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Letter from the Secretary General It gives me immense pleasure to welcome you all to the second edition of CBITMUN. I am a second year mechanical engineering student but debate is something I enjoy doing the most. As students of engineering it took a tremendous effort for the team of the 2011 conference to ensure that it was such a success. The number of MUNs is growing at a rapid rate in India with the whole nation embracing this concept with open arms and with more and more students involving themselves in MUNs we could initiate a revolution that would lead to young minds assuming greater responsibility. CBITMUN returns with 7 councils this year which shall ensure high quality debate and a very satisfactory council experience. I take great pride in taking over as the Secretary General of CBITMUN and my team and I shall ensure that August – September 2012 is an experience each and every one of you will cherish. I thank all of you who participated in last year’s conference and I hope that we see your continued support this year as well. Last year we promised an experience This year we’re promising a phenomenon. Sreekar Reddy Secretary General CBITMUN 2012 sreekar.reddy@cbitmun.com
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“Possibility of UN Intervention as a Separate Entity: Envisioning the UN Standing Army” Agenda Guide Security Council Session CBITMUN 2012
Siddharth Soni, President Jyothirmayi Katralapalli, Director
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Contents
1. 2.
3. 4.
Foreword Peace Operations (PO) Today a. Structure of Current POs b. Environment of Action c. Success Quotient: The Measure of Success Fundamentals of Peace Operations Legality of Peace Operations a. System of Use of Force in the United Nations Challenges to the System, and need for a reform to include Singular Intervention and a Standing Command i. Established Parameters to Use Force 1. Self Defence 2. Article 42 Authorized Use of Force: Security Council Mandate 3. Chapter VIII Mandated Use of Force: Force by Regional Arrangements *Remarks by the Executive Board b.
System of Force Exclusive of United Nations Working Models of the Use of Force exclusive to UN deliberations, and the Inconsequentiality of Reform to include Singular Intervention and Standing Command. i. Coalition of the Willing ii. Intervention without Security Council Mandate (Unauthorized) 1. The Charter Law Pertaining to States’ Autonomous Use of Force 2. Collective Force Without Article 43 3. The Viability of the Article 51 4. Pre-emptive Self Defence: The Doctrine of PreEmption iii. Institutionalized Use of Force beyond United Nations System *Remarks by the Executive Board
5. 6.
Â
Analysis: Peace Enforcement (PE) Peace Enforcement Unit a. Working of a Peace Enforcement Unit i. Restoration and Maintenance of Order and Stability ii. Protection of Humanitarian Assistance iii. Guarantee and Denial of Movement
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iv. Enforcement of Sanctions v. Establishment and Supervision of Protected Zones vi. Forcible Separation of Belligerents *Remarks by the Executive Board 7.
United Nations Standing Army: Proposed Scheme of Reform a. Parameters of Reforms: Peace Operations of the United Nations b. Sword and Olive Branch Proposal *Remarks by the Executive Board
8.
“Renewing the United Nations Military Staff Committee� by J. Patrick Murray, Colonel, U.S. Army (retired); Commentary by Siddharth Soni
9.
A Note From the Executive Board
10. Notes
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Foreword The world as we know it today is not unfamiliar to wars and conflicts, and the idea of an effective, singular United Nations Intervention (backed by a singularly decision making body) in attempt of Peacebuilding has only been a welcome thought, often a contested reality. Some nations and political theorists have firmly asserted the importance of a UN Standing Army, while some other nations have advocated national sensitivities over an International super-powerful force citing that an existence of such a force is not just nationalisation of the United Nations, but an emblematic control over intervention into the hands of the Secretary General will lead to an even divided world.1 Time and again, the world has witnessed situations where ethnic, religious, territorial, and many similar issues have made place for a deadly battleground where one country or a group of countries have gone against another. One reason why most of the UN members oppose the very idea of a military intervention by the UN as an independent entity is the fear that such an intervention would end up being dominated by the few powerful countries of the world, leaving the already powerful ones with even more power and the weaker ones even weaker. But one reason why the idea of a single UN military force is encouraged is that it would also have better command and control than in current situations, when different national forces and their commanders often fail to work effectively together in the field for cultural and linguistic reasons. Articles 43, 44, 45, 46 and 47 of the Charter of the United Nations throw very dim beams of light upon the need for a possible military force of the UN.2 In response to the non-conclusion of the special agreements as envisaged in article 43 for the delivery of armed forces, assistance and facilities by Member states to the United Nations, an interesting practice 1
Rachman, Gideon; Why Does the World Need a UN Army?; http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/325b3c42-‐7558-‐11de-‐9ed5-‐ 00144feabdc0.html#axzz22rDdCImI (Accessed 6 August 2012) 2 Dupuy,P.-‐M.,'the Constitutional Dimension of the Charter of the United Nations Revisited',Max Planck UNYB 1 (1997), pp.21-‐4.
