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From peacekeeping to peacebuilding: the evolution of the role of the United Nations in peace operations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 September 2014

Ronald Hatto
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Abstract

Multifunctional peace operations have become an integral part of international society to the extent that they are now one of the major regulating institutions of international relations. The United Nations (UN) is the main player in setting up such operations. The UN has seen a major but gradual evolution of its role in maintaining and establishing peace. Having developed peacekeeping as a form of impartial interposition between belligerents during the Suez Crisis in 1956, the UN has continually broadened its sphere of action. These cumbersome and complex operations are demanding and present the UN with a number of challenges.

Keywords

humanitarian interventionspeacekeepingUNmultifunctional operationsmultinational operations
Type
Research Article
Information
International Review of the Red Cross , Volume 95 , Issue 891-892: Multinational operations and the law , December 2013 , pp. 495 - 515
Copyright
Copyright © icrc 2014 

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References

1 These institutions’ function is to enhance the stability of interactions between the different actors in a given society. Peacekeeping operations have become gradually institutionalised to the point where they have become a virtually unavoidable aspect of the management of armed conflicts within international society.

2 It should be noted that the UN sent only an observer force to Syria. That force had to be withdrawn following the attacks on it.

3 Those taking part in multinational operations are frequently called upon to work with other humanitarian actors that are not under the command or the control of the UN or of the organisations in charge of the missions.

4 In the 1990s, some analysts wondered whether peacekeeping had not become a ‘business’. See Minear, Larry, ‘The Evolving Humanitarian Enterprise’, in Weiss, Thomas G. (ed.), The United Nations and Civil Wars, Lynne Rienner, Boulder, CO, 1995, pp. 89–106Google Scholar; Rostow, Eugene V., ‘Is U.N. Peacekeeping a Growth Industry?’, in Joint Force Quarterly, No. 4, 1994, pp. 100–105Google Scholar.

5 In 1933, during the Leticia crisis between Colombia and Peru, the League of Nations appointed a commission to govern the territory temporarily; it was authorised to command an armed force of its choice. For the first time, the (Colombian) force wore an armband and displayed a League of Nations flag in addition to the Colombian flag. However, that force was not subject to the direct command of the League of Nations. See MacQueen, Norrie, Peacekeeping and the International System, Routledge, London, 2006, p. 41CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Stahn, Carsten, The Law and Practice of International Territorial Administration: Versailles to Iraq and Beyond, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2008, p. 235CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

6 The UN continues to use the term ‘peacekeeping’ to describe its operations. In the specialist literature, numerous authors have adopted the broader concept of ‘peace operations’. See Coulon, Jocelyn, Dictionnaire mondial des opérations de paix 1948–2013, 2nd ed., Athéna Editions, Outremont, 2013Google Scholar; Diehl, Paul F., Peace Operations, Polity Press, Cambridge, 2008Google Scholar; Doyle, Michael W. and Sambanis, Nicholas, Making War and Building Peace: United Nations Peace Operations, Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, 2006Google Scholar; Durch, William J. (ed.), Twenty First Century Peace Operations, United States Institute of Peace, Washington, DC, 2006Google Scholar. Thierry Tardy refers to ‘crisis management’ and draws particular attention to the fact that it has become the most visible international governance activity in the field of security: Tardy, Thierry, Gestion de crise, maintien et consolidation de la paix: Acteurs, activités, défis, De Boeck, Brussels, 2009, p. 9Google Scholar.

7 Nations, United, United Nations Peacekeeping Operations: Principles and Guidelines, Department of Peacekeeping Operations, New York, 2008Google Scholar, Chapter 2.

8 As long ago as 1990, Alan James highlighted the fact that peacekeeping was not an activity reserved exclusively for the UN and that civilians also had a role to play. In his view, ‘peacekeeping is by no means a UN preserve’. See James, Alan, Peacekeeping in International Politics, MacMillan, Basingstoke, 1990, p. 1CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

9 The former undersecretary-general for peacekeeping operations, Jean-Marie Guéhenno, recalls this in the opening lines of an article published in 2002: Guéhenno, Jean-Marie, ‘On the Challenges and Achievements of Reforming UN Peace Operations’, in International Peacekeeping, Vol. 9, No. 2, 2002, pp. 69–80Google Scholar. Not even the basic principles of UN peacekeeping of 2008 include any clear definition of peacekeeping; rather, they list the ‘range of activities undertaken by the United Nations and other international actors to maintain international peace and security throughout the world’. See United Nations, above note 7, p. 17. It should be noted that the specialist literature contains a large number of different definitions.

