Understanding Peacekeeping. Alex J. Bellamy
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stability in a distant region out of concerns for global order and the threat of violent escalation that was carried by the Middle East conflict, as well as to secure its own interests in the region.
2.3 International organizations as peacekeepers
Although we analyse regional peace operations in greater detail in chapter 13, it is useful briefly to highlight some of the central issues here. International organizations have initiated the majority of peace operations. While the UN has authorized the most, regional arrangements have become increasingly involved in this area, particularly since the end of the Cold War. Chapter VIII of the UN Charter encourages regional arrangements to resolve conflicts peacefully within their region, as long as they keep the Security Council informed about their initiatives. But Chapter VIII also states that regional arrangements are not permitted to engage in peace enforcement without explicit authorization from the UN Security Council. This has not stopped some regional organizations, including ECOWAS and SADC, doing precisely that.
International organizations have conducted peace operations in part because they have considerable functional and normative advantages over unilateral action (see Claude 1966; Abbott and Snidal 1998; Barnett and Finnemore 2004; Coleman 2007). In relation to peacekeeping, international organizations can play at least five positive roles.
1 They help to set the rules for the peacekeepers themselves. Contributing states should work within the organization’s agreed rules and to the mandate it provides.
2 They may provide greater accountability than unilateral actions or coalitions of the willing and offer a forum for galvanizing support and coordinating action in response to crises.
3 They maintain bureaucratic structures to manage field operations and often possess internal procedures for auditing operations.
4 In cases where the host state for the operation is also a member of the organization in question, there may be a greater inclination to accept its involvement than that of a strong regional hegemon or coalition of states.
5 International organizations may have collective institutional memories based on past experiences that can influence the development of peacekeeping norms.
However, international organizations also confront several shortcomings that may undermine their normative and functional potential. First, peacekeeping under the auspices of an international organization does not necessarily confer legitimacy on an operation. It also depends upon the organization, the historical context and the nature of the intervention itself. Second, the cost of accountability may be cumbersome decision-making processes and bureaucratic structures that are ill-suited to conducting and managing complex operations (Esman 1995: 43–7). Third, regional organizations vary considerably, not only in terms of their membership, purpose, bureaucratic structure and legitimating function but also in terms of their capabilities, role and moral standing (Acharya and Johnston 2007).
At this stage it is sufficient to note that regional arrangements have played a significant and growing role in the conduct of peace operations, especially in Europe and Africa. However, this has raised important issues concerning legitimacy, impartiality and capacity, as well as the nature of their relationship with the UN. The next section of this chapter focuses on the United Nations, which has been the single most important international organization in the realm of peace operations.
2.4 United Nations peace operations
This section provides an overview of the legal, bureaucratic and financial frameworks for authorizing and conducting UN-led peace operations. The historical evolution of UN peace operations and the doctrine underpinning them is discussed in part II of the book (chapters 3–5). The first point to note is that the UN Charter neither explicitly mentions ‘peacekeeping’ nor contains provisions for peace operations. This had three important effects on the development of peace operations. First, in practice, UN peace operations have developed as ad hoc responses to particular crises. Second, the key operational concepts, such as consent, impartiality and minimum use of force, were developed through practice. As a result, their meaning was often contested and interpreted differently in different missions and even by different national contingents. Third, member states have reinterpreted the Charter’s provisions over time.
The legal framework for UN peace operations
Despite not providing explicit guidance on peacekeeping, the UN Charter remains the key legal framework within which all peace operations – UN and non-UN – take place (for an excellent overview of the issues, see Gray 2018: chs 6–8). One of the UN’s central purposes is ‘to maintain international peace and security, and to that end: to take effective collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace’ (Article 1(1)). This rationale is usually cited as the legal basis for peacekeeping. However, Article 2(4) of the Charter states that its ‘Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations’, and Article 2(7) that the UN shall not ‘intervene in matters which are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of any state’ unless authorized as part of Chapter VII enforcement measures. Cognizant of these constraints, the specific measures available to the UN to maintain international peace and security are set out in Chapters VI, VII and VIII of the Charter. As noted above, Chapter VIII sets out the UN’s relationship with regional arrangements.
Chapter VI deals with pacific measures that can be taken with the consent of the belligerents. According to Article 33(1), the pacific measures available to the UN include negotiation, inquiry, mediation, conciliation, arbitration, judicial settlement and resort to regional agencies or arrangements.
Chapter VII deals with enforcement measures. These were originally designed to facilitate collective security activities but are now also used to authorize the use of force by peacekeepers to pursue a variety of tasks. Articles 41 and 42 provide for forceful non-military and military responses respectively. The authorization of such enforcement measures requires the Security Council to identify a ‘threat to international peace and security’. Since the enlargement of the Security Council in 1965 from eleven to fifteen members, enforcement measures have required ‘an affirmative vote of nine members including the concurring votes of the permanent members’, as set out in Article 27(3).
The Charter’s drafters left it to the Security Council itself to decide what would count as a threat to international peace and security. Over time, the Council has identified an increasing number of issues as constituting such threats. During the Cold War, for instance, a rebellion in Southern Rhodesia (1965) and South Africa’s nuclear weapons programme (1977) were pinpointed (Chesterman 2001: 130). It was the post-Cold War era, however, that witnessed a dramatic expansion in the Council’s understanding of threats. Arguably the landmark resolution in this regard was number 688: passed in the immediate aftermath of the Gulf War (1991), this perceived the flow of Kurdish refugees beyond Iraq’s borders as a threat to the peace. Since then, the Council has identified a range of different threats, including state collapse (e.g. Resolution 794), the overthrow of a democratically elected government (e.g. Resolution 841), HIV/AIDS (e.g. Resolution 1308), international terrorism (e.g. Resolution 1373), nuclear proliferation (e.g. Resolution 1540), humanitarian suffering (e.g. Resolution 770), massive human rights abuse (e.g. Resolution 1199), the massacre of civilians (e.g. Resolution 1674), piracy (e.g. Resolution 2077) and Ebola (e.g. Resolution 2439).
Matters relating to international peace and security may be brought to the attention of the Security Council by three institutions: the Secretary-General, the General Assembly and individual members of the Security Council.
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