The ASEAN Regional Forum Concept Paper that the Association of Southeast Asian Nations produced had the “development of preventive diplomacy” as the second stage in the ARF's evolution. The second ARF ministerial meeting, in 1995, adopted this notion. The direct provenance of ASEAN's use of the term “preventive diplomacy” was “An Agenda for Peace, Preventive Diplomacy, Peacemaking and Peace-keeping”, a report issued by Boutros Boutros-Ghali, then Secretary-General of the United Nations, on 17 June 1992. That report defined preventive diplomacy as “action to prevent disputes from arising between parties, to prevent existing disputes from escalating into conflicts and to limit the spread of the latter when they occur”. It explained specifically, “Preventive diplomacy requires measures to create confidence; it needs early warning based on information gathering and informal or formal fact-finding; it may also involve preventive deployment and, in some situations, demilitarized zones.” This was, in fact, an elaboration and updating of the term and concept originated by one of Boutros-Ghali's predecessors, Dag Hammarskjöld.

The ARF Concept Paper made it clear that confidence-building was a pre-requisite to preventive diplomacy, pointing out, “Without a high degree of confidence among ARF participants, it is unlikely that they will agree to the establishment of mechanisms which are perceived to be intrusive and/or autonomous.”

Some questions have arisen over the years: Does preventive diplomacy in the ARF context envision only inter-state conflicts, or does it encompass internal conflicts as well? Would it deal only with “traditional” sources of possible military conflicts or also with “non-traditional”, non-military problems that threaten “human security”? If both, which of them is to get more attention? When and how should the ARF move from confidence-building alone to the preventive-diplomacy stage?

CONFLICTS WITHIN STATES?

The portion on preventive diplomacy in the UN Secretary-General's “An Agenda for Peace” concerned itself with intra-state, as well as inter-state, conflict. It spoke about preventive deployment, humanitarian assistance, international help in maintaining internal security, and conciliation efforts in “conditions of crisis within a country”, albeit stressing, “when the Government requests or all parties consent.”