United Nations Mission Research Articles

Ethics and Social Justice Issues in the United Nations Whistle Blowing

Ethics and Social Justice Issues in the United Nations Whistle Blowing Dr. Tirab, Mohamed Abstract The United Nations as an intergovernmental Organization purposely has been established with main concern and mission; to address human rights main issues as well as the justice concerns. The United Nations mission seeks to provide citizens of its member states freedom and liberties. The Security Council is the organ within the organization which should enforce and compel the strict adherence to the ethical norms and norms of international treaties, and values of the human rights, equality and social justice. As inequality existing on many levels, within the organizational body of the United Nations, and within the membership, as many member states are demanding equality in the mechanism of decision making, regarding the voting right of the member states, and the veto right of the permanent members of the Security Council. One of the biggest major challenges facing the United Nations as an intergovernmental organization is the achievement of the most important mandate of providing all nations and people's equal opportunity has been seriously challenged with discouraging international concerns and issues. Another major challenge facing the United Nations is the issue of conflict of interests in how to achieve to peace. The United Nations have Ethics Office, as well as ethical framework, which guide the UN public administrators within the ethical concerns. But still many allegations of the peacekeeping forces and administrators' involvement in misconduct, including abuse and sexual exploitation. My recommendations are; to reform the UN through implementation more transparence policy, such implementing the policy of checks and balances, also the United Nations should review the agreement signed between the Security Council and the International Criminal Court, and to develop the relationship agreement to stronger pact, between the two organizations. Also more adherence to the ethical norms of the organization. Full Text: PDF DOI: 10.15640/jirfp.v3n1a1

The Political Crisis in South Sudan

KeyWords: South Sudan; SPLM/A; civil warThe political crisis in South Sudan is now more than a year old, with no immediate end in sight to the fighting between armed factions. What began as a power struggle within the ruling party, the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM), reignited factional fighting within the army, the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA), in December 2013. Both the political and military crises had their origins in unresolved tensions following the split in the SPLM/A in the 1990s and the incomplete integration of opposed factions into the army following the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) in 2005 (see Johnson 2014). Many South Sudanese expected that these tensions would eventually erupt in some form of conflict following independence in 2011, but the rapid escalation and intensity of fighting has still taken them by surprise.This commentary can give only the barest outline of a complex series of events motivated by a mixture of political disappointment, personal ambition, and ethnic rivalry. A more detailed reporting of various aspects of the crisis can be found in the updated reports of the Human Security Baseline Assessment (HSBA) for Sudan and South Sudan and human rights reports by Amnesty International, the United Nations Mission in South Sudan, and the South Sudan Human Rights Commission (2014).1The CPA was constructed around the assumption that John Garang would remain the leader of the SPLM/A, the head of the Government of South Sudan (GoSS), and the first vice president in the power-sharing Government of National Unity (GNU) with the National Congress Party (NCP) throughout the six-year interim period leading up to the South Sudanese independence referendum in 2011. His death in July 2005, three weeks after his inauguration as first vice president, catapulted two men into unexpected positions of power: Salva Kiir Mayardit, Garang's deputy, assumed the leadership of the party and his two constitutional positions, while Riek Machar, occupying the third highest position in the party, became vice president in the GoSS. Had Garang lived, it is unlikely that either man would have remained in their initial positions, as Garang was adept at moving potential rivals around, preventing them from entrenching themselves in positions of power within the party or the army.Salva Kiir, a veteran guerrilla of the first civil war, was, along with Garang, the last surviving founder of the SPLM/A, all others having been killed in the fratricidal warfare that engulfed the SPLM/A during the 1990s (see Johnson 201 l:ch.7). His survival was due, in part, to having kept aloof from the internal politics of the movement, seeing himself as a soldier rather than a politician. Tensions had arisen between him and Garang at the end of 2004, just before the signing of the CPA, and his future in a Garang-led government was uncertain.Riek Machar had joined the movement from a civilian, rather than a military, background and broke with Garang in 1991 over personal and ideological differences. His attempt to lead a reformed movement failed, and in the end he was forced to fall back on the support of sections of his own Nuer people, a significant proportion of them coming from Khartoumbacked militias. Machar soon lost control over both the formal and informal armed bodies under his command. His rebellion disintegrated into internecine fighting among Nuer, with civilians being the main targets, a pattern that was to reemerge in his current rebellion (see Johnson 2009, 2011:ch.8). He reconciled with Garang in 2002, just as internationally brokered peace negotiations with Khartoum began, and was elevated to the number three spot in the movement's hierarchy.Salva Kiir faced many challenges in forming a government to administer southern Sudan during the interim period prior to the independence referendum. As leader of the army, the party, and the government, he first appointed persons closer to himself than to Garang, some with strong ties to Khartoum, leaving many of the SPLM stalwarts-Garang's Orphans- marginalized within the party and government (see Nyaba 2011 ). …

