Peacebuilding

Peacebuilding is a long-term process involving activities which aim to reduce tensions and to end or prevent violence. Peacebuilding takes place before, during and after armed conflict and supports the conditions, attitudes and behaviour which lead to peaceful development. Activities include, inter alia, early warning, mediation, crisis management, development co-operation, human rights initiatives, and security policies when undertaken in a conflict sensitive way. Peacebuilding draws on the concept of human security.

Conflict Prevention

Conflict prevention refers to a variety of activities aimed at anticipating and averting the outbreak of conflict. Michael Lund's broad definition of conflict prevention is widely accepted: 'Any structural or intercessory means to keep intrastate or interstate tension and disputes from escalating into significant violence and use of armed forces, to strengthen the capabilities of potential parties to violent conflict for resolving such disputes peacefully, and to progressively reduce the underlying problems that produce these issues and disputes.'

Source: Michael Lund, 'Preventing violent interstate conflicts: Learning lessons from experience', in Paul van Tongeren, Hans von de Veen and Juliette Verhoeven, (eds), (2002), Searching for Peace in Europe and Eurasia: An Overview of Conflict Prevention and Peacebuilding Activities (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner)

According to the Carnegie Commission on the Prevention of Violent Conflict (1999), there are two categories of conflict prevention:

• Direct prevention/operational prevention: measures aimed at short-term prevention, often imminent escalation of a potential conflict (e.g. intervention by mediator).
• Structural prevention: focus on more long-term measures which address the underlying causes of a potential conflict along with potentially escalating factors (e.g. development assistance).

Similarly, the EU distinguishes between projecting stability (long-term prevention) and reacting quickly to nascent conflicts (short-term prevention).

Source: Commission Communication on Conflict Prevention (2001)

Conflict Transformation

Conflict transformation is based on the notion that 'conflict is normal in human relationships and that conflict is a motor for change'. According to Hugh Miall, conflict transformation is 'a process of engaging with and transforming the relationships, interests, discourses and, if necessary, the very constitution of society that supports the continuation of violent conflict'. Thus, conflict transformation is a long-term process which takes place at various levels of society (the personal, the relational, the structural and the cultural) and which aims at transforming conflict through negotiation, the development of understanding and knowledge, and compromise.

Sources: John Paul Lederach, (2003), The little book of conflict transformation (Intercourse: Good Books) and Hugh Miall, 'Conflict Transformation:A multi-dimensional task' in Alex Austin, Martina Fischer and Norbert Ropers, (eds), (2004), Transforming Ethnopolitical Conflict - The Berghof Handbook (Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften)

Human Security

Human security counters the narrow concept of security defined as tackling threats to the state (e.g. external aggression or as protection of national interests in foreign policy). In contrast to nation-state security, which focuses on the territorial integrity of the state, human security focuses on the security of people and is universal. It emphasises the importance of sustainable human development - instead of armanet, as a means to achieve security. The 1994 UNDP Human Development Report identified two main components of human security: freedom from fear and freedom from want. These are subject to various threats which can be grouped into the following seven interdependent categories: economic, food, health, environmental, personal, community and political security. According to the final report from the Commission on Human Security, human security 'complements state security, enhances human rights and strengthens human development. It seeks to protect people against a broad range of threats to individuals and communities and, further, to empower them to act on their behalf.'

Sources: UNDP Human Development Report 1994 and Commission on Human Security: Human Security Now (2003)

Peacekeeping

Although widely perceived as UN terminology, peacekeeping is not found in the UN Charter. Dag Hammarskjöld, the second UN Secretary-General, referred to it as belonging to ‘Chapter Six and a Half’ of the Charter, placing it between traditional methods of resolving disputes peacefully such as negotiation and mediation under Chapter VI and more forceful action as authorised under Chapter VII. According to Connie Peck, it is possible to distinguish between three generations of peacekeeping:

• First generation: Traditional peacekeeping by the UN to allow the conflict to cool off by assisting the parties in monitoring a cease-fire and be enabling negotiations towards a settlement to the conflict.
• Second generation: A more comprehensive form of peacemaking whereby the peacekeepers support the implementation of a comprehensive settlement, recently achieved.
• Third generation: Peacekeeping with a ‘humanitarian mandate’ which takes place during ongoing hostilities.

Source: Connie Peck, (1996), The United National as a Dispute Settlement System: Improving Mechanisms for the Prevention and Resolution of Conflict, (The Hague: Kluwer Law International)

Civilian Crisis Management

Civilian crisis management is an EU term to describe non-military crisis management used in EU CSDP missions. The need to establish coordinating mechanisms for EU and EU Member States’ civilian crisis management was first emphasised at the European Council meeting in December 1999 in Helsinki. At the European Council meeting in June 2000 in Feira, four priority areas for EU civilian crisis management were identified:

• Police
• Rule of Law
• Civilian Administration
• Civil Protection.

An Action Plan for Civilian Aspects of ESDP  was endorsed in June 2004 and Civilian Headline Goals for 2010 were approved in 2007.

Sources: June 2000 EU Presidency Report on Strengthening the Common European Security and Defense Policy, Action Plan for Civilian Aspects of ESDP and Civilian Headline Goals 2010