A Stitch in Time

1 Margareta Sollenberg & Peter Wallensteen, SIPRI Yearbook, Appendix 1A (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001). The Center for International Development and Conflict Management at the University of Maryland estimates that armed conflicts decreased in number and intensity by about half in the 1990s; see http://www.bsos.umd.edu/cidcm/.

2 Steve Stedman, Implementing Peace Agreements in Civil Wars: Lessons and Recommendations for Policy Makers (New York: International Peace Academy, May 2001), p. 1.

3 Barbara Walter estimates that between 50% and 70% of negotiated peace agreements fail to hold. See Committing to Peace: The Successful Settlement of Civil Wars (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001). Some estimate that as few as 15% of internal conflicts end in negotiated settlements. See International IDEA, Democracy and Deep-Rooted Conflict: Options for Negotiators (Stockholm, 1998), ch. 1.4.

4 See Appendix 15 of the Sixth Report of the House of Commons Select Committee on International Development, Session 1998-99 (London: HMSO, 1999).

5 Michael Cranna, ed., The True Cost of Conflict (London: Earthscan, 1994).

6 Carnegie Commission on Preventing Deadly Conflict (CCPDC), Preventing Deadly Conflict: Final Report (Washington, DC: CCPDC & Carnegie Corporation of New York, 1997), ch. 1.

7 United Nations Development Programme, Human Development Index (HDI) (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001).

8 Kofi Annan, `Preventing Conflict in the Next Century', in The World in 2000 (London: The Economist), p. 77.

9 BBC/Jane's Defence Weekly, '78 Days: An Audit of War', broadcast segment of BBC series entitled `Kosovo: The Reckoning', BBC 2, 17 October 1999.

10 Albrecht Schnabel & Ramesh Thakur, eds, Kosovo and the Challenge of Humanitarian Intervention: Selective Indignation, Collective Intervention, and International Citizenship (Tokyo: United Nations University, 1999).

11 Michael E. Brown & Richard N. Rosecrance, eds, The Costs of Conflict: Prevention and Cure in the Global Arena (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, for Carnegie Commission on Preventing Deadly Conflict, January 1999).

12 Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry Regarding the Events in Rwanda, Belgian Senate, Session of 1997-1998, 6 December 1997; Report of the Independent Inquiry into the Actions of the United Nations During the 1994 Genocide In Rwanda, A/54/549 (New York: United Nations, 15 December 1999); `Rwanda: The Preventable Genocide', Special Report of the Organization of African Unity (OAU) and the International Panel of Eminent Personalities (IPEP) to Investigate the 1994 Genocide in Rwanda and the Surrounding Events (Addis Ababa: OAU, 7 July 2000).

13 Scott Feil, Preventing Genocide: How the Early Use of Force Might Have Succeeded in Rwanda (Washington, DC: Carnegie Commission on Preventing Deadly Conflict, 1998).

14 `The International Response to Conflict and Genocide: Lessons from the Rwanda Experience', a report of the Steering Committee of the Joint Evaluation of Emergency Assistance to Rwanda, sponsored by Danida, government of Denmark (Copenhagen: Royal Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 1997).

15 Andrea Kathryn Talentino, `Rwanda', in Brown & Rosecrance (note 11 above), pp. 53-74, on pp. 54-56.

16 William Shawcross, Deliver Us from Evil: Peacekeepers, Warlords and a World of Endless Conflict (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000).

17 See, for example, EU Programme for the Prevention of Violent Conflicts, adopted at the Gothenburg European Council (15-16 June 2001); OECD-DAC, `Helping Prevent Violent Conflict: Orientations for External Partners', supplement to the DAC Guidelines on Conflict, Peace and Development Co-operation, available at http://www1.oecd.org/dac/htm/conf.htm; Conclusions of the Meeting of the G8 Foreign Ministers (Rome, 18-19 July 2001), Attachment 2: G8 Roma Initiatives on Conflict Prevention; available at http://www.g8.gc.ca/july-18-01-4-e.asp.

18 United Nations Security Council Resolution 1366 (2001) of 30 August 2001 on the role of the Security Council in the prevention of armed conflicts.

19 Prevention of Armed Conflict, Report of the Secretary-General, A/55/985-S/2001/574, 7 June 2001.

20 United Nations Development Programme, `Role of UNDP in Crisis and Post-Conflict Situations, paper for the UNDP executive board (DP/2001/4, 27 November 2000), para. 45. The executive board approved these measures in its first regular session of 2001. This decision built on previous board decisions which allocated 5% of UNDP's core resources for `preventive and curative development'. 20% of this `TRAC 3' funding window has been set aside for prevention activities specifically.

