Seeking to Prevent Deadly Conflict

Carnegie Corporation of New York established the Carnegie Commission on Preventing Deadly Conflict in May 1994 to address the looming threats to world peace of intergroup violence and to advance new ideas for the prevention and resolution of deadly conflict. With the leadership of Corporation president Dr. David Hamburg (1982-1987) The Commission examined the principal causes of deadly ethnic, nationalist, and religious conflicts within and between states and the circumstances that foster or deter their outbreak. Taking a long-term, worldwide view of violent conflicts that had and/or were likely to emerge, it sought to determine the functional requirements of an effective system for preventing mass violence and to identify the ways in which such a system could be implemented. The Commission examined the strengths and weaknesses of various international entities in conflict prevention and considered ways in which international organizations might contribute toward developing an effective international system of nonviolent problem solving. The Commission’s Final Report, Preventing Deadly Conflict, published in December 1997, focused on specific questions that remain relevant in the 21st century, such as: What are the problems posed by "deadly conflict" within or between states? Why is outside help necessary to deal with this problem? And, how should that help be structured in terms of political, economic, military and social resources? The Commission itself concluded its work in 1999 but has been succeeded by the Conflict Prevention Project at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, which builds on the Commission’s findings.