United Nations Peace Research Articles

Analyzing the Co-Evolution of the Responsibility to Protect and the Protection of Civilians in UN Peace Operations

ABSTRACTThis article analyses the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) in conjunction with the Protection of Civilians (POC) in peace operations. It examines where and how the two concepts have challenged, altered, led to reinterpretations and had feedback effects on each other. Drawing on methods from discourse analysis, the article examines their: gradual institutionalization at the United Nations (UN); deployment in the practices of the Security Council; and, influence over the actions of operations in the field. The analysis shows that the R2P has co-evolved with POC and particularly the implementation of POC through UN peace operations. The article illustrates that the emergence of the R2P and the trends in POC in peace operations have cross-fertilised in discourse and practice at the UN regarding the prevention and response to egregious of human rights abuses. It argues that this has influenced their respective trajectories with ramifications for understanding the normative trajectory and status of the R2P as it enters its third decade in popular lexicon. In particular, it posits that understanding the current and future status of the R2P will be enhanced by insights into how the R2P has shaped, but also been shaped by, other contiguous normative agendas, thematic areas and practices.

The “Left Turn” and the Latin American countries’ discourses about the UN Peace Operations around the world

This article argues that the political orientation of the government in office in a country may affect its positioning regarding the United Nations Peace Operations. In order to demonstrate that, in this study I compare what is said by officials of leftist and rightist Latin American countries about peacekeeping in UNSC, since the 1990s.

Establishment of UN Cyber Peacekeeping Force: Prospects and Challenges


 
 
 With the emergence of cyberspace as the fifth domain of warfare, the prospects of cyber conflicts have increased significantly. Around 300 state-sponsored cyber operations have been conducted since 2005. The future uncertainty of cyber-warfare has prompted calls for necessary measures to regulate the actions of states in cyberspace. In this regard, cyber-peacekeeping has also emerged as a significant research area to distinctively deal with the cyber component of future conflicts. Although, a number of challenges exist regarding materialization of full fledge cyber-peacekeeping force, it can be easily integrated into the current United Nations (UN) peacekeeping organizational structure. In legal terms, operationalization of cyber-peacekeeping force will depend on the mandate of peace operations approved by the UN Security Council (UNSC). This paper discusses the challenges confronting the creation of a cyber- peacekeeping force and also offers recommendations by presenting a general framework regarding how such a force can be operationalized. Despite the fact that a dedicated cyber-peacekeeping force seems a far sighted idea in present times, a distinct cyber unit can certainly be formed and integrated into UN peace operations in near future.
 
 

Przebudowa systemu generacji sił do misji Narodów Zjednoczonych. Próba utrzymania zdolności do realizacji mandatów

UN Peacekeeping Operation as a tool of United Nations still play a vital role on restoring peace and security in the World. Due to the current conflicts, the role and scope of UN peacekeeping missions mandated tasks have changed significantly. Nowadays, they are not only an instrument of keeping the peace between states after conflict but also responsible for building the state structures, reform security system or promotion of human rights. For the execution of present mandates, often beyond the military tasks, the generated forces must be capable to implement them. The lesson learned from the recent years has shown that United Nations peace operations have not been adopted fully to the current conditions. The force generation system was based on assumptions from the past and did not meet the existing expectations. Thus, the UN was obliged to create a new system that would face up to contemporary peacekeeping. This article presents challenges for UN peacekeeping and describes the activities of the UN Secretariat aimed at improving the process of generation of forces for peacekeeping missions in order to implement modern missions’ mandates.

Institutionalization of the UN Police Peacekeeping

Article studies the strategic frame, organizational and operational aspects of UN peacekeeping missions police components activities to ensure sustaining peace.It is noted that at present the UN Police actively participates in UN peace operations acting as an integrated solution of issues of peace and security. Consideration is also given to the growing importance of the UN Police to international peace and security and the increased attention given to policing by the Security Council and the Secretary General.The UN police now engage in United Nations peace operations across the entire peace and security spectrum, from conflict prevention to peacekeeping and peacebuilding. Serving in the frame of UN interim administrations the UN Police acquired a unique experience of law enforcement and international cooperation on combating crime.It underscores the most recent global developments, including advances made in the Strategic Guidance Framework for International Police Peacekeeping, to ensure coherence of effort and refine strategic police generation platforms.From the viewpoint of the structural and functional approach, the UN Police as a peacekeeping actor has not only specific functions and tasks, but also the potential, organizational structure, trained personnel needed to perform a wide range of tasks both at the stage of conflict prevention and post-conflict peacebuilding.The legal and organizational issues of UN Police involvement in peacekeeping activities are almost resolved. At present the UN Police component as an institutional subsystem represents an organizational structure that unites international policemen from various member states, which acts as a collective actor in UN peacekeeping.

