Peace Keeping
Conflict Prevention Mechanism
• A number of approaches may be relied upon
to manage or resolve conflicts.
• Former UN secretary-general BoutrosGhali
(1992) in identifying four broad approaches
was the first to draw serious attention, at an
official level, to the idea of conflict
prevention.
• (1) peacemaking; (2) peacekeeping; (3)
peacebuilding; and (4) preventive diplomacy.
Peacemaking
• Peacemaking is an approach to conflict that seeks to
bring hostile parties to an agreement by peaceful
means. Peacemaking techniques rely on the
traditional tools of negotiation, mediation,
conciliation, arbitration, adjudication, or any other
peaceful means the parties may choose.
• Peacemaking may be further enhanced by mobilizing
resources and financial assistance to get the parties,
especially fragile states, to commit to a peaceful
settlement and to stick to it.
Peacekeeping
• Peacekeeping, one of the most important innovations of the
UN, is an approach designed to separate hostile parties,
contain the severity of a conflict, reduce tensions, and provide
opportunities and incentives for resuming negotiations.
• Peacekeeping is in effect an attempt to interpose between the
combatants and thus stop further escalation.
• As an international response to conflict, peacekeeping is
predicated on parties’ consent and use of force in self-defense
only (this is what makes it acceptable to parties in conflict).
Peacebuilding measures
• Peacebuilding measures, on the other hand, include
efforts that go well beyond limiting violence and
securing a political settlement.
• Peacebuilding includes measures to identify the root
causes of conflict and create structures that will
support a sense of certainty, confidence, and
security between hostile parties.
• Peacebuilding measures are designed to be
applied at the postconflict phase to prevent
the recurrence of violent conflict. Such
measures usually take the form of concrete
cooperative projects from which all parties
involved may benefit, joint programs that
reduce hostility and foster a commitment to
peace and economic development, and the
development of many sectors of a civil society.
Preventive Diplomacy
• Preventive diplomacy is a very different
approach to conflict. It has a strong emphasis
on prevention rather than cure, and it
involves actions that aim to identify a place
where a conflict is likely to take place, create
mechanisms to warn the international
community against it, and marshal political
will to stop the conflict from un- raveling.
• Central to preventive diplomacy is the desire
to reduce the potential for violence, make it
an unreasonable option, and create conditions
that encourage peaceful resolution of political
differences (e.g., deal with underlying
injustices and inequalities that make people
resort to violence).
Defining Conflict Prevention
• Conflict prevention is essentially about means
and ends: how to identify situations that
might become dangerous, violent, and very
destructive, and how to stop them from
becoming so. It is not about preventing
normal everyday conflicts but rather trying to
avoid the descent into violence and
destruction.
• Distinguishing between proactive policies that
reduce the underlying structural conditions
that lead to violence, and preventive policies
that address the immediate sources of
conflict.
• “long term proactive operational or structural
strategy undertaken by a variety of actors,
intended to identify and create enabling
conditions for a stable and more predictable
international security environment”.
• Addressing structural causes of conflict such
as poverty, social, political, and economic
inequality; and corrupt governance.
Components of an Effective Conflict
Prevention Regime
• (1) early warning and response systems, (2)
confidence-building measures, and (3) other
diplomatic missions.
Preventive Diplomacy: Actions
• Confidence-Building Measures
• Confidence-building measures play a very
different role from early warning and response
systems in preventing violent conflict.
Uncertainty, anxiety, reciprocal fears, and
misperceptions between conflicting parties
pose a great threat to peace and security.
• Confidence-building mea- sures are designed
to lower the uncertainty, reduce the anxiety,
and eliminate the misperceptions inherent in
any unstable structure.
Diplomatic Efforts
• Coercive diplomacy, fact-finding, mediation,
and negotiation.
• Coercive diplomacy can be defined as a
technique of statecraft that attempts to get a
target (i.e., state, group within a state, or
nonstate actor) to change its behavior through
the threat to use force or through the actual
use of limited force.
• A number of scholars argue that sufficiently
credible threats and the use of military force
can make a crucial difference in preventing
conflicts.
• However, coercive diplomatic efforts do not
remove the causes of the conflict; they only
suppress them. Once the threat of force has
ceased, the conflict will most likely erupt
again. It is therefore necessary to consider
alternative methods of preventive
engagement.
Fact-finding
• Fact-finding, which involves the investigation of a
particular issue by a neutral international
organization or a committee within the conflict
areas. However, fact-finding missions only report
their findings; they do not have the power to offer
solutions or convince the parties to negotiate. In
addition, such missions are frequently undermined
by the unwillingness of the conflict parties to
cooperate, and they are often accused of bias toward
one party by the other.