Peacekeeping

UN Peacekeepers were deployed in the aftermath of interstate conflict in order to serve as a buffer between belligerent factions and ensure compliance with the terms of an established peace agreement.

The report, titled An Agenda for Peace, described a multi-faceted and interconnected set of measures he hoped would lead to effective use of the UN in its role in post-Cold War international politics.

Basically, the protection of cultural property (carried out by military and civil experts in cooperation with local people) forms the stable basis for the future peaceful and economic development of a city, region or country in many conflict areas.

In cases of genocide or other serious human rights violations, an AU-mission could be launched even against the wishes of the government of the country concerned, as long as it is approved by the AU General Assembly.

With the passage of the Karachi agreement in July 1949, UNCIP would supervise a ceasefire line that would be mutually overseen by UN unarmed military observers and local commanders from each side in the dispute.

It was given the mandate of ensuring the cessation of hostilities between Egypt, the United Kingdom, France, and Israel in addition to overseeing the withdrawal of French, Israeli and British troops from Egyptian territory.

ONUC was also tasked with establishing and maintaining law and order (helping to end the FP revolt and ethnic violence) as well as provide technical assistance and training to Congolese security forces.

An additional function was added to ONUC's mission, in which the force was tasked with maintaining the territorial integrity and political independence of the Congo[25]—resulting from the secession of the mineral-rich provinces of Katanga and South Kasai.

The ten largest troop contributing countries (including police and military experts) to UN peacekeeping operations as of October 2021 were Bangladesh (6447), Nepal (5536), India (5481), Rwanda (5263), Ethiopia (4856), Pakistan (3949), Egypt (2818), Indonesia (2818), Ghana (2296), and China (2248).

Columbia University Professor Virginia Page Fortna attempted to categorize four causal mechanisms through which peacekeepers have the opportunity to lay the groundwork for a lasting peace.

Lastly, military groups such as armed rebels can be encouraged to put down their weapons and transformed into political organisations using appropriate non-violent means to mete out their grievances and compete in the election cycle.

[53] Doyle and Sambanis' analysis finds that lasting peace is more likely after non-ethnic wars in countries with a relatively high level of development in addition to whether or not UN peacekeeping forces and financial assistance are available.

In addition, hearing held by the U.S. House of Representatives in 2002 found that members of SFOR were frequenting Bosnian brothels and engaging in sex with trafficked women and underage girls.

[75][76] In July 2007 the United Nations Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO) confined an entire contingent of 734 Moroccans in the Ivory Coast in the wake of allegations that some had sexually abused underage girls.

Most of the allegations involved troops from African countries including: Cameroon, Congo, Tanzania, Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Ghana, Madagascar, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal and Togo.

[79] Significant scientific evidence, first reported by the Associated Press,[80] and later the New York Times,[81] Al Jazeera,[82] and ABC News[83] has shown that Nepalese peacekeeping troops stationed at a remote base in Mirebalais, Haiti, triggered a deadly cholera epidemic that has ravaged the country since October 2010.

[85] According to the UN-appointed Independent Panel of Experts on the Cholera Outbreak in Haiti, the conditions at the peacekeeping base were unsafe, and allowed contamination of Haiti's river systems in at least two ways: "The construction of the water pipes in the main toilet/showering area [was] haphazard, with significant potential for cross-contamination...especially from pipes that run over an open drainage ditch that runs throughout the camp and flows directly into the Meye Tributary System".

Yet the study revealed the troops received very little from briefings and that the majority of the information regarding the conflict was gained through the news, reading books or speaking with other UN personnel—rather than any established UN training program.

Most Americans did not understand the subtleties of short-term alliances, the length of memories and blood feuds, the strength of aln [kin] in Arab culture nor the nuances of religious differences.

[90] Now, however, with legitimacy being extended to non-state actors, as well as the opportunity for a minority to secede from a given state and form a new country there has been a dramatic shift in the international status quo.

Clapham's argument is principally in relation to the situation in Rwanda leading up to the genocide,[90] whereas Shearer focuses on the negative aspects of intervention, primarily regarding Sierra Leone, which prevents total victory by one side and results in the creation of asymmetries between belligerents which opens the door for continued bloodshed.

The international community, led by regional states from the Organisation of African Unity, sought to negotiate a settlement and find a solution for the ongoing ethnic violence between Hutu and Tutsi via the Arusha Peace Process.

[90] Meaning that it froze the conflict and prevented continued territorial gains being made by the RPF, in addition to designating the degree of importance with regard to the factions within the negotiations.

But Shearer asks that if a belligerent uses negotiations and cease-fires as a method of delay in order to allow them to reposition military forces and continue fighting, then should consent-based strategies still be pursued, regardless of the potential for lengthening a conflict and the associated human cost?

In a 2005 working paper for the Center for Global Development, Jeremy Weinstein of Stanford University provides a theory of "autonomous recovery", in which states can achieve sustainable peace without international intervention.

Weinstein argues the fundamental challenge is how to incentivise good governance and assistance to rebel groups without disrupting the connection of citizens to rulers in terms of revenue collection that enables accountability.

[94] Although acknowledging a number of practical and moral reasons for peacekeeping operations, James Fearon and David Laitin assert that they have a tendency under some circumstances to become tangled with state-building efforts.

Thus, Fearon and Laitin advocate for the greater integration of state-building in peacekeeping efforts through a new framework of "neotrusteeship", which would see foreign powers exercising a great deal of control over a weak state's domestic affairs in order to ensure the prevention of future violence.

As Séverine Autesserre outlines in a 2015 Foreign Policy article,[96] this creates an environment where the peacekeeping officials develop plans to 'keep' the peace, but they are disconnected from reality, having the opposite effect on the ground.

According to Fearon and Laitin, the Brahimi Report provides a political instrument for the secretary-general to negotiate with the Security Council the goals, the troops, and the resources need it to the operations.