reading 12: UN and peacekeeping Flashcards
Ch 20: UN
intro
mass death and destruction unconscionable atrocities, human suffering WW2 -> further effort to institutionalize collective security (LoN after WW1)
UN Charter = constitution, founded on state sovereignty (nothing in the present charter shall authorize the UN to intervene in matters which are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of any state)
preamble: main purpose: maintenanc eof int’l peac eand security + to that end it outlawed the use of fforce except iin self-defense or with express authorization of the UNSC
- other main tasks: ensuring respect for human rights and promoting eco dev = more instrumental to the primary security function
cold war = UNSC marginalized bc US-SU rivalry (except buffer forces and observers, ‘peacekeepers’)
1945: 51, now 193 members
3 facets of the UN
- the intergovernmental institution (the ‘first UN)
- arena of decisionmaking and negotiation - the administrative entity (the ‘second UN’)
- career and long-serving staff, Secretarat headed by Secretary-General is the core of the administrative apparatus
- lack of commitment, resources and political will among member states often inhibits the international civil services ability to affect change - collection of nonstate actors that routinely engage the world body (‘third UN’)
- NGOs, academics, experts, consultants, independent panels not formally part of the world body but involved in its various activities and ifnluence the first and second UN
Ch 20: UN
the UNSC
Charter Article 24(1): preeminent UN organ with responsibility for maintaining int’l order
- military teeth to ensure compliance with decisions about security
composition: does not represent the contemporary distribution of power -> debate reform but futile
- P5 = China, France, Russia, UK, US = can veto = tactical compromise to ensue great-power cooperation (learn from LoN)
- 10 rotating members = 2y nonrenewable terms and can’t veto
- to pass, a resolution needs 9/10 votes and no veto
powers: Chapters VI-VIII
- VI = ‘pacific settlement of disputes’: authority to call disputing parties to resolve their conflict trough peaceful means (fact-finding, good offices, negotiation, arbitration, judicial settlement) + right to investigate disputes that might endanger int’l peace and security and to recommend terms of settlement
- VII = ‘action with respect to threats to the peace, breaches of the peace, and acts of aggression’: coercive authority (i.e. legally binding) in response to what the UNSC deems a threat to in’l peace and security, may impose dipomatic and eco sanctions or military force (!military forces assembled on case-to-case basis)
- VIII = ‘regional arrangements’: enfourags such organizations to engage in peaceful dispute settlement before involving the UNSC and requiresthat they seek the UNSC’ authorization before undertaking coercive action + grants the UNSC power to delegate enforcement to regional bodies
UNSC task expansion:
- Chapter VI and a half (not explicitly mentioned in the Charter: peacekeeping operations = civilians nd borrowed soliders adn police from member states under command off the UN to help keep a lid on conflict by monitoring ceasefires, interpositioning troops between belligerent forces, and maintaining disengagement zones
!deployed with consent of warring parties + only use force in self-defense and defence mission mandate - after cold war cooperation P5 more feasible -> new operations (breakthrough: military force to roll back Iraqi aggression against Kuwait 1990) = dramatic decline in vetos
- second generation peacekeeping: electoral assistance, human right smonitoring, weapons collection (based on consent so don’t go against state autonomy)
- 1990s move from peace keeping to peace enforcement + widening scope of what is a threat to int’l peace and security (incl. human rights)
- after Kosovo 1999 no substantial multinational military effort
- post-9/11 nadir in coercive protection lasted until 2011 (authorized all necessary measures against Libya to protect citizens)
- also economic sanctions (e.g. against al-Qaida) and international criminal prosecutions (mixed result tribunals, but big contribution to dev int’l law)
- range of UNSC action is growing (e.g. willing to consider purposeful starvation, forced displacement, and even respond by overthrowing elected gov), same time state sovereignty idea is shrinking (e.g. R2P)
increased access by actors other than states: UNSC expanded definition of threats to int’l order to incl human rights disasters => avenues for NGOs to have a voice in security matters (offer country an issue-specific knowlege, practical expertise, ifno about on-the-ground developments
Ch 20: UN
- the general assembly
each member has equal status and one vote (evidence of sovereign equality of all its members)
resolutions are recommendations (not binding) + adopted by simple majority (except those concerning ‘important questions’: 2/3 majorty)
can make recommendations and discuss issues, but nt while a dispute or situation is being considered by the UNSC (happens nontheless)
Uniting for Peace (resolution 377(V): creates parallel authority (when UNSC is unable to act due to vetoes)
- maroity of UN members or simle majority of the UNSC can call for emergency special session on 24h notice to consider and dev collective responses to a crisis when the UNSC has been unable to act
= not binding decisions, but through UfP can endorse coercive actions
UfP initiative faltered, 2016creation International, Impartial and Independent Mechanism enabling gathering and preservation of evidence of atrocity in the Syrian conflict since 2011
Global South has big role: strong majority in the GA = strongly defens self-determination, sovereignty and nonitnervention
Ch 20: UN
- the secretariat
= UN administrative apparatus
int’l civil servants headed by UN Secretary-General
- appointed by UNGA on recommendation of the UNSC, P5 veto makes it int horse-trading
- since 2016 improved consideration of qualifications + set aside the regional rotation
- UN’s executive head
- engages in preventive diplomacy, dispute mediation, negotiations, fact-finding etc.
