United Nations: Working With Conflicts

Politics | July 3, 2010 | Share

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The United Nations was established to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war and one of its main purposes is till date to maintain international peace and security. Although peacekeeping is not mentioned in the United Nations charter, it has become the tool of choice to achieve this end when violent conflicts in a certain region need to be subdued. United Nations peacekeeping is a unique global partnership that draws the support of host countries and the accumulated experience of the Secretariat in managing operations in the field. It is this partnership that gives UN peacekeeping its legitimacy, its sustainability and its global reach.

Since 1948, UN peacekeeping has contributed to preventing and managing violent conflicts between and within the States and supporting national actors in protecting and building peace after conflict. The international community has seen not only resounding success but also devastating failure in their peacekeeping missions due to lack of response of member states. The landmark Brahimi Report of 2000 charted a renewed vision for UN peacekeeping that helped make peacekeeping stronger, more effective and comparatively cost-efficient. These reforms enabled a five-fold growth in operations over the past decade.

Human Rights:

With the ever-increasing trend of globalization comes a growing sense of responsibility between nations. The legality of unsolicited intervention is always dubious. However, if an intervention liberates people from a cruel regime, then human rights that benefit the citizens must be duly acknowledged.

The International humanitarian law is designed to protect persons who do not participate, or are no longer participating in the hostilities. And it maintains the fundamental rights of civilians, victims and non-combatants in an armed conflict. It is relevant to United Nations peacekeeping operations because these missions are often deployed into post-conflict environments where violence may be ongoing or conflict could reignite.

Additionally, in post-conflict environments there are often large civilian populations that have been targeted by the warring parties, prisoners of war and other vulnerable groups to whom the Geneva Conventions or other humanitarian laws would apply in the event of further hostilities.

Although human rights and peace often come together, there are times when protecting human rights may mean a period of escalated overall violence. If such forceful interventions are not legal under international law, then how can United Nations peacekeeping do more to protect human rights and fill in the gaps?

The Spectrum of Activities:

Methods and motives involved in peacekeeping operations are no longer as simplistic as they were in 1948. There was a time in the middle of the twentieth century when peacekeeping was a distinctly different concept from the exclusive concepts of peacebuilding, peace enforcement, and humanitarian intervention. They can no longer be treated as mutually exclusive. This is because today peacekeeping operations have taken on a multitude of new responsibilities and have developed into hybrid operations that are often difficult to categorize and oversee. To understand this, one must look at how the ideas of peace operations and humanitarian intervention have evolved over the past half century.

* Conflict Prevention: The application of structural or diplomatic measures to keep intra-state or inter-state tensions and disputes from escalating into violent conflict is indispensable. Conflict resolution is based on structured early warning, information gathering and careful analysis of what is driving the conflict.

* Peacemaking generally includes measures to address conflicts in progress and usually involves diplomatic action to bring hostile parties to a negotiated agreement. The United Nations Secretary-General, upon the request of the Security Council or the General Assembly or at his her own initiative, may exercise his or her good offices to facilitate the resolution of the conflict. Peacemakers may also be envoys, governments, groups of states, regional organizations or the United Nations. Peacemaking efforts may also be under-taken by unofficial and non-governmental groups, or by a prominent personality working independently.

* Peacekeeping is a technique designed to preserve the peace, however fragile, where fighting has been halted, and to assist in implementing agreements achieved by peacemakers. Over the years, peacekeeping has evolved from a primarily military model of observing cease-fires and the separation of forces after inter-state wars, to incorporate a complex model of many elements – military, police and civilian – working together to help lay the foundations for sustainable peace.

* Peace enforcement involves the application, with the authorization of the Security Council, a range of coercive measures, including the use of military force. Such actions are authorized to restore international peace and security in situations where the Security Council has determined the existence of a threat to the peace, breach of the peace or act of aggression. The Security Council may utilize, where appropriate, regional organizations and agencies for enforcement action under its authority.

