The Asia-Pacific Security Lexicon (Upated 2nd Edition)

PREVENTIVE DIPLOMACY

199 PREVENTIVE DIPLOMACY Coined by the second Secr etary-General of the United Nations, Dag Hammarskold, in 1960. According to Simon Tay, the concept is based on public international law , in particular the United Nations’ goal to “take ef fective collective measur es for the prevention and removal of threats to peace” set out in Article 1 of the United Nations Charter .1 In the context of the Cold W ar, Hammarskold saw preventive diplomacy principally as a means of keeping regional and local conflicts isolated fr om the superpower stand-off. He urged the creation of hotlines, risk-reduction centres, and transparency measures with the goal of avoiding “action by one or other of the superpowers that might lead to escalation and nuclear confrontation”.2 As it is used today , however, the concept of pr eventive diplomacy is more closely identified with another United Nations Secretary-General, Boutros Boutros-Ghali. In his 1992 book, An Agenda for Peace , Boutros-Ghali revived and r econceptualized preventive diplomacy for use in the post-Cold W ar world. He defined the concept as “action to pr event disputes from arising between parties, to prevent existing disputes from escalating into conflicts and to limit the spr ead of the latter when they occur”. 3 His report distinguished preventive diplomacy from other types of diplomatic action, including peacebuilding, peacekeeping, and 02 A_Pac Security Lexicon 9/28/07, 2:49 PM 199 200 peacemaking, because of its emphasis on solving disputes before they turn into actual conflict. According to one description, preventive diplomacy differs from ordinary diplomacy in that “it signifies active, rather than r eactive, responses to situations that threaten peace. Its scope is mor e ambitious and immediate.” 4 Preventive diplomacy remains a strongly contested term, however, and as one r eport published in Singapor e on the subject noted, “there is no consensus on the meaning, scope and purpose of [preventive diplomacy] or how it would apply to security-related issues in the Asia-Pacific region.”5 A key area of dispute about the meaning of pr eventive diplomacy revolves around the question of the means to be used to prevent conflict from breaking out or spreading. Does preventive diplomacy include acts that go beyond traditional diplomatic methods, such as the use or thr eat of use of military for ce? The answer to this question seems to hinge on whether the analyst puts greater emphasis on thepreventive or the diplomacy component of the definition. In one analysis of the concept in the Asia-Pacific context,AmitavAcharya offers a broad interpretation of preventive diplomacy, which he says is derived fr om Boutros-Ghali’s definition. He says preventive diplomacy is diplomatic, political, military, economic, and humanitarian action undertaken by governments, multilateral (the United Nations as well as regional groups) organizations and international agencies (including non-governmental actors) with the aim of: (1) pr eventing severe disputes and conflicts from arising between and within states; (2) preventing such disputes and conflicts fr om escalating into armed confr ontation; (3) limiting the intensity of violence resulting from such conflicts and preventing them from spreading geographically; (4) pr eventing and managing acute humanitarian crises associated with (either as the cause or the ef fect of) such conflicts; (5) as part of the immediate r esponse to a crisis or pr e-crisis situation, initiating measures that might contribute to the eventual resolution of the dispute. He says these measur es can vary fr om “a simple telephone conversation during a crisis” to the “deployment of military units”. 6 Acharya further argues there are two categories of preventive diplomacy: peacetime measur es and crisis-time measur es. PREVENTIVE DIPLOMACY 02 A_Pac Security Lexicon 9/28/07, 2:49 PM 200 201 Peacetime measures include confidence-building measur es (CBMs); institution-building and the constr uction of norms of acceptable behaviour; early warning; and pr eventive humanitarian action.7 He says these instr uments are not just channels for the state or United Nations action, but can also include participation by non-governmental or ganizations (NGOs) and r egional organizations. Crisis-term measures include fact-finding missions; good offices and goodwill missions; crisis management; and “preventive deployment” which Acharya distinguishes fr om peacekeeping, arguing it “involves the dispatch of units to tr ouble spots to prevent the widening or escalation of a conflict with or without the mutual consent of the rivals. Thus, pr eventive...