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emerged by which the council authorises the member states “to use all necessary means” to implement Security Council resolutions. An early example of what is nowadays called an “authorisation” resolution is Security Council Resolution 83 of 1950,3 by which the Council recommended “that the members of the United Nations furnish such assistance to the Republic of Korea as may be necessary to repel the armed attack and to restore international peace and security”. Members4 providing military forces (sixteen in total) were advised to make these available “to a unified command under the United States of America”. One of the fundamental questions therefore, as is evident, of the UN singular intervention is also of authority and command and the implications of the conflict of military doctrines that is inevitable. The diplomatic phrase of with “all necessary means” has become a euphemism for authorizing Member States to use force in international relations. Thus in Resolution 678 of 29 November 1990, the Council authorised Member States to “co-operating with the government of Kuwait” to use “all necessary means to uphold and implement” its resolutions ordering Iraq out of Kuwait as well as “to restore international peace and security in the area”.5 The particular phrase “all necessary means” evolved into the standard formula by which the Security Council authorised ad hoc coalitions or regional organisations to use military force, if necessary, to maintain or restore peace and security. Main examples of employing this technique to authorise coalitions to take “all necessary means” include Operation Restore Hope in Somalia, various resolutions adopted in the crises in the former Yugoslavia, and UN actions in Haiti, East Timor, Afghanistan, Burundi, Iraq and Liberia. Article 47 clearly talks about the establishment of a Military Staff Committee responsible under the Security Council for the strategic direction of any armed forces placed at the disposal of the Security Council. This Military Staff Committee shall consist of Chiefs of Staff of the permanent members of the Security Council or their representatives.6 Ironically, there is never a ‘standing’ armed force at the disposal of the Security Council, and the Military Staff Committee is only required upon the conjuring of UN Charter’s Chapter 7 which makes it a redundant committee in effect.7 *** 3
See Official Records of the Security Council, Fifth Year, No. 15, 473rd meeting, p. 2, and footnote 2 (document S/1496, incorporating S/1496/Corr.1). 4 One member was absent: Union of Soviet Socialist Republics 5 United Nations, http://www.fas.org/news/un/iraq/sres/sres0678.htm (Accessed 8 August 2012) 6 Durch, William J. "The United Nations and Collective Security in the 21st Century", U.S. Army War College Fourth Annual Conference on Strategy, February 1993, p. 26 7 National War College, The United Nations Security Council Military Staff Committee: Relic or Revival?; http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a441632.pdf (Accessed 8 August 2012)
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Peace Operations (PO) Today The UN involves itself in three general types of operations involving military units: peacekeeping, peace enforcement, and full-fledged defensive wars or wars of counter aggression. For purposes of the proposal, peacekeeping and peace enforcement (which may involve some intermittent combat) are treated as subsets of peace operations. Defensive wars are set apart as distinct from peace operations because of their special requirements, although they may, like the Gulf and Korean wars, be conducted formally under the authority of Chapter VII of the UN charter as peace enforcement acts.8 The full range of peace operations would be to include also, support to diplomacy (peace-making, peace-building and preventive diplomacy) and peacekeeping (PK) including Peace Enforcement. It addresses the environment of peace operations, related concepts, principles and fundamentals to include planning, operational considerations, trainings and supporting functions. To evolve a new Peacebuilding standing force requires without compromise a definite set list to identify its functions which do not just limit it to its mandate, but even builds up to the commanders and staffs charged with the responsibility for peace operations to assist the force in planning and conducting operations during wartime and peacetime. One of the inherent challenges in singular UN Intervention is the detailing of its building pillars which are not only painfully comprehensive, but even dripping with national and international conflicts. An irony of this truth is that these pillars identify in real-time, the intricate differences between peace-making, preventive diplomacy, peacekeeping and Peacebuilding, and it’s use is not just for mere terminology that is used by scholars and political theorists alike, but extends to non-military agencies and foreign military units conducting related operations. The twenty first century presents to the world an ever changing pattern of conflict, and threats to the interest of humanity presents a variety of political and military challenges. It also presents extraordinary opportunities. The underlying idea behind the existence of instability and potential threats is conflict, and the answer to conflict is a difficult one, often depending on a close analysis of the case. In most of the conflicts, such existences require a strong military capability which is sufficiently versatile to execute international military strategy across a full range of operations – to include war and Operations Other Than War (OOTW)9
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Oliver, George; The Other Side of Peacekeeping: Peace Enforcement and Who Should Do It? http://www.internationalpeacekeeping.org/pdf/04.pdf (Accessed 8 August 2012) 9 OOTW was a term assigned to Operations in Peace Time by the US Department of Defence in 1999. Department of the Army, Washington spends close to sixty million dollars on peacetime military operations, therefore economically making it a definitive area of military significance.
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After the end of the Cold-War era, the world lapsed into a strategic security environment governed only by modern and often subtle laws of war governance like Mutual Assured Destruction during the Cuban missile crisis or joint military organizations formed by treaties, for instance, during Egypt’s authoritative nationalisation of the Suez Canal in 1962 and 1956 respectively. The formation of NATO was another illstarred addition to the chaos of the military world as world politics became even more dynamic and complex. In its first 40 years, United Nations conducted only 13 military operations, all of them being relatively small with the only exception of UN military interventions in Congo during 1960’s. Since 1988 however, the number of military operations have doubled, with each succeeding one being more complex than the last one. In 1993, UN Peacekeeping Operation in Cambodia included 22,000 military, police and civilian personnel from 32 contributing nations. The operation cost more than $2 billion. UNITAF in Somalia, for another instance, spearheaded by the US involved more than 27,000 personnel from 23 contributing nations at a cost of $750 million.10 Peace operations are prehistoric, and US soldiers have been carrying out very small scale peace operations in Mexico even before the American Civil War, but arguably, one of the first attempts at Peacekeeping was United Nations’ 1958 initiative United Nations Truce Supervisory Organization in the Middle East. Such forces have been expanded to include the Lebanon, Jordan, Sinai and Dominican Republic, therefore leading to political theorists of the early 1960’s coining the term Multinational Force and Observers (MFO). One of the most interesting conflicts of such an architecture to work in the present world is the swordplay between force and observation as an ever increasing criticism of the working of the United Nations have led the world to make strict demarcations between the two. Structure of Current POs What is new is the number, pace, scope, and complexity of recent operations. For example, in 1993, six separate peace operations were conducted or authorized by the UN in the former Yugoslavia. They included missions to enforce sanctions against all belligerent parties, to deny aerial movement, to protect humanitarian assistance in Bosnia, to establish protected zones, and to establish a preventive deployment to the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM). Commanders must understand the dynamics of peace operations and how actions taken in one operation may affect the success of another. In recent years, on any given day, thousands of soldiers were deployed to conduct or support