- can call to the UNSC attention any matter which in his opinion may threaten the maintenance of int’l peace and security (danger of embarassment when no P5 support -> mainly quiet diplomacy)
claims it is a sprawling bureaucracy are overstated: UN budget and personnel are limited compare to the tasks under its jurisdiction
crucial role in security matters bc they are charged with carrying out UNSC decisions
Ch 20: UN
C21 challenges
changes in the character of war and UN responses
- intrastate conflicts have become commonplace and lethal + waged and funded differently (decentralized rather than hierarchical)
- use of ethnic cleansing, forced displacement, mass rape, scorched earth campaigns, purposeful starvatino, attacks on humanitarian aid workers = standard bill-of-fare
- refugees may destabilize recipient countries
- financing and economics also destabilizing; creates group that benefits from sustaining civil wars and violence
- UN relies on coalitions of the willing and regional organizations = often ill-equipped (=operational issues) + questions of accountability
- noncompliance with council sanctions (e.g. commodity embargoes) is obstacle to effectiveness
- UN focus on conflict prevention (esp since council failure to respond to the Rwandan genocide), UN Secretary generals at forefront of such efforts
- tackling the root causes of conflict with effort to foster socioeco dev and good governance
- peacebuilding missions to assit countries transition from violence to peace and prevent recurrence of warfare
terrorism
- UN has addressed it since 1972
- no agreed upon definition BUT 13 int’l legal conventions spanning issues as hijacking, bombings and use of nuclear material
- terrorist bombings late 80s/90s -> UNSC imposed sanctions on rogue states (Libya, Afghanistan)
- after 9-11-2001 UNSC deemed self-defence a legitimiate response -> endorsing US-led war in Afghanistan to change the Taliban regime
- resolution 1373 required states to implement specified measures to combat terrorism + Counter-Terrorism Committee to monitor
- chapter VII resolution 1540 requires states to ensure measures to contorl and account for nuclear, biological and chemical weapons
- lack of consensus on definition bad for authorizing self-defense as appropriate reaction
disarmament and non-proliferation
- Charter refers to the regulation of armaments (UNGA, Disarmament Commission, permanent Conference of Disarmament)
- UN not a major player, but crucial for int’l norms
- main contribution UN: facilitate negotiation of int’l treaties (NPT, Chemical Weapons Convention, Biological Toxins and Weapons Convention)(Comprehensive Test Ban Theory not yet into force)
- cooperates with the IAEA
- UN engaged directly in coercive disarmament operation in Iraq following the Gulf war
- majority war-related deaths come from small arms, UN has stepped up in non-proliferation, but unable to negotiate a legally binding treaty
Ch 20: UN
conclusion
purpose of the UN is not to get us to heaven but to save us from hell
Un essential role in diffusing interstaet and intrastate disputes, repsonding to humanitarian emergenceis and elaborating norms for human rights
world org has demosntrated creativity in navigating the constraints of power politics
BUT as long as states fial to provide requisite resources and to delegate authority, the UN capacity to fulfil its mandate will remain circumscribed
Ch21 - peace operations
the form and meaning of peace operations
form has shifted, mainly dependent on agreement of the P5
traditional peacekeeping: facilitated decolonization processes
post-cold war and spread liberal humaitarian spirit -> operations tried to regulate violent struggles within states
- attempt to confer liberal peace by installing political democracy, market economies, human rights, and law and order
UN has resisted operations likely to involve combat (govs don’t want casualties under the UN)
- often ad hoc coalitions of countries willing to fight: e.g. send paratroopers and marines
late 90s contraction bc diff to adjust to demands of complex conflicts
demand for UN peacekeepers grew again in C21: Liberia, Cote d’Ivoire, Haiti, Burundi, Sudan
-> rise in commitments
problems:
- what is peace? (negative is abence violence, positive peace prevents violence)
- peace operations act as disciplinary tool for global ordering, reminiscent of the colonial era (according to critics)
Ch21 - peace operations
- categories,
DPO = Department of Peace Operations
DPPA = Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs
- Peacekeeping (DPO) = preserving peace and to assist in implementing peace agreements, increasingly broadened into complexes of military, police and civilian deployments in civil wars to protect both civilians and conduct peacebuilding
- peace enforcement (DPO): the application of UNSC manddates that include coercive measures, incl the use of military force to establish security
- conflict prevention (DPPA): use of structural and diplomatic measures to keep intra-state or inter-state tensions from escalating into violent conflict
- peacemaking (DPPA): measures to address conflicts in progress and usually involves diplomatic action to bring hostile parties to a negotiated agreement
- peacebuilding (DPPA): measures targeted to reduce the risk of relapsing into conflict by strengthening national capacities for conflict management, and to lay foundation for sustainable peace and development
Ch21 - peace operations
- dispositions and contributions
disposition illustrates long-standing importance of colonial legacies: most UN operations aimed at former colonies + most uniformed personal from former colonies
(often seen as immoral and unacceptable: rich provide the money and the poor provide the blood)
contributions:
- early contributors: neutral countries: Ireland, Sweden, Austria, Canada, Yugoslavia
- lately the global South has provided most uniformed personnel (not to gain UN income but for kudos or other institutional reasons)
- China sought o raise int’l profiele and establish relations in the Global South by committing tiny portion of defense forces
- no NATO member made the top 20 (Italy highest with 920 uniformed personnel)
- rich states have provided finance and assets
attention to engagement with an proection of women in host countries (bc UNSC promotes gender sensitivity) -> more women in operatiosn
Ch21 - peace operations
reforms and controversies - 1997-2006 responses to distress
bruising experiences Somalia, Rwanda, Bosnia and Herzegovina
1997-2006: Kofi-Annan UNSG
= steps to deal with UN overstretch, underperformance and lack of resources
- ushered policy of burden-sharing with other security organizations (bc no resources or political commitment to endow the UN with capabilities) -> allows countries more selective about deploying forces
- appointed High-Level Panel of Experts with Brahimi as chair
Brahimi report: recommended closer matching between resources and mandates: peacekeeping should be more robust + more consultation with troop contributors necessary to avoid risk without representation (if commitments were not forthcoming, then mandates should be limited)
policy flaws:
- assumes that a strategy should be devised for both peacekeeping and enforcement as if units could move about on a force spectrum
- assumed lesson of Rwanda that peace could be secured by military means without widening resistance (in practice mission personnel threatened with looting, criminal gans and armed groups)
-> Guehenno advocated for improved training, stornger codes of best pracice, lessons-learned unit - peacekeeping sought to avoid war-fighting but seemed to slide towards the miltiary docrines of major powers ‘almot in lockstep’ and robust missions spent as much effort toon force protection as on prtoecting civlians
- in joint opertions, how would the UN distinguish its legitimacy from e.g. the war aims of NATO
- multiagency engagement in local goverannce would require them to create and manage ambitious peacebuilding policies according to liberalism -> in coopting peace operations into the wider project of liberal global order it underestimated the strength of local traditions and the illiberal agendas of local elites
- that forceful non-UN coalitiosn could do better in stabilization revealed dubious
Ch21 - peace operations
reforms and controversy: 2007-16 HIPPO
UNSG Ban Ki-Moon
trend towards modern corporatization gathered pace: US business-model managerialism -> department of field support
(consultations on operational planning with defence organizations like NATO continued)
quest for managerial linkage augured the cementing of world order according to ‘liberal’ power politics (UN-WB parternship to promote eco development, but actually US pushed for neoliberal austerity)
Ban commissioned a High-Level Independent Panel on Peace Operations (HIPPO) chaired by Ramos-Horta
- tough well-founded criticism of flaws in the UN system: weak conflict analysis, slow deployments into the field, lack of gender considerations etc.
