United Nations Peace keeping—Political and Financial Problems*

Abstract

This chapter discusses the political problems that have arisen with regard to United Nations (UN) peacekeeping, examines the events by which these political differences have led to a financial crisis, and considers the merits of the dispute and various suggestions as to the proper path forward. There are four major areas of political disagreement on the UN peacekeeping role to be defined. The first concerns the long-standing dispute over Article 43 of the UN Charter, which envisaged special agreements to be made between the Security Council and the rest of the UN membership, covering the availability of armed forces, their numbers, type, and location. The second basic constitutional disagreement stems from the celebrated Uniting for Peace Resolution. Two other political issues are the question of the command of UN Forces and the question of their selection and composition. These two issues are explored in this chapter when the pros and cons of the East–West dispute are examined.