Since the early 1990s, there has been an immense evolution in peace operations, in policies, mandates, scope and function. Where traditional peacekeeping previously focused on ensuring security and stability â now restructuring the security sector; protecting civilians; supporting disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration of ex-combatants; increasing democratic space, institution-building and good governance â are all core to the UN mandates â in short building peace. In addition, there has been a drive towards more ârobustâ peacekeeping. Similarly, the expectations of the UN to solve conflicts have altered. There has been a growth both vertically and horizontally of multi-dimensional peacekeeping challenges and thus the need for sophisticated solutions. The policy developments and capacities to address these challenges have increased in the UN, yet in tandem there remains considerable policy-operational gaps.
In the simplest terms, UN peace operations are about ensuring security and stability to provide an environment to transition from conflict to peace. The means by which to achieve this will vary according to context and operations, but in most cases they will include conducting support for DDR, defence, police, justice and penal reform, democratisation, economic development and transitional justice in addition to conducting more traditional peacekeeping. This book addresses these aspects of peace operations and their relationship, through the peace operations in Haiti 1994â2016. Peace operations strive to create the conditions where democracy can develop. However, frequently even if initial stability and democratisation have been achieved, it has often proven more difficult to achieve the longer term objectives of creating sustainable security intuitions and a stable democracy, repeatedly resulting in a return of conflict.
The evolution, change and improvement in UN and international policy and discourse on peace operations have been significant, yet implementation has continued to lag behind. The discourse has tended to focus on either one specific variable (e.g. police reform), or the relationship between two of the variables (e.g. police and justice reform) or state building, peacebuilding, democratisation or conflict and development in one or several countries. This book examines the UNâs approaches to security and stability, DDR, police, justice and prison reform, democratisation, and transitional justice and their interdependencies through the seven UN missions in Haiti. It identifies strengths and weaknesses of these approaches, and focuses on the connections between these different sectors. It places these efforts in the broader Haitian political context; emphasises economic development as a central factor to sustainability; provides a civil society perspective, and discusses the many constraints the UN faced in implementing its mandates. The book is also a historical account of the UN in Haiti, which comes at a time when the drawdown of the mission has begun. Therefore, this book provides a contribution to the discourse by explicitly highlighting the interdependencies between these variables and in particular drawing attention to the lack of strong political mandates in complex national political environments. Thus, the aim of this book is to examine, using Haiti as an example, why after long-term peace operations and other international and bilateral support so many countries revert into violence, poor governance and undemocratic practices even when substantial progress has been made in several areas. What this book establishes is that when the interdependencies of these variables are not cohesively addressed it undermines progress in core areas; and that the national political context can have a considerable negative impact upon progress in programme implementation.
It has been acknowledged, and perhaps best exemplified through the development of UN integrated missions, that to achieve the objectives of any peace operations a crosscutting, comprehensive and cohesive approach is needed. Yet in practice, this has been difficult to implement in many contexts. In a world where everyone is increasingly specialised, addressing the interdependencies of each sector in a peace operation is complex. It is extremely difficult to find people that can tackle defence reform, as well as economic development and transitional justice, but this is where cooperation, communication and coordination, ideally integration, become ever so important. This has too often been absent.
However, there needs to be an understanding of what UN missions can and cannot do. UN peace operations are frequently an easy target for criticism by international and national stakeholders without an adequate understanding of the restrictions such operations function within. For example, there has been increasing pressure to expand mandates and meet peacekeeping challenges yet adequate human and financial resources have not always been provided, thus limiting the missionsâ abilities to implement the mandate effectively. In addition, a UN peace operation takes place within a broader national and international political context and is often constrained by this. For example, there may be strong national resistance to UN strategies for change and international actors, rather than supporting a peace operationâs objectives, in some instances, have effectively hindered the UNâs ability to implement its mandate, through promoting their own national interests.
An evolution in policy
There has been an evolution in policy guidance supporting and developing peace operations. These polices, that have and will guide UN peace operations then, now and in the future, include, for example, the Agenda for Peace, the Brahimi report, the Secretary-Generalâs reports on Rule of Law and Transitional Justice, the Secretary-Generalâs reports on Security Sector Reform, the Secretary-Generalâs reports on the protection of civilians (POC), the Secretary-Generalâs report on peacebuilding in the immediate aftermath of conflict, the Capstone doctrine and the CivCap review.1 This has led to a comprehensive framework for peace support operations. For example, it has meant more effective ways in which to conduct police reform, to promote local ownership, and to ensure a framework for more robust peacekeeping and peace enforcement, to mention but a few.
Although this evolution in consolidating policies in peace operations and how to improve them has taken place, two issues in particular have remained. First, there is an operationalâpolicy gap, where implementation in areas such as security sector reform and the rule of law have not adequately reflected progress in policy. Second, these efforts are not firmly rooted in a political strategy, but are often separate interventions in promoting, supporting and enhancing the different aspects of building peace. Cohesiveness of the various support efforts is frequently lacking and not placed within the political context. This has also meant that, for example, when more robust peacekeeping opens up a stability dividend it has not always adequately been taken advantage of. Both these issues are exemplified well by Haiti.
As the relationship between different development efforts is core to this book, the concepts of integrated missions and security sector reform are central. Although neither was developed until after the end of the first set of missions in Haiti (2001), parts of security sector reform were embedded in all mandates 1994â2001, in particular policing and coordination efforts were acknowledged as central to the missions.
