RESOLVING CONFLICTS IN THE
POST COLD WAR ERA

BY: AMINA TARIQ

THE POST COLD WAR WORLD
The world has transformed rapidly since the end of cold war. The changes in the international scenario are quite prominent with the end of an era of bipolarity, a new wave of democratization, globalization, more frequent efforts at international coordination of security policy, a rash of sometimes violent expression of claims of rights and a redefinition of sovereignty that imposes on states new responsibilities of its citizens and the world community. A potentially revolutionary change in the world politics is the redefinition of "international conflicts". Although it still involves the old fashioned war between borders, it now includes some internal conflicts as threat to international peace and security if are violating the universal norms such as self determination, Human Rights or democratic governance and concerted international actions like threat or use of force are being taken to prevent, conclude or resolve them.
The international conflict resolutionary bodies like UN, judicial courts etc are more and more being faced with intrastate crises rather than interstate. This decade after the Cold War has opened a rather advanced path to conflict resolution techniques that could adjust themselves with the present conflict conditions. The delayed international military responses to genocide in Rwanda, ethnic cleansing in Bosnia, and repression in East Timor; the precedent military response of NATO to repression in Kosovo; the establishment and enforcement of no-fly zones in Iraq; and the use of economic sanctions against south Africa and Yugoslavia are some of the study fields that could help understand whether or not the tools that had been used previously are still relevant and also that how these tools are being made relevant to present conditions.

EMERGING STRATEGIES FOR THE INTERNATIONAL CONFLICT RESOLUTION
The traditional diplomatic strategies of influence were refines and elaborated during the cold war period. They continue to be relevant in the post cold war world, although their application is sometimes differs a little. In deploying and threatening force to address and possibly resolve conflicts, there has been increased emphasis on multilateral action (e.g., NATO’s intervention in Kosovo, the alliance that reversed the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait). States have increasingly looked to regional international organizations to advanced conflict resolution goals, especially where unilateral state action might create new conflicts.
Military organizations are increasingly being used on new modes of conflict resolution. Armed force is infrequently used in direct interventions, even in Europe where exists strong regional organizations. Peacekeeping missions still sometimes separate adversaries to prevent further violence, but they also provide humanitarian relief, resettle refugees, and rebuild infrastructure.
Another new development is that states and association of states are no longer the only actors that can use techniques of influence like those of traditional diplomacy, but small peace oriented non-governmental organizations can sometimes threaten the states' interests, for example, by threatening prospects for international assistance with a bad human rights report etc.
A striking development since the end of cold war has been the emergence of three previously underutilized strategies for international conflict resolution. These strategies are often used together and sometimes with distinctions. These may be called conflict transformation, structural prevention, and, normative change. (Table 1.1). In the previous eras, the principle of noninterference in the internal affairs of sovereign states provided that states had license to control conflicts within their borders without any outside influence. This situation began to change in the later decades of the Cold War when the norms such as human rights, democratic control and self-determination were increasingly invoked against the states that abused their citizens. Although the world is far from being too good so as to keep the humanity causes outweighing the interest policies, still there are signs that the universal norms can exert influence on states many of which are stated in United Nations Charter and other international documents and are becoming embodied in transnational institutions too.

Under the present circumstances, no one organization is capable of handling all the problems, risks and conflicts, which characterize today's Europe. This was only possible in the Cold War era, where all aspects of security were dominated - in fact reduced - to military security. Accordingly, military security organizations - just two of them - like NATO and the Warsaw Treaty, were able to "take care" of all problems. Today, the situation is quite different. All aspects of security - political, human and minority rights, economic, environmental, etc. - came on the surface and, in principle, it is not possible to create an international organization able to manage all these aspects of security effectively.

CONCLUSION
The conflict resolution in this era is largely diversified giving way to a no. of new strategies and techniques. Although it is the fact that the post cold war era has not untied itself from the power politics, still the resolutionary activities have been more effective in this era than previously was. According to a study, the United Nations have dealt in fact primarily with crises rather than conflicts being far successful in them. In the most difficult task of mediation , UN has achieved desired results in about 40% of the attempts; while in reporting, interposition and supervision , the rates of success have been much higher. However In resolving conflicts or promoting peaceful change - that is arranging some sort of new legal or political situation that is accepted by all parties involves , the record has not been much impressive.

PREPARED BY: AMINA TARIQ
CLASS OF CONFLICT RESOLUTION AND
CRISIS MANAGEMENT
B.A. (HONS) IIIRD YEAR, 2003

All content (C) Department of International Relations, Karachi University

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