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1 A history of UN peacekeeping The history of UN peacekeeping is intertwined with the evolution of the concept and practice of these operations. In this research study, the term ‘concept’, in the context of peacekeeping operations, refers to agreed-upon UN principles regarding the objectives, principles for success, and managerial and organisational aspects of the operations. The term ‘practice’, on the other hand, refers to the actual implementation of the operations and the political conduct of the states with regard to those conflicts where the decision is
3 Agenda for peacekeeping 1992–93 The positive momentum for execution of peacekeeping operations continued between 1992 and 1993. In 1992, the Security Council resolved to execute four new operations in the former Yugoslavia, Mozambique, Somalia and Cambodia. In 1993, the Council decided to intervene in four new sites: in Georgia (FSU), Haiti, Liberia and Rwanda. Intensive activity took place in the UN despite the lack of clarity regarding the effectiveness of implementation of the traditional operations with regard to intrastate conflicts. That was one of the
This book offers a brief review of United Nations (UN) peacekeeping operations from 1947 to 2014. It examines international politics at the United Nations from 1988 to 1991 when the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) dissolved. The book offers new explanations for the dwindling support for UN peacekeeping operations from late 1993 to 1995. It examines the diplomatic discussions at the Security Council, the General Assembly and the UN Secretariat on the objectives and principles of success of the operations from January 1992 to mid-1993. It is accepted by researchers and even the UN Secretariat that peacekeeping operations can be divided into two separate time periods: from 1947-88, or the Cold War era, and from 1988 to the present, the post-Cold War era. The book further explains what occurred in the UN during 1995 that called for a re-examination of the new concept and practice of peacekeeping in civil wars. It shows how the international community succeeded in providing only part of the requirements for the many operations, and especially for the large multidimensional operations in Cambodia, the former Yugoslavia and Somalia. Finally, the book emphasises the importance of regional organisations with regard to the maintenance of international peace and security.
actor in its own right, the UN is a unique entity mirroring (but also influencing) the political and normative processes in the entire international community. This study focuses on the expectations which relevant actors have of the UN in relation to intra-state conflicts as can be discerned by examining peacekeeping environments. 19 The ‘UN’ is used in this study to refer to any
T HE CHANGING MACROPOLITICAL landscape brought in its wake both continuities and discontinuities in the normative basis of intra-state peacekeeping, which we will closely examine in the context of four detailed case studies. Each case study in the following chapters will of necessity be handled in its ‘own’ time, in seemingly static fashion. This chapter will
This study explores the normative dimension of the evolving role of the United Nations in peace and security and, ultimately, in governance. What is dealt with here is both the UN's changing raison d'être and the wider normative context within which the organisation is located. The study looks at the UN through the window of one of its most contentious, yet least understood, practices: active involvement in intra-state conflicts as epitomised by UN peacekeeping. Drawing on the conceptual tools provided by the ‘historical structural’ approach, it seeks to understand how and why the international community continuously reinterprets or redefines the UN's role with regard to such conflicts. The study concentrates on intra-state ‘peacekeeping environments’, and examines what changes, if any, have occurred to the normative basis of UN peacekeeping in intra-state conflicts from the early 1960s to the early 1990s. One of the original aspects of the study is its analytical framework, where the conceptualisation of ‘normative basis’ revolves around objectives, functions and authority, and is closely connected with the institutionalised values in the UN Charter such as state sovereignty, human rights and socio-economic development.
Seeking to identify how the UK has engaged, and continues to engage, with United Nations (UN) peacekeeping operations on the African continent is a difficult proposition. The UK has been involved on multiple levels, and in multiple different guises when considering different peacekeeping operations. At times, the UK has obstructed the UN’s evolution in this area, and at other times the UK has actively supported the development of peacekeeping operations on the continent. With the deployment in 2016 and 2017 of up to four hundred troops
4 The failure of peacekeeping as a panacea to civil wars 1993–95 Ostensibly, it would seem that, during the first half of 1993, the UN had succeeded in dealing effectively with all the ‘new threats’ to international peace and security in the form of intrastate conflicts, by the implementation of multidimensional peacekeeping operations when needed. The operations were viewed as the ideal means for terminating conflicts and establishing peace. However, the truth was that the UN resolutions to execute the operations in their new format were unanimous only in
workers are posted. 5 Similar dynamics in experiences of non-white but non-local security providers can be seen in studies on peacekeeping and peacebuilding ( Chisholm, 2016 , 2017 ; Henry, 2015 ; Mynster Christensen, 2015 ). 6 Published manuals produced by humanitarian agencies ( Save the Children, 2010 ; ICRC, 2006 ), GISF (2012 , 2019) and
this is legal, since 2006 ( Daccord, 2018 ). The British Red Cross also admitted ‘a small number’ of sexual harassment or abuse cases in the UK ( Gillespie et al. , 2018 ). This sits in a longer international context, including the controversies around UN peacekeeping forces, starting with Cambodia in 1993, encompassing Bosnia and Herzegovina, Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone, DRC and Haiti, which led to the UN concluding in 2013 that the biggest risk in peacekeeping