10 United Nations, An Agenda for Peace: Preventive Diplomacy, Peacemaking and Peace-Keeping, UN Doc. A/47/277, S/24111, 17 June 1992 (hereinafter Agenda for Peace). The Agenda for Peace makes it clear that ‘Peacemaking is action to bring hostile parties to agreement, essentially through such peaceful means as those foreseen in Chapter VI of the Charter of the United Nations’: ibid., Chapter 2, p. 5, para. 20.

11 Charter of the United Nations, 26 June 1945 (entered into force 24 October 1945), Preamble.

12 With regard to peacekeeping, under ‘sécurité collective’ (collective security) in the Dictionnaire de stratégie, Serge Sur refers to a ‘reduced form of collective security, at least compared with the provisions of the Charter’ (our translation). See de Montbrial, Thierry and Klein, Jean (ed.), Dictionnaire de stratégie, Presses Universitaires de France, Paris, 2000, p. 508Google Scholar. Boutros Boutros-Ghali, in the introduction to the third edition of the UN book The Blue Helmets, stresses the fact that the term ‘peacekeeping’ in the sense of ‘non-violent use of military force to preserve peace’ does not appear in the Charter, in which the concept ‘differs fundamentally’ from the enforcement action to preserve international peace and security to which it refers. United Nations, The Blue Helmets, 3rd ed., Department of Information, New York, 1996, p. 4Google Scholar. Norrie MacQueen presents a table in which he compares collective security and peacekeeping and which sets out very clearly the differences between the two concepts – and the less ambitious nature of military and political peacekeeping plans: N. MacQueen, above note 5, p. 77.

13 For a historical overview of the evolution of the role of the UN in international security, see Bellamy, Alex J. and Williams, Paul D. (with Griffin, Stuart), Understanding Peacekeeping, 2nd ed., Polity Press, Cambridge, 2010Google Scholar; N. MacQueen, above note 5; Malone, David M. and Wermester, Karin, ‘Boom and Bust? The Changing Nature of UN Peacekeeping’, in Adekeye, Abedajo and Sriram, Chandra Lekha (eds), Managing Armed Conflicts in the 21st Century, Frank Cass Publishers, London, 2001, pp. 37–54Google Scholar; T. Tardy, above note 6; Urquhart, Brian E., A Life in Peace and War, W. W. Norton, New York, 1987Google Scholar.

14 Durch, William J., ‘Building on Sand: UN Peacekeeping in the Western Sahara’, in International Security, Vol. 17, No. 4, 1993, pp. 152–153CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The self-help principle is central to a realistic analysis of international relations. It points out that each state is responsible for its own security. In cases of need, given the anarchic nature of the international system, no one will go to the assistance of a state under attack – hence the need to resort to one's own means in order to survive in this dangerous world. The notion of ‘international society’ is less pessimistic in insisting on the role of international institutions as a means of mitigating the effects of international anarchy.

15 This view of PKOs is based on a ‘Westphalian’ concept of international order, which holds that, despite the increase in power of many transnational actors and of the concept of human security, states remain the key players in international interactions. For an opposing view, see A. J. Bellamy and P. D. Williams (with S. Griffin), above note 13.

16 N. MacQueen, above note 5, p. 14.

17 United Nations, Summary Study of the Experience derived from the Establishment and Operation of the Force: Report of the Secretary-General, UN Doc. A/3943, 9 October 1958 (hereinafter Report of 9 October 1958).

18 For a more detailed analysis of the three principles and their questioning during some multifunctional operations, see Tsagourias, Nicholas, ‘Consent, Neutrality/Impartiality and the Use of Force in Peacekeeping: Their Constitutional Dimension’, in Journal of Conflict and Security Law, Vol. 11, No. 3, 2006, pp. 465–482CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

19 These inconsistencies often arise during operations due to a multiplication of Security Council resolutions aiming at transforming the mandate of the force. The two primary examples of that kind of situation are ONUC in the Congo and UNPROFOR in the former Yugoslavia.