The Futility of Force? Strategic Lessons for Dealing with Unconventional Armed Groups from the UN’s War on Haiti’s Gangs

Confronted by non-conventional non-state military forces enjoying high – but very localized – social legitimacy, the United Nations Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) struggled between 2004 and 2007 to embed the use of force in a larger strategy of state consolidation. The article explores the confrontations between MINUSTAH and unconventional armed groups in Haiti during this period. It traces MINUSTAH’s operations against criminal gangs, and the resulting process of strategic learning. It explores how tactical innovations allowed MINUSTAH to defeat the gangs, but also highlights that the larger political objective – breaking the connection between the gangs and Haiti’s political-business elite – remained unarticulated and elusive – and perhaps ultimately unfeasible, given the necessity of Haitian state consent for continued UN operations in the country. In a final post-script the article reflects on the return of the gangs after the earthquake of 12 January 2010, and what it signals about the limited impact of tactical force on the presence and power of political-criminal networks.

Peacebuilding in Timor-Leste: United Nations missions and the post-intervention context

Abstract This article looks at the process of intervention that took place in Timor-Leste particularly after the 1999 popular consultation where the majority of the voting was in favour of independence from Indonesian rule. Since then, the United Nations (UN) presence in Timor-Leste assumed different configurations, from the transitional administration to elections monitoring, including the use of force to contain violence. In the process of peace consolidation, the role of international interventionism was to assist the country in developing institutions and setting up processes for promoting good governance, aiming at stability-building. This article looks at the context where interventionism took place, particularly looking at the UN role until the end of the UN Integrated Mission in Timor-Leste (UNMIT) mandate in December 2012, seeking to shed light on the UN’s contribution to peace. The article argues the UN’s approach to peace has been mainly an institutional one, and that the challenges remaining and/or arising in the post-interventionist context are many regarding the consolidation of the state, both internally (structural approach to peace) and externally (projection of stability at the regional and international levels). Despite the remaining challenges, the article concludes with a positive assessment of the course of Timorese peace consolidation, and that the active foreign policy of Timor-Leste might constitute a building block in its internal consolidation process.

MALARIA TREATMENT VS. MALARIA PROPHYLAXIS : A COST COMPARISON.

Aim This research aims to evaluate the cost of using drugs to combat an established infection as compared with drugs used for prophylactic purposes. And this aim was achieved by using the following objective which was: (i) To estimate the cost of using anti-malarial drugs as treatment compared to using them as prophylaxis. Methods The study used 142 subjects (n=142) who had travelled to Liberia for six months to work among the Jordanian Level III Hospital within the United Nations Mission in Liberia (UNMIL). This is a malarious area, so the participants have to take prophylactic medicine, or they will be at risk of acquiring malaria. The prophylactic medicines that have been taken by the participants cost the RMS a particular value (Cost 1), In contrast those who acquired malaria will need treatment and hospitalization and this will incur on the RMS another different set of costs (Cost 2). A questionnaire was distributed among the participants to collect the data needed. In addition, data was collected from the records of the financial offices in the hospitals of Royal Medical Services (RMS) where the malarious patients were treated. Results From the 142 participants, 52.1% used Mefloquine for prophylaxis in comparison with Doxycycline which was used by 29.6% of them, and the rest, 18.3%, used more than one prophylactic method. One case of malaria infection occurred during the study period and it was diagnosed as Severe Falciparum Malaria (SFM). The patient answered that he didn’t use any prophylactic medication, Cost 1 and Cost 2 evaluated and found to be £10189.00 and £1220.00 respectively. Conclusion The study showed much less cost when using these drugs for prophylaxis by 94% per capita comparing with the cost of treating one case of Severe Falciparum Malaria (SFM). Key words Malaria, Imported, Prophylaxis, Antimalarials, Costs.

