ABSTRACT
Wilton Park’s coverage of peacekeeping, peace-making and humanitarian intervention over the last 30 years shows a honing of knowledge and discussion from the general to the specific. Important initially theoretical discussions in the early 1990s were supplanted by an ever-more precise engagement with details emerging from experience. It also provoked greater awareness of the messy realities and paradoxes of international involvement, from inter-agency rivalry to economic distortions to sexual exploitation of victims of conflict. The collapse of Communism in Europe and long-standing dictatorships raised hope of a New World Order; however, intra- or inter-state conflicts and disputes such as Kashmir, Cyprus, Sri Lanka, and Sudan remained obdurate. In addition, new conflicts broke out in the ruins of artificial Cold War states, while, over time, mineral resources, international terrorism and religious zealotry became sources of yet other armed struggles. A new concept, ‘failed state’, came to the fore. While the UN’s core doctrine on humanitarianism was that force might be used, and sovereignty infringed under the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) doctrine, tensions arose over how to respond to pressing humanitarian needs when no invitation to help arose, and when permanent members of the Security Council could not reach unanimity.
