Conflict resolution as a defined specialist field has come of age in the post cold war era.

It has also come

face to face with the fundamental new challenges. It started in 1950s and 1960s, at the height of Cold
War when the development of nuclear weapons and the conflict between the super powers seemed to
threaten human survival. A group of pioneers from different disciplines saw the value of studying
conflict as a general phenomena, with similar properties whether it occurs in international relations,
communities, families or between individuals. They saw the potential of applying approaches that were
evolving industrial relations and community mediations settings. A handful of people in North America
and Europe began to establish research groups to new ideas. Nevertheless, the new ideas attracted
interest and the field began to grow and spread scholarly journals in conflict resolution were created by
the 1980s, conflict resolution ideas were increasingly making a difference in real conflicts. In South
Africa, for example the centre for inter-group studies was applying the approaches that had developed
in the field to the developing confrontation between aparthied and its challengers, with impressive
results. In the Middle East, a peace process was getting under which negotiations on both sides gaining
experience of each other and of conflict resolution through problem solving workshops. In Northern
Ireland, groups inspired by the new approach to set up community relations initiatives that were only
reaching across community divides but were also becoming an accepted responsibility of local
governance. In war-torn regions of Africa and South East Asia, development workers and humanitarian
agencies were seeing the need to take account of conflict and conflict resolution as an integral part of
their activities. By the closing years of the cold war, the climate for conflict resolution was changed
radically. At the same time practitioners from various backgrounds were attracted to conflict resolution.
International statesmen began to use the languages, International organizations set up conflict
resolution Mechanisms and conflict prevention centres. A former president of United States of America
Jimmy Carter became one of the most active leaders of conflict resolution and non-governmental
organizations (NGOs), A Foreign Minister of USSR Eduard Schvarduadze, set up an organization to
address ethnic conflict in the former Soviet Union.7 The first institution of peace and conflict research
appeared in the twenty-year period between (1945-1965). The peace Research Laboratory was founded
by Theodore F. Lentz at St-Louis, Missouri after the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.
Kenneth Boulding born in North England in 1910. He was the great economist at the university of
Michigan, he initiated the Journal of conflict Resolution (JCR) in 1957, and also set up the centre for
Research on conflict resolution in 1959. John Galtung, he studied philosophy, sociology and
mathematics as early as 1951, at the age of 21, he became influenced by Gandhian Ideas, which formed
a persistent theme in his peace research. In 1958, he became visiting professor of sociology at Columbia
University, returning to OSLO in 1960 to help and found a unit for research in conflict and peace, based
within the institute for social research at the University of OSLO and the precursor to the International
Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO). Galtung was also the founding editor of Journal of peace research,
which was launched in 1964. John Burton was born in Australia in 1915. He studied in London School of
Economics from 1938, gained a Masters degree and in 1942, a doctorate. His appointment coincided
with the formation of conflict research society in London, of which he became the first Honorary
Secretary. © Centre for Promoting Ideas, USA www.ijhssnet.com 106 An early product of this initiative
was the publication of conflict in society. He formed an International Peace Research Association (IPRA),
which held its first conference at Groningen in Holland in 1965. Burton Later spent a period in the mid-
1980s at the University of Maryland, Where he assisted Azar with the formation of the centre for the
International Development and Conflict Management. Adam Curle, and Elise were other great scholars
who later on developed practice of mediation and new voices of conflict resolution. Growth of the
Conflict Resolution as a Field of Study Since (1975 -2010) 1976: (Latin American Council for peace
Investigation), Latin American regional affiliate of IPRA Guatemala. 1979 : University of Ulster, Centre for
the study of conflict (Northern Ireland). 1980 : University for Peace, UN University, Costa Rica. 1982 :
Carter Centre : International Negotiation Net Work. 1984 : Nairobi Peace Group (from 1990, National
Peace Initiative). 1984 : United States Institute of Peace Washington. 1985 : International Alert, United
Kingdom. 1986 : Conflict Resolution Network, Australia. 1986 : Harvard Law School, Program on
Negotiation. 1986 : Jean B. Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, University of Notre Dame,
U.S.A. 1988 : Institute for Conflict Resolution and Analysis, George Mason University, USA. 1988 :
Austrian Study Centre for Peace and Conflict Resolution/ European Peace University. 1990 : Centre for
Conflict Resolution, University of Bradford. 1991 : First European on Peacemaking and Conflict
Resolution, Istanbul. 1991 : Gastonz. Ortigas Peace Institute, Philippines. 1992 : Centre for Conflict
Resolution, University of Cape Town South Africa. 1992 : Institute for Multi -Track Diplomacy
Washington. 1992 : Academic Associates Peace Works, Nigeria. 1992 : Institute Peruano de Resolution
de Conflicts, Negociation, Medicacion, Peru. 1993 : Berghof Research Centre for Constructive Conflict
Management, Berlin. 1993 : Organization of African Unity, Mechanism for Conflict, Mechanism for
Conflict, Prevention, Management and Resolution. 1993 : University of Ulster/United Nations
University : Initiative of Conflict Resolution and Ethnicity (INCORE). 1994 : The Organization for Security
and Cooperation in Europe. 1994: (Ibero-American Conferences on Peace and the Treatment of
Conflicts), Chile. 1994: International Resource Group Somalia, Kenya, Horn of Africa. 1995 : UNESCO‟S
Culture of Peace Programme. 1996 : European Centre for Conflict, Prevention, Holland. 1996 : Forum on
Early Warning and Early Response-London. 2000 : The Nelson Mandela Centre for Peace and Conflict
Resolution-Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi. 2010 : PG Diploma in Conflict Resolution- Department of
West A