Leaders support global truce to turn fire on coronavirus

Okay, so, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, and the Yemen have been especially brutal. Syria is winding down, but the rest are more than capable of flaring up. Effectively, they are very much ongoing in terms of death tolls. Wikipedia is quite reliable on this. So, look at the Yemen, where Saudi is backing one side and Iran the other: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yemeni_Civil_War_(2015%E2%80%93present). Do not focus on military casualties, although these matter. Focus instead on what we in the business (I am on the Economic and Business Research Committee of the Center for Global Nonkilling) call 'excess deaths'. So, here, we are focusing on excess civilian deaths and lives ruined:

112,000+ killed overall in Yemen (12,600+ civilians)[146]
500+ killed overall in Saudi Arabia[147]
49,960 wounded overall in Yemen[148] (10,768 civilians)[149]
3,154,572 people displaced[150]

84,701 children died from starvation (per Save the Children)[151] and 2,556 people died due to a cholera outbreak (April 2017–October 2018)[152]

As you can see, the death toll of children has been particularly horrific. Minelaying has been endemic, with millions now disabled. A UN ceasefire would enable state actors and NGOs to help more civilians and get basic services, like hospitals and schools, as well as agriculture, up and running again. At the same time, state actors embracing the ceasefire would now hold higher moral ground than, e.g., Al Qaeda on the Arab Peninsular (AQAP). The Houthi rebels or AQAP 'violating' the universal ceasefire could reduce support for them. The Saudi's have already embraced the ceasefire, providing them with the higher moral ground against Iran: "After the United Nations urged both sides to pursue peace talks in order to respond to the 2020 coronavirus pandemic in Yemen,[452] the Saudi-led coalition called a unilateral ceasefire beginning 9 April at noon, to support efforts to stop the virus's spread.[453] "

What is needed is enough external pressure on the local actors to restart UN-mediated peace talks. These are geared towards a 7-state federal solution rather than the present 'winner-takes-all' single state model. Giving peace a chance gives time for expert mediators to get to work in an atmosphere where there is less shelling and altruistic humanitarian behavior is emphasized on the one hand, and social dynamics like opprobium on the other.

There are different school of thought on the dynamics involved in why actors sign peace treaties, from neo-realist through rationalist-instrumentalist to social constructivism. I personally favour 'conforming instrumentalism', a hybrid explanation, with the reality being that actors do have different motivations on a continuum from realism to social constructivism, and these may be different for individuals and states participating in talks, signing treaties, and complying with treaties.