4 PEACEKEEPING OPERATIONS IN CONFLICT PREVENTION, MANAGEMENT AND
4.7 Human Rights Components of Peacekeeping Operations
The question that arises is what a UN force should do when it becomes aware that parties to the conflict in which the force is deployed are violating applicable principles of human rights. The importance of this question derives from the fact that respect for human rights is essential for genuine peace. Violations of human rights provoke conflict, while improving their protection is often one of the conditions for moving towards peaceful settlement of conflicts. In all conflict management approaches, therefore, human rights must be honoured so that man is not to be compelled as a last resort to rebel against tyranny and repression.137
International human rights law is an integral part of the normative framework for United Nations peacekeeping operations.138 The UDHRs, which sets the cornerstone of international human rights standards, emphasizes that human rights and fundamental freedoms are universal and guaranteed to everybody. United Nations peacekeeping operations are therefore to be conducted in full respect of human rights and should seek to advance human rights through the implementation of their mandates.
However, unless the mandate of the force clearly states, there is currently no implicit legal duty for peacekeeping forces to protect civilians from human rights violations.139 Thus, from their early times, UN peacekeeping operations activities have mainly focused on monitoring cease-fires, peace agreements and controlling buffer zones between conflicting parties; but human rights were not a consideration in their operations.140 Review of the various UN peacekeeping operations demonstrates that ending or preventing deliberate and systematic human rights violations have hardly been the core or fundamental objective of peacekeeping operations.141 Consequently, UN peacekeeping forces failed to protect civilians from massacres in Rwanda and in Srebrenica,
137 Para 3 of the Preamble to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, UNGA resolution 217 A (III), UN Doc A/810 /1948 of 10 December 1948.
138 UN (2008). United Nations Peacekeeping Operations: Principles and Guidelines, Department of Peacekeeping Operations, Field Support, p.14.
139 Murphy (2007), supra note 23, p.289.
140 Henkin, H (Ed.) (2000), Honouring Human Rights, The Hague/London/Boston: Kluwer Law International, p.5.
141 See detailed account of the role of peacekeeping missions in the protection of human rights in Katanayagi, supra note 12, p.235; See also for similar discussions Steele, D. (1998). ‘Securing Peace for Humanitarian Aid’ in International Peacekeeping 5(1), Spring 1998: 66-88, p. 70. “The process of intervention starts with a call to end massive human rights violations and is then frequently limited to mandate to enforce humanitarian objectives.” Also Knudsen, T. (1996).‘Humanitarian Intervention Revised: Post-Cold War Responses to Classical Problems’ in International Peacekeeping 3(4), Winter 1996: 146-165, p. 147. “What we seen in cases like Croatia and Somalia has not been a whole-hearted attempt to stop or prevent genocide by full-scale use of force as prescribed by the Groatian doctrine of humanitarian intervention. Instead, outside interference has on most occasions attempted to limit it and provide relief after the damage has been done.”
Bosnia-Herzegovina on the basis of their specific mandates limitations.142 Certainly this scenario does not make any common sense if one considers that most of the peacekeeping operations are deployed in situations where human rights are seriously undermined.143
Another question therefore arises: If UN peacekeeping forces are unable to stop large-scale human rights abuses who will have the capacity to do so? At the present time, protection of human rights is considered as an essential element of UN peacekeeping operations.144 Protection of non-combatant’s basic rights to life and dignity is a fundamental element of all military operations. The Brahimi Report suggests a more assertive and interventionist approach in such cases and states that
‘UN Peacekeepers--troops or police--who witness violence against civilians should be presumed to be authorised to stop it, within their means.145 Should members of a peacekeeping operation who are designated as combatants witness war crimes but take no action to stop them, they themselves become parties to those war crimes. The prevention of abuses of basic human rights and the imposition of justice will however, require a peace operations force that is appropriately trained and equipped for such tasks.
