United Nations

Peacekeeping*
The United Nations was established to
save succeeding generations from
the scourge of war and one of its
main purposes is to maintain
international peace and security.
The Charter of the United Nations calls
upon the peoples of the world "to
unite our strength to maintain
international peace and security", and
charges the Security Council with the
task of "determining the existence of
 Peacekeeping originated and evolved
in a largely ad hoc basis. Each
operation has been tailor-made to
meet the demands of a specific
conflict.
o Chapter VI outlines specific means
which countries may use to settle
disputes: negotiations, inquiry,
mediation, conciliation, arbitration,
judicial settlement, resort to regional
institutions or arrangements or other
peaceful means.
o Chapter VII provides for enforcement
 What is Peacekeeping?
Peacekeepers are people helping the
parties to a conflict to resolve their
differences peacefully.
Traditionally, peacekeeping
operations fall into two main
categories:
1. observer missions and
2. peacekeeping forces.
. Observer missions usually consist of
unarmed military and civilian
personnel who monitor the
 Department of
Peacekeeping
DPKOtraces its rootsOperations
to 1948 with the
creation of the first UN peacekeeping
operations:
UN Truce Supervision Organization (
UNTSO)
and
UN Military Observer Group in India
and Pakistan (UNMOGIP)
.
The Department of Peacekeeping
Operations (DPKO) is dedicated to
assisting the Member States and the
How a peacekeeping
operation

starts
Set up by the Security Council, the
UN organ with primary responsibility
for maintaining international peace
and security
The Council decides the operation's
size, its overall objectives and its
time frame.
Member States decide whether to
participate in a mission and, if so,
what personnel and equipment they
are willing to offer
 UN Peacekeeping is guided by three
basic principles:
1. Consent of the parties;
2. Impartiality;
3. Non-use of force except in self-
defense and defense of the mandate.
Depending on their mandate,
peacekeeping operations may be
required to:
. Deploy to prevent the outbreak of
conflict or the spill-over of conflict
across borders;
. Stabilize conflict situations after a
 Assist in implementing
comprehensive peace agreements;
Lead states or territories through a
transition to stable government,
based on democratic principles, good
governance and economic
development.

