Lord Carrington attended the London session of the International Conference on the Former Yugoslavia (ICFY). His speech to the Conference made clear that the December 1991 decision of the European Community to recognise Croatia “unravelled” his negotiations in that he no longer had “real leverage” to bring to bear. Some of the papers relating to his negotiations are included in Lord Owen's own archives. Lord Carrington stepped down at the end of the Conference as the European Community (EC) negotiator and on 27 August, 1992 Lord Owen was appointed the EC Co-Chairman to work with the UN's Co-Chairman, Cyrus Vance. The two Co-Chairmen had dinner that night with the UN Secretary-General, Boutros Boutros-Ghali. Next day Lord Owen met John Major, the British Prime Minister who at that time was also the six-monthly rotating President of the European Council. Cy Vance and Lord Owen also met with Martti Ahtisaari to try and persuade him to give up his job as diplomatic head of the Finnish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and join them in Geneva as Chairman of the Bosnia-Herzegovina Working Party which, to their delight, he accepted. Lord Owen also met the German Foreign Minister, Klaus Kinkel. On Sunday, he had tea with Lord Carrington at his home. Peter Carrington left David Owen under no illusion about the size of the task and the differences of approach between key EC countries. On Monday, 31 August Lord Owen began a rapid tour of key EC capitals with a flight to Brussels. Then to Paris to see President Mitterrand, on to Lisbon to see Ambassador Cutiliero, then Rome and The Hague, to see the Foreign Ministers. He arrived in Geneva on 3 September for the first meeting of the ICFY Steering Committee.

Eight months of intense political activity in the ICFY led up to the plenary session on Bosnia-Herzegovina in Athens. All three parties to the conflict signed the Vance/Owen Peace Plan (VOPP) during an all-night session on 1–2 May 1993 which, in effect, rolled back the Bosnian Serb military occupation from 70 per cent to 43 per cent. The Bosnian Serbs’ signature was subject to endorsement by the Bosnian Serb Assembly meeting in Pale on 5–6 May.