''An Agenda for Peace: Preventive diplomacy, peacemaking and peace-keeping'', more commonly known simply as ''An Agenda for Peace'', is a report written for the

United Nations The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be a centre for harmoni ...

by Secretary-General

Boutros Boutros-Ghali Boutros Boutros-Ghali (; , ar, بطرس بطرس غالي ', ; 14 November 1922 – 16 February 2016) was an Egyptian politician and diplomat who served as the sixth Secretary-General of the United Nations (UN) from 1992 to 1996. An academic ...

in 1992. In it, Boutros-Ghali responds to a request by the UN

Security Council The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations (UN) and is charged with ensuring international peace and security, recommending the admission of new UN members to the General Assembly, an ...

for an "analysis and recommendations" to strengthen peacemaking and peace-keeping. The document outlines the way Boutros-Ghali felt the UN should respond to conflict in the post-

Cold War The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because t ...

world. Recognizing the limitations of

peacekeeping Peacekeeping comprises activities intended to create conditions that favour lasting peace. Research generally finds that peacekeeping reduces civilian and battlefield deaths, as well as reduces the risk of renewed warfare. Within the United ...

, especially as such efforts were becoming prevalent in the early 1990s, the UN Security Council convened in 1992 in a first-time meeting of heads of state. The 15 members finished the conference by issuing a statement calling on then-Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali to write a report recommending future reforms. In their statement, the heads-of-state recognized that,

“The absence of war and military conflicts amongst States does not in itself ensure international peace and security. The non-military sources of instability in the economic, social,
humanitarian Humanitarianism is an active belief in the value of human life, whereby humans practice benevolent treatment and provide assistance to other humans to reduce suffering and improve the conditions of humanity for moral, altruistic, and emotional ...
and
ecological Ecology () is the study of the relationships between living organisms, including humans, and their physical environment. Ecology considers organisms at the individual, population, community, ecosystem, and biosphere level. Ecology overlaps wi ...
fields have become threats to peace and security. The United Nations membership as a whole, working through the appropriate bodies, needs to give the highest priority to the solution of these matters.”UN Department of Public Information, Yearbook of the United Nations 1992, 34.

The Security Council saw what many critics of peacekeeping have suggested, and some recent failures had made obvious: peacekeeping alone, as then practiced, was not enough to ensure lasting peace. Boutros-Ghali submitted his response some months later, in the form of ''An Agenda for Peace''. In it, he outlined a number of additional processes of preventative diplomacy the international community could use before peacekeeping, or simultaneously. He also suggested distinct definitions for peacemaking and peacekeeping, and referenced

Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter sets out the UN Security Council's powers to maintain peace. It allows the Council to "determine the existence of any threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression" and to take military an ...

to justify military involvement without the consent of both parties. Previously, these concepts had not been formally addressed by the UN's leadership. However, ''An Agenda for Peace''’s most significant contribution to the modern understanding of peace is its introduction of the concept of “post-conflict

peacebuilding Peacebuilding is an activity that aims to resolve injustice in nonviolent ways and to transform the cultural and structural conditions that generate deadly or destructive conflict. It revolves around developing constructive personal, group, and ...

.” Boutros-Ghali defines “post-conflict peace-building” as “action to identify and support structures which will tend to strengthen and solidify peace in order to avoid a relapse into conflict.”Boutros Boutros-Ghali, "An Agenda for Peace,” II.21. The concept of post-conflict peacebuilding has been especially important in the academic discipline of

peace and conflict studies Peace and conflict studies is a social science field that identifies and analyzes violent and nonviolent behaviours as well as the structural mechanisms attending conflicts (including social conflicts), with a view towards understanding those ...

. It has been adopted by a number of scholars to suggest a framework for peace that addresses not only the latent forms of physical violence, but also aspects of a society that are structurally violent, and could lead to a re-emergence of fighting (see the discussion of positive peace in the article on

Notes

Resources

''An Agenda for Peace''
– original version
''An Agenda for Peace'' – United Nations Rule of Law
{{DEFAULTSORT:Agenda for Peace Peace and conflict studies United Nations reports 1992 in international relations 1992 documents

See also

Notes

Resources