10
P. Lewis, A Short History of United Nations Peacekeeping, MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of Military History, 1992; pg. 32-‐67
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peace operations in places such as Somalia, FYROM, the Sinai, and Croatia.11 Environments of Action PO has clearly been divided now, and with the course of time, even the environments of its actions have evolved. Peace operations often take place in environments less well-defined than in war. The identity of belligerents may be uncertain and the relationship between a specific operation and a campaign plan may be more difficult to define than would normally be the case in war. On the other hand, the relationship between specific peace operations and political objectives may be more sensitive, direct, and transparent. Any force involved in peace operations of the enforcement type may not encounter large, professional and conventional armies or even organized groups responding to a chain of command. Instead, they may have to deal with loosely organized groups of irregulars, terrorists, militia and other segments of population in conflict over ethnic and religious grounds, which are often removed from territorial. These loosely organized groups are predominantly powerful though, and the intricacy of operation is that as opposed to wartime they take civilian zones as shelters for protection in which case any army can exercise force only with caution while they take the liberty of civilian catastrophe to their advantage. 12 Perceptions of Disenfranchisement and Disaffection (PDD)13 towards civilian population are often observed, and these elements of conflict which are not professional armies that will respect civilian lives, tend to capitalize on it. Involvements of criminal syndicates make current peace operations even more difficult, and therefore the contestation of a reform of the UN’s scheme of peacekeeping is often hawked as a sane, an even qualified argument. Success Quotient: The Measure of Success The measure of success in the United Nations Peacekeeping Operations also varies from case-to-case basis in the present day scheme. As with any mission, commanders at all levels must have a common understanding of the end state and the conditions that constitute or are intended to constitute success prior to initiating operations of all kinds. In peace 11
Whole Citation; FM-‐1003, Peace Operations, Department of the Army; http://www.dtic.mil/doctrine/jel/service_pubs/fm100_23.pdf (Accessed 8 August 2012) 12 Center for Defense Information Home page: http://www.cdi.org. Publishes biweekly listing recent publications on peacekeeping and multilateral military operations. 13 Should not be confused with Presidential Decision Directive -‐ 25 of the United States Army which also concerns itself with Peace Operations. Read J William Snyder, "Command" versus "Operational Control": A Critical Review of PDD-‐25; http://www.ibiblio.org/jwsnyder/wisdom/pdd25.html (Accessed 8 August 2012)
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operations of any type, success is not a measurable entity – settlement, not victory, is the ultimate measure of success here but the irony of these kinds of operations is that settlement is often an unaccomplished dream. Such a kind of settlement is also rarely achievable through military means, and therefore, Peace operations are conducted to reach a resolution by conciliation among competing parties, rather than by termination of force. One of the primary differences between war efforts and peace efforts lies therein. In Peace operations, military action must complement diplomatic, economic, informational and humanitarian efforts in pursuing an often political objective and the concept of traditional military victory or defeat is inappropriate in peace operations. It is assumable that if United Nations ever resolves into making a standing United Nations Army capable of a singular intervention, it will not be a war-time effort, but a peace operation. The former will fuel the criticism of the new force nationalising the UN itself while the latter will further raise questions of comprehensiveness challenges. Fundamentals of Peace Operations (PO) The nature and political background of a peace operation often involves enough conflict to invite the attention of worldwide media, and their carrying our happens in the full glare of media attention, one of the reasons why its peacekeepers are often trained to cooperate with media personnel. Soldiers must understand that they can encounter situations where the decisions they make at the tactical level have immediate strategic and political implications. In just addition to the overall political and strategic context of the operation, soldiers should also be aware of the area’s racial demography, ethnic principles and history, also including economy, culture and other significant factors. Failure to fully understand the mission and operational environment can quickly lead to incidents and misunderstandings that will reduce the legitimacy and consent, and result in actions that are not only inconsistent with the overall political objective, but also violate the fundamentals behind Peace Operations (PO). Member nations of the United Nations (UN) conduct peace operations under the provisions of Chapters VI and VII of the UN Charter. The United States government, however have believed in the right to conduct operations unilaterally (or multilaterally exclusively of the United Nations system for enforcement of force) in conformance with appropriate international law, and the use of force in Kosovo is one of the classical examples of this case.14 14
See David J. Scheffer, United States: Administration Policy on Reforming Multilateral Peace Operations, 33 I.L.M. 795 (1994) [hereinafter PDD-‐25]. The directive itself is a classified document which the Clinton Administration has decided not to release. Id. However, the Administration has released “executive summary” of PDD-‐25’s contents. Id. In light of PDD-‐25's classification, this paper assumes that the executive summary is an accurate summation of the directive's contents.
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The peacekeeping operations that are authorised by the Chapter VII form a very controversial sub-division of Peace Operations because from a doctrinal point of view, these operations are clearly wars and its categorization under Peace operations inherently means categorising all acts of Peace Enforcement (PE) as Peace Operations which makes peace operations a very broad term. One of the most difficult challenges towards the making of a standing command of the United Nations is its mandate; as it needs to be decided with utmost priority, the nature of its enforcement and whether it could be enforced, or in what capacity if it could be, under Chapter VII consent by the Security Council. Two of the classical examples of controversial UN Operations in Korea (1950s) and the UN Operations in Congo15 (1960s), sometimes even the Kuwait-Iraq Operations in 1990, are often classified as full-fledged wars which, according to cosmopolitan belief are not Peace Enforcement. Fencing the boundaries of the proposed scheme of a standing UN Army and understanding its working and mandate under Chapter VII and its extent of participation in Peace Enforcement Acts or Wars need to be codified. An inherent problem with the proposed scheme is that its ability to participate in wars will give United Nations the powers of a world government which makes it far removed from its ancestral concept of an Inter-Governmental Organization (IGO). Legality of Peace Operations While Peace Operations of some nature can be carried out by national or international organizations unilaterally (or multilaterally but without the consent of UNSC) as was in the case of Peace Operations being carried out by the African Union in Sub Saharan Africa, normally peace operations that involve a substantive military effort is conducted under the authorization of the UN or another Inter Governmental Organization. The UN Charter provides several means for the international community to address threats to peace and security. Although the terms “peacekeeping” and “peace enforcement” are not in the UN Charter, they generally describe actions taken under the Charter’s Chapter VI, ‘Pacific Settlement of Disputes,’ Chapter VII, ‘Action with Respect to Threats to the Peace, Breaches of the Peace, and Acts of Aggression,” and Chapter VIII, ‘Regional Arrangements,’ respectively.16 Chapter VI of the UN Charter addresses peaceful means of establishing or maintaining peace through conciliation, mediation, adjudication, and 15
