Addressing the Perils of Peace Operations: Toward a Global Peacekeeping System

Abstract

OVER THE PAST TWO DECADES, WE HAVE SEEN CONSIDERABLE PROGRESS made in international conflict management, peacekeeping, and peacebuilding. The end of the Cold War has led to the obsolescence of between major powers, and globalization has increased the interconnectedness and interdependence among people, societies, and countries. However, the longevity and large-scale nature of armed conflicts in Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Somalia, Chad, and Sudan with enormous humanitarian consequences are solemn reminders that international institutions and peacekeeping actions are still unable to meet global challenges with global responses. rethinking of the role of peacekeeping as an instrument of global crisis response could help to strengthen global governance in peace and security. The call for a global system in peacekeeping has been voiced by the 2009 UN report A New Partnership Agenda (New Horizon Report). It argues that international peacekeeping a global system to match the global enterprise it has become. (1) In my view, for such a system to be effective, it needs to rely more so on the broadening partnerships of the UN with various regional organizations while increasing the interface between peacekeeping and peace-building at the same time. In view of the lack of strategic consensus by the Security Council permanent members, such a system cannot be created top down, but rather it needs to be built on peacekeeping practices, norms, and interdependent relations of states and institutions. This essay will briefly look at the important progress that peacekeeping has made over the past twenty years and then explore, in view of a continuous North-South divide and a resurging Westphalian bias, what such a global peacekeeping system could look like. Peacekeeping Evolution and Transformation Following the end of the Cold War, peacekeeping became a necessary and ubiquitous tool for conflict management. The demand for peacekeeping has increased significantly since the early 1990s and analysts credit international mediation, crisis management, and peacekeeping for the up to 80 percent decline in total armed conflicts. (2) Peacekeeping underwent important transformations, driven partly by mission failures, such as Somalia, Bosnia, and Rwanda in the mid-1990s, partly by policy prescriptions of the Brahimi Report that was crafted as a response to these failures. Also, the dark side of globalization transformed the nature of peacekeeping: it facilitated cross-border criminal violence that has fueled shadow economies with the presence of illicit arms and dangerous materials, valuable natural resources, and the trafficking of humans. These remnants of war pose a formidable challenge to peacekeeping as they are transnational, often linked to local stakeholders, and nonmilitary in nature. (3) Over the past twenty years, regional organizations have become real players in crisis management, including peacekeeping action. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the European Union (EU), the African Union (AU), as well as the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), have developed their own peacekeeping capabilities. recent report of the African Union-United Nations panel on modalities for support to AU peacekeeping operations (the Prodi Report) looks particularly at the emerging strategic relationship between the UN and the AU. (4) Most peace missions are today carried out as a partnership between two or more institutions. For instance, in 2007, forty of fifty-four peace missions involved some interinstitutional arrangement. (5) Moreover, the transformation of peacekeeping over the past decade has been characterized by an increasing emphasis on the civilian dimension. On the one hand, with civilians becoming deliberate targets or indirect victims of armed violence, the protection of civilians has become an integral, albeit not very effective part of peacekeeping missions. …