Dreams Are Not Made of Concrete

Dreams Are Not Made of Concrete Joshua Craze (bio) 1. The sun is slowly coming up on one of the main thoroughfares in Juba. Most of the streets do not yet have names; the city is too young, and we navigate using landmarks. At night, I am lost in the endlessness of the dusty tracks, the absence of electric lighting, the silence of the stars, and the uncertain edges of urban settlements. The night is receding, and the sun is throwing the market stalls of Konyo-Konyo into flat relief. It is an auburn light, still so faint that it seems as if objects (a corrugated iron roof, a blue UNHCR tarpaulin, dried fish) are clinging to it, holding its chaste offerings to themselves like gifts of flowers. There are only a few cars on the street, and the dirt has not yet absorbed the sky in its swirling dominion. I sit next to a roadside stall (a cardboard box with a cloth on top, charcoal in a brazier, a heavy pot on the fire) drinking the burning-hot sugar syrup that passes for tea here. The road lies ahead of me, unmoving. Soon, cars will be careening over potholes, cutting cartographies through the dusty furrows of the road as they make their way into town. In 2005, the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) signed a peace treaty with the northern government, ending 22 years of civil war. In 2011, just two months before I wrote these words, Southern Sudan voted to decide on whether it wants to secede from the North. Juba is soon to become Africa’s newest capital. Throughout the conflict, the city was in a state of suspended animation: the government controlled the urban center, but the SPLM, seasoned guerrillas, had encircled it. Supplies came at a premium. [End Page 35] Residents who remember that time speak darkly of searching for food in the rubbish. The core of the city dates from this period: a series of stone houses, owned by northern merchants fearing for their future, that today form an embattled stockade in the midst of a rapidly growing urban sprawl. Since 2005, a new type of urbanism has sprung up. Tent cities shelter along the banks of the Nile. Then there are the concrete bungalows built by soldiers and politicians, and the endless squatter camps that are going up overnight, as thousands of internally displaced people return south after years of exile. It is not just those displaced by war that have flooded into Juba. There are East Africans looking for work, journalists looking for fame, and endless aid workers, whose extravagant salaries have turned Juba into an unlikely boomtown. Their uncertain coexistence makes for an uneasy peace. We all live next to each other, in this city that is not quite urban, not quite a city, and not yet a capital. We wait for the results of the referendum. 2. In Sans Soleil, Chris Marker’s elegiac investigation into the nature of memory, the narrator tells us that she received a letter from Krasner: He told me that in the 19th century, mankind had come to terms with space, and that the great question of the 20th was the coexistence of different concepts of time. There is some truth to this, I think, drinking my third tea of the day as the sun climbs higher in the sky, and the market stalls, ad hoc constructions of tarpaulin and corrugated iron, start to shine. I wave at a lumbering UN Land Cruiser careening over reluctant potholes. The driver, Haider, is a Pakistani soldier spending a year with the United Nations Mission in Sudan (UNMIS). I met him a few nights ago, at the sprawling UN compound next to the airport, and we bonded by dreaming of Sajji, that wonderful dish of roast lamb stuffed with rice, beloved in Balochistan. Lamb of any kind felt very far away that night, surrounded by UN pizza joints, and something like a shared bodily memory (grease, rare meat that gives easily in the mouth, the smell of charcoal) brought us together. [End Page 36] The UN compound is a world of its own, replete with...

