Limitations Of UN Peacekeeping

The United Nations fights for humanitarian issues through the use of peaceful dialogue between countries and leaders. The UN's powers of authorising peacekeeping, sanctions and force when absolutely necessary is given to it by the UN charter, an international treaty. They are limited by the fact that they cannot make their resolutions and policies the law, however the important conversations they start and ideas that are shared are influential upon the many powerful leaders who choose to listen.

The structure and power of the UN Security Council is a major factor regarding how some states are able to exert power over the UN. For example, any permanent member of the UNSC (China, Russia, the US, Britain or France) can veto any resolution proposed as they please. As a result of this we have seen much needed resolutions been dropped due to permanent members vetoing due to national interests. In the case of the conflict in Syria, both resolutions proposed by the UNSC were vetoed by Russia and China as they went against their national interests. In this way, the permanent five members are certainly more powerful than the UN. Furthermore, states sovereignty imposes limits on the extent to which the UN can protect human rights. States sovereignty can also mean that states can refuse to sign international agreements that are seen as against their national interests. For example, the US’s refusal to ratify the Kyoto Protocol. Nevertheless, the UN does exhibit some power over states. It can authorise the use of force or peacekeepers or economic sanctions against states where internal conflict has occurred. For example, in 2006 the UNSC authorised the use of peacekeeping troops in Sudan in response to the conflict in Darfur. Similarly in 2011, the UNSC authorised the use of force to protect civilians against the attacks of the Gaddafi regime. Conclusively, although the UN has the ability to authorise various

The UN and the US government are accredited for deploring conflict situations as well as contributing humanitarian aid, and this is what these two organizations did in Rwanda and Darfur. However, the UN did not do anything to punish or prevent the genocides that took place in these two countries. The US government promised to support the peace talk’s agreement in Darfur and hold the perpetrators accountable for their acts. It never kept that promise since nothing has been done. So far, the UN’s Security Council has also failed in its peace keeping mission effeorts, and is instead pressuring Sudan with words only. No solid steps have been made to bring the wrong doers into justice (Shapiro).

Thesis: The role of the United Nations has changed from being primarily an international peacekeeping force to primarily a humanitarian organization.

Thesis: The role of the United Nations has changed from being primarily an international peacekeeping force to primarily a humanitarian organization.

For a mission to be peacekeeping, the UN needs to be invited by at least one side, and more commonly two. The forces on a peacekeeping mission are usually lightly armed in order to prevent them from acting aggressively, while also confirming its role as a peacekeeper that is neutral. The main role of the peacekeepers is to act as a buffer and report when a country violates a ceasefire. The peacekeeping force enters after the conflict has started and its mission is to fulfill the mandate provided by the council. Lately peacekeeping missions have focused more on aid and state building rather than just preventing conflict. Recently there have been calls for the UN to move from peacekeeping to peace enforcement in some situations. Peace enforcement usually requires a larger, better, and heavier equipped force that won’t just keep the peace, but enforce it if it has too. With peace enforcement, the UN would like to stop more conflicts before they start because the threat of a large UN force being called in might make some countries question going on the offensive in a war. For a peace enforcement mission to be successful, the orders and mandate given must be very clear to the troops so that they can respond in war in real time and not be held up in bureaucracy. Peace enforcement also doesn’t require the force to be impartial or to find the aggressor, but to work in the most efficient way possible to end the fighting.

The United Nations has become a sort of bureaucracy, dependent on the views of the five major powers that sit on the Security Council. The United Nations during the Rwandan crisis centered their policies on the survival of the institution itself. The Preventable Genocide International Panel of Eminent Personalities for Rwanda reaffirmed these realist interests in saying: "On April 8 and 9, Dallaire's UN troops were immediately ordered – by the Secretariat in New York, and under strong pressure from western countries to work with the French to evacuate foreign nationals rather than protect threatened Rwandans" (Rwanda). This is an unfortunate example of realist interests, which is not to say that these men and women were not important, they were, but extra support was not given to help pull them out which meant that the support the Rwandans needed was of even lesser strength than it previously had been. The UN at this point in history was failing from many defeats such as the intervention in Somalia , and it was therefore very reluctant to commit to another mission, which defiantly clouded judgement when it came to intervening in Rwanda. Alison Des Forges amplified this in saying most staff at the U.N. were fixed on averting another failure in peacekeeping operations, even at the cost of Rwandan lives" (Des Forges). Dallaire looks at the UN more in-depth by