The most dramatic exception occurred in the Congo during the early 1960s, at the height of the Cold War, when U.N. troops succeeded in preventing the secession of mineral-‐rich Katanga province. That controversial and costly experience nearly shattered the organization, however, and set a more modest tone for peacekeeping that prevailed until the collapse of the Soviet empire 16 United Nations Coast Guard, Fundamentals of Peace Operations, Joint Publication with the United Nations; http://www.fas.org/irp/doddir/dod/jp3-‐07-‐3.pdf (Accessed 8 August 2012)
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diplomacy, while Chapter VII provides the UN Security Council (UNSC) with a wide range of enforcement actions — from diplomatic and economic measures to the extensive application of armed force by the air, land, and maritime forces of member nations. Under Chapter VIII of the UN Charter, regional organizations such as NATO, the Organization of American States (OAS), the Organization of African Unity (OAU), the Economic Community of West African States, and the European Union (EU) may also act to prevent, halt, or contain conflict in their respective regions. Similarly, some nations have negotiated multilateral agreements to create PO independent of any permanent international forum. However, such operations have usually taken place with the tacit approval of a regional organization or the UN. It is notable that whenever a Peace Operation had been carried out independently of the support of any international forum, its military quotient had been damp.17 The intervention in Libya was a classic example of Peace Enforcement, and it was a UN authorized intervention. At times however, the Chapter VII like operation had been done without a Security Council consent in which case it is a unilateral unauthorized intervention.18 A noteworthy argument in favour of a unilateral need of intervention is the Security Council’s tedious and slow rules for the enforcement of force. One of the strongest ‘for’ argument towards the formation of a standing United Nations Army is also the slow turning cogwheels of the Security Council. Tact had found the answer of a dire need of Charter reform to fight the humanitarian challenges of the 21st century, but diplomacy had barred it just like it bars the exercise of force with free flow. 1. System of Use of Force in the United Nations Challenges to the System, and need for a reform to include Singular Intervention and a Standing Command.19 United Nations System of Force had been riding bumpily, but had never evolved with time. As soon the cold war era ended, a lot of international attention was focused on the use of force outside the parameters of the United Nations Charter because United Nations' Peace Enforcement was slow and special policies (for instance Soviet Union's Empty Chair tactic) had almost jeopardized its decision making ability. At the same while attempts have been made to justify actions in Kosovo and Iraq based on evolving – customary – norms of international law, little consensus has 17
Schiezler, Nico; The Future of the Charter of the United Nations, Cambridge University Press;http://www.mpil.de/shared/data/pdf/pdfmpunyb/01_schrijver_10.pdf (Accessed 8 August 2012), p7-‐22, p132, 133, 148-‐171 18 Crigler, Frank; Peace Enforcement Dilemma, JFQ Forum; http://www.dtic.mil/doctrine/jel/jfq_pubs/jfq1002.pdf (Accessed 8 August 2012), p5 19 Standing Command: UN Standing Army, International Peace Army, UN Peace Corps, Blue Army or of any kind that the proposition terms the command as.
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emerged regarding state practice or opinio juris which would allow for an expansion of legal recourse to the use of force beyond self-defence or actions undertaken by the UN Security Council to ensure international peace and security.20 Yet, quietly, a much more fundamental challenge to the United Nations system has materialized which institutionalizes exceptions to the use of force which go beyond both the scope of self-defence and actions undertaken by the UN Security Council. Fundamental, this is due to the fact that these exceptions are not based on the ill-defined vagaries of customary law but are constituted by international treaties which override the provisions of Chapter VII of the UN Charter. Thus, the coming into force of the Protocol Relating to the Establishment of the Peace and Security Council of the African Union, which operationalizes the provisions of the Constitutive Act of the African Union, is the first true blow to the constitutional framework of the international system established in 1945 predicated on the ultimate control of the use of force by the United Nations Security Council. Established Parameters to Use Force Since its writing in 1945, one unchanged aspect of the United Nations Charter is its selectivity to allow any state or closed organization to exercise force. There are strictly only three situations in which the use of force is permissible. Of these three situations, the provisions regarding enemy states21 no longer holds as they are dead-letter law (whose effect had dampened after the end of world war as there were no enemy states or third world countries). Putting aside this exception, there are only two situations left in which United Nations can permit the exercise of force. The two exceptions are self-defence, as noted in Article 51, and action under Article 42, taken by the UN Security Council so as to ensure international peace under Chapter VII of the UN Charter. a) Self Defence The first exception to the use of force is Article 51 of the Charter which provides for an inherent right to self-defence, either individually or collectively, but does so under the ultimate control of the United Nations Security Council. Article 51 reads: “Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defence if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations, until the Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain international 20
Allain, Jean; True Challenges to the United Nations System of the Use of Force: Emergence of the African Union and Failures of Iraq and Kosovo, Yale University Legal Repository, p.17-‐25 21 Chapter XXII, United Nations Charter; (See Project Avalon, Yale School of Law); http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/un/unchart.htm
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peace and security. Measures taken by Members in the exercise of this right of self-defence shall be immediately reported to the Security Council and shall not in any way affect the authority and responsibility of the Security Council under the present Charter to take at any time such action as it deems necessary in order to maintain or restore international peace and security.” As a result, even in situations where a state is acting in self-defence, it must ultimately yield to the international order as established by the United Nations Charter, and the dictates of the UN Security Council. One must emphasize that such dictates do not vitiate a state’s inherent right of self-defence if the Council does not act effectively. To further expose out the parameters of self-defence, consideration should be given to both what constitutes an “armed attack” and what would be the legal response to such an act. In the Nicaragua case which revolved around the issue of the use of force by the United States and paramilitaries as against this Central American State during the 1980s, the ICJ stated plainly that: “In the case of individual self-defence, the exercise of this right is subject to the State concerned having been the victim of an armed attack”.22 Therefore, it is observable that in the Nicaragua case the Court dealt with the issue, making plain that recourse to such collective self-defence was only possible if a state requested assistance, and that there “is no rule in customary international law permitting another State to exercise the right of collective self-defence on the basis of its own assessment of the situation.” Under such legal and implied limitations, even the exercise of force permissible under the Article 51 is striped with lack of possibilities, therefore effectively crippling an actor’s decision in using force for peace purposes. Peace enforcement is therefore an unwelcome reality with the United Nations Charter as even the document has gone through dynamics of change, its essence and implication, further cemented by ICJ ruling against actors in the Nicaragua case had created a customary executable exemption to even cause en effective denial of the rights of Article 51. b) Article 42 Authorized Use of Force: Security Council Mandate Even apart from the provisional use of force, granted by the UN Charter in Article 51 through the recourse of self-defence, it further allows sanctioning actors to use force in a situation identified by the dictates of Chapter VI of the United Nations. Chapter VII of the Charter, particularly Article 42 is the clause that allows for the sanctioning of the use of force under circumstances that have been identified as breaches of the peace or acts of aggression. However, notably, the recourse to pre-emptive use of 22