20 We stress the role of the UN because, as emphasised by Thierry Tardy, the UN has been in charge of multinational operations, including as from the 1990s, when many other actors have become involved. Even in operations in which the UN does not deploy Blue Helmets, it still participates through its civilian personnel, as in Kosovo or in Afghanistan. That leadership has, moreover, not been without presenting problems for the image of the UN. See Tardy, Thierry, ‘Le bilan de dix années d'opérations de maintien de la paix’, in Politique Etrangère, Vol. 65, No. 2, 2000, p. 389CrossRefGoogle Scholar; T. Tardy, above note 6, Chapter 3.

21 The concept of ‘international society’ was spread, in particular, by the representatives of the English School of International Relations. Hedley Bull, Adam Watson and Barry Buzan are some of the most influential theoreticians of that approach. See Buzan, Barry, From International to World Society? English School Theory and the Social Structure of Globalisation, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2004CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

22 Nicholas Tsagourias emphasises the fact that the three principles developed by Hammarskjöld following the establishment of UNEF are constantly affirmed and reaffirmed in official UN documents as well as in a large number of university studies. N. Tsagourias, above note 18, p. 465.

23 Bennett, Andrew and Elman, Colin, ‘Complex Causal Relations and Case Study Methods: The Example of Path Dependence’, in Political Analysis, Vol. 14, 2006, pp. 250–267CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Mahoney, James, ‘Path Dependence in Historical Sociology’, in Theory and Society, Vol. 29, No. 4, 2000, pp. 507–548CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Mahoney's approach is particularly helpful for understanding the birth and evolution of an institution or a public policy. UN peacekeeping has changed little in terms of its policy, its organisation, the implementation of its missions and its political role. While the publication of the Agenda for Peace and the creation of the Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO) in 1992 represented a relatively important policy and institutional evolution, the Secretariat is nonetheless still poorly equipped to manage so many police officers and soldiers. Efforts to adjust the Secretariat were made between 2000 and 2010 but are still insufficient. For Tardy, ‘the UN is therefore constantly faced with a mismatch between its multidimensional peacekeeping ambitions and the means at its disposal’ (our translation). Tardy wonders whether the UN is not condemned to repeatedly have to start from scratch: see T. Tardy, above note 6, p. 88.

24 In the early 1990s, Paul Diehl presented different institutional alternatives to UN peacekeeping by calling on voluntary contributions by the member states. As the ad hoc nature of that method was not optimal in terms of rapid deployment and efficiency, two broad types of institutional alternatives were possible according to Diehl: either the development of a permanent UN stand-by force or the outsourcing of the implementation of peacekeeping by delegating those operations to regional organisations or to ‘multinational’ forces. See Diehl, Paul F., International Peacekeeping, Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, MD, 1994Google Scholar, Chapter 5; Diehl, Paul F., ‘Institutional Alternatives to Traditional U.N. Peacekeeping: An Assessment of Regional and Multinational Options’, in Armed Forces and Society, Vol. 19, No. 2, 1993, pp. 209–230CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

25 The concept of ‘path dependence’ relates to situations that make a historical choice difficult to change because of the high costs in terms of initial investment (of attention and of political capital), training, coordination and expectation. See Bruno Palier in Boussaguet, Laurie, Jacquot, Sophie and Ravinet, Pauline (eds), Dictionnaire des politiques publiques, Presses de Sciences Po, Paris, 2004, p. 319Google Scholar. The actors involved in implementing PKOs are therefore reluctant to make overly radical changes to a long-standing formula. This explains the ‘incremental’ evolution of peacekeeping. Attention should be drawn to the tension that has existed at least since the operation in the Congo in 1960–1964 between the operating principles governing traditional peacekeeping operations (consent of the parties, impartiality and non-use of force) as presented by Dag Hammarskjöld in 1958 and actual practice in the field. The UN has never managed to resolve that tension, as is evident from the problems of protecting civilian populations in some recent missions. See Holt, Victoria and Taylor, Glyn (with Kelly, Max), Protecting Civilians in the Context of UN Peacekeeping Operations: Successes, Setbacks and Remaining Challenges, United Nations, New York, 2009Google Scholar.