Sierra Leone had been considered a fragile state even before its civil war from 1991-2002, this is because it had “weak capacity and will to provide security and deliver services to its population” (Pickering, 2009, p20). The decade during the civil war was overwhelmed by huge human rights abuses, lack of coherent governments, weak social security structures and masses of violence (Evoe, 2008, p2).. A number of peace efforts were generated by international institutions, none of which were extensively effective throughout all of Sierra Leone. Despite these difficulties, the intervention in Sierra Leone is considered a noteworthy success for the United Nations peacebuilding mission. The main objective of peacebuilding missions is to ‘rebuild’ failing and weak states (Cubitt, 2013, p91) and to “prevent violence from recurring in countries that are just emerging from civil conflict” (Paris, 2002, p637). The UN mission in Sierra Leone is widely regarded as an example of successful peacebuilding in a war torn country. The mission facilitated a transition from, a failing state to a moderately peaceful state. This mission is held as an example of successful intervention, and is often used as a means to justify the benefits of UN peacebuilding and peacekeeping missions.

Bertram looks at the successes and failures of new UN peacekeeping, such as the successes in El Salvador and Cambodia and the failures in Somalia and Angola, and argues that the UN needs to do a better job at determining where peace can be built. She also argues that the UN must stop blurring the lines between traditional peacekeeping doctrine and new peacekeeping practices in order to effectively accomplish their goals. Bertram notes in her essay how these things are crucial in assuring the success of UN peace building. She also emphasizes how crucial success is by noting how much small failures can deter member states from acting as peace builders in UN

The fact that the United Nations failed to prevent the Rwandan genocide is unavoidable. Nevertheless, due to this atrocious event, the UN has learnt an important lesson so that it can avoid further more of genocides. The Rwandan genocide consisted around 800,000 Tutsi’s that got massacred by the Hutu extremists for 100 days. After the UN reflected and learned from the massacre in Rwanda, the UN announced to establish and work as Responsibility to Protect; To intervene when a country is involved with atrocious acts, such as genocides (Bryce-Pease, 2014). Romeo Dallaire, a former general of the United Nations Mission In Rwanda, argues that the UN has not learnt much or reformed its peacekeeping methods, since many conflicts still exists (Bryce-Pease,

Redefine the importance of economic sanctions and collective diplomacy of UN and regional organisations : Targeted sanctions to deter or end violence, expert panels to monitor the effectiveness of targeted sanctions on peace spoilers, and an increase in the use of special envoys and special representatives to the secretary-general. Actively support EU, AU , OAS, ASEAN in promoting regional peace Although conflicts in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan consumed the majority of international attention and resources over the past decade, there has been success involving multilateral conflict prevention, peacekeeping, and peace-building

Humanitarian intervention has brought as much help and support to the world as it has brought unrest. The nature of intervention involves another actor intervening in another state. Therefore, sovereignty becomes conditional. When and how to intervene is one challenge. Many countries deploy military forces into conflict zones or diplomatic tools. The UN deploys Peacekeepers, unarmed forces. Timing still remains a contested issue, when to arrive and when to leave. In addition, many interventions lack a consensus from regional or international actors, for example, the recent US-led intervention in Libya. The African Union was against it; but, the Arab League was for it. International organizations and states should create an in-depth comprehension of the situation and a coherent, concise plan, including a timeline, objectives, and exit strategy, when conducting a humanitarian intervention.

Despite the hope for democracy and political stability in the last two decades, crises and armed conflicts remain a serious impediment to development in many countries. Moreover, if some specialists say that the end of the Cold War at the beginning of the 1990s spelled the end of conflicts created through the East-West confrontation, the following years have shown the predominance of intra-state crises, thus forcing the United Nations (UN) to review its strategies for peace and security. In extremely complex internal conflicts, the peacekeeping operations seem unable to reach their objectives. The failure is a shared responsibility between the major powers, the peacekeepers and the UN.

Over the last 15 years peacekeeping operations have changed substantially at the behest of the UN Security Council. Authorization for the use of force conducted by peacekeepers have been granted more frequently, and in particular the method of peacekeeping operations have been reorganized to relinquish the root causes of the instability within a nation that is riddled with political or economic turbulence.

The United Nations, with its rigid moral and political limitations against force, has become a benchmark of peace and a social achievement of modern times. From war torn Europe, the United Nations developed from five major powers with an initial goal to prevent the spread of warfare through peaceful means and to establish and maintain fundamental human rights. Through the past fifty years, this organization has broadened its horizons with auxiliary organizations from peace keeping missions to humanitarian aid, to economic development. However, in a modern example of ethnic cleansing, the UN faces new a new role as a bystander as its power is bypassed by NATO forces. The UN, however, promises to be an