The Evolution of Peace Operations

Presentation made by Corinna Kuhl, Acting Chief of Best Practices Section, UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations on Thursday September 4th.

The Evolution of Peace Operations

First, I wish to thank IIHL and ICRC for inviting DPKO to participate in this important discussion. I was asked to speak about the evolution of peace operations. While my remarks will naturally focus on UN-commanded peacekeeping, I would like to touch briefly on the larger universe of peace operations outlined this morning in the excellent keynote address by Dr. Kellenberger.

The term ‘peace operations’ obviously describes a very broad range of peace and security interventions in international conflict management. Many different actors are involved such as the United Nations, the African Union, the European Union, NATO and other regional and sub-regional organizations, as well as multi-national forces and ‘coalitions of the willing’, which lack an institutional structure but are held together by usually one designated lead nation. In many conflict situations, there will be a combination of actors involved and operations take place either in succession, in parallel with separate mandates, or in some form of joint deployment under one mandate.

There are two points I would like to highlight. For one, the legitimacy of any peace operation is obviously based on its authorization by the UN Security Council. However, while the Council has the authority to intervene on issues of international peace and security under the UN Charter (and the legal basis will be discussed next), there is currently no global system of inter-locking capacities in place. Rather, what we are engaged in a patchwork of activities. We do not yet have – or may never have – a comprehensive international peace and security architecture that can task and implement the full range of intervention options from conflict prevention to peacemaking, peacekeeping, peace enforcement and peacebuilding. All types of current peace operations have to work around that gap.

Secondly, although you all know this well, I would like to emphasize the distinction between UN-authorized and UN-commanded operations, because they are often treated as the same. The difference is critical to questions of capability and accountability, and it plays a role in the various subjects covered by this Round Table. Since the UN entity I work for, the Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO), is responsible only for UN-commanded deployments, the so-called blue helmets, I will use the term ‘UN peacekeeping’ in this way for the remainder for my remarks.

Let me then turn specifically to the evolution of UN peacekeeping operations. While there has not been a steady and irreversible progression of models and ideas towards the current state of UN peacekeeping, political realities have created an increasing variety of mandates over time, reflecting not only conditions on the ground but equally the global strategic context. Since 1948, the UN has launched 63 peacekeeping operations. Most of these closed because they completed their mandates, but several were terminated for other reasons.

As mentioned this morning, the majority of the 15 peacekeeping operations established before 1989 – the end of the Cold War – were based on an unarmed or lightly armed military observer presence to monitor ceasefires between countries, mostly in the Middle East. This is what is usually referred to as the traditional interposition model. With the end of the Cold War, this model gave way to more complex interventions with a mobile military force and a strong civilian component. The two superpowers were looking for ways to disengage from a series of proxy wars around the world, and it is for this reason that UN peacekeeping experienced a massive surge in the number, size and tasking of operations, from Guatemala and El Salvador to Namibia, Mozambique and Cambodia. These were based on wide-ranging peace agreements, adding new elements such as elections support to peacekeeping mandates.

With the early success of several of these operations came a perception that peacekeeping operations could be usefully deployed into a wide array of conflicts, including those where there was no peace to keep, such as Somalia, or where peace was extremely tenuous. The outcomes were often tragic. By the mid-1990s, the UN was coping with the aftermath of horrendous failures in Somalia, Rwanda and Bosnia. The instrument of peacekeeping was widely discredited, and a period of retrenchment followed. However, the horrors of Somalia, Rwanda and Bosnia also made clear that inaction was not an option. Together with the lessons from the successes and failures of that decade, new thinking started to emerge around issues of international responsibility and the elements of an effective conflict intervention. In the absence of any other organization with the ability and reach to operate anywhere in the world, Member States turned their attention back to UN peacekeeping. Within a year, between June 1999 and July 2000, DPKO was mandated to launch five large-scale operations in Kosovo, Sierra Leone, East Timor, Congo, and Ethiopia/Eritrea.

