It would be easy to find consensus around the idea that prevention is always better than the cure. However, to translate this into concrete preventive action as regards international violence, or indeed genocide, appear to be difficult.

Take as an example the Security Council of the United Nations, an organisation to which the task has been given to protect the coming generations from the scourge of war, according to the U.N. Charter. Only a modest fraction of the Council's working time has been devoted to actual prevention, while the agenda is dominated by crisis management, conflict resolution, post conflict operations, peace enforcement and peacekeeping.

It is definitely not lack of will that makes prevention of violent conflict such a rare phenomenon in security policy around the globe. It is instead the complexity of the problem and the difficulty exactly to define what constitutes the actual threat. That is because rarely serious problems are generated by a single cause and consequently problems may need to be addressed by a set of preventive measures. If the threat constitutes massive violence or even genocide, prevention must be a matter not of random or improvised actions but of systematic and structural measures.

During recent years two types of threats have been highlighted as the most urgent ones – the proliferations of weapons of mass destruction and terrorism. Both of them, especially in combination, carry with them the potential of massive destruction and indeed also genocide.

Thus is should be noted that the European Security Strategy drafted by Javier Solana, High Representative and Secretary General, specifies a limited set of key threats; namely terrorism and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction to which are added regional conflicts, state failure and organised crime.

Indeed it must be recognised that at least terrorism and proliferation of nuclear and other WMD contain potentials of genocidal threats.

Professor Robert Jay Lifton in Harvard, who spent most of his life studying the psychological dimensions of violence – both as regard the Holocaust, terrorism and the use of nuclear weapons and other WMD – has defined what he calls the genocidal mentality, as an expression of power generated out of the control over nuclear weapons and the capability to use them without discrimination.

So even if I without hesitation admit the genocidal dimension of terrorism and nuclear weapons, I am somewhat dismayed and surprised that the questions of majority/ minority conflict and ethnic friction are not even mentioned in the European Security strategy.

International conflicts, at least in Europe, were up till fifteen years ago a matter of clashing State interests. This goes back over more than 360 years when the Westphalian system of States was established. Almost once in every generation there was a major war in Europe. However, modern conflict is first and foremost generated out of tensions and friction between ethnic groups or out of majority/minority situations. A bulk of over 200 wars witnessed since World War II were not international wars but internal armed conflicts. No doubt the terrorism of today constitutes a clear and present danger, but this fact should not be allowed to overshadow the structural threat of ethnic conflict with its historically proven genocidal potential.

Central Asia, the Caucasus, the Balkans, the Great Lakes, Sudan, Somalia, Sierra Leone, Liberia – these mentioned randomly – all have one thing in common, violent conflicts as a consequence of ethnic tension. And more significant. Most cases of genocide have been results of atrocities directed against minorities.

If then, as I am arguing, a major cause for contemporary conflict is majority/minority tension and ethnic friction and hatred, and if genocidal threats are rooted in such tension and friction, prevention must focus on exactly these problems.

Long term structural prevention depends on a number of factors including economic stability, inter-ethnic integration, a society based on law and respect for human rights. The main onus of creating such conditions lies with individual states. They must within their borders foster an environment and political structure that is representative and pluralistic, that allows for equal opportunities and protects and promotes the rights of all citizens and residents.

However the international community must provide the normative framework, and encourage and engage states, through assistance to create elected governments with well established rules of law and respect for human rights, as that would make them equipped to confront and actively address tensions at local and national levels. A preventive approach should go hand-in-hand with promoting a culture of democracy and of good governance.

Just because inter-ethnic tension, almost by definition is difficult to deal with on the national level, the international community must face up to a responsibility of support prevention not only by providing the normative framework but also by taking a responsibility of implementation of the norms.

The Council of Europe is a good example of the normative development towards prevention through its three stages: First by becoming a closed community for democracies only, second by adopting the European Convention on Human Rights with related arrangements for rights of individual petition and for binding decisions and for including possible compensation and third by establishing an Advisory Committee under the newly adopted Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities.
And this last dimension of the Council’s development reminds us that as always in the multilateral world, norms are one thing and implementation another. In this context we should consider the proposal by the Secretary General that the States Parties of the Genocide Convention should consider setting up a committee on the Prevention of Genocide which would meet periodically to review reports and make recommendations for action, and his additional proposal of establishing a Special Rapporteur on the prevention of genocide who would report directly to the Secretary General.