Boston College International and Comparative Law Review, Nicaragua v. United States in the International Court of Justice: Compulsory Jurisdiction or Just Compulsion? http://lawdigitalcommons.bc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1426 (Accessed 9 August 2012), p4, p8
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force is vested with a collectivity of states which have a mandate to provide collective security to the member states of the United Nations, by seeking to thwart possible threats to or breaches of peace or acts if aggression. By virtue of Chapter VII, the UN Security Council may sanction the use of force, though this is meant to be in an attempt to “maintain or restore international peace and security”. To invoke the use of force, the requirements of Article 39 have to be fulfilled and the Security Council has to decide which measures it will take in order to establish international peace and security. Having thus made a determination, the Council may by virtue of Article 41 take any measure, – such as sanctions – short of the use of force; or the Council can invoke Article 42 of the UN Charter. Having thus made a determination, the Council may by virtue of Article 41 take any measure, – such as sanctions – short of the use of force; or the Council can invoke Article 42 of the UN Charter. As originally conceived the UN Charter called for states, under Article 43 to make available to the United Nations armed forces and other items necessary to maintain the peace. It further called on a Military Staff Committee to assist the Security Council in the employment of these forces. However, such forces were never made available to the Council on a permanent basis; instead the practice which has developed within the Security Council is for states to provide fighting forces on an ad hoc basis, thus making the Council dependent on the will of individual Member States to act by way of Article 42. It should be made clear here that the system established by the United Nations Charter is not a “pure” collective security arrangement, as not all threats to or breaches of the peace or acts of aggression necessitate the activating of Chapter VII. The Charter’s collective security system is restricted by the fact that the Council must first make a determination that situations which affect international peace and security do, in fact, exist. Further it must do so by majority vote. Making such a determination, however, is limited by the requirement of receiving both a majority vote of the fifteen members and no negative votes of the five permanent members, thus effectively providing those five members with the ability to veto the passage of any Security Council resolution 15.23 Lately, it is obvious that the UN Security Council has used its powers under Chapter VII in ways it was unable to use prior to the disintegration of the Soviet Union. Nevertheless the Council has been consistent in authorizing force only in situations where it considers there exists a “threat to” or “breach of” the peace, and not where an “act of aggression” may be at issue. Although the Council may act when it 23
United Nations Security Council Resolution: http://daccess-‐dds-‐ ny.un.org/doc/RESOLUTION/GEN/NR0/036/64/IMG/NR003664.pdf?OpenElement (Accessed 8 August 2012)
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considers that an act of aggression has occurred, it has never chosen to do so. Primarily, as the history tells us the Council has been unwilling to take sides in a dispute by branding a state as the aggressor, as this would thwart its attempts to re-establish the peace by diplomatic means. But just as important is the fact that “aggression” entails not only state responsibility, but also individual criminal responsibility and, as such, the Council has deemed it prudent typically to describe events as either a threat to or a breach of the peace. c) Chapter VIII Mandated Use of Force: Force by Regional Arrangements 24 The established parameters for the use of force as manifest in Articles 42 and 51 of the UN Charter are predicated on the ultimate control by the UN Security Council. Chapter VIII thus provides, at Article 52, the possibility of the “existence of regional arrangements or agencies” as long as they are consistent with the purposes and principles of the United Nations. Article 5325 states that such regional organizations are to act subordinate to the UN Security Council and only when authorized by it. The Final provision of Chapter VIII, Article 54, mandates that regional organizations keep the UN Security Council “fully informed of activities undertaken or in contemplation […] for the maintenance of international peace and security”. It is thus clear that regional organizations are required, under the United Nations framework, to act under the umbrella of the UN Security Council. Apart from the dramatic emergence of the African Union, and its legal standing contestation to the use of force exclusive to the United Nations Charter consistent with Chapter VIII, the primacy of the Security Council over Chapter VIII is manifest, for instance, in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization whereby NATO states pledge, “to refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force in any manner inconsistent with the purposes of the United Nations”, and makes plain that the Treaty does not affect “the primary responsibility of the Security Council for the maintenance of international peace and security.”26 Further emphasis as to the centrality of the UN Security Council is found at Article 5 of the NATO Charter, which sets out the collective security arrangement (i.e.: an attack against one will be considered an attack against all) of these North Atlantic states. Likewise, the Organization of American States, by a 1975 Protocol to the 1947 Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance, brought states of the Americas clearly within the framework of the United Nations System. Much in the same way as 24
Allain, The True Challenge to the UN System: Whole Citation Claude, Swords into Plowshares: The Problems and Progress of International Organization, 1965, 106. 26 See arts 1 and 7, North Atlantic Treaty of 4 April 1949. 25
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NATO states, states of the Americas “undertake, […], not to resort to the threat or the use of force in any manner inconsistent with the provisions of […] the Charter of the United Nations […]”. As the Inter-American Treaty is also meant to establish a collective security system, the State Parties “undertake to assist in meeting any such attack in the exercise of the inherent right of individual or collective self-defence recognized by Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations”. However, such action will come under the control of the UN Security Council. *Remarks by the Executive Board Use of force within the United Nations established system is very selective and often requires long processes involving preventive diplomacy, afflict of national sensitivities and influence of political conditions which often leads to delay in action towards a humanitarian situation urgently in need of a peace enforcement unit. In many cases, including that of the Korean War in 1951, United Nations Security Council has been late but fairly successful in resolving the crisis by an effort of Uniting for Peace, but in scenarios such as the on-going conflict in Syria, the constant obstacle to a humanitarian intervention authorized under Article 42 is Russia and China’s denouncement of the Syrian condemnation. Continuous exercise of the veto power and the adoption of slimy policies like that of empty chairs to break the concurrence of votes of the five permanent members as done by the Soviet Union in 1960s leads to weakening of the pillars of the United Nations. These situations lead to effective deadlocks in the Security Council making it a ceremonial existence. What is interesting to note for us is that even in case of an evoking of Article 42 sanctions, it takes the International community from three months to a year to bargain with their troops and present a peace enforcement effort sufficient to settle the dispute without civilian loss – a dream that we have seen getting ruthlessly negotiated with during the Libyan war. The reality of things only compel political theorists to pursue the United Nations offices to make a working group or a PrepComm to draft a provision for a standing army at the disposal of the United Nations to fight the inconsistency of the Security Council desperately in need of reform, and to lubricate the slow gears of appropriate humanitarian action involving Peace Enforcement.27 28
