"In Search of Pathways to Peace"

UN Secretary-General António Guterres plans to instill new life into the United Nations by making prevention of wars and armed conflicts the hallmark of his administration. The only question is, how to achieve this?

Author: Michael von der Schulenburg

A recent joint World Bank-United Nations study, “Pathways for Peace – Inclusive Approaches to Preventing Violent Conflict,” intends to find answers to this question. Yet the study is misleading in three fundamental ways: (i) it ignores the UN Charter, (ii) it obscures the UN’s core issue of war and peace, and (iii) it side-steps the UN’s collective decision-making process. As an alternative, this paper proposes three steps towards reinvigorating the UN’s role in preventing wars and armed conflicts that are grounded in the UN Charter.