This book is truly unique in that it presents a series of cases in which conflict prevention efforts have been successful at the United Nations and in other international organizations. It presents detailed case studies of the methods used and the diplomacy applied to head off conflicts or to contain them swiftly. Some of the chapters are riveting in their details. The book is the first on conflict prevention as actually applied in practice. It gives a convincingly positive answer to the question: 'Does conflict prevention work in practice?'.It does! The book also contains up-to-date accounts of the policies and practices of early warning and preventive action in a series of international and regional organizations, including ASEAN, the African Union, IGAD and the United Nations. Practice is thus presented alongside evolving policies and programmes. The book deals not only with efforts to prevent conflicts but also to head off gross violations of human rights - an urgent challenge of our times. As Professor Paul Kennedy of Yale University writes in his Foreword, the excellent essays in this volume make it a truly valuable book. At a time when the United Nations is searching for the way forward, this book provides valuable leads for the practice of conflict prevention. It is essential reading for peace-builders, peacemakers and human rights practitioners.

This book traces the trajectory and different meanings of the concept of peacebuilding in the United Nations since the early 1990s. It analyses how that concept gained life in a particular context and the implications of this process for the Organisation’s support to societies affected by armed conflict in general and for peace operations in particular. Departing from tenets about the influence of ideas in world politics and engaging with the critique of the liberal peace scholarship, the book provides a theoretically informed narrative of how peacebuilding acquired different meanings while remaining largely motivated, justified, legitimated and informed by a proactive and top-down agenda of promoting liberal democratic institutions, norms and values as a remedy to the challenges faced by societies affected by armed conflict. The book will appeal to scholars, policymakers and practitioners in peacebuilding and post-conflict development.

Post-Conflict Peacebuilding comes at a critical time for post-conflict peacebuilding. Its rapid move towards the top of the international political agenda has been accompanied by added scrutiny, as the international community seeks to meet the multi-dimensional challenges of building a just and sustainable peace in societies ravaged by war. Beyond the strictly operational dimension, there is considerable ambiguity in the concepts and terminology used to discuss post-conflict peacebuilding. This ambiguity undermines efforts to agree on common understandings of how peace can be most effectively 'built', thereby impeding swift, coherent action. Accordingly, this lexicon aims to clarify and illuminate the multiple facets of post-conflict peacebuilding, by presenting its major themes and trends from an analytical perspective. To this end, the book opens with a general introduction on the concept of post-conflict peacebuilding, followed by twenty-six essays on its key elements (including capacity-building, conflict transformation, reconciliation, recovery, rule of law, security sector reform, and transitional justice). Written by international experts from a range of disciplines, including political science and international relations, international law, economics, and sociology, these essays cover the whole spectrum of post-conflict peacebuilding. In reflecting a diversity of perspectives the lexicon sheds light on many different challenges associated with post-conflict peacebuilding. For each key concept a generic definition is proposed, which is then expanded through discussion of three main areas: the meaning and origin of the concept; its content and essential components; and its means of implementation, including lessons learned from past practice.

This Handbookoffers a comprehensive examination of the Responsibility to Protect norm in world politics, which aims to end mass atrocities against civilians. The Responsibility to Protect (R2P) is amongst the most significant norms in global politics. As the authoritative guide to R2P, this edited volume gathers together the most respected and insightful voices to address key issues related to this emerging norm. The contributing authors do this over the course of three parts: Part I: The Concept of R2P Part II: Developing and Operationalising R2P Part III: The view from Over Here This book will be of much interest to students of R2P, humanitarian intervention, genocide, human rights, international law, peace studies, international organisations, security studies and IR.

The concept of preventive diplomacy has captivated the United Nations since it was first articulated by Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld a half-century ago. Successive generations of diplomats and statesmen have invested in the idea that diplomatic efforts might be able to head off international conflicts and disasters. Dramatic successes, such as the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, contrast with dramatic failures, such as the inability of UN efforts to halt the invasion of Iraq in 2003. In this careful study, distinguished former UN civil servant Bertrand G. Ramcharan traces the history of the practice of preventive diplomacy by UN Secretaries-General, the Security Council, and other UN organizations, and assesses the record of preventive diplomacy and examines its prospects in an age of genocide and terrorism.

In this first systematic examination of the role of the top United Nations human rights official, editors Felice Gaer and Christen Broecker analyze the achievements, leadership styles of, and obstacles encountered by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, and propose recommendations for the future. The editors are joined by 18 expert contributors including present and former UN policymakers, human rights practitioners, legal scholars, and current High Commissioner Navi Pillay. The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights: Conscience for the World examines how the six individuals who have served in this post have worked to end atrocities, hold perpetrators of abuses to account, promote equality and justice, and provide protection and redress to victims.

Advancing new sense-making tools for organizational strategy, this book demonstrates how to deal with asymmetric threats and opportunities. It employs participatory methods and multiple sector strategies to shift strategic thinking into considering disorder complexity and chaos. The contributors examine whether the 'third lens' or ontology of a project (its nature, work and strategic landscape) should influence the two other 'lenses' (our epistemological and methodological choices) that create an understanding of the world we live in. The book also considers the importance of time, in particular spatio-temporal relations that serve as reflection points for sense-making and strategic decision-making, both with respect to the situation in which they take place and as conceptual vehicles for managing multiple times and realities. Written for 21st century strategists, this volume will benefit people and organizations who struggle daily with multiple co-existing ontological, epistemological and methodological discourses.