27
See further sections of this guide; Design Guidelines for an International Peace Force or a UN Standing Army 28 Charles Knight; A Proposal for the Overhaul of the United Nations Peacekeeping System and for the Creation of a UN Legion; Project on Defence Alternatives Research Monograph, 1 October 1985
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2. System of Force Exclusive of United Nations Working Models of the Use of Force exclusive to UN deliberations, and the Inconsequentiality of Reform to include Singular Intervention and Standing Command. The responsibility of conducting peace enforcement operations should rest with a coalition of the willing29, led by one nation, or a regional organization with an experienced and effective military arm. As Haiti, Bosnia, Kosovo, East Timor, and most recently Afghanistan demonstrate, this principle is being learned through experience. It should be noted here, however, that peace enforcement operations undertaken by a coalition of the willing should have the legitimacy of a UN mandate. Peace enforcement operations, where there is limited or no consent of the parties, are very close to actual combat, with all that that implies. If the use of force or the threat of the use of force is the only way to compel the parties to resolve their differences peacefully, then a capable military organization is absolutely essential. It takes effective command and control, a refined decision-making process, and a well-trained and disciplined combat capable force to effectively carry out peace enforcement operations. It was the missions in Bosnia, Somalia, and Rwanda that convinced the world that United Nations was incapable of enforcing peace. Because of those difficult UN experiences when peace enforcement actions were required, a new form of multinational action emerged. In Bosnia, Haiti, Kosovo, East Timor, and most recently Afghanistan, coalitions of the willing, usually led by a single nation, came forward to ensure peace in these more complex operations. A new paradigm was created. a) Coalition of the Willing 30 It is undeniable that the idea of Coalition of the willing, in effect, roots from the total failures of the United Nations in enforcing peace operations in a lot of cases. What has emerged in recent years is a new model to handle the full spectrum of peace operations in failed states. Lead nations or effective regional organizations carry out the difficult, combat-oriented task of peace enforcement while the UN is the best organization to handle peacekeeping. Once the peace enforcement force has the situation relatively stabilized and an effective peace agreement in place, the mission can be transferred to the UN. During the transition of power from a lead nation or regional organization, the UN conducts detailed integrated planning with the peace enforcement force and establishes an
29
Read Art 53 of the United Nations Charter Refer to Case Study: Somalia, Case Study: Rwanda and Case Study: Kosovo at the end of this document 30
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effective transition plan. This is what happened in Haiti31 and East Timor.32 However, one thing that must be noted is that even the coalition of the willing occurs within the mandate of Chapter VII of the Charter, therefore making it not much different than the system of the use of force inclusively to the United Nations. b) Intervention without Security Council Mandate (Unauthorized) If there is a use of force that is exclusive to the system of the United Nations, it is the Unauthorized Intervention that had happened on the part of various nations without the consent or approval of United Nations. It is often very succinctly written of NATO’s role in the Intervention in Kosovo, that ‘it was illegal but legitimate.’ Even though the statement reeks of an inherent conflict within itself, there are no better words that could describe the legitimacy of NATO’s intervention in Kosovo upon moral grounds. The exercise of the use of force in this case is a typical example of the use of force without a UN Chapter VII mandating, or a Security Council authorization. Most of the writing which emerged in the wake of the NATO campaign against Yugoslavia sought to bridge this gap by pushing law closer to morality by suggesting criteria which states would have to meet to have future actions under the rubric of “humanitarian intervention” become acceptable. While morality forms the bulk of reasoning for an Unauthorized Humanitarian Intervention, and determines its legitimacy and acceptability in the International community, there are two subsets reflecting on the use of external force without the consent of the Security Council.33 It is notable that the significant weight of these subsets argues for the alternative to a United Nations Standing Army and qualifies the presence of a UN force when such acts as by NATO without the consent of Security Council becomes permissible by law. On the same hand, the permissibility of such a unilateral action is a debate that has been open-ended since the intervention in Kosovo took place. i.
The Charter Law Pertaining to States’ Autonomous Use of Force
The noble plan for replacing state self-help with collective security failed because it was based on two wrong assumptions: first, that the Security 31
L.E. Casper, Falcon Brigade: Combat and Command in Somalia and Haiti (Boulder, Colorado: Lynne Rienner Publisher, 2001), p. 250. 32 George F., Oliver, The Other Side of Peacekeeping: Peace Enforcement and Who Should Do It? http://www.internationalpeacekeeping.org/pdf/04.pdf (Accessed 9 August 2012) 33 A. Cassese, “Ex iniuria ius oritur: We are Moving towards International Legitimation of Forcible Humanitarian Countermeasures in the World Community?”, EJIL 10 (1999), 23 et seq. (25). Emphasis added.
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Council could be expected to make speedy and objective decisions as to when collective measures were necessary; and second, that states would enter into the arrangements necessary to give the Council an effective policing capability. This may seem too utopian in retrospect, but as a symptom of the thenprevalent “optimism,” the U.S. Congress enacted a law which authorizes the President to negotiate a special agreement with the Security Council . . . providing for the numbers and types of armed forces, their degree of readiness and general location, and the nature of facilities and assistance, including rights of passage, to be made available to the Security Council on its call for the purpose of maintaining international peace and security in accordance with article 43 of the Charter. In presence of provisions such as these, it can be contested with enough evidence that a unilateral intervention, wherein legitimate, could be permissible by International Law.34 35 ii.
Collective Force Without Article 43
Another circumstance in which the absence of a Security Council mandate under Chapter VII can still lead to the use of force but typically within the system of United Nations, except deviating extraordinarily by mutual consent to conformist UN procedure and thus qualifying it as an example of the use of force exclusive of the United Nations. There are typically three examples in history when Collective force had been utilized to overthrow the consent of the Security Council and exercise the use of force for Peace Enforcement (or Intervention). One, the Korean Crisis in 1952, when there was a political deadlock in the Security Council. The Korean War was the first example of the Security Council resisting aggression by ad hoc collective measures, despite the absence of Article 43 forces. The North Koreans launched their attack in the night of June 24-25, 1950. Qualifying the situation as a threat to international peace, the SecretaryGeneral immediately called on the Security Council to determine that the attack was a breach of the peace, demand a cessation of hostilities, and impose an embargo on all “assistance to the North Korean authorities.” The resolution adopted in the Korean crisis was adopted in the absence of the Soviet seat, and was an example of unified command but Collective force without Article 43 mandating for the interest of humanity. 34
Except under one simple circumstance when the intervention is not of humanitarian nature, because the custom does not recognize any such intervention as permissible by law. 35 Weller, Mark; Peacekeeping and Peace Enforcement in Korea: A Soldier’s Perspective; http://www.zaoerv.de/56_1996/56_1996_1_2_a_70_177.pdf (Accessed 9 August 2012)
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iii.
