دانشکده های علمی در حل منازعات بین المللی

Science and scientists (including scholarship and scholars) have an important contribution to make to the mitigation and prevention of international conflicts. First and foremost, they emphasize the search for the truth, which requires an attitude of openness and collaboration. Second, they can provide evidence and information that can settle differences of opinion or reduce tensions. Third, they can offer independent and unbiased advice on policy matters that involve scientific information or require a scientific foundation. Fourth, they educate a new generation of scientists as well as the wider public, thus increasing the intellectual defensibility and democratic foundation of a society. For many of these contributions, an academy of arts and sciences may be used as a functional vehicle. A further contribution can be made by the organizational sciences through an analysis of the determinants and nature of conflict escalation or de-escalation, thus offering starting points for effective conflict management and prevention.

Science and scholarship have an important and distinctive potential for contributing to a better and peaceful future of mankind. I explore first the role of academies and sciences in this respect. This role is particularly apparent as the academies adhere to two general and central principles, phrased in the 1996 Genoa Declaration on Science and Society [1] as follows: Respect for the diversity of cultures within societies and promotion of science as a distinctive and important contributor to bridging such diverse cultures and promoting peaceful coexistence in accord with the principles of freedom, autonomy and rationality. Mutual cooperation, reflecting the recognition that the production and utilization of scientific and technological knowledge are decisive for the future welfare of humanity and that science, with its universality, is uniquely positioned to serve as a laboratory in which mankind can work together to achieve a better future in accord with the principles of responsibility, solidarity and respect for the rights of individuals and nations. In addition to discussing the role of science academies, I call attention to the potential contribution by social science to the prevention or resolution of conflict. Social science can play this role through scientific analysis of the conflict process itself and through application of the principles of escalation and prevention of conflicts, as developed in organizational science.