To prevent wars and massive human rights violations and rebuild societies in their aftermath, an approach that incorporates the perspectives of both human rights advocates and conflict resolution practitioners is required. This goalis easier to assert than to achieve. These two groups make different assumptions, apply different methodologies, and have different institutional constraints. As a result, they tend to be wary of one another. This volume explores why human rights and conflict resolution practitioners often run afoul of each other, even though they are pursuing similar goals. In the short run, both seek to end violence, loss of life, and other suffering as quickly as possible. In the long run, both try to assist societies to ensure that the violence does not recur and that the rights of every human being are respected. Yet the methods each group uses to achieve these goals as well as its underlying assumptions are different. As a result, they at times adopt contradictory or even mutually exclusive approaches to the same problem. For example, conflict resolvers who are assisting parties in conflict to achieve a negotiated settlement with minimum loss of life may fail to see the relevance of human rights to the long-term success of their work. Human rights advocates, by limiting their activities to shaming, negative publicity, and judicial condemnation of responsible individuals, may miss opportunities for human rights improvements that might be achieved through the use of negotiation and the diplomatic techniques on which conflict resolvers rely. This book is a point of reflection on a journey toward understanding the relationship between human rights and conflict resolution, as well as between the methods human rights advocates use to promote and protect human rights and the methods conflict resolvers use to prevent violence and promote peace. In this chapter, we review the relationship between human rights violations and violent conflict, paying particular attention to how this relationship changes at different phases of conflict. We then turn to the case studies presented in this volume to highlight the insights each brings to our understanding of the relationship between human rights and conflict resolution practice. Our intent with this book is to push both conflict resolution and human rights scholars and practitioners into thinking more creatively about the intersection of these two fields. We believe that the fields of human rights and conflict resolution are interdependent, that they must operate in synergy, and that they have much to learn from one another. We do not argue, however, that the two fields should merge. To the contrary, there is strength in the fact that they are separate, that they come at the problems underlying violent conflict, the suffering it causes, and its aftermath from different perspectives. What professionals in these two fields need is to understand one another and learn to work together better so that both peace and justice can be pursued in synergy. Where violent conflicts or massive violations of human rights are occurring, allinterveners are likely to feel pressure to act urgently to reduce the likelihood of continuing bloodshed or abuse; to react to events rather than to think proactively; and to be impatient with those whose aims or philosophies diverge from their own. These are poor circumstances for addressing better interdisciplinary communication and cooperation to achieve common goals. In advance of such tensions, we hope to inspire reflection on more interdependent and integrated thought and action. Without such progress, we feel that opportunities are being lost to have a more significant impact on the prevention and mitigation of violence in countries around the world. Copyright © 2009 by Syracuse University Press. Copyright © 2009 by Syracuse University Press. All Rights Reserved.