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Project On Preventive
Diplomacy in the OSCE
CMG's goal has been to strengthen the capacity of the Organization on
Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) for preventive diplomacy,
through development of theory and methodology, implementation tools,
skills, and undertaking parallel conflict resolution activities.
Our project to enhance the capability of the OSCE in
the prevention and resolution of conflicts in the region began in
October, 1990. From 1990-1992, with funding from the Carnegie Corporation, the
W. Alton Jones Foundation, Swissair, the government of Greece, and
private donations, CMG attended eight major OSCE meetings, and organized and
hosted four devising seminars at Harvard, led a seminar for high-level
OSCE diplomats in Athens, Greece, and produced over fourteen written reports and
commentaries that have been distributed to diplomats responsible for OSCE
matters. During that time, CMG provided, to its knowledge, the only working
papers dealing with the concepts of early action and assistance by third
parties in managing conflict. In 1990 and early 1991, CMG encountered
active hostility to its suggestions of mechanisms for early, low-key third
party interventions to assist negotiations. CMG's work and ideas have
been informative in the creation and subsequent operation of the office of
the OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities (HCNM) at the OSCE
Helsinki Summit meeting in July, 1992 as "an instrument of conflict prevention
at the earliest stage,". CMG's report of its October, 1992 "devising
session" with prominent academics and OSCE diplomats on the role of the HCNM in
the early resolution of ethnic tensions received wide praise in the OSCE
community, and by the HCNM himself, for its insights on the methodology of
early action.
CMG's approach to preventive diplomacy builds on a recognition that in
the post-Cold War era, the old, US-Soviet mechanisms for swift suppression
of conflict no longer exist, and the resources for indefinite involvement
by international organizations such as the UN are becoming scarcer.
Disputing parties themselves will need to take on more responsibility for
managing conflict and preventing escalation. International organizations
will also need to focus less on resolution of specific conflicts
(many conflicts, such as ethnic conflict, are not amenable to quick and
simple resolution), but rather on helping the parties themselves establish
processes that can lead to resolution of specific disputes over time. The
primary purpose of early warning and preventive action is to move parties
away from escalation or armed conflict, and to help them establish a
process to channel and deal with their conflicts constructively.
In CMG's model for preventive diplomacy, the third party does not act
as a traditional mediator, conciliator or provider of "good offices."
Rather, the third party helps parties become more ready and more
able to
deal with each other productively, helping them to evaluate their
alternatives to cooperation, understand interests, develop creative
options, build working relationships, and establish processes and
institutions to deal with ongoing disputes. Seeking to induce the parties
to cooperate in a conflict management process, the third party is:
1993-1995: Preventing Escalation of Disputes in the OSCE: Support
to the High Commissioner on National Minorities
In 1993, following an expression of interest by the HCNM, former Dutch
foreign minister Max van der Stoel, in CMG's work, CMG received a grant
from the Pew Charitable Trusts to establish a model for early intervention
in areas of ethnic conflict, to analyze structural and skill-based
barriers to effective early action, and to provide ideas to the OSCE in
developing operating procedures to overcome these barriers. CMG's work
focused primarily on developing ideas to strengthen the role, operating
structures, procedures and methodologies of the High Commissioner's office
to engage in early, preventive action. CMG believed that, as the first
institution devoted to identifying and containing conflicts at early
stages, the OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities will be looked
to as a model and test case for the development of structures and methods
for executing preventive diplomacy. Activities under the Pew grant
included:
- Expert consultation on national minorities in the Baltics. In
September, 1993, CMG was invited to facilitate a portion of an informal
dialogue among experts, government officials and Russian minority
leaders from the Baltic states convened by the Netherlands-based
Foundation on Inter-Ethnic Relations, a private foundation founded to
support Mr. van der Stoel's activities.
- Expert Consultation, "Methods and Strategies in Conflict
Prevention." In December 1993, with additional support from the United
States Institute for Peace and the Community of Sant'Egidio, CMG
facilitated a two-day expert consultation in Rome for the HCNM and his
staff on "Methods and Strategies in Conflict Prevention" High-level OSCE
officials and diplomats, as well as academic experts and
non-governmental organizations, were brought together to evaluate the
experience of the HCNM to date, and to provide him with advice and ideas
for dealing with current and future challenges he faces on his
missions.
- Expert Consultations on conflict prevention in Kazakhstan and
Ukraine. In April 1994, CMG joined the Foundation on Inter-Ethnic
Relations (FIER) in hosting expert consultations for the OSCE High
Commissioner on National Minorities in The Hague. FIER was the primary
host of the Kazakhstan consultation, while CMG was the lead organizer
for the Ukraine program. The purpose of the consultations was to help
prepare the HCNM for upcoming missions to Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and
Ukraine, by giving him a more complete picture of the inter-ethnic
tensions and the issues at stake in those countries, and brainstorming
ways in which the HCNM might deal with them.
- Preventive Diplomacy and the OSCE: Creating Incentives For
Dialogue and Cooperation, in Chayes and Chayes, Preventing
Conflict in the Post-Communist World (Brookings Occasional Papers,
1996). CMG was invited to contribute an analysis of structures and
institutions for preventive diplomacy in the OSCE to a book edited by
Abram and Antonia Handler Chayes to examine the past, present and
potential role of international organizations in preventive diplomacy.
The project brought together several academic and non-governmental
experts to examine the experience and potential of the UN, NATO, the
OSCE, Council of Europe, the European Union, international financial
institutions and others in preventing and managing ethno-national
conflict in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union.
- Institutionalizing Government-Minority Dialogue: Inter-Ethnic
Councils and Roundtables in Post-Communist Europe. In December,
1994, CMG convened a seminar in Prague on the role and potential of
minority-government roundtables as mechanisms for improved inter-ethnic
dialogue, meaningful minority input in policymaking, and conflict
prevention. The seminar brought together twenty inter-ethnic council
administrators, legislators, and minority representatives from Estonia,
FYR of Macedonia, the Netherlands, Romania and Slovakia, and outside
experts to examine the problems and possibilities of these mechanisms
and to develop ideas for strengthening them. CMG and IEWS designed the
Prague Seminar to be helpful to the High Commissioner on National
Minorities and to the roundtables in overcoming obstacles to fulfilling
their potential. The seminar's discussions pointed to a number of
challenges facing these councils, but also generated a number of
concrete strategies for turning them into true problem-solving fora.
After the seminar, the Estonian president's minority affairs advisor,
and the lead Russian representative took the unprecedented step of
jointly publishing their views on the situation of Estonia's Russian
minority, under the heading "Three Days in Prague," in one of Estonia's
highest-circulation Russian-language newspapers.
- Negotiation and Consensus-Building Training, Council for National
Minorities, Romania. In October, 1995, CMG conducted a 2 1/2-day negotiation
workshop in The Hague for members of Romania's Council for National
Minorities, relevant government ministries and Hungarian minority
leaders. The program was part of a larger (3-week) training program led
by the Netherlands and Romanian Helsinki Committees at the request of
the Foundation on Inter-Ethnic Relations.
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