Preventing Deadly Conflict Final Report

Arguing that the project stems directly from Andrew Carnegie's quest for peace, this book looks at ways to prevent war, from equitable development to strengthening the UN. Chapters look at operational and structural preventions and the responsibility of states and the UN in preventing conflict. One copy provided gratis from the Carnegie Commission on Preventing Deadly Conflict, 1779 Massachusetts Ave. NW, Suite 715, Washington, DC 20036-2103; (202) 332-7900; [email protected]. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR.

Rapport over de bestrijding van dodelijke conflicten tussen landen over de hele wereld.

Drawing on work conducted by the Carnegie Commission on Preventing Deadly Conflict, a study of the prevention of war and genocide examines such concepts as preventive diplomacy, the role of civil society, socioeconomic development, and international cooperation.

Three inescapable observations form the foundation of this report. First, deadly conflict is not inevitable. Violence on the scale of what we have seen in Bosnia, Rwanda, Somalia, and elsewhere does not emerge inexorably from human interaction. Second, the need to prevent deadly conflict is increasingly urgent. The rapid compression of the world through breathtaking population growth, technological advancement, and economic interdependence, combined with the readily available supply of deadly weapons and easily transmitted contagion of hatred and incitement to violence, make it essential and urgent to find ways to prevent disputes from turning massively violent. Third, preventing deadly conflict is possible. The problem is not that we do not know about incipient and large-scale violence; it is that we often do not act. Examples from "hot spots" around the world illustrate that the potential for violence can be defused through the early, skillful, and integrated application of political, diplomatic, economic, and military measures. The Carnegie Commission on Preventing Deadly Conflict does not believe in the unavoidable clash of civilizations or in an inevitably violent future. War and mass violence usually result from deliberate political decisions, and the Commission believes that these decisions can be affected so that mass violence does not result. To undertake effective preventive action, the Commission believes that we must develop an international commitment to the concept of prevention, a habit of preventive investment, more effective regimes for controlling destructive weaponry, and a working portfolio of legal standards that rest on a normative consensus regarding the responsibilities of governments to each other and to their peoples. Responsible leaders, key intergovernmental and nongovernmental institutions, and civil society can do far better in preventing deadly conflict than the record of this century and the current epidemic of violence suggest. c.

"The science of medicine was the first to discover that 'an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, '" Henryk Sokalski reminds us as he begins this study of a unique United Nations mission. "In the political realm, however, its full potential has yet to be realized." Sokalski, former head of the United Nations Preventive Deployment Force (UNPREDEP) in the former Yugoslav republic of Macedonia, provides the ultimate insider's look at the UN's attempt to establish a mission in this former Yugoslav republic before the imminent eruption of mass violence spilling over from neighboring Balkan states Serbia and its overwhelmingly ethnic Albanian province of Kosovo in particular.An "Ounce of Prevention" and the UNPREDEP mission itself begins in early 1995 with a telephone call to Sokalski at his Warsaw home from UN Secretary General Boutros-Ghali, and it ends several years later in a disappointing Security Council veto of the mission's renewal. In between, Sokalski's study of this "novel experiment in UN peacekeeping" describes the mission's three "pillars" as well as contending theories on preventive diplomacy and early preventive action, contemporary Balkan history, and the daily bureaucratic and human challenges of reinventing civil society. All the while, Sokalski attempts to answer the question of whether the mission's renewed mandate could have prevented the country's recent destructive insurgency and whether UNPREDEP's truncated success could serve as a model for future UN preventive deployments."