Since then, UN peacekeeping has experienced an almost perpetual surge in activity. By 2006, there had been a 600 percent increase in the number of blue helmets. Today, DPKO leads 19 missions with almost 110,000 personnel and an annual budget of US$7 billion. The charts behind me provide an overview of all UN peacekeeping missions as well as a map of the missions currently deployed. (PowerPoint Chart)

And the number of mandated tasks has grown equally in size and complexity. The majority of today’s operations share three main features:

First and most striking is the shift towards “robust peacekeeping”. The turning point came with the mission in Sierra Leone, which started as a small observer mission in 1998. When armed groups mounted a major offensive in violation of the peace agreement, the Security Council agreed to reinforce the mission, not to withdraw as had happened in Rwanda. And not only did the mission grow from 50 unarmed observers to a force of over 17,000 troops, it was also given provisions in its mandate that it could act against hostile elements in defence of the mandate and, ‘within the limits of its capacity’, protect civilians under imminent threat of attack. That was a real turning point in UN peacekeeping, and the majority of operations since 2000 have included similar elements in their mandates. With these provisions came changes in the rules of engagement and force structure of our missions. Obviously, the consequences are part of the discussion at this Round Table, and I will return to this issue shortly.

Second is the multidimensional nature of missions. As mentioned this morning, peacekeeping has taken on an ever increasing number of peacebuilding and state-building functions, in the areas of governance, extension of state authority, rule of law, human rights, and policing all the way to exercising full executive, judicial and legislative authority in situations where we are asked to run transitional administrations. While multidimensional mandates were common already among the missions of the early 1990s, the range of activities expanded considerably in the past few years. Since no single actor has the capabilities to deliver on so many different activities, peacekeeping missions are meant to work closely with humanitarian and development partners. Within the UN System, the thinking moved from a coordinated to an integrated approach in the course of this decade, meaning all UN partners work towards a common strategic objective or desired end state in the conflict area. Under that vision, the early catalyst role of a peacekeeping mission would be naturally linked to long-term peacebuilding and development efforts. The structure merging these different strands of activity is the combining of the development and humanitarian coordination function in the person of the Deputy Special Representative of an integrated mission.

The third main feature is the interaction between UN peacekeeping and the other actors in peace operations. According to the Center on International Cooperation, about 40 out of 54 recent missions consisted of some form of joint, coordinated or sequenced operation by more than one institution. A good example for UN peacekeeping is the provision of short-term military support. Given the time it takes for the UN to generate troops, the Security Council will at times authorize one state or a multinational force to deploy quickly for an interim period while the UN mission builds up its strength. In other cases, a Member State, regional organization or multinational force will take on the military component of a Security Council mandate while DPKO deploys the civilian and police components.

These features reflect in a significant way the shift from the use of peacekeeping primarily in inter-state conflicts to its primary deployment into intra-state conflict where stabilization is no longer a matter of skillful diplomacy to control international aggression. Rather, stabilization requires transforming multiple political, economic, social and ethnic drivers of conflict so that all groups have a long-term stake in the peaceful settlement of disputes. In the earlier multidimensional mandates, the exit strategy was often the holding of elections and the swearing in of a new government. What we now have goes way beyond the conclusion of an electoral process. Now there is a continued focus on the viability of institutions to guarantee peace, based on respect for human rights, the rule of law and public participation.

The evolution I just described shows the flexibility of peacekeeping as a conflict management tool. However, this also brings us to the question of its limitations. The UN is easily seen as a ready provider of last resort – when no-one else is willing or able to go – and it is assigned problem-solving roles that it is ill equipped to handle. So the high number of mandates is not always an expression of popularity. Sometime it simply means that UN peacekeeping is the lowest common denominator on which all Security Council members can agree when a crisis hits and countries want to be seen as doing ‘something’. But peacekeeping is not an effective tool in every situation.

UN peacekeeping works primarily when it adheres to the three basic principles that have characterized it from the beginning: consent of the parties, impartiality, and the non-use of force except in self defence and defence of the mandate.

Consent of the main parties to the conflict is key. It requires a commitment by the parties to a political process and their acceptance of the PKO mandated to support that process. The principle of consent ultimately recognizes the fact that peacekeeping is a political exercise and not simply a military or technocratic effort. However, understanding of that concept has evolved significantly from the early days. For one, we had to learn that consent is not given once and then taken for granted. It is something we have to work constantly to maintain and move the peace process forward. Of course, the impartiality and perceived legitimacy of the mission plays an important role in maintaining consent. Another aspect is that consent may have been given grudgingly under international pressure, and may be withdrawn in a variety of ways, including by restricting the mission’s freedom of movement or impounding its equipment. A third element is that in many conflicts, the parties are internally divided and have weak command structures, meaning that consent can break down at the local level or through the appearance of spoilers, even if the leadership in the capital is committed.

