An Internal Challenge: Partnerships in Fixing Failed States (Picking up the Pieces: FAILED STATES‪)‬

The term "failed state" has only recently entered into international legal jargon to describe the collapse and dissolution of states. These processes have become relatively frequent of late and are symptomatic of the condition of today's community of states and system of international law. Examples commonly cited include Somalia; Liberia and Sierra Leone, which have been racked by small-scale conflicts throughout the 1990s; Bosnia-Herzegovina in the early days of its independence; Rwanda at the time of the massacres and genocide; and, more recently, Sudan, a country which has been devastated by three conflicts. Although the discussion about the failed state phenomenon has only existed since the end of the Cold War, there are also cases of failed states prior to that period. These cases include the 20-year conflict in Cambodia, brought to an end by the Paris Agreement of 1991; the civil war in Lebanon during the 1980s; and various phases in the development of the Congo, a country that has been hard to govern since independence was achieved in 1960. The same themes were evident in the chaotic power struggles in China during the 1930s and can still be traced back all the way to the Thirty Years' War in seventeenth-century Europe. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]