26 Referring to UNEF, Paul Tavernier emphasises that ‘Dag Hammarskjöld quickly worked out a sort of policy for PKOs by systematizing the principles that were to be applied to them’ (our translation and emphasis). See Tavernier, Paul, Les casques bleus, Presses Universitaires de France, Paris, 1996, p. 31Google Scholar.

27 It should be noted that the deployment of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) in March 1978 is a separate case among the ‘traditional’ operations in the period from 1965 to 1988. That mission had a non-coercitive mandate based on Chapter VI of the Charter, which was similar to other traditional operations, but it was deployed in a very difficult environment over which the Lebanese government had little influence and in which some armed groups did not accept the presence of the Blue Helmets. See Ghali, Mona, ‘United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon: 1978–Present’, in Durch, William J. (ed.), The Evolution of UN Peacekeeping: Case Studies and Comparative Analysis, St. Martin's Press, New York, 1993, pp. 181–218Google Scholar.

28 The establishment of the United Nations Special Committee on the Balkans revealed that tensions had been developing between the two ‘blocs’ since late 1946.

29 As stressed by Christopher Daase, Dag Hammarskjöld developed his peacekeeping principles not on the basis of any precedent (the League of Nations or UNTSO, for example) but on the basis of a set of rules that he himself defined. That is why peacekeeping as a security institution really did begin with UNEF, the first operation to follow original rules rather than to rely on past examples. Daase, Christopher, ‘Spontaneous Institutions: Peacekeeping as an International Convention’, in Haftendorn, Helga, Keohane, Robert O. and Wallander, Celeste A. (eds), Imperfect Unions: Security Institutions Over Time and Space, Oxford University Press, New York, 1999, p. 240Google Scholar.

30 Wiseman, Henry, ‘United Nations Peacekeeping: An Historical Overview’, in Wiseman, Henry (ed.), Peacekeeping: Appraisals and Proposals, Pergamon Press, New York, 1983, p. 22Google Scholar. Other authors use or refer to the stages of development presented by Wiseman. See Fetherston, A. B., Towards a Theory of United Nations Peacekeeping, St. Martin's Press, New York, 1994, pp. 16–19CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Thakur, Ramesh and Schnabel, Albrecht, ‘Cascading Generations of Peacekeeping: Across the Mogadishu Line to Kosovo and Timor’, in Thakur, Ramesh and Schnabel, Albrecht (eds), United Nations Peacekeeping Operations: Ad Hoc Missions, Permanent Engagement, United Nations University Press, Tokyo, 2001, p. 9Google Scholar.

31 There are many studies that use a generation-based typology. The term started to be used in both English and French around 1992. See Abi-Saab, Georges, ‘La deuxième génération des opérations de maintien de la paix’, in Le Trimestre du monde, No. 4/1992, pp. 87–95Google Scholar; Ghébali, Victor-Yves, ‘Le développement des opérations de maintien de la paix de l'ONU depuis la fin de la guerre froide’, in Le Trimestre du monde, No. 4/1992, pp. 67–85Google Scholar; Mackinlay, John and Chopra, Jarat, ‘Second Generation Multinational Operations’, in Washington Quarterly, Vol. 15, No. 3, 1992, pp. 113–131CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Since then, many authors have used that typology. For a non-exhaustive list, see R. Thakur and A. Schnabel (eds), above note 30; Kenkel, Kai Michael, ‘Five Generations of Peace Operations: From the “Thin Blue Line” to “Painting a Country Blue”’, in Revista Brasileira de Política Internacional, Vol. 56, No. 1, 2013, pp. 122–143CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

32 A. J. Bellamy and P. D. Williams (with S. Griffin), above note 13, p. 17.

33 United Nations, above note 12, p. 625.

34 Brian E. Urquhart, Hammarskjöld, W.W. Norton, New York, 1994. For a biography of Dag Hammarskjöld, see www.un.org/depts/dhl/dag/index.html. All internet references were accessed in March 2014.

35 See B. E. Urquhart, above note 34, p. 176; B. E. Urquhart, above note 13, p. 133; Carroll, Michael K., Pearson's Peacekeepers: Canada and the United Nations Emergency Force, 1956–67, University of British Columbia Press, Vancouver, 2009, p. 30Google Scholar. Pearson was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1957 for his role in establishing UNEF.