This discussion is, of course, closely linked to questions around the use of force by peacekeepers. I referred earlier to ‘robust peacekeeping’. It is widely agreed now that UN peacekeepers may use force at the tactical level if acting in self-defense or in defense of the mandate. Tactical level means force is used in support of a peace process, not in the absence of it; it seeks to protect civilians and deter spoilers, not to inflict military defeat; and it requires the consent of the host country and/or the main parties to the conflict. This is clearly distinct from peace enforcement, which is not based on the consent of the main parties to the conflict and may involve the use of force at the strategic level.

In several of our missions with so-called robust mandates and capabilities, such as in the DR Congo and Haiti, peacekeepers have mounted operations to deter armed groups or to restore public order. These UN peacekeepers have inflicted casualties. And we wrestle with the political, moral and operational dilemmas that arise in these situations, whether it involves curbing criminal violence in urban slums, controlling riots, deterring armed groups in remote, inaccessible locations, detaining and disarming suspects, and complying with IHL and human rights law in all manner of settings. We still lack a clear policy framework for ‘robust peacekeeping’ that accommodates the necessity to use force on occasion, but is supposed to do so without harming civilians, without using disproportionate force, and without turning our backs on people in need of protection.


Conclusion
In conclusion, I would like to make five general points on the evolution of peacekeeping:

One, while the integrated mission model is now applied to most multi-dimensional mandates, it is not without challenges. The absence of a comprehensive peace and security architecture leaves peacekeeping operations as the main post-conflict vehicle to which a broad range of peacebuilding tasks can be attached. But the UN governance structure does not allow for a direct tasking by the Security Council of the specialized agencies, funds and programmes which play the key role in these longer-term activities. This, of course, affects implementation. Another challenge is the protection of humanitarian space which is inherently more difficult in an integrated model and remains a subject of debate.

Secondly, we should not assume that broad-based interventions are always the ideal. Some conflict situations are not ready for it. At times, even in internal conflict, it is better simply to maintain a buffer zone between adversaries and provide breathing space for the political process to unfold. We, as the international community, lack patience and expect solutions within a year or two. The diversity of peacekeeping models should not be seen as one being superior to another but rather provides us with more tailored solutions to different situations.

Third, and closely related, is the need to be mindful always about the structures we build under multidimensional mandates. We tend to work within one particular definition of the state and tailor state-building interventions accordingly. This is often associated with a Western model, and it has led to criticism of neo-colonialism, occupation and regime change taking place in the guise of peacekeeping.
Fourth, UN peacekeeping again faces a real watershed challenge with the deployment to Darfur and the planning for deployment in Somalia. Neither situation meets the basic criteria for effective UN peacekeeping. This is a dilemma no one has an answer for. The enormous suffering of people in these areas demands action but at the same time an ineffectual deployment will help no one. This discussion has taken on additional connotations in the context of the ‘responsibility to protect’. The backlash against RtoP has affected international consensus on the more modest concept of protection of civilians in a peacekeeping context, and it remains to be seen how this debate will play out in future deployments.

And finally, we are facing very serious overstretch, because of the rapid expansion of UN peacekeeping. The UN has not been able to generate the full force that was authorized for Darfur. Out of 30,000 uniformed personnel, only 9,000 have arrived since the establishment of the mission last year. Similar shortages exist among civilians, especially when it comes to state-building expertise. Headquarters support is equally inadequate. According to CIC, the US ratio of HQ staff to military personnel in the field is roughly 3:1, the NATO ratio is 1:4 and the UN ratio is 1:100. Among other consequences, this also means an inadequate management capacity. While it is not the sole cause, it certainly contributes to problems with conduct and discipline, even criminal behaviour, in some of our missions. With the complexity of mandates and the extremely volatile deployment areas, our capacity to mount and sustain operations is simply inadequate and could jeopardize the progress made in rendering peacekeeping more effective.

In the process of mandate expansion – in being the only available or politically palatable or most affordable instrument - UN peacekeeping is being asked to operate well beyond its traditional comfort zones. UN peacekeeping has transformed itself - several times over – in its sixty year lifespan, and no doubt it will continue to change. Our challenge is to ensure that further evolution in peace operations generally builds on learning our lessons about what has worked and what has not, and why. The tool we select to address an international pace and security problem needs to be the right one, or we run the risk of discrediting all international interventions.

Thank you.