ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the work of civil society actors before ending with the author’s proposal for an executive preventive role for the UN Security Council. Civil society actors also engage in efforts to prevent gross violations of human rights and to help protect people undergoing such violations. Contemporary preventive diplomacy is thus very much peoples’ diplomacy as well as that of governments, and international and regional organizations. In doing so, the organization focuses on encouraging and consolidating dialogue toward the prevention, management, and transformation of conflict. The World Organization Against Torture was established in 1986 as a coalition of international nongovernmental organizations fighting against torture, summary executions, enforced disappearances, and other cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment. Anti-Slavery International, founded in 1839, is the world’s oldest international human rights organization working exclusively against slavery and related abuses. Minority Rights Group International works to secure rights for ethnic, religious, and linguistic minorities, and indigenous people around the world.