36 See Report of 9 October 1958, above note 17.

37 Report of 9 October 1958, above note 17. Paras. 84 to 86 of the document deal with the Secretariat and Chapter VII with the basic principles of traditional peacekeeping. It should be noted that in para. 151 of this report, Hammarskjöld recalled that UNEF had benefited from special conditions (request of the Egyptian government and deployment in accordance with the decision of the General Assembly) and that it could not be reasonably expected for those favourable circumstances to be often reproduced elsewhere. For him, the UNEF experiment was not intended to serve as an inspiration for future UN operations. The mission to the Congo proved him right.

38 For a representation of the traditional peacekeeping principles as a ‘trinity’, see A. J. Bellamy and P. D. Williams (with S. Griffin), above note 13, p. 96.

39 Report of 9 October 1958, above note 17, paras. 155 and 156.

40 Ibid. Para. 160 tackles the question of the composition of the UN forces. In that respect, it states that the UN followed two principles: not to include in the force any military unit from the permanent members of the Security Council or units from any country which, because of it geographical position or for other reasons, might be considered as having a special interest in the situation which has called for the operation. However, it is paras. 166 and 167 that constitute the core of the principle of impartiality as it is applied by traditional PKOs. Para. 166 provides that ‘UN personnel cannot be permitted in any sense to be a party to internal conflicts’. Para. 167 adds that ‘it was explicitly stated that the Force should not be used to enforce any specific political solution of pending problems or to influence the political balance decisive to such a solution’.

41 Ibid., para. 179.

42 For an overview of the numerous logistic and organisational difficulties encountered by the UN in the early 1960s, see Bowman, Edward H. and Fanning, James E., ‘The Logistics Problems of a UN Military Force’, in International Organization, Vol. 17, No. 2, 1963, pp. 355–376CrossRefGoogle Scholar. To gain an idea of the improvised nature of the operation, it should be noted that the Secretary-General had to procure a map of the Congo from a Belgian company located on Wall Street!

43 Proclaimed on 11 July 1960 by Moïse Tschombé.

44 ONUC was established by Resolution 143 (1960) of 14 July 1960. Resolution 161 (1961) of 21 February 1961 explicitly authorised the use of force as a last resort to prevent the outbreak of a civil war following the assassination of Patrice Lumumba.

45 P. Tavernier, above note 26, p. 36. The causes of that accident are still shrouded in mystery. See Rosio, Bengt, ‘The Ndola Crash and the Death of Dag Hammarskjold’, in Journal of Modern African Studies, Vol. 31, No. 4, 1993, pp. 661–671CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

46 Dag Hammarskjöld was opposed to the use of force as a means of enforcing peace. After his death, the UN went so far as to use aircraft to bomb the Katangese positions and to put an end to the secession of the province. Dorn, Walter, ‘The UN's First “Air Force”: Peacekeepers in Combat, Congo 1960–64’, in Journal of Military History, Vol. 77, October 2013, p. 1399Google Scholar. It should also be noted that the UN force deployed in the DRC from 1999 onwards made use of force on numerous occasions by deploying attack helicopters. The Security Council, by virtue of its Resolution 2098 (2013) of 28 March 2013, decided ‘on an exceptional basis and without creating a precedent or any prejudice to the agreed principles of peacekeeping, [to] include an “Intervention Brigade” consisting inter alia of three infantry battalions, one artillery, and one Special force and Reconnaissance company’. That heavily armed ‘Intervention Brigade’ and the use of observation drones in December 2013 enables UN forces to make use of force in case of need in order to protect the population or to uphold the mandate entrusted to the UN.

47 The causes of the 1990s conflict differ from those of the 1960s, but the country's chronic political instability is one of the causes of the endemic violence.

48 France and the Soviet Union, in particular. See Gerbet, Pierre, Mouton, Marie-Renée and Ghébali, Victor-Yves, Le rêve d'un ordre mondial: de la SDN à l'ONU, Imprimerie Nationale Editions, Paris, 1996, pp. 253–254Google Scholar; P. Tavernier, above note 26, p. 37.

