The United Nations, intra-state peacekeeping and normative change

Esref Aksu

• Publisher: Manchester University Press
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN:
  9780719067495
• eBook ISBN:
  9781847795960
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politik & Internationale Beziehungen
• Subtopic: Vergleichende Politikwissenschaften

This study, available for the first time in paperback, 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, this study seeks to understand how and why the international community continuously reinterprets or redefines the UN's role with regard to intra-state conflicts. The study concentrates on intra-states '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. This book is essential reading for postgraduate students of IR and international peacekeeping organisations.

1
The UN and intra-state conflicts: problematising the normative connection

WIDESPREAD INTRA-STATE CONFLICT is not a new phenomenon. Its rise to the centre of attention in international policy circles is. UN involvement in intra-state conflicts is not new either. What is new is the increasing systematisation of UN involvement in conflict-torn societies. It is these two novelties of the post-Cold War world that shape the main concerns of this study. What is problematised here is the connection between the UN’s evolving approach to intra-state conflicts and the value system of the international community.

There should be little doubt that the UN’s frequent involvement in domestic conflicts contributes to gradual change in several international norms. As is the case with any systematised practice, the UN’s intra-state peacekeeping is certainly capable of creating, modifying, and eroding established international norms to varying degrees. The more interesting connection, however, lies in the question of whether the UN’s intra-state peacekeeping (quite apart from being either a ‘cause’ or ‘consequence’) mirrors a deep-running and more profound normative change in world politics, which is probably the manifestation of much bigger influences exerted on international actors and which has considerable impact on how violent conflicts are perceived, contextualised and addressed. Has the UN’s relationship with intra-state conflicts always reflected, and rested on, the same configuration or interpretation of significant international norms? If not, what has changed in the way the international community links the UN with intra-state conflicts, and how? Equally importantly, does the suspected change hint at the possibly evolving normative significance of the UN in world politics?

This study takes issue with the relatively reductionist explanations of what the UN is and how it relates to peace and security. The post-Cold War systematisation of UN involvement in intra-state conflicts, similar to any other UN activity, has been variously attributed (implicitly or explicitly) to a number of factors, including, among others, the particular geopolitical change that the end of the Cold War brought about; the usual pragmatism of the international community in the absence of a more suitable mechanism for dealing with destabilising effects of domestic conflicts; the distinct organisational relevance, culture and experience of the UN; and the UN’s own efforts to assume a special identity and role in world politics. A closer examination of the evolution of UN peacekeeping in intra-state conflicts – especially between the two most active and critical periods of UN peacekeeping: the early 1960s and the early 1990s – suggests that the role assigned to the UN in intra-state conflict management begs more than the explanations offered so far. It suggests in the first place that the UN’s evolving approach to conflict involves a number of normative changes in addition to the several empirical changes which have been the subject of much scholarly research in the post-Cold War period. More importantly, it suggests that this evolving approach indicates a deeper and gradual, though highly obscured, normative shift that gives the UN a new institutional meaning, a new raison d’être.

Although the UN is at the centre of much empirical and normative research, its possibly evolving relationship to the wider international value system remains largely under-explored. More notably, despite the radical changes in the global political setting and in the UN’s scope of activities over the years, what exactly the UN stands for is not all that clear. We do know that the UN has a vast mandate and is based on a great many principles. Yet we do not quite know – apart from our ‘first impressions’ – whether, and to what extent, international actors prioritise any of the UN’s objectives and principles over others, and whether there has been a change in their priorities, possibly impacting on the UN’s evolving identity.

It has long been argued that many potential contradictions are inherent in the UN Charter – for instance, that between peace and justice.¹ Perhaps more immediately noticeable are the perceived tensions between what might be labelled ‘state-centric’² and ‘human-centric’³ principles embedded in the Charter.⁴ Roberts and Kingsbury observe that the principles of territorial integrity and self-determination may prove irreconcilable, as was demonstrated in the case of the former Yugoslavia.⁵ At times, the principles of non-intervention and human rights may come into conflict.⁶ The ongoing debate on the right to humanitarian intervention, for instance, revolves mainly around a perceived normative dilemma embedded in the Charter. As the Carnegie Commission puts it: ‘The contradiction between respecting national sovereignty and the moral and ethical imperative to stop slaughter within states is real and difficult to resolve.’⁷ Examples of such normative difficulties can be multiplied. The principle of peaceful settlement of conflicts, for instance, may be at odds with human rights and self-determination.⁸ It is possible to argue that even peace and security may sometimes contradict each other.⁹

To complicate matters, there are common and enduring ‘beliefs’ about the UN, the accuracy of which must be questioned in the light of contemporary developments. A classical example is the idea that the UN is ‘of, by, and for governments’.¹⁰ Another example, which is closely connected and perhaps more vital, is the view that the UN’s primary objective is maintenance of international peace and security. No doubt, these beliefs find some support from the wording of the Charter. However, does the UN’s actual practice not raise serious doubts about their correctness? The organisation’s active involvement in intra-state conflicts is a case in point. It may well be the case that international players are redefining the UN’s ‘normative basis’, that is its ideal(ised) objectives, functions and authority – all three of which are key analytical concepts utilised in this study – without touching the wording of the Charter.¹¹ In the process, the impact of some crucial Charter principles, among them state sovereignty, human rights,¹² and socio-economic development, may be changing.

