Strategies for Implementing and Enforcing Peace Agreements: Lessons Learned

In the aftermath of the Cold War, there was a general belief that the demise of the major ideological drivers of conflict between East and West would bring about a major reduction in armed conflict. Then, all were stunned by the appearance of seemingly endless ethnic, religious and resource-driven civil conflicts in the 1990s, particularly the horrors of genocide in Rwanda, Srbrenica and Kosovo and the recurring and devastating conflicts in Central and West Africa. In this first decade of the 21st century, conflicts raged in the Congo and Northern Uganda, and massive atrocities have been documented in Darfur. We also see a continuing 40-year conflict in Colombia with close to 2.7 million persons displaced from their homes and communities.