Bridging the ‘Conceptual–Contextual’ Divide: Security Sector Reform in Liberia and UNMIL Transition

This article discusses the tensions in security sector reform that stem from a conceptual–contextual divide in statebuilding practice. It uses the case of the United Nations Mission in Liberia (UNMIL) drawdown to understand how tensions between international policy and local practice manifest and impact on reform of internal security capacity in real time. The theme of hybridity links the analytical framework with the reality of SSR performance and explains the fallacies of liberal-institutionalist reform choices. Research findings offer important lessons that point towards the need for developing local institutions and capacities in place of externally driven social engineering projects that enhance dependency. This focus on empowering the local complements, and is commensurate with, the ultimate goal of SSR, namely, the reconstruction of legitimate and people-centred security institutions.

Invitation withdrawn: humanitarian action, United Nations peacekeeping, and state sovereignty in Chad

This paper looks at the three-way relationship between the Government of Chad, humanitarians, and the United Nations Mission in the Central African Republic and Chad (MINURCAT) from 2004 until June 2011. Chad was never comfortable with the international presence of either humanitarians or peacekeepers and asserted its sovereignty increasingly during this period. MINURCAT was deployed in 2008 to protect humanitarian workers and to facilitate the provision of humanitarian assistance in eastern Chad. This association between the UN mission and humanitarian agencies contributed to making the latter the target of repressive practices by the government, such as the imposition of armed escorts. Facing a steep learning curve, Chad and its state officials gradually appropriated the discourse of the humanitarian and international community and ultimately, in 2010, requested the departure of MINURCAT, claiming that they could meet the protection needs of vulnerable populations in eastern Chad on their own.

Early warning, the protection of civilians and United Nations peacekeeping operations

This commentary traces the increasing importance of early warning in United Nations (UN) peacekeeping, an emphasis that has emerged in connection with the evolution of protection of civilians mandates in UN peacekeeping missions. It examines the current and emerging practice of early warning in UN peacekeeping as well as the challenges faced, drawing on case studies from the UN missions in South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The authors also propose a set of basic principles upon which early warning in UN peacekeeping operations might be approached in the future.

Robotics and Automation Activities in Brazil [IAB

Covering an area of 8.5 million km2 and with a population of around 200 million people, Brazil emerged in the international scene as a country with a solid economy and stable currency, being able to cope with the disastrous effects of the current global economic crisis. It recently received the investment grade from prominent risk-assessment agencies, which means the country is more likely to meet payment obligations, attracting more investments. In addition, Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa formed a group known as Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa (BRICS) to discuss and implement ways to improve the global economic scenario. Brazil is also a full member of the Mercosur and actively participated in numerous United Nations missions.

Advancing the First World Ocean Assessment

World Ocean Assessment (WOA) regional workshops enlist expertise for the WOA Pool of Experts, update regional knowledge on the marine environment, and build capacity to conduct assessments and benefit from assessments. WOA was described in Eos (93(50), 521, doi:10.1029/2012EO500001). For the Wider Caribbean Region (WCR) Workshop, the United States Mission to the United Nations (UN) invited all UN missions, in accordance with WOA guidelines. The WCR workshop attracted 94 people from 32 countries with a wide range of expertise, including ocean, fishery, and biodiversity sciences; living and nonliving resource management; and capacity building. Attendees represented academia, governments, industry, and nongovernmental organizations.

Responsibility in the Time of Cholera: Liability of International Organisations for Wrongful Conduct

