OSLO. Dec 11: It is time for the United Nations and the world to rethink their approach to. peacemaking and peacekeeping. The question today is how the world can deal more effectively with emerging dangerous situations among and within states.

The UN charter was designed to deal with conflicts between states. The collective security system, originally envisioned in the charter of the UN, was virtually immobilised by the cold war and never used as intended instead came the unwritten practice of peace keeping operations.

When a situation arises for which the charter prescribes a procedure, there is a strong moral obligation for countries to heed a call for resources, Gacekeepers and other assignee But by the time the peacekeepers are ready to go. It

may already be late, often too late. Conflict has erupted, battles have been fought, divisions cemented, and reconstruction of infrastructure, civil society, and thinking, has become im mensely complicated and expensive.

Everybody seems to agree that lot of monty could be saved by getting involved before hostilities erupt. But there are no efficient procedures for dealing with emerging conflicts and there are serious obstacles to early preventive action.

First, there Is the situation of international law. The concept of sovereignty Is invoked as protection by renegade regimes who stop at nothing to keep their power base. This issue desperately needs to be addressed. The rules of intervention. mostly humanitarian In-tervention, are still not clear ebough The principle of non-

Interference is an established norm of relations between states but to often, allied with the perceived notion of sovereignty is used to cover up striking because of human rights.

Second, the Information base is often too weak. The UN itself Is ill equipped to gather information about emerging dangerous situations. If the United Nations had access to the information that many member states possess, we would have the opportunity to get active as an organization at an earlier stage.

Third, failing a compelling obligation under the charter, states too often seem to feel relatively free to choose not to get engaged In a situation that is not visibly dangerous, or does not offer spectacular pictures, is all too often left out of the news. And since those who suffer have

rto Vote In the countries that command the resources to help, it may be all too convenient to look the other way.

In addition, every developed country has its own unmet needs and strained- national budgets and people of influence who actually don't care if scores of Hutus are slain or If the Balkans go up in flames

What is at stake if we fail to grasp the challenges from this news category of Inter state conflict is in fact the whole system of peaceful relations even world peace.

This Is difficult point to make people understand CNN and its sisters and brothers in the media are very adept at bringing out the most spectacu lar coverage of conflict, but we cannot allow state action to be dependent on television's ability to build an emotional na tional support base

Competition for world attention is intense, and rallying attention around an emerging crisis situation will be a constant up hill battle. But there is no other alternative, unless we .are ready to accept scores of 'deadly conflicts around the world, which would run against everything that human values, democracy and open society stand for

There is a huge educational task to prepare us for a world order where we effectively dampen the first flicker of conflict. but the rewards would be immense, and while the educa tional task Is for all countries to embark upon together, the UN must develop the Institutional. legal and managerial capacity as a model also for re gional action.

The UN is still the focal point of multilateralism We need a continuous focus on the

deeper roots of conflict. Poverty, population growth, environmental degradation and lack of economic opportu nlty reading the UN human de velopment report can tell more about the need for preventive action than counting the weapons on every potential battlefields

Far too often the UN comes under pressure to act only when the root causes have taken their ■toll The less visible tragedies of political oppression, famine., environmental degradation and underdevelopment are left without sufficient attention

If we are to bring about a truly peaceful world, these are problems that must be solved before they escalate and incur enormous economic and human cost

{The author of this IPS fea ture (a the former Norwegian Prime Minister