The UN developed the concept of integrated missions as a response to multi-dimensional peacebuilding challenges. In the period discussed in this book the concept of integrated missions was trialled and tested with resulting birthing pains. Haiti was in many ways a test case for integration of UN missions, particularly in demobilisation, disarmament and reintegration (DDR). The Capstone Doctrine offers the following definition of integrated missions: âAn integrated mission is one in which there is a shared vision among all United Nations actors as to the strategic objectives of the United Nations presence at the country-level. This strategy should reflect a shared understanding of the operating environment and agreement on how to maximize the effectiveness, efficiency, and impact of the United Nations overall response.â2 It is intended to ensure that the UN mission together with the UN country team and agencies work within a strategic framework to deliver responses to multi-dimensional peacekeeping challenges.
Security sector reform is acknowledged to be at the core of peacebuilding activities, as it is essential for continued stability in post-conflict societies â with the establishment of integrated UN missions the links between SSR, rule of law and DDR was also emphasised by the UN.3 There has been considerable development on the issue of SSR within the UN, including the establishment of an SSR unit in the DPKO and two reports by the UN Secretary-General on the role of the UN supporting SSR, an inter-agency task force on SSR and a Security Council Resolution on the challenges and opportunities of SSR.4 A broad definition of security sector has emerged, which incorporates âtraditionalâ (or core) security actors (e.g. defence forces, police, border guards, intelligence services), justice institutions (e.g. judiciary, prosecution services), non-statutory security forces (e.g. PMCs, rebel groups), and management and oversight bodies (e.g. ministries, parliament).5 The UN Secretary-Generalâs report defines security sector reform as âa process of assessment, review and implementation as well as monitoring and evaluation led by national authorities that has as its goal the enhancement of effective and accountable security for the State and its peoples without discrimination and with full respect for human rights and the rule of lawâ. The objective is good governance: a security sector that is accountable, legitimate and transparent in the provision of internal and external security and rule of law. By mid-2016, seven6 UN operations had taken place in Haiti, with what effectively was a mandate of SSR, although SSR was never specifically mentioned.
Crosscutting elements: enablers and inhibiters
Several crosscutting elements are discussed in the following chapters: contextual understanding; local ownership; political will; external influences; coordination; economic development and civil society; and how they affect support to disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration, SSR, democratisation, transitional justice and security and stability. These elements are not posited here as ânewâ, as many have been discussed since the early 1990s; but sadly they remain as vital today as they were in 1994 and improvement in effectively addressing them has only been marginal.
Any of these elements can be either enablers or inhibiters to the successful implementation of the mandates in a peace operation. They were crucial in relation to Haiti and are arguably central to most other peace operations. Although depending on context, some may be of greater importance and have more influence than others, and there may be in other peace operations additional crosscutting elements to the ones discussed here.
Contextual understanding
Understanding the context of a country is critical to the success of UN missions, from goal setting and programme design to achieving more strategic objectives. UNDPKO has long acknowledged this. There are however many problems with ensuring a sufficient level of understanding prior to deployment as there is ensuring consistency in that knowledge. This does not suggest that all or indeed any staff member has to be a specialist on any given mission country â it does mean however that basic knowledge about the political, ethnic, socio-economic and conflict structures that underpin the country is essential. As the oft-cited adage goes, to change the future we must understand the past. That past may rest in the most recent history or be buried hundreds of years hence. For any UN mission, broader politics matter and why they came to be thus often shows a pattern, which needs to be understood in order to be addressed.
In the early 1990s the âone-size-fits-allâ approach to peace and security was regularly applied and models were liberally adapted from one context to another. As lessons were learnt, the importance of in-depth contextual understanding grew and model transference was accepted as a flawed system. Nonetheless there have continued to be issues around contextual knowledge, including insufficient understanding, knowledge retention, institutional memory, and updating when the context changes. There has been a tendency to focus on immediate conflict analysis rather than broader political understanding. The overarching political context and changes within it have a profound effect upon operational support. Haiti, as elaborated in the following chapters, is an example where contextual understanding or a lack thereof, had a direct negative impact upon implementation and support.
National political will and politics matter
If there is no national political will to change, it is almost impossible to affect change. This book defines political will broadly. It is not only about the government, but also about parliament, as well as leadership within each sector (police, justice, penal, armed forces) and, in Haiti, the will among the political opposition and political and economic elites to change. Political will and with it politics, becomes a strong inhibiter when the government is undermining the very mandate of the mission, leaving the UN to balance between pressuring the government for change and simultaneously being dependent upon them to remain as they are there at the governmentâs invitation.
Political will is also constantly shifting, frequently rooted in an ever-changing political landscape in a post-conflict environment. Thus in all peace operations politics matter enormously.7 Any UN mission needs to be flexible and have the ability to respond to these shifts and more importantly foresee the potential changes, thus ensuring that it has contingency planning in all sectors of its mandate. Subsequent chapters explore the complexities of dealing with a multi-faceted and ever-changing political environment.
Local ownership
Support for democratisation, transitional justice, and security sector reform in post-conflict countries has repeatedly lacked local ownership and met only the objectives of donor requirements instead of those of the recipient country. However, since the late 1990s more emphasis has been placed on the importance of local ownership of these processes. The United Nations Secretary-General stated that âwe must learn better how to respect and support local ownership, local leadership and a local constituency for reform, while at the same time remaining faithful to United Nations norms and standardsâ.8 Considerable experience has shown that unless there is local ownership, support processes will not succeed. For example, the UN Secretary-General has stated that âbroad national consultation lies at the heart of national ownershipâ and that success is dependent upon: âa nationally led and inclusive process in which national and local authorities, parliaments and civil society, including traditional leaders, womenâs groups and others, are actively engagedâ.9 There is therefore seemingly a consensus on the virtues of local ownership. Yet operationally the meaning of the concept is often unclear and ambiguous. Thus, implementation has lagged behind. While advances in policy frameworks have underscored the importance of broad local ownership of support, a minimalist ...
