Reports — case by case.
Process replaces responsibility	• Use time limits for procedural disputes. • Record parties that delayed emergency response.

Peacebuilding and Mediation Acceleration

Mediation can end wars — or fuel them. It becomes harmful when participation is rewarded instead of progress, and talks become political staging rather than solution building. Mediation must reduce incentives for violence — not amplify them.

How it can be distorted

Issue	Distortion Mechanisms
Mediation as rent-seeking	• Talks turn into financial opportunity and status negotiation. • Armed groups escalate violence to secure a seat at the table.
Funds captured by elites	• Peacebuilding funds are absorbed by patronage networks. • Local voices excluded from design and benefit.
Quick agreements, bad outcomes	• Pressure to “sign something” normalizes impunity. • Civilians, women, and victims replaced by elites in negotiations.

What you must do to prevent this

Issue	Prevention Measures
Mediation as rent-seeking	• Fund progress, not participation — no payment for attendance. • Track violence spikes linked to negotiation incentives.
Funds captured by elites	• Require community review, audits, and visibility of spending. • Tie funding to inclusion and transparency benchmarks.
Quick agreements, bad outcomes	• Define minimum justice, participation, and accountability standards. • Reject agreements that reward escalation or ignore victims.

Humanitarian Carve-Outs

Carve-outs can save lives — or fuel war economies. When captured by abusive actors, humanitarian access becomes a bargaining chip, revenue source, or tool of control. Their design must preserve protection, not strengthen power.

How it can be distorted

Issue	Distortion Mechanisms
Regime oxygen through carve-outs	• Aid corridors used for financing, fuel supply, or loyalty payments. • Armed groups weaponize access to control populations.
Aid displaces political strategy	• Humanitarian response replaces peace or accountability pressure. • States hide behind “we are feeding people” while rights collapse.
Access logic silences truth	• Aid organizations avoid speaking about diversion and abuse. • Silence becomes the price of entry.

What you must do to prevent this

Issue	Prevention Measures
Regime oxygen through carve-outs	• Use community-based mapping and third-party monitors. • Track misuse, publish patterns of diversion.
Aid displaces political strategy	• Frame carve-outs as one pillar inside a political solution. • Link humanitarian access to accountability tracks — not instead of them.
Access logic silences truth	• Promote joint reporting so no single agency is penalized. • Create protected channels for speaking about violations.

Ceasefire and De-escalation Support

Ceasefires can protect civilians — or freeze injustice. When poorly designed, they consolidate displacement, help actors regroup, and create new markets for violence. Ceasefires must protect people, not only secure pauses.

How it can be distorted

Issue	Distortion Mechanisms
Ceasefire as strategic pause	• Armed groups regroup, recruit, and rearm under “peace cover.” • Violence resumes stronger after.
Frozen injustice	• Ceasefires entrench displacement or ethnic cleansing. • Diplomacy praises stability while injustice locks in.
Exclusion of affected communities	• Elite deals ignore civilians, women, IDPs, local leaders. • Violence becomes an entry ticket to the negotiating table.

What you must do to prevent this

Issue	Prevention Measures
Ceasefire as strategic pause	• Use local + digital monitoring with consequences. • Tie violations to sanctions, exclusion, or legal consequences.
Frozen injustice	• Insist on return, movement, rights guarantee in definition of “peace.” • Reject ceasefires that lack a justice horizon.
Exclusion of affected communities	• Require early inclusion of affected groups, not symbolic consultation. • Track who is excluded and the consequences for future conflict.

Technology for Early Warning, Transparency, and Accountability

Technology can expose atrocity risks — or mask complicity. It can empower communities, or enable surveillance. It only protects if linked to real decisions, not dashboards.

How it can be distorted

Issue	Distortion Mechanisms
Surveillance rather than protection	• Data used to monitor activists, not protect them. • Mapping reveals vulnerability instead of shielding it.
Data without consequence	• Atrocity alerts ignored or archived. • High-resolution knowledge becomes a substitute for action.
Technology as legitimacy wash	• Dashboards replace moral courage. • Institutions showcase platforms instead of acting.

What you must do to prevent this

Issue	Prevention Measures
Surveillance rather than protection	• Limit data access and mandate intermediary governance. • Include affected communities in design and decision-making.
Data without consequence	• Tie alerts to decision chains with named responsibilities. • Track and publicize “ignored warnings” in accountability reports.
Technology as legitimacy wash	• Evaluate tools only by whether they change outcomes. • Demand external review on effectiveness, not presentation.

Cross-Cutting Guardrails to Avoid the Rabbit Hole

These principles apply to all Five Actions. They help prevent reform from becoming ritual. They keep architecture tied to conscience. They make moral paralysis visible — and costly.

Issue	Prevention Measures
Opaque processes	• Publish who blocked what, and why. • Expose process delays and political manipulation.
Symbolic reform	• Link every mechanism to harm reduction metrics. • Withdraw support from purely performative policies.
Silenced witnesses	• Create protected channels for insider testimony. • Build the “Silence Was Complicity” archive.

The Rabbit Hole Test Before You Support Any Initiative

A simple evaluative test to apply before endorsing any initiative under The Spirit of Dag. It helps detect capture, performative reform, and political theater. Use it as a gating mechanism.

Key Question	What to Check
Does this create new rents or recognition for conflict actors?	Follow the money, visibility, and status rewards: who profits?
Can we show how it might realistically be misused?	Test it against real cases (Darfur, South Sudan, Syria, Tigray, Gaza).
Have we built at least one hard constraint or protection against this misuse?	Does the design include red lines, eligibility conditions, or compliance triggers?
Is there a clear chain of action when the mechanism is triggered?	Who must do what — and what happens if they do nothing?
Will non-use or abuse be publicly recorded?	Is there reputational cost, exposure, or archival accountability?