Cooperating with evil? Accountability in peace operations and the evolution of the United Nations Human Rights Due Diligence Policy

International organizations (IOs) usually cooperate with national actors in order to implement global decisions and policies. This cooperation has become problematic as implementing partners have increasingly been accused of serious human rights violations. This article analyzes how implementing partners from the host state of a United Nations (UN) peace operation are held accountable. I argue that the complexity of contemporary peacekeeping limits the availability of traditional accountability mechanisms. I develop a conceptual model to demonstrate how, instead, different accountability forms interact and complement each other. I illustrate this interplay of accountability with a case study on the emergence of the UN Human Rights Due Diligence Policy (HRDDP). The accountability framework enacted by the Joint Human Rights Unit, the Special Procedures of the UN Human Rights Council and the International Criminal Court in the context of the UN peace operation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo threatened the legitimacy of UN peacekeeping. As a consequence, the UN adopted the HRDDP as a new, UN-based accountability mechanism to hold implementing partners from the host state of peace operations accountable.

MILINDA: A new dataset on United Nations-led and non-united Nations-led peace operations

Is there a trend toward the regionalization of peacekeeping? Does regionalization undermine the United Nations (UN) system of collective security? To answer these questions, we present an innovative dataset of peace operations. Covering the 1947–2016 period, the dataset captures every UN and non-UN peace operation, information on mission type, the existence of target state consent and UN authorization. The unit of analysis is the mission. The first analysis of the dataset yields three findings: (1) There is a significant regionalization of peace operations; (2) regions show distinct intervention patterns; and (3) regionalization does not directly challenge the UN authority.

A study on mefloquine-associated neuropsychiatric manifestations among Nepalese soldiers posted for United Nations peace mission

Background: Mefloquine is one of the prophylactic medications recommended by the government of Nepal. In areas of intense malaria transmission, prophylaxis with drugs is an important strategy to prevent malaria. During prophylactic use, several neuro-psychiatric and other systemic adverse effects can occur with mefloquine. Notable psychiatric manifestations include anxiety, depression, restlessness, and confusion.
 Objective: To study the psychiatric effects of mefloquine in Nepalese serving soldiers posted in the United Nations peace mission nations of the African continent taking mefloquine prophylaxis.
 Methodology: This prospective descriptive study was conducted among Nepalese soldiers posted for United Nations peace mission in South Sudan over a period of one year. Soldiers of age group 25-55 years posted for peace mission having no past and family history of psychiatric illnesses were enrolled in the study. General Health Questionnaire-12, translated into Nepali by Nepalese Journal of Psychiatry, with a questionnaire about the side effects was used to collect detailed information.
 Results: A total of 524 soldiers posted on peace mission were enrolled in the present study, among which 520 were male and four were female. There were four positive cases with General Health Questionnaire score 3/12 or more. Among the adverse events noted, neuropsychiatric adverse events were more common than non-neuropsychiatric adverse events but none were of life-threatening severity.
 Conclusion: In a malaria endemic region with a high prevalence of malaria, mefloquine can be safely used in an apparently healthy population, judging the risk-benefit.

Nambara Shigeru (1889–1974): how a Japanese liberal conceptualized eternal peace, 1918–1951

AbstractNambara Shigeru was arara avisof Japanese liberal academics at hard times in that he survived difficult times without being punished by the oppressive government in the pre-war Japan and the occupation authorities in the immediate post-war Japan. He specialized in Western political philosophy especially in Immanuel Kant and Johann Gottlieb Fichte, known as proponents of German idealism and nationalism. His magnum opus was published, without being punished, in 1944, arguing that the Nazi politics was totally against the Western political tradition. In 1945–46, he made clear his opposition to the draft new Constitution in which the emperor be symbolic and the armed forces be abolished. In 1949–1950, he made clear his view that Japan, once Japan admitted to the United Nations, what would become Japanese Self-Defense Forces should donate portions to what would become United Nations Peace Keeping Operations. On the basis of his writings in the war period and the occupation period, comparisons of his positions with Roger Scruton, Vladislav Surkov, Yanaihara Tadao, Akamatsu Kaname, Nitobe Inazo, and Yanagida Kunio on such concepts as democracy promotion, national self-determination, peace keeping are attempted to see the extent to which the pent-up Wilsonian moment burst in the immediate post-war period.