The reference point for the present paper is the outbreak of cholera in Haiti in 2010, which has been argued to have resulted from the deployment of Nepali peacekeepers to the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH). The outbreak killed close to 8000 people and infected 6% of the Haitian population. In 2011, the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti (IJDH) filed a law suit against the United Nations (UN), on behalf of over 5000 plaintiffs, claiming compensation for those deceased and injured in the cholera epidemic. It also sought a public apology and acknowledgment of responsibility for causing the outbreak of the epidemic on part of the UN. While there has been significant criticism levied at the UN, the organization has absolved itself of any responsibility by claiming immunity. Not surprisingly, MINUSTAH is not the only UN mission to have come under criticism. In 2012, an internal report of the UN leaked to the press severely criticized the dereliction of duty on part of senior UN officials in Sri Lanka during the civil war in 2009, which led to the death of many civilians. Other UN peacekeeping missions, notably the UN Stabilization Mission in DR Congo (MONUSCO) have also been severely criticized for rampant sexual abuse and exploitation cases perpetrated by its peacekeeping troops. Nevertheless, the Haiti cholera case remains a significant precedent for the potential implications it holds for future activities of the UN in the field of peacekeeping. This paper proposes to study the liability of the United Nations (UN) for wrongful acts committed during a UN authorized mission. The present paper does not seek to establish the nature of human rights and humanitarian law obligations that the UN is bound by. Rather, it begins with the assumption that given the legal personality vested in the UN such an obligation is implicit, derived from customary international law as well as principles of human rights and humanitarian law. Beginning with this assumption, the paper seeks to answer the following questions1) Whether the UN can claim immunity from prosecution and compensation for acts which are (i) manifestly wrong and/or (ii) reckless and fail to meet due diligence standards set by the organization and (iii) do not further the objective of a UN mission. 2) If the answer to the aforesaid question is yes, what are the pre-conditions that have to be fulfilled before such attribution of responsibility can take place?The paper proposes to examine the aforesaid questions by studying the interplay between institutional immunity granted to the UN as well as taking into consideration the 2011 ILC Draft Articles on the Responsibility of International Organizations. Another aspect, which will be covered is the issue of third party claims procedure and Status of Forces Agreement, traditionally signed between the UN and the host country before a peacekeeping mission is deployed.

Timor-Leste in 2012

Ten years after independence, 2012 proved a critical year for Timor-Leste, with three rounds of national elections, and the formation of a new government to take the country beyond the 13-year era of international peacekeeping. As the year closed, both the United Nations Mission in Timor-Leste and the Australian military-led International Stabilization Force formally concluded operations.

Common Security and Defence Policy peace operations in the Western Balkans: impact and lessons learned

Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) missions have increased substantially in number, functions and geographic spread since their inception in 2003. Despite their expansion in numbers and scope, especially in the Western Balkans, few systematic assessments of the contributions that CSDP missions make to peacekeeping and peacebuilding efforts have been undertaken to date. This article addresses that lacuna by assessing the contributions CSDP missions have made in recent years to peacekeeping and peacebuilding in the Western Balkans. It explores whether CSDP missions in that region: make an intrinsic contribution to peacekeeping and peacebuilding in those countries or merely profit (or take credit) from the initial groundwork laid by United Nations (UN) and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) missions; are adequately coordinated within the European Union (EU) and between the EU and other international organisations, including NATO; are sufficiently embedded or effectively linked to other EU instruments, such as the Stability and Association Process to the Western Balkans; and engender adequate elite or public support or ‘ownership’ in these countries.

From Rhetoric to Reality: A Pragmatic Analysis of the Integration of Women into UN Peacekeeping Operations

This paper aims to provide a critical analysis of the integration of women into United Nations (UN) peacekeeping – particularly in the form of all-female units – as a means of deterring sexual exploitation and abuse (SEA) in conflict environments. Results from this study indicate that compared to both male peacekeepers and female peacekeepers from co-ed units, women from all-female units have a greater awareness of gender issues and SEA in a UN mission, sense of responsibility to address such issues, and experience doing so during deployment. The distinct gap in these measures between women from all-female units and co-ed units challenges the widespread assumption that women will inherently address SEA in a UN mission. Analyzing the variables that may contribute to the success of the all-female unit, the article concludes that these same factors may be applied to a wider distribution of women throughout peacekeeping operations. Recommendations presented in the article must be implemented as a component of a broad, long-term gender mainstreaming strategy to address the interrelated nature of gender inequality and sexual violence in conflict. Results of the study are analyzed with a focus on the role of UN peacekeeping in mitigating SEA in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

When They Overstay Their Welcome: UN Peacekeepers in Africa

United Nations (UN) peace operations are once again at a crossroads, partly due to overstretched capacities. In the meantime, there are indications that peacekeepers face a new and perhaps less expected challenge. Over the last few years, rulers in Burundi, Chad and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) have pushed through the reduction of peacekeeping personnel or forced the wholesale withdrawal of peace operations – despite the concerns of the UN. This paper explores whether there is a new hostility to peacekeeping in Africa’s weak states. What should and can the UN do if the assistance they offer in support of peace consolidation is rejected by their putative national ‘partners’, especially when the countries in question continue to face serious post-conflict challenges? Using the cases of UN missions in the DRC and South Sudan, this article examines why the well-established principle of consent of host state governments cannot any longer be taken for granted by peacekeepers. It argues that the increasing hostility towards peace operations is a function of their becoming actors in the domestic power game, as a result of their ever longer and intrusive presence.

