In the wake of the Cold War, the international community has faced a sudden increase in regional conflicts. While the likelihood of large-scale wars between major powers has significantly decreased, smaller-scale regional and ethnic conflicts have proliferated, presenting a new challenge to strategists and policymakers around the world. Today, the need to strengthen peace-keeping mechanisms and to prevent and resolve conflicts is a major item on the international agenda. In this volume, five Japanese international relations experts examine such topics as UN reform for the enhancement of preventive diplomacy capabilities; post-conflict peacebuilding; the principle of self-determination and ethnic conflict; the impact of forced displacement of populations on conflict prevention efforts; reconceptualizing security communities and power sharing to prevent conflict; and the connection between human rights, democratization and preventive diplomacy. By analysing the international community's responses to conflicts in such locations as the African Great Lakes region, the Balkans, Myanmar and Cambodia, the authors draw lessons for managing regional conflict through preventive diplomacy.