49 The PKO financial crisis started with the deployment of UNEF and, exacerbated by the exorbitant costs of ONUC, led the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to publish an Advisory Opinion on 20 July 1962 to endeavour to determine how to fund the PKOs. See ICJ, Certain Expenses of the United Nations (Article 17, para. 2 of the Charter), Advisory Opinion, 20 July 1962. See also Nathanson, Nathaniel L., ‘Constitutional Crisis at the United Nations: The Price of Peace-Keeping’, in University of Chicago Law Review, Vol. 32, No. 4, 1965, pp. 621–658CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

50 Except in Cyprus, where UNFICYP was deployed as from March 1964 to separate Greek and Turkish Cypriots.

51 See, however, note 27 on the particular features of UNIFIL.

52 Multifunctional missions include, besides stabilising the situation, various tasks such as the repatriation of refugees, organising and monitoring elections, the demobilisation and reintegration of combatants, and ensuring respect for human rights.

53 That success can be attributed to several factors. First, UNTAG had been created on 29 September 1978 by Security Council Resolution 435. The UN personnel had therefore had more than ten years to prepare for the establishment of the mission. Second, with the end of East–West tensions, the parties involved in the conflict between South Africa and its neighbours agreed to disengage gradually. Lastly, South Africa itself accepted the idea of an independent Namibia and worked together with the UN to ensure the success of the mission. See Marrack Goulding, Peacemonger, Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, MD. 2002, pp. 139–175; Howard, Lise Morjé, UN Peacekeeping in Civil Wars, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2008, pp. 52–87Google Scholar.

54 Albaret, Mélanie, Decaux, Emmanuel, Lemay-Hébert, Nicolas and Placidi-Frot, Delphine, Les grandes résolutions du Conseil de sécurité des Nations Unies, Dalloz, Paris, 2012, pp. 160–180Google Scholar.

55 Conoir, Yvan and Verna, Gérard (eds), DDR: désarmer, démobiliser et réintégrer, Presses de l'Université Laval, Quebec, 2006Google Scholar.

56 Schnabel, Albrecht and Ehrhart, Hans-Georg (eds), Security Sector Reform and Post-Conflict Peacebuilding, United Nations University Press, Tokyo, 2005Google Scholar.

57 See George H. W. Bush, Address Before a Joint Session of the Congress on the Cessation of the Persian Gulf Conflict, 6 March 1991, available at: http://bushlibrary.tamu.edu/research/public_papers.php?id=2767&year=1991&month=3.

58 Miller, Eric A. and Yetiv, Steve A., ‘The New World Order in Theory and Practice: The Bush Administration's Worldview in Transition’, in Presidential Studies Quarterly, Vol. 31, No. 1, 2001, p. 61CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

59 See United Nations, provisional verbatim record of the 3,046th meeting of the Security Council, UN Doc. S/PV. 3046, 31 January 1992, available at: www.securitycouncilreport.org/atf/cf/%7B65BFCF9B-6D27-4E9C-8CD3-CF6E4FF96FF9%7D/RO%20SPV%203046.pdf.

60 Agenda for Peace, above note 10, para. 20.

61 Ibid., para. 43.

62 Ibid., para. 44.

63 United Nations, Supplement to An Agenda for Peace: Position Paper of the Secretary-General on the Occasion of the Fiftieth Anniversary of the United Nations, UN Doc. A/50/60, S/1995/1, 25 January 1995, p. 9, para. 36.

64 See the monthly summary of contributions to PKOs made by the member states between 1995 and 2004, available on the DPKO website at: www.un.org/en/peacekeeping/contributors/documents/Yearly_Summary.pdf.

65 PKOs have been through various ups and downs but since 2005 the tendency has been to deploy more than 60,000 soldiers and police officers on average in PKOs, a peak having been reached around January 2010 with more than 100,000 uniformed members of staff deployed on four continents. See the chart on the DPKO website, available at: www.un.org/en/peacekeeping/documents/chart.pdf.

