International Negotiation 17 (2012) 349–388 brill.com/iner Preventive Diplomacy by Intergovernmental Organizations: Learning from Practice Eileen F. Babbitt*, 1 !e Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University, 160 Packard Avenue, Medford, MA 02155, USA (E-mail:
[email protected]) Received 29 July 2012; accepted 12 August 2012 Abstract Conflict prevention is enjoying a renaissance in international policy circles. However, the official machin- ery of the international community presently offers few institutions with a specific mandate to address the causes of political violence at an early stage. One such multilateral mechanism dedicated solely to the prevention of conflict is the High Commissioner on National Minorities (HCNM) of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE). Over two decades, the office has developed a signifi- cant track record of effectiveness against which to examine the preventive efforts of other intergovern- mental organizations. In this article, we examine the prevention efforts of the HCNM in Georgia, Macedonia, and Ukraine and compare these with the preventive diplomacy of three other intergovern- mental organizations (IGOs): the Organization of American States (OAS) in Guyana, the Common- wealth in Fiji, and the UN in Afghanistan, Burundi, and Macedonia. Our findings offer some useful and surprising insights into effective prevention practice, with implications for how IGOs might improve preventive diplomacy in the future. *) Eileen F. Babbitt is Professor of Practice in international conflict management, Director of the Inter- national Negotiation and Conflict Resolution Program, and co-director of the Program on Human Rights and Conflict Resolution at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University.