The Viability of the Article 51 36
An additional important adaption of the Charter was dictated by changes in the way aggression came to be committed in the post-World War Two era. By the terms of Article 51, the Charter envisaged that states, individually or through treaty-based regional or mutual-defence systems, would defend themselves against an armed attack until such time as the UN, acting under Chapter VII of the Charter, could deploy Article 43 forces to combat the aggression. Not only were Article 43 forces not forthcoming, but neither were the sorts of conventional armed attacks visualized by Article 51. Thus the right of self-defence, just as it had become more important due to the system’s failure to provide its promised collective security, also became more problematic as it was limited, textually, to responses to traditional armed attacks. These unanticipated circumstances have led the Charter system to confront new and controversial “interpretations” of the right of states to use armed force in the absence of Security Council authorization. c) Pre-emptive Self Defence: The Doctrine of Pre-Emption On 20 March 2003, the United States led “The Coalition of the Willing” in an invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq. Its failure to gain a Security Council mandate for its action against Iraq meant that, void of Chapter VII authorization, the United States sought to justify its actions beyond the parameters of the United Nations System. A good example for this justification given can be found in the July 2003 edition of the AJIL. Such a justification was presented, as “the fullest statement yet to be published of the US government’s legal position” in regard to its military intervention in Iraq. Many diplomatic critics justified the use of force, in part, on the basis of UN Security Council Resolutions, but also on the basis of the so-called “Bush Doctrine”, that is, the Bush Administration’s “pre-emptive selfdefence” strategy.37 While the United States has sought to justify its invasion and occupation of Iraq as being legal, its recourse to the doctrine of pre-emptive selfdefence has no standing in international law. Notably, states consider that “pre-emptive strikes should be banned, since they may easily lead to abuse, being based on subjective and arbitrary appraisals by individual States.”
36
Thomas M. Franck , When, If Ever, May States Deploy Military Force Without Prior Security Council Authorization?; Yale Law School Scholarship Repository, Chapter iii, See note 33. (Whole Citation) 37 W. Taft/ T. Buchwald, “Preemption, Iraq, and International Law”, AJIL 97 (2003), 557 et seq. (559).
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In the case of anticipatory self-defence, it is more judicious to consider such action as legally prohibited, while admittedly knowing that there may be cases where breaches of the prohibition may be justified on moral and political grounds and the community will eventually condone them or mete out lenient condemnation”. That being said, it remains true that states, through their practice and opinio juris, have made plain that preemptive or anticipatory self-defence is legally prohibited.38 d) Institutionalized Use of Force beyond United Nations System One of the most definitive answers to the presence of a United Nations Standing Army would be to show that there could be an exercise of force when required without the involvement of the slow speed of the Security Council, except it has two limitations. One, the argument is selfhumiliating to be said out loud for the benefit of its own cause in a Security Council session and two; the history tells us (Rwandan Genocide, Siberia) that it doesn’t happen in practical ways. A typical example of institutionalized use of force is the emergence of the African Union.39 Since it came into operation in December 2003, the Peace and Security Council has been the focal point of the regime established by the AU to deal with issues of peace and security. At the heart of that framework lies the possible use of force beyond that allowed by the United Nations Charter. While this regime of peace and security is decentralized, in that the power to act is delegated to various actors, they act in con- junction with the Peace and Security Council which is the pivot of the system. Yet, the actual power of decision in situations of recourse to the use of force does not lie with the Council specifically, but has been withheld by, and remains with, the Assembly of Heads of State and Government – the “supreme organ” of the AU. Therefore, the UN Security Council is but one of the United Nations bodies which the Peace and Security Council is expected to work with closely, and its interaction is meant to be first and foremost of a logistical nature as article 17 (2) does not speak of the need to seek UN Security Council authorization to use force; instead calls on the United Nations to provide assistance: “Where necessary, recourse will be made to the United Nations to provide the necessary financial, logistical and military support for the African Unions’ activities in the promotion and maintenance 38
Note: USA vs Nicaragua, ICJ Ruling; “If a State acts in a way prima facie incompatible with a recognized rule, but defends its conduct by appealing to exceptions or justifications contained within the rule itself, then whether or not the State’s conduct is in fact justifiable on that basis, the significance of that attitude is to confirm rather than to weaken the rule”. 39 For consideration of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, see Nsongurua Udombana, “Can the Leopard Change its Spots? The African Union Treaty and Human Rights”, Am. U. Int’l L. Rev. 17 (2002), 1177 et seq.
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of peace, security and stability in Africa, in keeping with the provisions of Chapter VIII of the UN Charter on the role of Regional Organizations in the maintenance of international peace and security”.40 While a significant majority believes that Institutionalized use of force exclusively to the United Nations while undermine the authority of the United Nations, there has been a lot of cosmopolitans finding their peace in the argument that upon extra-UN exercise of Chapter VII like abilities, the barring of world peace because of UN’s difficult deliberative process would be easily evaded. It must be notable that in abundance of legal arguments to permit the use of force without Security Council authorization, it is more convenient to deem the idea of a UN Standing Army as irrelevant because of the robust presence of NATO and other allied forces. *** Analysis: Peace Enforcement (PE) One of the driving differences between Peace Enforcement (sometimes loosely related to Intervention) and all other types of Peace Operations, including peacekeeping, peace-making and conflict preventive diplomacy, is the fact that here use of strike ability is not limited to self-defence.41 Conduct of PEO is normally governed by UN Charter Chapter VII (by a regional organization or lead nation designated by the UN), but in rare situations may be conducted under the basis of collective self-defence by a regional organization, a lead nation-led coalition, or unilaterally by the US. PEO (Peace Enforcement Operations) do not require the consent of the parties to the conflict, and to that end they may appear to disregard state sovereignty. The 2004 UNSG’s “High-level Panel on Threats Challenges and Change,” cognizant of this issue, established an international criteria for such intervention. A state can fail to meet its inherent sovereignty obligation to protect its own people and not threaten its neighbours and the international community. In such circumstances, the international community can legally use force in accordance with the criteria contained in UN Charter, Chapter VII. The only problem is that such a use must be authorized by a Security Council resolution. Peace enforcement is more dynamic than simple peacekeeping because of the inclusion of coordination efforts as well as enforcement of sanctions and exclusion zones, protection of safe zones, operations to restore law 40
Article 17 (1), Protocol Relating to the Establishment, Founding Treaty of the African Union, see note 79. 41 Cf. Y. Dienstein, War, Aggression and Self-‐Defence, 2005; and C. Gray, International Law and the Use of Force, 2004, and Wolfrum, see note 38.
