Introduction

Abstract

United Nations (UN) Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali’s 1992 Agenda for Peace¹ was an attempt to respond to entirely new opportunities and challenges in the world system. Addressing the precedents and the consequences of violent conflicts as integral parts of the dispute itself, the agenda went well beyond the UN’s previous understanding of conflict work. Although no binding terminology exists for measures taken regarding a conflict of supranational dimensions, I will for the purposes of this book adopt the terms most widely used for designating the individual steps of international peace work, and which reflect the intensity of a conflict in progress: preventive diplomacy, peacekeeping, peace enforcement, and post-conflict peacebuilding.