- general interrogation of stanards was warranted revalations of corruption and abuse 1990s (e.g. peacekeepers also raped)
peace operations understated the impacts on peoples on the receiving end (e.g. Nepalese peacekeepers introduced cholera to Haiti in 2010)
ambiguities, compromises and contradictions in UN operations continued: e.g. ambiguity on the use of force (on one hand not for combat, only defence, on other hand should protect civilians proactively)
- problems of decidign trhesholds at which deterrence would turn into combat
- peacekeepers would look impartial + would be problematic for maintaining host consent
significant outcome of HIPPO: to broaden the discourse of peace (sustaining peace = preventing outbreak, escalation, continuation and recurrence of conflict)
Ch21 - peace operations
- reforms and controversy: 2017-2022 contraction and austerity
UNSG Guterres invoked a ‘peace continuum’: conflict prevention at one end and development at the other
2018 Action for Peacekeeping (revitalizing campaign) -> called for reneweed political support for peacekepping to confront higher risks, lack of political proces, unfocussed mandates, civlian proection expectations, resource probelms and incapcities for contributing to sustainable peace)
- reaffirmation basic principles of impartiality, consent, non-use of force except for self-defense and mandate defence
- clear, prioritize an sequenced mandates
- etc.
2 significant infrastructure adjustments driven by austerity and mission contraction
- interdepartmental strategy for digital transformation to promote planning and decision-making effectivieness, info security, intelligence and data management
- separating peacebuilding from an overloaded PO : shift to restructured epartment of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs (may be no less overloaded)
-> what increases may not be prospects for peace and security but nr and scope of institutions and management
Ch21 - peace operations
problem solving managed
do peace operations simulate peace or stimulate it?
recidivism after the exit of peacekeepers fell by 75% in 90s civil wars comared to noninterventionist contexts
-> claim effectiveness, but how to explain it?
- enforcement or threat of force led to success
research has shown how peace operations affect justice and sexual violence problems, population displacement and suppression of rebels
although operational norms espouse impartiality, deployment shve tended to avoid antagonizing host govs to avoid jeopardizign the peacekeepign presence
2020s focus on legacies: social norms can change and lead to eco growth and democratization, but also some authoritarian legacies
-> metrics produce correlations rather than precise causations + need to be acocompanied by fieldwork
Ch21 - peace operations
future prospects
‘Future for Peacekeeping’ 2020 = reflection excise seeking opinions from peacekeeping stakeholders about global trends and preparations for smarter peace operations
- new dev that may thwart a renaissance for peace operations: nuclear war, global pandemics, eco crisis and extreme poverty, population dislocation, political polarization, nationalist extremism, disruptive tech, non-state armed groups
submissions called for conflict prevention, greater coordination and clear divsion oflabour between multiple participants, more attention to relatios with civil society + monitoring and assesment of operations
+ call for investment in countreis at risk of higher conflict
3 evolutions were criticized:
- ambitions and extensions of pace operations without the resources to fulfil them
- potential slide into counter-rebel or anti-terrorism combat
- protection of civilians without necessary esources
(conflict potential of succession politics will continue to occur)
Ch21 - peace operations
conclusion
perfection is a chimera and peace operations do well to mitigate violence
but paradoxes may spell the end of intervention
- the more coherence through coordination ebtween instittioins, the blurrier become srole differentiation
- the greater the segmentaiton of institutionalized peace, the greater the overhead costs of managerialism
- the more peace operations take on ambitious roles as counterterrorism, the more risk of associating with militarization and protecting neoliberal eco reconstruction
whether peace operations will perissit through a liberal internationalist concept of security (reresenting humanitarianism, rights protection, development) is an open question