UN peacekeepers are often mandated

to follow essentially peacebuilding
activities:
Disarmament, demobilization and
reintegration of ex-combatants;
 Protection and promotion of human
rights;
Electoral assistance;
Support for the restoration and
extension of State authority;
Promotion of social and economic
recovery and development.
The Four Types of Mandates*
1.Observer missions- UNMOT and
UNMOP missions in Tajikistan and
Croatia
2.Traditional missions- UNPRESEP
mission in Macedonia 1995{99 and
the UNIFIL mission in Lebanon
3.Multidimensional missions- ONUSAC
mission in El Salvador 1991-95 and
the UNMIT mission in Timor-Leste
4.Enforcement missions- UNPROFOR
mission in former Yugoslavia 1992-95
and the UNMIS mission in Sudan
 The First UN Peacekeeping
Mission
The United Nations Truce
Supervision Organization (UNTSO),
an observer mission, was
established in 1948, in the Middle
East.
Earlier in 1947, the United Nations
adopted a plan to divide Palestine and
create a Jewish and an Arab State. On
15 May 1948, the British
administrative power formally ended
its control over Palestine, and within
24 hours the State of Israel was
 But as the hostilities continued and
the number of Palestinian refugees
fleeing Israel grew, the Security
Council decided to create a Truce
Commission to supervise the cease-
fire. Count Bernadotte was to be
assisted in this by a group of military
observers. Unfortunately the Count
was assassinated in the Israeli held
sector of Jerusalem on 17th September
1948. He was succeeded by Ralph
Bunche of the United States who took
over as Acting Mediator. He directed
 UNTSO is typical of what is now
known as traditional peacekeeping.
Traditional peacekeeping falls under
Chapter VI (Pacific Settlement of
Disputes) of the UN Charter*
Peacekeeping today ranges from
small unarmed ceasefire observer
missions to large-scale
multidimensional missions.
Since the UNTSO, 68 peacekeeping
operations have been deployed by
the UN.
UN Peacekeeping Post Cold
War
Field operations expanded from
traditional missions involving
generally observational tasks
performed by military personnel to
complex multidimensional
enterprises.
Over the time, the nature of conflicts
also changed
Originally developed as a means to
deal with inter-state conflict, now UN
Peacekeeping was being applied to
 The transformation of international
environment has given rise to a new
generation of multi-dimensional UN
peacekeeping operations.
These operations are typically
deployed in the dangerous aftermath
of a violent internal conflict and may
employ a mix of military, police and
civilian capabilities to support the
implementation of a comprehensive
peace agreement.
In addition to monitoring and
observing cease-fires, multi-
Critical Evaluation
National Interest or Common
Interest?
In the Cold War period only thirteen
peacekeeping missions were
established and many conflicts were
excluded, because of great power
rivalry and their vital interests or
sphere of interests.
During the Cold War, peacekeeping
advanced US interests in the Middle
East, where six operations were
Protection of Civilians
It was only in the late 1990s, after
the Rwandan genocide and the
massacre of Srebrenica, that the
United Nations began
systematically to address the
issue of civilian protection: The
Protection of Civilians in Armed
Conflicts became a separate
item on the Security Councils
agenda and the task to protect
 It was not until October 22, 1999,
however, that the Security Council for
the first time authorized a
peacekeeping force, the United
Nations Mission in Sierra Leone
(UNAMSIL), to use force in order to
afford protection to civilians under
imminent threat of physical violence
However, the UN has also been
accused of inaction.
In situations of internal armed
conflict, civilians account for the vast
majority of casualties.
 In many of the cases, the UN
peacekeepers have been criticized for
violence and atrocities committed
against the people.
Belgian troops were accused of
roasting a Somali boy in UNOSOM in
1997.
Many cases of rape and sexual abuse
of children have also been reported
Sexual Abuse
Sexual abuse and exploitation was
first documented in Bosnia,
Herzegovina and Kosovo in the early
 As the number of missions and
peacekeepers has grown,widespread
accountsof inappropriate behavior
and sexual exploitation by
peacekeepers have been
reportedaround the world, notably in
Haiti, Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone,
Bosnia, Cambodia, East Timor, and
the Democratic Republic of the
Congo. In Bosnia and Kosovo in the
1990s, UN peacekeepers
helpedsupport sex traffickingas
customers of brothels relying on
Effect on the Environment
In recent years, UN peace operations
have been criticized for having a
negative impact on the environments
in which they work.
The UN has failed to effectively
promote environmental issues in
their post-conflict peacebuilding
efforts, and the missions themselves
are environmentally destructive.
In many places, UN missions
implement policies that can hasten
the degradation of local
UNAMID
The UN peacekeeping mission in Darfur
(UNAMID) not only removed trees from
an already arid environment to make
space for their camp and operations,
but the mission also chose to bolster
the local economy by making bricks
rather than importing them.This policy
incentivized Darfurians to cut and burn
even greater amounts of forest
already in serious declineto produce
the bricks. Many argue that resource
scarcity in Darfur played a significant
 Peacekeeping, intervention
and Sovereignty
Consent is critical for the presence of
a peacekeeping force inside a
country and provides it the required
legal basis; otherwise, it will violate
the Article 2(7) of UN Charter.
Consent ensures the sovereignty of
state within the system
Once the host state or the main
parties give the consent, the other
important point is the maintenance of
that consent.
UNPROFOR (Yugoslavia)
UNPROFOR was beset by operational
difficulties from the start of its
operations. It met with noncooperation
and interference with its freedom of
movment. This escalated to offensives
across UNPROFOR positions in violation
of the U.N. peacekeeping plan in
Croatia and of local ceasefires in
Bosnia, and to attacks on U.N. forces
and hostage taking. All the parties were
responsible for this non-cooperation.
Chapter VII empowers the Security
Council to make decisions authorizing
enforcement action by member states
or by U.N. forces, and these decisions
are binding on all member states.
Thus, although UNPROFOR was
originally established as a peacekeeping
force whose deployment depended on
the consent of the host state, the
Security Council subsequently turned to
Chapter VII in order to impose binding
obligations on member states, including
the host state, to comply with its
Conclusion
After the end of Second World War,
United Nations was established for
keeping the peace through peaceful
means to collective security. But, the
great power rivalry at the very
beginning blocked UN ability for the
collective security action. As a result,
peacekeeping evolved as an alternative
to collective security that the UN
designed.
Managing conflict requires a
References
http://www.senseandsustainability.ne
t/2011/08/18/the-environmental-conse
quences-of-un-peacekeeping/
http://www.globalpolicy.org/component
/content/article/199/40816.html
http://www.hertie-school.org/fileadm
in/images/Downloads/working_papers/4
7.pdf
http://www.cdrb.org/journal/2004/3/1.p
df
http://law.wustl.edu/WUGSLR/Issues/V
olume7_2/Defeis.pdf

 http://fordhampoliticalreview.org/a-dar
k-side-to-un-peacekeeping-missions/
http://pbpu.unlb.org/pbps/library/capst
one_doctrine_eNg.pdf
http://www.un.org/Pubs/CyberSchoolBus
/briefing/peacekeeping/peacekeeping.p
df
http://www.un.org/en/peacekeeping/doc
uments/civilhandbook/Civil_Affairs_Ha
ndbook.pdf
http://
www.ipu.org/splz-e/unga04/peacekeepi
ng.pdf
http://www.bzu.edu.pk/PJSS/Vol30No220