ABSTRACT
This chapter analyzes the characteristics and causes of contemporary armed conflicts, and how the international system copes with preventing and resolving them, as well as how it attempts to build durable peace afterward. It examines the distinction between peacemaking, peacekeeping, and peacebuilding, and the historical evolution of these processes, as well as the main actors involved in conflict prevention, conflict resolution, and postconflict reconstruction, with special emphasis on the UN legal and institutional framework. After the end of the Cold War, internal conflicts proliferated significantly. Since then, collective efforts to prevent and resolve these conflicts have been a central focus for the international community. Civil conflict can be categorized in a variety of ways according to cause. Conversely, the insecurity generated by the collapse of a state may also provoke a competition for security, which in turn may lead to violent conflict. Conflict resolution seeks to terminate a conflict which has already erupted and to achieve peace.
