Sudan and the Not so Comprehensive Peace

This special section examines the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) between the Government of the Republic of the Sudan and the Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army. It focuses on why the agreement was possible, the challenges involved in reaching and implementing it, and the issues that now lay ahead for both North and South Sudan. The purpose of this undertaking is to tease out what lessons might be learnt from this case for the future study and practice of seeking to settle civil wars through agreement and implementation of conflict settlements. This introductory article first provides a brief summary of the Sudanese civil war; it then examines the CPA's power and wealth-sharing arrangements and their implementation to date; and finally concludes with an analysis of statebuilding in the recently independent South Sudan.