66 This point is emphasised by Stephen Kinloch in a text on the strengths and weaknesses of a possible permanent UN force. Kinloch recalls that compared with operations carried out by coalitions of states or by individual states, UN operations are, by virtue of their multinational and genuinely international dimension, less likely to be suspected of partiality or of having hidden objectives. See Kinloch, Stephen P., ‘Utopian or Pragmatic? A UN Permanent Military Volunteer Force’, in Pugh, Michael (ed.), The UN, Peace and Force, Frank Cass, London, pp. 170–171Google Scholar. In that passage Kinloch does not refer to regional organisations, but other studies highlight the difficulties encountered by such organisations in respecting the criterion of neutrality. See P. F. Diehl, above note 24, p. 128. The case of the Economic Community of West African States Monitoring Group (ECOMOG) in Liberia in the 1990s is often taken as an example. The ECOMOG regional force comprised a majority of Nigerian soldiers, and some analysts consider that it tended to promote the interests of Nigeria in the region rather than a settlement of the Liberian crisis. Most of the analyses nonetheless admit that the force made it possible to alleviate the suffering of the Liberian people. See Adeleke, Ademola, ‘The Politics and Diplomacy of Peacekeeping in West Africa: The Ecowas Operation in Liberia’, in Journal of Modern African Studies, Vol. 33, No. 4, 1995, pp. 569–593CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Adibe, Clément E., ‘The Liberian Conflict and the ECOWAS–UN Partnership’, in Third World Quarterly, Vol. 18, No. 3, 1997, pp. 471–488CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Howe, Herbert, ‘Lessons of Liberia: ECOMOG and Regional Peacekeeping’, in International Security, Vol. 21, No. 3, 1996–1997, pp. 145–176CrossRefGoogle Scholar. It should be noted that since the 2000s, the regional organisations, in particular the African Union, have developed their institutional capacities for managing PKOs and the UN has better defined the strengthening of its links with the regional organisations. See SC Res. 1631 (2005) on cooperation with regional organisations.

67 The states make use of PKOs because such operations have become familiar to them as a crisis management mechanism and because the staff in the DPKO at the UN have gradually made PKOs more effective. That efficacy has nonetheless not been sufficient to attract the traditional contributing states back to the UN PKOs.

68 United Nations, Report of the Panel on United Nations Peace Operations, UN Doc. A/55/305-S/2000/809, 21 August 2000 (hereinafter the Brahimi Report).

69 These operations, which involve civilian and military actors, as well as regional organisations in some cases, are referred to as ‘hybrid operations’. See Jones, Bruce with Cherif, Feryal, Evolving Models of Peacekeeping: Policy Implications and Responses, External Study, Peacekeeping Best Practices Unit, DPKO, September 2003Google Scholar.

70 Zeebroek, Xavier, ‘La difficile mise en œuvre de l'intégration au sein des missions de paix’, in Coulon, Jocelyn (ed.), Guide du maintien de la paix 2006, Athéna Editions, Outremont, 2005, p. 87Google Scholar.

71 A typical example of successful integration is UNAMSIL. The integration efforts by the various actors made it possible to transform a mission that was about to fail into a success. See de Coning, Cédric, Civil–Military Coordination in United Nations and African Peace Operations, African Centre for the Constructive Resolution of Disputes, Umhlanga Rocks, 2007, pp. 101–103Google Scholar. The subtitle on page 90 of that work provides a fairly good summary of the problem of integration in complex operations: ‘Everybody wants to coordinate but nobody wants to be coordinated.’

72 The arguments put forward by humanitarian actors to avoid being integrated into the organisational chart of peacebuilding operations are legitimate and coherent. The main criticisms made by the humanitarian actors concern the different objectives pursued by peacekeeping forces (particularly the UN) and by humanitarian actors. The latter endeavour to preserve a ‘humanitarian space’ in which they can provide assistance and protection for civilians affected by conflict; humanitarian organisations thus seek to maintain impartial, non-politicised action. See Audet, François, ‘L'acteur humanitaire en crise existentielle: les défis du nouvel espace humanitaire’, in Etudes Internationales, Vol. 42, No. 4, 2011, pp. 447–472CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Jacques Forster, An ICRC Perspective on Integrated Missions, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Norwegian Institute of International Affairs, 31 May 2005, available at: www.icrc.org/eng/resources/documents/misc/6dcgrn.htm.

73 This idea was expressed in the first edition of A. J. Bellamy and P. D. Williams (with S. Griffin), above note 13, p. 275. The authors did not take it up again in the second edition of the work, which was published in 2010. The argument is still valid in the sense that, despite the drastic reduction in the number of soldiers deployed in Afghanistan, developed states no longer take part in peacekeeping operations in Africa, with the exception of France in Mali and in the Central Africa Republic. For a list of contributors to the UN PKOs, see: www.un.org/en/peacekeeping/resources/statistics/contributors.shtml.