As such, increasingly, peacekeeping requires that civilian political officers, human rights monitors, electoral officials, refugee and humanitarian aid specialists and police play as central a role as the military.146 Peacekeepers are now expected to undertake particular activities for the protection of civilians. Hence, in November 2002, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) concluded a Memorandum of Understanding with DPKO to clarify their respective roles.147 The memorandum recognizes that protection and promotion of human rights have become essential elements of conflict prevention, peace maintenance, and post-conflict reconstruction.148 According to the memorandum, human rights components of peacekeeping operations are to be based upon international human rights standards. An innovation is that the operations will be charged with promoting an integrated approach to human rights including civil, political, cultural, economic, and social rights. Also included are the rights to development, and particularly the rights
142 Both the United Nations Assistance Mission in Rwanda (UNAMIR) and the United Nations Protection Force (UNPROFOR) were presented but could not stop the 1994 Rwandan Genocide and the 1995 ethnic cleansing in Former Yugoslavia respectively.
143 See for instance the Unified Task Force in Somalia, the French-led Operation Turquoise in Rwanda, and the US-led Multinational Force in Haiti.
144 Krasno, Jean (Ed.). (2004). The United Nations: Confronting the Challenges of a Global Society, Bouder/London:
Lynner Rienner Publishers, p. 100
145 See Executive Summary, Brahimi Report, supra note 11 , p. 3.
146 Boutros-Ghali, supra note 13.
147 Memorandum of Understanding between the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and the Department of Peacekeeping Operations, concluded at Geneva, November 22, 2002.; See detailed discussion on this development in Krasno, supra note 144.
148 Ibid.
of women, children, minorities, internally displaced persons and other vulnerable groups.149 The memorandum introduces an important human rights mechanism into peacekeeping by institutionalising timely information alerts and exchanges.150 As stated further in the memorandum, human rights components should normally combine promotion and protection functions so as to ensure a comprehensive approach to human rights in accordance with international human rights standards.151 Accordingly, in extraordinary case of human rights abuse, there is nothing legally wrong if the UNSC takes measures under Chapter VII of the UN Charter.
And when Chapter VII mandate is invoked, the restriction under Article 2 (7), non-interference in matters which are essentially within domestic jurisdiction, is no longer applicable to the particular UN peacekeeping operation.152
The need to ensure that human rights are protected in the design and operation of peacekeeping missions came to be addressed within the context of a general move to operationalize the notion of human rights as a crosscutting responsibility in all the work areas of the United Nations—a concept that was articulated by the Secretary-General in his 1997 UN Reform Programme.153
The first specifically human rights mandated mission, established in 1991, was tasked with monitoring the implementation of the San Jose Peace Agreement in El Salvador (ONUSAL).154 In 1992 the UN established a mission to oversee the political transition in Cambodia (UNTAC), again with a human rights component. The following year saw the establishment, jointly by the UN and the Organization of American States (OAS), of the first exclusively human rights-focused mission in Haiti (MICIVIH). It was in this same context that human rights programmes were located in other UN missions such as those for Georgia (UNOMIG),155 Liberia (UNOMIL), Angola (UNAVEM III and MONUA), Sierra Leone (UNOMSIL and UNAMSIL), Guinea-Bissau (UNOGBIS), Democratic Republic of Congo (MONUC), and Ethiopia and Eritrea (UNMEE).
Those UN missions that assumed transitional authority, such as in Kosovo (UNMIK) and East Timor (UNTAET), also included human rights components.
149 Ibid.
150 See Section 18, Ibid.
151 Ibid.
152A caveat is placed in the last part of Article 2(7) of the UN Charter thus: “… but this principle shall not prejudice the application of enforcement measures under Chapter VII”.
153 Annan, K. Renewing the United Nations: A Programme for Reform, UN documents A/51/950 of 14 July 1997.
154 A description of this and all other UN peacekeeping missions can be found at <http://www.un.org/Depts/dpko/dpko/
home.shtml>, last visited, September 8, 2009.
155 The human rights component of this mission is jointly staffed by UN and OSCE human rights officers.