Published in association with Regional Centre for Strategic Studies, Colombo. Involvement of third parties is a significant factor in the management and resolution of international conflicts. Meditation by the states, international organisations or individuals has been employed extensively in several inter-state conflicts -- most recently in West Asia, Southern Africa and Europe. International mediation and facilitation have also been applied to control the intractable India-Pakistan conflict and help the two states resolve their disputes. Notwithstanding India's avowed commitment to bilateral approach in its dealings with Pakistan, no phase of this conflict has been free from the active involvement of outside actors. More noteworthy among such external involvements are the UN participation in the negotiations on the Jammu & Kashmir dispute, the World Bank's mediation over the Indus water treaty, the Soviet mediation during the 1965 War and the subsequent accord at Tashkent, international arbitration in the strife over the Rann of Kutch, the deep involvement of the United States in the confidence-building and preventive diplomacy in the region in the post-Cold War era, etc., However, the academic discourse on South Asia's international politics has paid scant attention to international mediation as an inescapable feature of India-Pakistan conflict. This study catalogues the history of the involvement of third parties in this conflict and analyses the potential and constraints on such involvement in future. In the context of the distinctive conditions and character of the India-Pakistan conflict, it interrogates how far, in what form, and to what effect this conflict lends itself to mediation and what essential preconditions and contextual factors impede or assist such external role.