An ‘Impartial’ Force? Normative Ambiguity and Practice Change in UN Peace Operations

ABSTRACTImpartiality is a core legitimating norm for United Nations peace operations. Yet beliefs about what that norm requires of UN personnel have shifted dramatically. In 2013, for example, the Security Council created an intervention brigade – composed of infantry battalions, special forces, and an artillery company – to ‘neutralize’ non-state armed groups in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). According to critics, these activities violate core peacekeeping norms, including impartiality. This criticism elicits a puzzling response from many UN officials. They downplay the novelty of new practices, insisting that they are still ‘impartial’. Where does this discursive pattern come from, and what does it tell us about the relationship between day-to-day practices and the norms that ostensibly guide UN peace operations? Drawing on evidence from the DRC, I argue that norms like impartiality may endure – and remain rhetorically powerful – without telling us much about how practices on the ground have evolved. Instead, insisting that new practices are impartial can be a way for UN personnel to stabilize a core part of their identity under conditions of normative ambiguity. It can also be a way of glossing over contestation and pre-empting concerns about partiality in UN peace operations.

Better peacekeepers, better protection? Troop quality of United Nations peace operations and violence against civilians

Why do similarly sized peacekeeping missions vary in their effectiveness to protect civilians in conflicts? We argue that peace operations with a large share of troops from countries with high-quality militaries are better able to deter violence from state and non-state actors and create buffer zones within conflict areas, can better reach remote locations, and have superior capabilities – including diplomatic pressure by troop contributing countries – to monitor the implementation of peace agreements. These operational advantages enable them to better protect civilians. Combining data from military expenditures of troop contributing countries together with monthly data on the composition of peace operations, we create a proxy indicator for the average troop quality of UN PKOs. Statistical evidence from an extended sample of conflicts in Africa and Asia between 1991 and 2010 supports our argument.

United Nations peace operations as international practices: Revisiting the UN mission’s armed raids against gangs in Haiti

AbstractThis article develops an International Practice Theory (IPT) approach to United Nations peace operations through the study of the UN Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH). MINUSTAH saw the introduction of new practices within the context of a UN peace operation, namely the use of joint military-police forces to conduct offensive action against armed groups that were labelled as ‘gangs’. While more objectivist problem-solving approaches would argue that the UN mission was simply adapting to the situation on the ground, an IPT lens reveals that there was considerable struggle to integrate these new practices within the repertoire of peacekeeping. The article argues for the benefits of applying an IPT lens to peace operations while proposing to develop theoretical and methodological approaches that have been less prominent in IPT. Theoretically, it posits that IPT can better articulate practice and discourse by paying more attention to what actors say about what they do.

How UN Peacebuilding Unintentionally Incentivizes Local-Level Violence

This paper challenges theoretical and empirical arguments about peacebuilding effectiveness that put the state at the center of United Nations peace operations. The paper draws on evidence from the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA) from 2013 to 2017. I argue that state-centric UN peacebuilding operations inadvertently incentivize local-level violence in post-conflict zones. I demonstrate that when the UN supports central governments it unintentionally empowers non-professionalized militaries, paramilitaries, and warlords to settle local scores. Armed violence against civilians in turn triggers a vicious cycle of reprisals and counter-reprisals. As an alternative to state-centric peacebuilding operations that incentivize local violence, I suggest that the UN should shift strategic resources away from central governments and toward UN policing, support of traditional and religious authorities, and the training of local security institutions.

Interrelated causes of African intrastate wars and relevant peace missions

Africa has always been affected by external influences and factors such as Western colonial rule and since the 1960s by the liberation processes of most states. The changing nature of African post-colonial politics led to growing conflicts because of power devolution and violent regime changes by military coups d’état. Causal factors of recent intrastate wars are diverse and complex, but mostly relate to belligerents and non-state actors having greed and grievance issues, causing wars for resources and unjust exploitation, elite power struggles and political exclusion, ethnic and religious differences. Poor leadership, absence of democratic principles, identity politics and corruption contribute to violent conflicts. Most causes reinforce one another and are compounded by continuous violence when belligerents are dissatisfied with weak regimes, while both belligerents and regimes break peace accords, as empirical research proved. Changing alliances in Africa are a normal occurrence in enduring conflicts such as in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan and the Central African Republic. Consequently, two-thirds of global conflict currently occurs in Africa and the majority of United Nations peace missions are hosted in these three states, where South Africa participates in peace missions. Causes of recent intrastate wars are first discussed in general, and then in particular in these states, relating to lessons learnt from peacekeeping experiences to counteract some of the causal factors.