The repeated failures of the international community to act in prevention of mass violence, and indeed of genocide, in spite of universally recognised human rights, makes it imperative, to consider seriously more radical steps in support of prevention.
Protection is fine, prevention is better, but infinitely more difficult to realise. That is why hardly any multilateral institution is focusing upon prevention of internal violent conflict. Protection is activated when a violent conflict has broken out. But the key is to act before the outbreak. The more remarkable it is, that the frequently ignored OSCE, with its 55 participating States from Vancouver to Vladivostok, has come up with a most intrusive institutional approach for the purpose of prevention of violent conflict, mass violence and genocide.

For that very purpose the OSCE (then CSCE) in 1992 created the office of the High Commissioner on National Minorities, the HCNM.

The HCNM having been in operation eleven years, is not primarily a human rights instrument, neither supervising State compliance with international standards nor protecting or even necessarily acting for minorities. Rather the HCNM is an instrument of conflict prevention. The HCNM has been given the right to operate under his mandate inside participating States. The HCNM has to act independently and impartially, on the basis of his own judgement, to address situations involving national minorities, which have a potential to erupt into violent conflicts. Importantly, and that is no doubt the basis upon which States agreed (some reluctantly) to the creation of this intrusive instrument, the HCNM is obliged to work through quiet diplomacy, is precluded from taking up individual cases and cannot become engaged in situations involving organised terrorism.

I am proud to say that the HCNM has repeatedly proven a useful instrument of conflict prevention especially in those transitional societies where the risks of interethnic conflict are great.

The experience and methods assembled and tested have made progress possible in many regions of the vast OSCE areas. As the HCNM, I focus upon steps to integrate minorities with respect for diversity, thus steering clear from two extremes, on the one side forced assimilation, on the other separation. Issues of education, use of language, participation in political and administrative life, access to and use of media, not the least of electronic media, are special concerns. The HCNM has issued specific recommendations and guidelines in support of international standards with regard to these items. After having identified the faultiness of frictions, the basis of the work of the HCNM is to visit the country and establish direct contacts with the representatives of the ethnic groups and engaged NGOs in addition, of course, with the Governments and local authorities concerned.

By applying experience and making use of international standards the HCNM can assist to settle disputes before they develop into full-fledged conflicts. And with his intimate knowledge of majority/minority and interethnic relations, the HCNM is well placed to provide early warning The mandate of the HCNM and his direct engagement in the field makes it possible to be pro-active rather than reactive, which meets the requirement of preventive action.

If one accepts his fundamental thesis that genocide by its very nature, and as proven in recent history, frequently is rooted in majority/minority tensions and ethnic friction and hatred, it appears obvious when contemplating ways to prevent genocide, that much more attention should be given by the international community towards the question of respect for and protection of national minorities.

The problem for the UN is that minority issues/ethnic issues are national – and protected by the principle of State Sovereignty.

Most modern states are multicultural. The striking of balance between majority and minority interests that allow for all persons to enjoy their individual identities while realising and valuing shared interests, must be a necessity in order to prevent the emergence of intolerance, racism, xenophobia, secession and violent conflict. This is, as I mentioned, a concern of states in transition but is not only limited to them. All states not the least in Europe experience considerable migration movements. Minorities, whether old or new, will come to play a significant role in the whole of Europe, including the enlarged European Union.

In the 1993 Copenhagen criteria for EU accession, it was stated that membership requires that the candidate country has achieved stability of institutions guaranteeing democracy, the rule of law, human rights and respect for and protection of minorities. It is remarkable that when then years later, the EU is drafting its Constitution it has omitted the obligation with regard to respect for and protection of minorities.

The implication of this is a double standard – one set of standards regarding accession to new member states and another with regard to the current membership. I profoundly believe that the EU must now adopt standards for the protection of minorities that are applicable to all Members. Considering the significance for the prevention of conflict and indeed for prevention of genocide, the Union would to the world, send a message of indifference with regard to one of the most important problems facing the international community, if it did not address the minority issue – neither in its security strategy nor in its future Convention.

The ideas, the understanding of the causes, the awareness, the norms, all these things are now coming together. The genocidal threat is a clear and present danger. We must agree that time is not in abundance. To prevent genocide – it is a matter of urgency; it is time to start prevention, not tomorrow, not today, but yesterday.