Peace building glossary

Conflict prevention action taken to address the deeper root causes of conflict before an outbreak of violence   Demining removal of landmines   Demobilisation returning ex-combatants to their homes and supporting their return to civilian life   Disarmament a process of reducing the size of and expenditures on armed forces, dismantling and destroying weapons, progressively eliminating the capacity to produce new weapons, and releasing military personnel and integrating them into civilian life.   Internally displaced person someone who has fled their home for fear of their life but is still within the borders of their own country   Landmines devices that are laid in the ground and explode when stepped on or triggered by a person or vehicle   Peace freedom from conflict and war, calmness   Peace making (or conflict resolution) the use of diplomatic means to persuade parties in conflict to cease hostilities, to negotiate a peaceful settlement of their dispute and the implementation of this peace agreement   Peace keeping interim strategy to develop conditions to prevent the recurrence of violence using neutral, non-armed soldiers and police to assist in the process of disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration or combatants   Peace building preventing the outbreak, the recurrence or continuation of armed conflict   Refugee a person who "owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group, or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality, and is unable to or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country." The 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees   Reconciliation restoring relationships between people who have been alienated and separated from each other during conflict   Reconstruction rebuilding physical and social structures after a natural or man-made disaster   Security a condition in which States feel protected against actual, potential or perceived threats to their independence, sovereignty and political institutions   UXO unexploded ordnance - bombs, shells, mortars, grenades and other ammunition that failed to detonate as designed