Peacekeeping
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What is peacekeeping?
Definition: the active maintenance of a truce between nations or communities
The United Nations (UN) is generally in charge of international peacekeeping, and it has been for around 60 years. It is one of the most effective tools available to the UN to help countries navigate conflict. The purpose of peacekeeping is to provide safety and political support in countries transitioning from conflict to peace. Strengths of UN peacekeeping are:
- legitimacy
- burden sharing
- ability to deploy and sustains troops and police
- integrating UN forces with civilian peacekeepers to advance mandates
The UN bases all peacekeeping missions on three basic principles.
1. Consent of the parties
- must have consent from the main parties of the conflict, including a commitment to the political process
- without consent, the operation risks contributing to the conflict and using force
- consent must come from the countries, but that does not imply consent on a local level which could cause issues for troops throughout the operation
- peacekeepers must be impartial in their dealings with those involved in the conflict
- peacekeeping operations are NOT an enforcement tool
- may only use force for self defence or defence of the mandate, must be authorized by the Security Council
- rarely are officers given authorization to "use all necessary means"
- prevent forceful attempts to harm political advancement
- protect civilians that are at serious risk of physical attack
- assist national authorities in maintaining law and order
- force is a last resort
- must consider mission capability, public perceptions, humanitarian impact, force protection, safety and security of citizens, and mission consent
Currently, there are 16 UN peacekeeping operations occurring:
- Haiti
- Western Sahara
- Liberia
- Mali
- Ivory Coast
- Democratic Rebulic of Congo
- Central African Republic
- Darfur
- South Sudan
- Abyei
- Kosovo
- Cyprus
- Lebanon
- Middle East
- Syria
- India and Pakistan
The purpose of peacekeeping is not only for peace and safety, it is to help with political processes, protect locals, organize elections, promote human rights, reinstate the rule of law, as well as disarm, demobilize, and reintegrate former combatants. Recently, a 17-member High-level Independent Panel on UN Peace Operations to help facilitate and evaluate modern peacekeeping and future peacekeeping.
- 1948 - The Security Council authorized the deployment of UN military observers to the Middle East to monitor the Armistice Agreement between Arabs and Israelis.
- First armed operation was in 1956, addressing the Suez Crisis
- 69 peacekeeping operations have been deployed, 56 since 1988, involving hundreds of thousands of military personnel and tens of thousands UN police in more than 120 countries
- 3326 lives of UN peacekeepers have been lost while serving