74 Tanner, Fred, ‘Addressing the Perils of Peace Operations: Toward a Global Peacekeeping System’, in Global Governance, Vol. 16, No. 2, 2010, p. 211Google Scholar.

75 Murphy, Ray, ‘An Assessment of UN Efforts to Address Sexual Misconduct by Peacekeeping Personnel’, in International Peacekeeping, Vol. 13, No. 4, 2006, p. 531CrossRefGoogle Scholar; UNHCR and Save the Children UK, Sexual Violence and Exploitation: The Experience of Refugee Children in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, UNHCR Refugee Report, 2002.

76 R. Murphy, above note 75, p. 533. It should be noted that the ‘Zeid Report’ clarified the status, the rules of conduct and the disciplinary rules that apply to the different categories of personnel in the service of the UN, and recommended that those same rules be applied to military and civilian personnel. See United Nations, A Comprehensive Strategy to Eliminate Future Sexual Exploitation and Abuse in United Nations Peacekeeping Operations, UN Doc. A/59/710, 24 March 2005, and particularly the annex beginning on p. 32.

77 For an overview of the measures envisaged by the UN to fight against impunity and the problems that occur along the way, see Allais, Carol, ‘Sexual Exploitation and Abuse by UN Peacekeepers: The Psychosocial Context of Behaviour Change’, in Scientia Militaria, South African Journal of Military Studies, Vol. 39, No. 1, 2011, pp. 1–15CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Defeis, Elizabeth F., ‘U.N. Peacekeepers and Sexual Abuse and Exploitation: An End to Impunity’, in Washington University Global Law Review, Vol. 7, No. 2, 2008, pp. 185–214Google Scholar; Kanetake, Machiko, ‘Whose Zero Tolerance Counts? Reassessing a Zero Tolerance Policy against Sexual Exploitation and Abuse by UN Peacekeepers’, in International Peacekeeping, Vol. 17, No. 2, pp. 200–214CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

78 Trevor Findlay, The Use of Force in UN Peace Operations, SIPRI/Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2002, p. 1; Eric G. Berman and Melissa T. Labonte, ‘Sierra Leone’, in ibid., pp. 141–227; Philip Roessler and John Prendergast, ‘Democratic Republic of the Congo’, in ibid., pp. 229–318.

79 In an interview with The Economist on 16 September 1999, Kofi Annan insisted that the Security Council would agree to authorise operations able to defend our common humanity, by force if need be. See The Economist, ‘Two Concepts of Sovereignty’, 16 September 1999, available at: www.economist.com/node/324795.

80 Brahimi Report, above note 68, p. 9, para. 49. For a more recent study of the protection of civilians, see Kelly, Max with Giffen, Alison, Military Planning to Protect Civilians: Proposed Guidance for United Nations Peacekeeping Operations, Henry L. Stimson Center, Washington, DC, 2011Google Scholar.

81 The Brahimi Report, above note 68, addresses this problem in para. 52 (p. 9) by stressing that any state that agrees to contribute troops to a UN mission must be willing to ‘accept the risk of casualties on behalf of the mandate’.

82 Weber, Max, Le savant et la politique, Plon, Paris, 1959, p. 206Google Scholar; Brodie, Bernard, Discord and Collaboration: Essays on International Politics, Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, MD, 1962, pp. 50–51Google Scholar.

83 Hatto, Ronald, ‘L'innovation institutionnelle des Nations-Unies: l'exemple du Département des opérations du maintien de la paix’, in Coulon, Jocelyn (ed.), Guide du maintien de la paix 2010, Editions Athena, Outremont, 2009, pp. 59–75Google Scholar.

84 See Kjeksrud, Stian and Ravndal, Jacob Aasland, Protection of Civilians in Practice: Emerging Lessons from the UN Mission in the DR Congo, Norwegian Defence Research Establishment (FFI), 2010Google Scholar. On p. 36, the authors recall that: ‘There is a lack of clear operational guidelines for the military on the protection of civilians and use of force. Again, some claim that protecting civilians under imminent threat is “what peacekeepers do”, but this has not often been the case in the DRC.’