The United Nations and peacekeeping, 1988–95

Chen Kertcher

• Publisher: Manchester University Press
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781526100344
• Topic: Politique et relations internationales
• Subtopic: Relations internationales

Using more than 600 UN documents that analyse the discussions in the UN Security Council, General Assembly and Secretariat, The United Nations and peacekeeping, 1988-95 presents innovative explanations on how after the Cold War UN peacekeeping operations became the dominant response to conflicts around the globe. This study offers a vivid description of these changes through the analysis of the evolution in the concept and practice of United Nations peacekeeping operations from 1988 to 1995. The research is anchored primarily in United Nations documents, which were produced following the diplomatic discussions that took place in the General Assembly, the Security Council and the UN Secretariat on the subject of peacekeeping in general and in the cases of Cambodia, Former Yugoslavia and Somalia in particular. These large and complex operations were the testing ground for the new roles of peacekeeping in democratisation, humanitarian aid, resettlement of refugees, demobilisation of armed forces, economic development and advancement of good government.

1

A history of UN peacekeeping

The history of UN peacekeeping is intertwined with the evolution of the concept and practice of these operations. In this research study, the term ‘concept’, in the context of peacekeeping operations, refers to agreed-upon UN principles regarding the objectives, principles for success, and managerial and organisational aspects of the operations. The term ‘practice’, on the other hand, refers to the actual implementation of the operations and the political conduct of the states with regard to those conflicts where the decision is made to intervene. ‘Practice’ also refers to the contribution of the UN member states to the execution of the operations and to the effect of the operation on the conflict.

This research study examines the validity of the accepted research arguments regarding changes in the concept and practice of UN peacekeeping operations from 1988 to 1995. Therefore, this chapter provides the wide historical context and the main issues that are analysed in detail in the other chapters of the book.

The first section of the chapter is devoted to an overview of the United Nations’ objectives, work principles and organisational structure, with an emphasis on the work of the United Nations’ three central organs: the Security Council, the Secretariat, and the General Assembly. The second section of the chapter is devoted to a historical survey of operations executed by the United Nations until 1987. These operations are usually called ‘traditional operations’ or ‘first-generation operations’, and were aimed at preventing the renewal of wars between states. In the third section of the chapter I survey the peacekeeping operations executed by the United Nations from 1988 until our own times. These operations are usually called ‘multidimensional’ or ‘second-generation’ operations and they are intended to promote change in the political, security, social and economic conditions that are at the heart of the conflict.

In the fourth section of the chapter I present the accepted research arguments regarding the characteristics of peacekeeping operations, while focusing on the generational differences between the United Nations peacekeeping operations prior to 1987 and those that began in 1988. I focus on some of the issues appearing in the major studies dealing with the research of United Nations peacekeeping operations, especially their incomplete treatment of the role of international politics in the organisation’s work with regard to peacekeeping operations. At the end of this section, I specify the main issues that are examined in the research chapters regarding the history of peacekeeping operations from 1988 until 1995.

The UN and the maintenance of international peace and security

The best way to describe how international politics are conducted in the United Nations regarding peacekeeping operations is to review the objectives, work principles and organisational structure of the UN. These represent the foundation for the organisation’s modus operandi and are anchored in the organisation’s Charter that was signed on 26 June 1945. The establishment of the UN was the second attempt of the world states to found a global system to ensure stabilisation and collective security, after the first attempt to achieve these goals by the League of Nations failed to prevent the Second World War. The UN system represented an alternative to the system that had arranged the relations between European states from the second half of the seventeenth century: the balance-of-power system.¹

The United Nations collective security system is intended to deter states from using force against other states, because this will lead to a collective response by the rest of the members of the system. This response on the part of all the member states will endanger all their interests and alliances on the collective principle that is supposed to guarantee their security.²

One of the basic principles that were formed to enable the functioning of the system was the prohibition against intervention in the internal affairs of the member states. This was so as not to violate a state’s sovereignty, even if the state was in the throes of a civil war.³ Therefore, the supreme goal of the organisation that is imposed on all the UN member states is to ‘maintain international peace and security’. This is considered one of the greatest achievements of the Charter. It formally removes the normative validity behind the well-known expression coined by Prussian military philosopher Carl von Clausewitz (at the beginning of the nineteenth century), that ‘war is the continuation of policy by other means.’⁴ This step was the climax of a political, religious and legal discussion that continued over hundreds of years regarding the ‘just war’ theory (jus ad bellum).⁵

The main responsibility within the UN for maintaining international peace and security lies with the Security Council. Three researchers (Goodrich, Hambro and Simons) note that the Charter emphasises two means for maintaining international peace: resolving disputes by peaceful means and employing a collective security system.⁶ Below I describe UN powers with regard to the peaceful settlement of disputes and the organisation’s powers of enforcement.

