Columbia International Affairs Online: Working Papers

CIAO DATE: 02/2010

The Role of Regional Oganisations in Conflict Prevention and Resolution,

Herbert Wulf (ed.)

July 2009

Institute for Development and Peace

Abstract

The international community has progressively tasked regional and sub‐regional organisations with conflict prevention and peacekeeping. This is largely due to an overburdened UN system. At the same time regional organisations have increasingly come to accept that violence, interstate and intra‐state wars normally affect the region through destabilizing spill‐over effects and that promoting peace is in their own best interest. Yet, it is argued in this report that regional organisations’ peace and security functions still do not amount to an effective regional conflict management regime. Furthermore, not all regional and sub‐regional organisations have begun to take on this responsibility.