* Peacebuilding involves a range of measures targeted to reduce the risk of lapsing or relapsing into conflict by strengthening national capacities at all levels for conflict management, and to lay the foundation for sustainable peace and development. Peacebuilding is a complex, long-term process of creating the necessary conditions for sustainable peace. It works by addressing the deep-rooted, structural causes of violent conflicts in a comprehensive manner. Peacebuilding measures address core issues that effect the functioning of society and the State, and seek to enhance the capacity of the State to effectively and legitimately carry out its core functions.

The boundaries between conflict prevention, peacemaking, peacekeeping, peacebuilding and peace enforcement have become increasingly blurred. Peace operations are rarely limited to one type of activity, whether United Nations-led or conducted by non-United Nations actors. While United Nations peacekeeping operations are, in principle, deployed to support the implementation of a cease-fire or peace agreement, they are often required to play an active role in peacemaking efforts and may also be involved in early peacebuilding activities. United Nations peacekeeping operations may also use force at the tactical level, with the authorization of the Security Council, to defend themselves and their mandate, particularly in situations where the State is unable to provide security and maintain public order.

The creation of a new United Nations peacebuilding architecture reflects a growing recognition within the international community of the linkages between the United Nations peacemaking, peacekeeping and peacebuilding roles. When a country comes before it, the Peacebuilding Commission helps marshal the resources at the disposal of the international community and advise on and propose integrated strategies for peacebuilding and recovery. In doing so, it aims to bring together relevant actors, including international financial institutions and other donors, United Nations agencies, civil society organizations, and others in support of these strategies; as well as to provide strategic advice to the principal United Nations organs and help facilitate political dialogue, enhance coordination, and monitor the progress of both national and international actors.

The Core:

Although not provided for in the Charter, the practice of peacekeeping began in 1948 when the first United Nations military observers were deployed to the Middle East. During the ensuing Cold War years, the goals of United Nations peacekeeping were necessarily limited to maintaining cease-fires and stabilizing situations on the ground, so that efforts could be made at the political level to resolve the conflict by peaceful means. Several of the United Nations longstanding peacekeeping operations fit this traditional model. Traditional United Nations peacekeeping operations are deployed as an interim measure to help manage a conflict and create conditions in which the negotiation of a lasting settlement can proceed. The tasks assigned to traditional United Nations peacekeeping operations by the Security Council are essentially military in character and may involve the following:

* Observation, monitoring and reporting using static posts, patrols, overflights
or other technical means, with the agreement of the parties
* Supervision of cease-fire and support to verification mechanisms
* Interposition as a buffer and confidence-building measures

Traditional peacekeeping operations do not normally play a direct role in political efforts to resolve the conflict. Other actors such as bilateral partners to the parties, regional organizations or even special United Nations envoys may be working on longer-term political solutions, which will allow the peacekeeping operation to withdraw. As a result, some traditional peacekeeping operations are deployed for decades before a lasting political settlement is reached between the parties. With the end of the Cold War, the strategic context for United Nations peacekeeping changed dramatically and the Security Council began to work more actively to promote the containment and peaceful resolution of regional conflicts. While the end of the Cold War coincided with a general decline in the incidence of conflict around the world, internal armed conflicts constitute the vast majority of today’s wars. Many of these conflicts take place in the world’s poorest countries where state capacity may be weak, and where belligerents may be motivated by economic gain, as much as ideology or past grievances. Moreover, evidence has shown that a large proportion of all civil wars are due to a relapse of conflict, the risks of which are particularly high in the first five to 10 years following a conflict.

The transformation of the international environment has given rise to a new generation of multi-dimensional United Nations peacekeeping operation. These operations are typically deployed in the dangerous aftermath of a violent internal conflict and may employ a mix of military, police and civilian capabilities to support the implementation of a comprehensive peace agreement.

