4 PEACEKEEPING OPERATIONS IN CONFLICT PREVENTION, MANAGEMENT AND
4.10 Conclusion: Challenges and Limitations of the Approach
In an attempt to explore the conflict prevention and management strategies applied in resolving the Africa’s Great Lakes conflict, the United Nations Organization Mission in the DRC, the MONUC, have been taken as a case study. While all peacekeeping operations could be said to have a preventive function in that they are intended to avert the outbreak or recurrence of conflict, their preventive role has been particularly hampered by the various shortcomings as discussed in this chapter. If one notes that conflicts are either still ongoing or have recurred in
most of the places where peacekeeping operations have been deployed, then the challenges and limitations of peacekeeping as a conflict prevention and management approach is evident.
This chapter has attempted to analyze the concept of peacekeeping and to explain the inadequacies and shortcomings of this method as a conflict-resolution strategy. There are numerous legal, political, financial, organisational and operational reasons for the UN’s inability to put up effective peacekeeping on the ground whenever and wherever needed. Surely, the UN’s failure to solve ongoing conflicts does not mean a failure of UN peacekeeping per se. But the United Nations (and the international community) failed when it introduced military conflict management as a core component of broadly defined peacekeeping strategies without backing up these expanded peacekeeping mandates with necessary moral and material support.
Beyond financial constraints, another significant challenge results from difficulties in reconciling the UN foundational principles of non-interference into states’ internal affairs184 and the inviolability of state sovereignty on the one hand, and its noble role of the maintenance of international peace and security on the other. The proscription on interference in State’s internal affairs could be lifted under Chapter VII of the UN Charter for collective enforcement,185 but unless the situation is determined unanimously by the Security Council to be a threat to international peace, these criteria continue to pose doctrinal dilemmas. This inhibits deployment of more vigorous peace operations where intervention is required, especially in the currently common internal armed conflicts situations, which typically result in massive human rights violations.
Another concern is that, unless the currently prevailing nature and mandate with which peacekeeping operations are deployed is changed, such forces will find their freedom of action considerably more constrained and endangered.186 The deployment of unarmed or lightly armed troops in peace support operations in circumstances where no true peace exists, and the risk to life that this entails, discourages states that perceive no vital interest in the outcome from making units
184 Article 2 (7) of the UN Charter prohibits the intervention of States’ internal affairs. See also the 1965 Declaration on the Inadmissibility of Intervention in the Domestic Affairs of States and the Protection of the Independence and Sovereignty, UNGA Res.2131 (XX) of December 21, 1965.
185 Thakur and Schnabel, Albrecht, supra note 1, p. 238; Article 2(7) of the UN Charter puts a caveat to the principle of non interference into internal affairs thus: “this principle shall not prejudice the application of enforcement measures under Chapter VII”.
186 The Somalia situation is a good case in point.
available to the UN. Therefore, only peace enforcement forces prepared for combat and capable of effective coercion should be deployed into a potentially hostile environment like that in the DRC.187 Although UN peacekeeping may not necessarily be the best instrument for the task at hand in every instance, it has always been one of the visible symbols of the UN role in international peace and security. But one major deficiency of the UN when it comes to peacekeeping operations is the fact that there is no military branch within the organisation. Despite the establishment of the Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO), the conduct of peacekeeping operations remained to be on ad hoc basis to-date, and due to the inability of members to agree on a comprehensive set of guidelines to govern all UN operations; this is likely to remain the status quo.188
There are also impediments internal to peacekeepers themselves. Despite the existence of a comprehensive set of guidelines for UN peacekeeping operations, it is outrageous that UN peacekeepers’ abuse of their role and mission is widespread.189 A report by the UN Secretary-General’s Special Envoy on Sexual Exploitation and Sexual Abuse makes it clear that some of the UN peacekeepers engage in acts of sexual misconduct and sexual exploitation in the course of their peacekeeping roles.190 In the aftermath of these abuses, 2005 saw members of the UN peacekeeping mission in the DRC, MONUC facing 150 charges of sexual exploitation and abuse, including rape, and trafficking of persons.191
Unless clear and severe actions are taken against UN personnel who infringe upon their codes of conduct, the UN may in fact be fuelling more scepticism on the part of the receiving populations against peacekeeping operations. In order to ensure those who are mandated do not become perpetrators of abuse, the UN must take a stronger stand against those who commit acts of sexual misconduct, and must ensure that victims see the abuser brought to justice and that fair and reasonable reparation is offered.
Given the enormous problems that peacekeepers from developed states have had in Africa, and considering the demonstrably high degree of reluctance of western governments to take part in
187 It is understood that as the original Chapter VI mandate of the MONUC could not work to enable the force fulfil its objectives, it has now been mandated to operate under Chapter VII meaning that it is allowed to use all necessary means including pre-emptive force within its capacity, to carry out its tasks.
188Murphy, supra note 24, p.97.
189 Complaints emerged against Peacekeeping Operations in Cambodia, Bosnia, Macedonia, Mozambique, West Africa, Eritrea, Kosovo and currently the DRC. See also Murphy (2007), supra note 23, p. 230.
190 Report of the UN Secretary-General: A Comprehensive Strategy to Eliminate Future Sexual Exploitation and Sexual Abuse in United Nations Peacekeeping Operations, UN Doc.A/59/10, 24 March 2005 (‘Zeid Report), para 66.
191 Ibid.
future peacekeeping activities on the continent, African governments must take the leadership role in dealing with the brutal realities of African conflicts.192 Therefore, perhaps more so than at any other time in the past, African governments need to be committed to establishing and enhancing local, sub-regional, and regional mechanisms to prevent, manage, and resolve conflicts in Africa.193 This is not to diminish the role of the UN in maintaining peace and security in the world since the UN will still need to provide technical, financial and other logistical supports to regional peacekeeping operations, like those developing in the African continent.
As the analysis of the MONUC portrays, the human rights component of peacekeeping operations is vital if the root cause of the conflicts is to be addressed. In essence, both UN forces and other peacekeeping forces deployed under regional or sub-regional arrangements can only be effective as a conflict management strategy if their activities include the protection and promotion of human rights in the areas they are deployed. This entails not only stopping human rights abuse as perpetrated by the parties to the conflict in question but also abstinence by members of the peacekeeping forces from taking advantage of the conflict situation to commit acts of human rights violations.
192See Recommendations of the Brookings Institution/UNHCR/OAU Workshop on Internal Displacement in Africa, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, Oct. 19-20, 1998; see generally UNHCR, “The State of the World's Refugees: A Humanitarian Agenda” (1997) <http://www.unhcr.ch/refworld/pub/state/97/toc.htm> last visited, September 8, 2009. The Security Council has repeatedly been accused of double standards with its treatment of Africa and there is a great concern about the unwillingness of developed states to provide peacekeeping forces in difficult situations in Africa, even if such situations led to serious catastrophes like the genocide in Rwanda. Again, there were long delays in deployment of MONUC in the DRC despite several urges from the Secretary-General on the urgency of deploying such a force. See further discussion on this issue in Gray, supra note 24, p.615
193 Levitt, supra note 12, p.3
5 INTERNATIONAL ADJUDICATION AND RESOLUTION OF ARMED CONFLICTS