Page 462 - 100 Reflections that Crafted Geneva International_V-Petrovsky_private special edition

100 Reflections that Crafted Geneva International

separate warring parties is not enough. Nor is it even enough to conduct
preventive diplomatic actions. It is necessary to act at a deeper level for
prevention of violent conflicts before they arise. This is a reason why the
Secretary-General has recently submitted at the request of the Security Council
a report on the “Prevention of Armed Conflict”. In drafting the report, he took
into account the different views arid considerations of Member States
expressed in recent debates of the General Assembly and the Security Council
on conflict prevention.

The work of the United Nations system in the field of conflict prevention
is not new, but it is often disparate and inchoate. In the present report, which is
now under consideration in the Security Council, the Secretary-General
stressed that conflict prevention, which lies at the heart of the mandate of the
United Nations in the maintenance of international peace and security, needs
comprehensive and coherent strategies to offer the greatest potential for
creating an enabling environment for sustainable development. Effective
preventive actions require the establishment of new mechanisms for discussing
prevention cases in a more structured way. Beyond the proposed specific
mechanisms, the Secretary-General's intention is to provide periodic regional
or sub-regional reports to the Security Council on disputes that can potentially
threaten peace and stability.

In order to intensity the United Nations efforts for moving from culture of
reaction to one of prevention and for translating “the promise of conflict
prevention into concrete action” the Secretary-General proposed the following
10 principles to guide the Organization's future approach:

• Conflict prevention is one of the primary obligations of Member
States set forth in the Charter of the United Nations, and United
Nations efforts in this field must be in conformity with the purposes
and principles of the Charter;

• Conflict prevention must have national ownership. The primary re-
sponsibility for conflict prevention rests with national Governments,
with civil society playing an important role. The United Nations and
the international community should support national effort for con-
flict prevention and should assist in building national capacity in this
field. Conflict prevention activities can therefore help to support the
sovereignty of Member States;

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