Some multi-dimensional United Nations peacekeeping operations have been deployed following a request from the national authorities to support the transition to a legitimate government, in the absence of a formal peace agreement. In exceptional circumstances, the Security Council has also authorized multi-dimensional United Nations peacekeeping operations to temporarily assume the legislative and administrate functions of the State, in order to support the transfer of authority from one sovereign entity to another, or until sovereignty questions are fully resolved (as in the case of transitional administrations), or to help the State to establish administrative structures that may not have existed previously.

Multi-dimensional United Nations peacekeeping operations deployed in the aftermath of an internal conflict face a particularly challenging environment. The State’s capacity to provide security to its population and maintain public order is often weak, and violence may still be ongoing in various parts of the country. Basic infrastructure is likely to have been destroyed and large sections of the population may have been displaced. Society may be divided along ethnic, religious and regional lines and grave human rights abuses may have been committed during the conflict, further complicating efforts to achieve national reconciliation. Multi-dimensional United Nations peacekeeping operations are deployed as one part of a much broader international effort to help countries emerging from conflict to make the transition to sustainable peace.

Right to Intervene?

Although the practice of United Nations peacekeeping has evolved significantly over the past six decades, three basic principles have traditionally served and continue to set United Nations peacekeeping operations apart as a tool for maintaining international peace and security:

* Consent of the parties
* Impartiality
* Non-use of force except in self-defence and defence of the mandate

These principles are inter-related and mutually reinforcing. It is important that their meaning and relationship to each other are clearly understood by all those involved in the planning and conduct of United Nations peacekeeping operations, so that they are applied effectively. Taken together, they provide a navigation aid, or compass, for practitioners both in the field and at United Nations Headquarters.

The experiences of the past 15 years have shown that in order to succeed, United Nations peacekeeping operations must also be perceived as legitimate and credible, particularly in the eyes of the local population. The United Nations recent experience with multi-dimensional peacekeeping has also served to highlight the need for United Nations peacekeeping operations to promote national and local ownership, in order to contribute to the achievement of sustainable peace.

A humanitarian intervention is defined by Jean-Pierre Fonteyne, a faculty member at Australian National University, and an expert on international law, as the justifiable use of force for the purpose of protecting the inhabitants of another state from treatment so arbitrary and persistently abusive as to exceed the limits within which the sovereign is presumed to act with reason and justice.

Essentially what this means is that humanitarian intervention is the use of force by a nation in order to alleviate the suffering of civilians in another nation. If this violates the sovereignty of such a nation, then humanitarian intervention justifies itself by declaring that the leaders of nations forfeit their sovereignty when they commit human rights abuses. Many United Nations peacekeeping operations can be considered humanitarian interventions since they often involve elements of humanitarian aid; for instance, in the Somalian crisis, there was a large emphasis on providing aid to the people, who were lacking the basic necessities of life.

In addition to influential political interests, humanitarian interventions may also be complicated by ethical concerns. Therefore, inconsistencies in motives and mandates of operations have raised concerns about the legitimacy of humanitarian intervention. As peacekeeping operations shifted from a traditional, classical model to a contemporary,multifaceted model, the inclusion of peacebuilding and the increased use of force made things more complicated. However, additional factors such as the incorporation of humanitarian interventionist characteristics can further complicate the debate. It is ethical dilemmas like these that make humanitarian intervention a controversial subject.

United Nations peace operations face an extended and dangerous period of strategic uncertainty. A series of setbacks have coincided with military overstretch and the financial crisis, raising the risk that UN peacekeeping may contract, despite high demand. Much would be lost if it did. UN peacekeeping has proved to be a versatile tool for deterring or reversing inter-state conflict, ending civil wars, mitigating humanitarian crises, and extending state authority in areas where state capacity is weak or contested. Mediation and peacekeeping have contributed to an 80% decline in total armed conflict since the end of the Cold War. Not all operations succeed, or succeed in full. But to meet future challenges, both individual operations and the peacekeeping system as a whole require continued political, military and financial commitment by states and institutions. The protection of civilians against war is not just an end in itself, It is a commitment towards restitution.

Randy Stevens

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