In order to maintain international peace and security, the UN Charter gives the Security Council several powers, described in Chapters 6 and 7 of the Charter;⁷ Chapter 6 (Articles 33–38) deals with resolving disputes by peaceful means.⁸ Thus, all parties involved in a dispute that is likely to develop into a threat to the maintenance of international peace and security must use these tools to try to resolve the dispute peacefully. The tools at the disposal of the disputing parties are taken from the fields of diplomacy and international law, and focus on resolving the dispute by way of negotiation, enquiry, mediation, compromise, arbitration, legal settlement and more.⁹ The work-language of the UN distinguishes between diplomatic activity before the eruption of an armed conflict, called preventive diplomacy, and diplomatic activity for restoring peace after an armed conflict has erupted, called peacemaking.¹⁰ The premise of resolving disputes and conflicts peacefully is that all the mediators sent by the UN must be totally impartial. Yet there are those who argue that during the mediation process mediators also try to promote their own interests.¹¹

Together with the powers for resolving disputes by peaceful means, the UN Charter defines in Chapter 7 (Articles 39–51) the enforcement actions that are available to the Security Council in its efforts to maintain international peace. The chapter also describes two exceptional cases in which force may be used, while violating the principle forbidding the use of force in interstate relations.¹² The first circumstance in which the use of force is permitted is when there is a threat to the peace, breach of the peace or acts of aggression. According to Article 39, the Security Council has the sole authority to declare the existence of such a situation. Before it determines enforcement actions, the Council must verify that the disputing parties have exhausted all the means detailed in Chapter 6 of the Charter. When all the means adopted by the Security Council have failed, it has the right to use force in accordance with Chapter 7, Articles 41 and 42. The use of force is divided into three categories according to the Security Council’s level of intervention from imposing sanctions of various types, such as severance of economic relations, to imposing a maritime blockade and no-fly zone etc. Finally, if all these fail, Security Council resolutions may be enforced by the use of military forces against the parties that do not carry out the resolutions.¹³ When a resolution to use force is adopted, the organisation’s member states are required to provide the requisite military forces to the organisation’s command in order to execute the enforcement operation.

The second situation in which the use of force is permitted is defined in Article 51. This article states that nothing mentioned in the Charter can undo the ‘natural right of an individual or collective for self-defence, if a UN member should be militarily attacked before the Security Council will adopt the necessary steps to maintain international peace and security’.¹⁴ These two exceptional situations – the right of the Security Council to use force, and the right of a state to defend itself while using force – are not compatible. This situation exists because the UN member states have never succeeded in agreeing on a formulation regarding the use of force, despite or perhaps because of the great importance of the issue.¹⁵

The two exceptional situations above in which it is permissible to violate the prohibition on the use of force reflect the conflict of interests between those powers that support a collective, universal security system whose main objective is the absence of war between states, and those states that want to maintain their decision-making freedom.

The majority of the articles in Chapter 7 are commensurate with the goal of establishing a system of collective security and present the UN as an entity that designates itself as responsible, inter alia, for collective military activity. All states are required to assist the organisation in every way possible, by the very fact that they have signed the United Nations Charter, and this assistance includes contributing armed forces to the multinational force; providing assistance of any type to this force; and bestowing transit rights to armed forces on their territory, if and when the forces act to maintain international peace and security. Therefore the Charter calls on the states to sign agreements with the Security Council. Every state that contributes manpower to the international force acting under the directives of the Security Council has the right to be involved in the decision-making process of the Security Council regarding the force’s mode of operation.

In addition, the chapter explicitly notes the need for the establishment of an international airforce that can deal immediately with international threats on peace and security. In order to streamline the process, each state is, according to the Charter, required to place military forces on standby for the use of the Security Council when the need arises. An entity called the Military Staff Committee (MSC) was supposed to have been formed in order to advise the Security Council on all its military issues. The MSC was supposed to determine the type of forces to be used, the organisation of the forces’ command, and the control and overall strategic regulation of these military forces. This entity, which was supposed to comprise the heads of the armies of each of the permanent member states in the Council, would discuss various military issues in parallel to the discussions in the Security Council. Its goal was to provide for efficient planning of the collective military activity of the powers. In other words, most of the articles in Chapter 7 were, in fact, designed to give the Security Council enforcement measures as part of its responsibility of acting to maintain international peace and security, while revoking the rights of the states to initiate war.

However, the MSC has never succeeded in realising the vision of the Charter and is defunct. At the end of the 1940s, severe disagreements erupted between the powers on the size of the forces they would give the UN. These disagreements grew as political tension between the United States and the Soviet Union intensified.¹⁶ When we review the implementation of Chapter 7 by the Security Council, we see that during the Cold War, the Council members were rarely able to agree on the situations that constituted a threat to the maintenance of international peace and security and that required use of enforcement as detailed in Chapter 7.¹⁷

In order to strengthen the motivation of the states not to violate international peace, the UN Charter defined additional objectives for the maintenance of international peace and security. The premise was that if the states would act to fulfil these goals, there would be less chance that they would resort to the use of force versus other states. According to Article 1 in the Charter, these objectives are:

1.To develop friendly relations among nations based on respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples, and to take other appropriate measures to strengthen universal peace;

2.To achieve international cooperation in solving international problems of an economic, social, cultural, or humanitarian character, and in promoting and encouraging respect for human rights and for fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion; and

3.To be a centre for harmonising the actions of nations in the attainment of these common ends.¹⁸

These secondary goals won consensus during the time the Charter was written, and since then have become entrenched in UN work norms and international rhetoric. They are supported by a series of General Assembly resolutions, such as the Declaration on the Right of Peoples to Peac...