Police as Nation Builders: Distinguishing between Countries that Contribute Police Officers to United Nations Peace Operations

The involvement of police in post-conflict peacekeeping has experienced exceptional growth. As a result, the countries contributing police officers to United Nations and European Union Missions is increasing. The countries that have contributed police officers to the 24 United Nations Missions that took place between January 2006 and December 2012 are examined and compared with those of military peacekeeping contributing countries. The countries identified as contributing police to peacekeeping missions during this period are different from those contributing military forces and are principally developing nations. These results raise questions in regard to the form of policing being introduced in post-conflict nations and the depriving of the contributing countries of their limited resource.

THE RESTORATION OF PEACE AND STABILITY IN SOMALIA: THE CRITICAL ROLE OF THE AFRICAN UNION MISSON IN SOMALIA (AMISOM)

There has been a civil war in Somalia ever since the central government collapsed in 1991 which means there has been more then twenty years of domestic violence. To stop the fight, the United Nations Missions and other forces authorised by the UN Security Council have been deployed to Somalia such as the United Nations Operations (UNOSOM) and United Task Force (UNITAF), but none of those missions and forces have bore fruit and the civil war in the country has not come to an end. Furthermore, United Nations thought it has failed militarily whatever caused in Somalia but politically it has been present because immediately after its withdrawal from the country United Nation Office in Somalia (UNPOS) was established in 1995 in neighboring country in Kenya. However, in 2006 the situation deteriorated further when there was a bloody conflict between Islamic Courts and the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) heavily supported by Ethiopia which later resulted in military defeat of the former and two years presence of Ethiopian contingent in Somalia. Consequently, the situation came under the spotlight of African Union which later established African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) which is currently operating in Somalia with the approval of the UN Security Council under its Resolution 1744. The idea of creating AMISOM is to assist (TFG) as well as to promote peace and stability in Somalia.

The Particularism of Cosmopolitanism

Cosmopolitan political theorists model their aspirations for global democratic politics on international organisations. But how cosmopolitan are international organisations? Based on a survey of civilian staff of the United Nations Mission in Kosovo, the UN headquarters and other organisations working in Kosovo's post-conflict environment, the current article will show that staff in international organisations are not only cosmopolitan. Their world views confirm the individualist-liberal pedigree of cosmopolitanism but also show a strong tendency towards conservative values and a continued appraisal of the state's role. Their historical narratives are, furthermore, distinctively based on the historical experience of Western Europe and North America. The article concludes that cosmopolitanism is politically firmly rooted in the historical and ideological experience of the West, and hence is not universal.

United Nations Peacekeeping, Democratic Process, and the Durability of Peace after Civil Wars

This article examines the ways in which United Nations (UN) peacekeeping missions affect democratic progress and the durability of peace in post–civil war states. After a conflict, UN peacekeeping missions provide security and create incentives for former actors to resolve their differences through peaceful and democratic means. This article contends that by providing support, peacekeeping missions help to initiate a democratic process such that former rivals can claim access to power and resources without resorting to armed conflict. To arrive at this conclusion, this article empirically examines whether UN peacekeeping missions succeeded in promoting democratic progress in postwar states and, subsequently, whether that democratic progress would contribute to the durability of peace. The indirect effect of peacekeeping on stable peace has not been explored in the literature surrounding democratic progress and the durability of peace. From the analysis of the data on post–civil war democratic progress and the durability of peace from 1946 to 2005, I find support for the alternative approach and conclude that UN missions contribute to durable peace in post–civil war states by promoting democratic political processes.