Since you left: United Nations peace support, private military and security companies, and Canada

In the late 1990s when Canada was largely removing itself from United Nations peace support endeavours, private military and security companies were heralded as likely replacements. Canada has indicated its desire to reengage in a United Nations peace support milieu in which there is now a private military and security presence. It is not the type of presence initially envisioned, but it is one with multiple impacts regarding training and operations. This article emphasizes the interventions in the first decade of the twenty-first century and the corresponding, defensively minded regulations that came about in the private military and security industry. The article reveals that commercial logics are now insinuated in United Nations peace support operations and the private military and security presence therein is indicative of a larger shift in United Nations activities towards insularity and protection.

Reflections on BDS

Reflections on BDS

Building sovereigns? The UN peacekeeping and strengthening the authority of the state in Lebanon and Mali

ABSTRACTThis paper contributes to the debate on the recent ‘stabilization turn’ in United Nations (UN) peacekeeping by inquiring into a changing set of practices by which the UN intends to ‘strengthen the authority of the state.’ Drawing on Piiparinen’s notion of sovereignty-building as an emerging paradigm of conflict management, the study analyses the support for state authority and sovereignty in two modalities of contemporary UN peace operations – UNIFIL II and MINUSMA. While the two analysed missions significantly differ when it comes to the extent of their tasks, or the rules for the use of force, they both highlight the importance of local politics and agency in the implementations of their mandates and the need to strike a compromise between the contending visions on what form of sovereignty should be supported. By doing so, the paper points out the importance of ‘local’ and contextual emergence of the practices of sovereignty-building.

UN Peace Operations and Conflicting Legitimacies

ABSTRACTAnalyses of United Nations (UN) peacekeeping increasingly consider legitimacy a key factor for success, conceiving of it as a resource that operations should seek and use in the pursuit of their goals. However, these analyses rarely break down legitimacy by source. Because the UN is an organization with multiple identities and duties however, different legitimacy sources – in particular output and procedural legitimacy – and the UN’s corresponding legitimation practices come into conflict in the context of peacekeeping. Drawing on a range of examples and the specific case of the United Nations Organization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUC), this article argues that looking at different legitimacy sources and linking them to the institutional identity of the UN is thus critical, and it shows how the UN’s contradictory legitimation practices can reduce overall legitimacy perceptions.

“Then in 1915”: Eric Bogle’s “And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda”

ABSTRACTThe anti-war song “And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda” has become a cultural icon in Australia, and elsewhere has been recorded over 130 times in 10 different languages. The song was written in 1971 by Eric Bogle, a Scottish immigrant to Australia, who has penned more than 250 powerful compositions, which, among other things, focus on the failure of history to impress upon youth the futility of war. Appropriately, Bogle was named Australian Humanist of the Year in 2001 for capturing “the ethos of humanism through his perceptive and individualistic songwriting with its exposure of racism, bigotry, warmongering and injustice of all kinds”. Additionally, he was awarded the United Nations Peace Medal (1986), and was made Member of the Order of Australia (1987). This article asks why a song written by a Scot in Australia, fifty-six years after the Dardanelles campaign, feels as if it has “always existed. That it belongs to culture and country”. It questions what the appeal imbued within the lyrics of those five short verses might be and recounts the story behind the creation of what Pete Seeger referred to as “one of the world’s greatest songs”. Through interviews with the writer, and an examination of the relevant historiography, this article presents a study of “the most potent ballad of the age”. It also examines what Bogle meant when he said that it was a song that “came into its time”.

The contribution (or not) of UN higher education to peacebuilding: an ethnographic account

ABSTRACTThis paper examines the role of United Nations (UN) peace academics in teaching for peace within the UN higher education system, and questions what contribution, if any, UN peacebuilding education makes to the broader field of peace and conflict studies education, and in the lives of the people it touches. The study draws on ethnographic data collected over a six-month period at one UN university in 2015. The data collection period involved participant observation, interviews with faculty and postgraduate students, document analysis, and surveys with learners. Findings suggest tensions and contradiction in the university around issues of UN mimicry, Western-centrism, state domination, and institutional capitalism. Implications are briefly addressed and recommendations provided.