21 United Nations, Report of the Panel on UN Peace Operations (the Brahimi Report), available at http://www.un.org/peace/reports/peace_operations/.

22 Abdelaziz Bouteflika, President of Algeria and at that time Chairman of the OAU, in his address to the General Assembly, 20 September 1999.

23 Lakdhar Brahimi, inaugural address at the International Conference on State Sovereignty in the 21st Century, ICWA-IDSA, India Habitat Centre, New Delhi, 23-24 July 2001.

24 Security Council SC/7081 4334th Meeting (AM & PM), 21 June 2001.

25 Annan (note 8 above).

26 There are currently almost 50 such envoys or special representatives of the Secretary-General, many of whom are charged with political mediation to prevent the outbreak or recurrence of violence; see http://www.un.org/News/ossg/srsg/.

27 The most common way to measure poverty is by tracking income and consumption levels. Studies that examine the links between poverty and conflict - including papers by James Fearon & David Laitin, Paul Collier, and others - tend to use GDP per capita, but they also acknowledge social indicators, such as risk, vulnerability, social exclusion and access to social capital.

28 OECD-DAC, Measuring Development Progress: A Working Set of Core Indicators (Paris: OECD-DAC, 2000).

29 Ted Robert Gurr, Monty G. Marshall & Deepa Khosla, Peace and Conflict 2001: A Global Survey of Armed Conflicts, Self-Determination Movements, and Democracy, available at http://www.bsos.umd.edu/cidcm/peace.htm.

30 Tony Addison & S. Mansoob Murshed, Why Some Countries Avoid Conflict While Others Fail (Helsinki: UNU/WIDER, October 2000).

31 Gurr et al. (note 29 above).

32 Frances Stewart has found in her study of the root causes of complex humanitarian emergencies that `horizontal inequality... [is] the fundamental source of organised conflict. Such horizontal inequality may have political, social or economic dimensions'. The Root Causes of Conflict: Some Conclusions (Oxford: Queen Elizabeth House, June 1998).

33 The World Bank has asserted that, during the period 1965-99, `the risk of civil war has been systematically related to a few key economic conditions such as dependence upon primary commodity exports and low national income'. From this, the bank concludes that the financial viability of rebel groups - their greed rather than their grievance - is the indicator of civil war. Paul Collier, Economic Causes of Civil Conflict and their Implications for Policy (Washington, DC: World Bank, June 2000).

34 International IDEA (note 3 above), ch. 5.4.2.

35 Bruce W. Jentleson, ed., Opportunities Missed, Opportunities Seized (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2000), p. 337. The failed cases include Somalia, Rwanda, Chechnya, Nagorno-Karabakh, Croatia-Bosnia and the Democratic Republic of Congo, while the success stories are Macedonia, Ukraine, the Baltic republics, North Korea and initially Congo (Brazzaville).

36 Jacob Bercovitch & Jeffrey Langley, `The Nature of the Dispute and the Effectiveness of International Mediation', Journal of Conflict Resolution, vol. 37, no. 4, December 1993, pp. 670-691.

37 Charles K. Cater & Karin Wermester (rapporteurs), From Reaction to Prevention: Opportunities for the UN System in the New Millennium, a report based on an international policy conference on the prevention of violent conflict, New York, 13-14 April 2000 (New York: International Peace Academy, 2000).

38 In 1990, the New York Times predicted the breakup of Yugoslavia (28 November 1990). See also Misha Glenny, `Bosnia II?', New York Times, 9 December 1997, and the report of Bacre Waly Ndiaye, Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Executions, on his mission to Rwanda from 8 to 17 April 1994 (E/CN.4/1994/7/Add.1), warning of genocide in Rwanda.

39 Jentleson (note 35 above), pp. 324, 320.

40 Report of the Secretary-General (note 19 above), para. 103.

41 Peter Uvin, Aiding Violence: The Development Enterprise in Rwanda (West Hartford, CT: Kumarian, 1998).

42 The Canadian government first proposed `Peace and Conflict Impact Assessments' in September 1996 in a report to the OECD, recommending `a procedure... to examine the social, political, economic, and human consequences, both beneficial and adverse, of a proposed development project in violence-prone regions, and to ensure that these consequences are taken into account in project design'; Kenneth D. Bush, `Good Practice for the Peace and Conflict Impact Assessment (PCIA) of Development Projects', a discussion paper prepared for CIDA for the OECD-DAC Task Force on Conflict, Peace and Development Cooperation, Paris, 16-17 September 1996.