Most violent conflicts in today’s world are civil wars
between communities, rather than wars between independent states. Many of these
armed conflicts are protracted and are often sustained by arms supplies from
foreign countries. These civil wars cause severe humanitarian crisis, such as
mass murder of innocent civilians, non-combatants and ethnic or religious
minorities, indeed developments that can prompt the international community to
consider humanitarian intervention. Overwhelming arguments have been made in
academic circles, focusing on the question of who should intervene, as well as
when and how. A long-term commitment to conflict prevention and social
reconstruction is crucial for successful intervention.

The arguments relating to humanitarian intervention have
encouraged a reconsideration of the principle of state sovereignty and
non-intervention in domestic affairs. It has been argued that the cost and
benefit of the non-intervention principle can be re-examined, even revised by applying
‘the just war ethic’ from the Christian tradition. Military intervention,
masquerading as humanitarian intervention must be the last resort and has to be
conducted with the sanction of the Security Council and with restrictive use of
coercive force. All efforts should be made for peaceful settlement, based on
diplomacy and other non-intrusive methods.

Conflict-prevention as policy has a moral and political
appeal. Successful preventive measures can spare populations from the scourge
of war, displacement and death. They save the international community the cost,
the risk and political controversy. They shield the international community
from the many dangers of spillover from intrastate wars, including refugee
flows, arms trafficking, trans-national criminality and the unchecked spread of
disease. Preventive strategies are less mired in the perplexing question of
sovereignty.

The concept of “conflict prevention” is not new in terms of
international diplomacy. The League of Nations and the United Nations were
established with the explicit intent to frame and formulate collective measures
for the prevention and removal of threats to peace. However, prevention has
received far greater attention in the post-Cold War era due to the increasing
intrastate wars, genocide and deadly conflicts and the sobering international
experience with belated peace-keeping intervention during complex political
emergencies.

In 1992, Boutros Boutros- Ghali, the then Secretary -General
of the UN, released the report, An Agenda for Peace, identifying preventive
diplomacy as the most desirable and efficient option for managing conflicts
through confidence-building measures, early warning, fact- finding
capabilities, rapid deployment capacity and diplomatic mediation. Frustration and
setbacks with the UN peacekeeping and peace enforcement operations in the years
following the release of An Agenda for Peace only reinforced the value of the
report’s conflict-prevention message.

There is no precise definition of conflict-prevention. Armed
conflicts cannot be examined without reference to the root or structural
reasons. The most commonly cited factors include poverty, high levels of income
inequality, overpopulation and resource scarcity, political repression and
authoritarianism, suppression of minority rights, corruption and human rights
violation. Ignoring these factors amounts to addressing the symptoms rather
than the cause of conflict. This view is not universally accepted, however.
Broadening the definition of conflict-prevention to include development and
governance issues may not be appropriate in all cases. Social inequities and
resource scarcity do not always lead to conflict and they can produce healthy
non-violent conflict that catalyses positive social change. Others contend that
the holistic approach of equating conflict-prevention with correction of all
social inequities and with advancement of broad economic and social development
objectives practically renders prevention impossible.

Hence, the definition of conflict-prevention has been
extended to include post-conflict assistance. Conflict-prevention would then
include efforts to prevent armed hostilities from getting worse as well as
preventing armed violence in the first place. Boutros Boutros-Ghali advocated
this vision of preventive action in An Agenda for Peace by defining it as
‘action to prevent disputes from arising between parties, to prevent existing
disputes from escalating into conflicts, and to limit the spread of the latter
when they occur’.

In 1999, the Security Council recognized that early
warnings, preventive diplomacy, preventive deployment, preventive disarmament,
and post-conflict peace initiatives were interdependent and complementary
components of a comprehensive strategy. The most appropriate approach appears
to be a combination of structural prevention and post-conflict restoration of
peace. It is in the early stages of a dispute that preventive measures have the
maximum chance of success. Experience has shown that in many cases it has not
been possible to anticipate the impending crisis.

All preventive strategies and interventions do not come in
conflict with state sovereignty; many such measures are relatively
non-intrusive. The targeted development assistance, promotion of private
investment, capacity building programmes for governments and civil society and
offers of mediation do not negate the concept of sovereignty. Other tools
commonly cited in the conflict-prevention matrix do intervene with sovereignty.
Sanctions, monitoring of human rights, arms embargo, conditions of international
law, pre-emptive peace-keeping forces are measures that intrude into state
sovereignty.

Unresolved debates over the principle of state sovereignty
versus the principle of humanitarian intervention have often clouded
discussions on strengthening preventive capacities. In the debates of the
Security Council, many member countries have responded with considerable
scepticism to the call for formulating prevention strategies. They have argued
that such actions must never affect their territorial integrity and sovereignty.
The move to codify a principle of prevention and humanitarian intervention is a
Trojan horse that although dressed in the language of human rights can be used
by the more powerful states to justify direct interference in the domestic
affairs of weaker and smaller states. The fact that most of the appeals for
more robust acts of prevention come from Western countries and all humanitarian
interventions occur in weak states tends to reinforce this fear. Advocates have
argued that extreme circumstances can arise within countries when the security
of people is so extensively endangered that collective action under
international law is justified. Under such situations, state sovereignty should
simply yield to higher principles to find a balance between the needs of good
internal governance and the requirements of an ever more interdependent world.
This argument is not based on a broad global consensus.

Many seemingly avoidable intrastate conflicts in recent
years have inspired only token international efforts towards prevention.
Moreover, when sustained preventive measures have been undertaken, the results
have been mixed.  There are few examples
of successful preventive diplomacy since the Cold War; failed preventive action
and missed opportunities are more frequent. Part of the problem is rooted in
the gap between rhetorical support and tangible commitment to preventive
action. Development assistance has declined since 1990, militating against
efforts to address the fundamental factors that can ignite conflict.

At the political level, consensus over the question of
appropriate and effective preventive strategies has remained extremely elusive.
As a result, the costs of failure to prevent deadly conflicts have continued to
mount – in Bosnia, Congo, East Timor, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sudan,
Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere. It is imperative to improve
conflict-prevention methods. Preventing death and suffering of millions and to
achieve enduring peace is the formidable challenge that confronts human
development. The comity of nations should pursue policies that make
satisfactory peace more likely and more lasting. For that to happen, a strong
political will and an equally strong institutional capacity of the UN and
regional organizations to engage in conflict-prevention is necessary.

By H  Khasnobis