Still more significant are the wider implications of such possible change for ‘governance’ and for the UN’s role in it.¹³ Originally the UN was devised by victorious states to regulate ‘inter-national’ behaviour following World War II. In that sense, the organisation was intended to play a regulatory role in inter-governmental governance, with a special emphasis on peace and security. The Charter embodies states’ scepticism as to potential UN intrusion into governance within their internal sphere. Perhaps the best indicator of such scepticism is the principle of UN non-intervention, which finds its expression in Article 2.7.¹⁴ It may well be the case, though, that the UN is increasingly allowed, encouraged and indeed expected to play an active role in governance within what has been hitherto considered the exclusive political domain of states. The changes that have taken place over time in the UN’s actual practice vis-à-vis intra-state conflicts are certainly significant enough to provoke interest in whether these are indicative of a corresponding normative shift, involving the UN’s overall role in world politics.

Addressing normativity

What the UN is and is not, what it does and does not do, are at some level deeply connected with the international community’s collective expectations of and prescriptions for the UN. The world organisation’s involvement in intra-state conflicts, as epitomised by its intra-state peacekeeping activities, cannot be adequately understood if treated in isolation from the normative domain. It is for this reason that this study persistently addresses the issue of normativity; and it is in this sense that the study engages in ‘normative research’. This conscious choice needs a brief elaboration.

Normativity, with its multiple meanings and implications, has already become a central concern in the study of international relations. The terms ‘norm’ and ‘normative’ suffer, of course, from non-consensual usage by social scientists. The distinctions to be drawn between norm/normative and such related concepts as value/value judgement, morality/moral, ethics/ethical, are, to say the least, blurred in the literature. Definitional usage generally seems to lack a clear conceptualisation. This is perhaps the first difficulty which besets any exploration of the normative domain. The difficulty is compounded by the fact that ‘norm’ and ‘normative’ are also frequently used in combination with related terms, some of which have already been mentioned. We find, for example, such expressions as ‘normative rules’, ‘ethical norms’, and ‘normative principles’. Despite their solid place and frequent application in social scientific discourse, norm and normative seem to be used in academic writings with much the same flexible, broad and multiple connotations we encounter in everyday language.¹⁵

Apart from the absence of consensual definition and conceptualisation, there is also the added difficulty posed by the expression ‘normative research/theory’. This difficulty does not necessarily arise from the definition or meaning of norm and normative. Normative theory seems to refer to three distinct types of intellectual activity, which are not, however, always or entirely mutually exclusive. The first type involves notions of what should be done. We may consider this to be the classical concern of normative theory, which is usually associated with normative ethics, that is the traditional subdiscipline of moral philosophy, which aims to guide actions.¹⁶ Here the act of normative theorising is equated with thinking systematically about what is good and what is bad, what is right and what is wrong. Consequently the theorist arrives at, or at least hopes to arrive at, a set of standards which could and should be applied to distinguish between that which is right/good and that which is wrong/bad.¹⁷ It is this classical understanding of normative theory which presents itself as the opposite of ‘empirical’ theory. Normative theorising in this sense deals with the ‘ideal’, whereas empirical theorising is interested in the ‘real’.¹⁸ While the use of the term classical or traditional in social science may implicitly suggest that the approach has somehow been transcended or undermined,¹⁹ the classical understanding of normative theory is not necessarily outmoded. Many contemporary works still have substantial elements which owe much to this classical understanding – though they may adopt, for example, a postmodernist stance.²⁰

The second type involves enquiry into norms which either already exist or are in the making. According to this understanding, the task of normative theory is to discover, describe and explain empirically the communal²¹ standards and perceptions as to right and wrong. The task is, further, to explain the relationship between norms and other phenomena. How discovery, description and explanation of norms (as in the case of other ‘facts’ or ‘phenomena’) can best proceed is a different and ongoing debate between differing epistemological and methodological approaches to science. This second understanding of normative theory has no doubt some affinity with the positivist school of thought. Put differently, if a positivist were interested in norms and claimed to be conducting normative research, it is this second understanding of normative theory that he would have in mind. A multitude of such studies are to be found in the contemporary literature.²²

The last type of intellectual activity designated by ‘normative theory’ pertains to the very nature of the act of theorising and research. In recent years many scholars have prefaced their studies by explicitly admitting the impossibility of non-normative theorising, even though their preference might be to remain in one or other of the two traditions outlined above.²³ Accordingly, the normativity of a theory does not stem merely from the intention (as in the first understanding) or object (as in the second understanding) of analysis, but also from the inescapable fact that the very act of theorising/research itself involves normative approaches, reflections and judgements. The theorists as well as the communities around which the act of theorising takes place are not immune to norms and normative influences. Research activity (including observation of facts, perception of ‘reality’, general reasoning, mental processing of data, and even the formulation of descriptive statements) is itself largely shaped by the normative influences to which the researcher is subject.²⁴ Therefore, explicit normative theory²⁵ is that in which the theorist problematises the normative nature of any theorising and seeks to offer a methodology capable of overcoming this difficulty.²⁶

The ontological and epistemological tensions between the second and third approaches to normativity are apparent. Is there such an ‘objective’ reality as a norm? If norms exist only ‘intersubjectively’ – that is to say,...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• List of abbreviations
• 1 The UN and intra-state conflicts: problematising the normative connection
• 2 Rethinking the UN through intra-state peacekeeping: the analytical framework
• 3 The UN’s role in historical context: impact of structural tensions and thresholds
• 4 UN peacekeeping in intra-state conflicts: evolution of the normative basis
• 5 The UN in the Congo conflict: ONUC
• 6 The UN in the Cyprus conflict: UNFICYP
• 7 The UN in the Angola conflict: UNAVEM
• 8 The UN in the Cambodia conflict: UNTAC
• 9 Reflections on international normative change
• Select bibliography
• Index