Introduction
This volume evaluates the performance of the United Nations (UN) in ensuring good governance from a human-centred perspective, in Cambodia and Timor-Leste (formerly East Timor), the two most important and comprehensive cases of peacekeeping and peacebuilding. Both cases are situated in the Southeast Asian subregion of East Asia (which also includes Northeast Asia), and East Asian perspectives and conditions are counterposed to the universal aspirations of the UN and liberal peacekeeping and peacebuilding. The legality, legitimacy, and efficacy/effectiveness of UN operations in the two countries are considered. These three categories are, however, interrelated rather than exclusionary, reflecting the complex nature of contemporary governance prescription.
Legality is presented from the perspective of both codified āpositiveā international law, and the supplementary prescriptions of the ācustoms and usages of civilized nations of statesā (United States Supreme Court [USSC] 1900), the āgeneral principles of law recognized by civilized nationsā (ICJ 1945, Article 38(c)), and āthe teachings of the most highly qualified publicists of the various nationsā (ICJ 1945, Article 38(d)). Legitimacy is examined in terms of international recognition, local ownership, and human-centred good governance (Howe 2012). Efficacy is assessed with regard to the stated goals of UN peacekeeping and state-building missions in general and these two case studies in particular. As the stated goals increasingly reflect human-centred governance components, how well these UN missions provided for the human security of all, but especially the most vulnerable, can also be considered in terms of measurements of efficiency.
The case studies will be assessed at three āmomentsā: the justifiability of intervening (peacekeeping/peacebuilding/responsibility to protect (R2P) authorisations); the justifiability of actions and policies implemented during the intervention (responsibilities while protecting and keeping the peace); and the justifiability of the situation after the interventions took place and UN forces were withdrawn (governance responsibilities after protection or after the initial construction of safe havens/building enduring and sustainable peace).
We expect those who govern to do so in the interests of the governed, usefully providing services that can best or perhaps only be achieved through collective action. According to the Report of the Commission on Global Governance, āgovernance is the sum of the many ways individuals and institutions, public and private, manage their common affairsā (CGG 1995, p. 2). It is an ongoing and evolutionary process which looks to reconcile conflicting interests in order to protect the weak, through the rule of law, from unjust exploitation, and introduce security for all. Governance is also a process through which collective good and goods are generated so that all are better off than they would be acting individually. Thus, governance implies a concern by those who govern with both the security and development, or provision of basic human needs, of those who are governed (Howe 2012, p. 346). This includes steps to eradicate poverty, particularly in conflict-affected areas, where insecurity and underdevelopment provide twin, mutually reinforcing threats to lives and livelihoods. āSafe havensā can therefore be seen as those geographically bounded areas existing at either the state or substate level, where those who govern prioritise the interests of the most vulnerable of those governed, ensuring that they live free from fear and want to the greatest degree possible (ibid.).
Domestically, governance is carried out primarily by instruments of the stateāthat is to say the government and related institutions. Internationally, governance implies not only global attempts to govern in the absence of world government, dealing with international conflicts of interests and those issues which transcend national boundaries, but also a concern with what can be done by international actors when domestic governance fails to provide safe havens. Peace and security have long constituted the central objectives of global governance and form an essential dimension of human well-being. Indeed, peace and security feature heavily in the preamble to the UN Charter and their maintenance is listed as the first purpose of the UN, the major manifestation of the global governance mission. Increasingly, however, the global governance agenda has evolved to include consideration of peace within states rather than exclusively focusing on the generation of peace between them. In doing so there has been movement from championing the interests and rights of states, towards championing those of vulnerable individuals and groups. Consequently, the new human-centred concerns of good global governance place the paradigm as much within the contemporary development agenda, as it was formerly within the peace and political stability agenda.
Chiefly, at the level of academic discourse, as well as increasingly in the policy sphere, this humanising of measurements of governance success reflects what has come to be known as āhuman securityā. Prescriptions made under the dictates of this concept reflect both normative concerns (that governing in the interests of the most vulnerable is fundamentally the ārightā thing to do) and those of efficacy (that other governance objectives are more achievable if individuals and groups are taken into account). Hence, of central concern to this volume is the idea that a broad interpretation of human security within governance, including elements of distributive justice, is necessary from the perspective of legitimacy, but also for the long-term construction of peace by transforming conflictual relationships.
Human security is a multidisciplinary paradigm for understanding global vulnerabilities at the level of individual human beings. It incorporates methodologies and analysis from a number of research fields including strategic and security studies, development studies, human rights, international relations, and the study of international organisations. It exists at the point where these disciplines converge on the concept of protection. The UN Development Programme (UNDP)ās Human Development Report 1994: New Dimensions of Human Security is seen as the prime foundational document for the global governance mission with regard to human security. It noted that the objective of security has changed from states to human beings and commented on the importance of a more human-centric approach to security (UNDP 1994). The Report also recognised that freedom from want and freedom from fear constitute important perspectives on poverty and development. Indeed, there is a close relationship between human security envisioned as the protection of persons, and human development as the provision of basic human needs.
Human security and human development are both people-centred (Peou 2014). They challenge the orthodox approach to security and development (i.e. state security and liberal economic growth, respectively). Both perspectives are multidimensional, and address peopleās dignity as well as their material and physical concerns. Both impose duties on the wider global community. They can be seen as mutually reinforcing. A peaceful environment frees individuals and governments to move from a focus on mere survival to a position where they can consider improvement of their situations. Likewise, as a society develops, it is able to afford more doctors, hospitals, welfare networks, internal security operations, schools, and de-mining operations. Conversely, as former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan observed in his UN Report In Larger Freedom, āwe will not enjoy security without development, development without security, and neither without respect for human rights. Unless all these causes are advanced, none will succeedā (Annan 2005, p. 6). Conflict retards development, and underdevelopment can lead to conflict.
The Roles of the United Nations
From League of Nations Mandates to the UN Trusteeship Council, a global obligation has been acknowledged that such territories were to be administered in the best interests of their inhabitants. The mandate system was established by Article 22 of the Covenant of the League of Nations, and referred to territories which after the war were no longer ruled by their previous sovereign (defeated powers in World War I), but their peoples were not considered āable to stand by themselves under the strenuous conditions of the modern worldā. The article called for such peopleās tutelage to be āentrusted to advanced nations who by reason of their resources, their experience or their geographical position can best undertake this responsibilityā. League of Nations Mandates were of the nature of both a treaty and a constitution, and they contained minority rights clauses that provided for the rights of petition and adjudication by the Permanent Court of International Justice (Wright 1930). Mandates were to be administered as a āsacred trust of civilisationā to develop the territory for the benefit of its native people (Matz 2005). With the dissolution of the League of Nations after World War II, it was stipulated at the Yalta Conference that the remaining Mandates should be placed under the trusteeship of the UN, under similar governance principles.
Post-independence, in some cases however, pro...