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and order and importantly, forcible separation of belligerent parties if need be. Commanders must understand that actions to enforce sanctions, while endorsed by the UNSC, have traditionally been considered acts of war and should posture their forces accordingly. Protection of civilians, even while carrying out a militarily indiscriminate operation includes as its primary fundamentals: impartiality, unity of force and protection of civilian population. Such protection may include establishing secure base areas, protecting routes or corridors for the transport of relief supplies, and providing security for distribution sites. Peace enforcement cannot solve the underlying problems in most areas of potential application. The insertion of forces to stop combat may be effective in making the continuation of violence impossible; it cannot, in and of itself, create the conditions for lasting peace, which involves the political embrace of peace as more attractive than war. The insertion of outside force may break the cycle of violence and convince the combatants that resistance to the peace enforcers is more painful than compliance to an imposed peace. Since these conflicts are normally very deeply rooted and desperate, the shock effect of outside force may prove to be no more than a break between rounds of fighting.42 There is a danger in thinking peacekeeping forces can be inserted into peace enforcement situations. Peace enforcement requires very different forces than peacekeeping does. The result of confusing roles and forces can be seen in the placing of the United Nations Protection Force (UNPROFOR) peacekeepers in a war zone in Sarajevo.43 These peacekeepers were placed in a peace enforcement situation and have proven not to be armed and manned for the task. Political and military decision makers must understand and clearly specify the nature of the mission of forces deployed to assist in restoring peace. Further, they must continuously review the circumstances under which the force was committed to ensure it remains suited to that mission. The catastrophic failure of the Multinational Forces in Lebanon in 1983 may present a vivid example of what happens when the wrong type of force is used. A primary challenge in using the right type of force is that there is no right type of force currently at the disposal of the United Nations. United Nations Department of Peacekeeping Operations only caters to UN 42
Chapter III, Military and Peace Enforcement, Globalsecurity.org; http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/report/call/call_93-‐8_chap3.htm (Accessed 9 August 2012) 43 Initially established in Croatia to ensure demilitarization of designated areas, the mandate was later extended to Bosnia and Herzegovina to support the delivery of humanitarian relief, monitor "no fly zones" and "safe areas". The mandate was later extended to the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia for preventive monitoring in border areas. See complete mission profile here: http://www.un.org/Depts/DPKO/Missions/unprof_p.htm (Accessed 9 August 2012)
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Peacekeeping Forces and its area of expertise and certain success does not include even by a distant margin a force appropriate for Peace Enforcement. In recent history, deployment of peacekeepers for Peace Enforcement purposes and its evident failures have clearly led the world to believe that a standing force in command of United Nations is needed in the modern world. In order to even understand the failure of United Nations at Peace Enforcement of its own in the present day, we need to look into the intricacies and requirements of a Peace Enforcement Unit. Peace Enforcement Unit44 A Designation of the Proposed Scheme of UN Standing Army PE may include combat action. In such cases, missions must be clear and end states defined. With the transition to combat action comes the requirement for the successful application of warfighting skills. Thus, in a theatre of operations both combat and noncombat actions may occur simultaneously. Forces conducting PE may, for example, be involved in the forcible separation of belligerent parties or be engaged in combat with one or all parties to the conflict. Working of a Peace Enforcement Unit 45 The US Department of Defence outlines certain definite tenets and codes of the work of an ideal Peace Enforcement Unit. An analysis of US’ Peace enforcement strategy is only suitable because of its proven toughness for PE operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Phases: PE operations are normally conducted in several phases. The first phase may involve the insertion of rapidly deployable combat forces in order to establish a significant and visible military presence. Subsequent phases will involve the transition from a military presence to support for the development of competent civil authority. Forces: The forces employed for such operations will be armed and equipped based on commanders' estimates and METT-T. Infantry units, supported by engineer, military police, and aviation assets, are most often employed in this role. They are normally reinforced by civil affairs (CA) and psychological operations (PSYOP) assets. 44
A UN Standing Army or any proposed scheme related to it is only likely to be a Peace Enforcement Unit as United Nations already have qualified Peacekeeping Foundation and expertise in UNDPKO. 45 Headquarters, No. 100-‐23 Department of the Army, Washington, DC, 30 December 1994; http://www.dtic.mil/doctrine/jel/service_pubs/fm100_23.pdf (Accessed 9 August 2012)
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Missions. The missions assigned to PE forces include the restoration and maintenance of order and stability, protection of humanitarian assistance, guarantee and denial of movement, enforcement of sanctions, establishment and supervision of protected zones, forcible separation of belligerent parties, and other operations as determined by the authorizing body. i.
Restoration and Maintenance of Order and Stability
Military forces may be employed to restore order and stability within a state or region wherein competent civil authority has ceased to function. They may be called upon to assist in the maintenance of order and stability in areas where it is threatened, where the loss of order and stability threatens international stability, or where human rights are endangered. Very often, operations to restore and maintain order and stability may be conducted in conjunction with actions designed to provide and protect the provision of humanitarian assistance.46 ii.
Protection of Humanitarian Assistance
Military forces have participated in numerous HA operations worldwide in recent years. Many HA missions may take place in benign environments. However, in other cases hostile forces may interfere with HA missions. Peace operations forces may be called upon to protect those providing such assistance or the relief supplies themselves. HA forces must be equipped with weapons systems appropriate to the mission. Such situations may require the establishment of base areas, which usually include air or sea terminals, protected routes or corridors for the transport of relief supplies, and secure sites for the final delivery of supplies to the intended recipient. If delivery of aid and relief supplies is opposed, combat and CS forces may be necessary to conduct such operations. iii.
Guarantee and Denial of Movement
These operations guarantee or deny movement by air, land, or sea in particular areas and/ or routes. They may involve the coordinated presence of warships and combat aircraft in the disputed region. Operations to guarantee rights of passage - called freedom of navigation may be conducted to ensure the freedom of ships to pass through a threatened sea lane, for aircraft to reach a besieged city or community, or to maintain safe passage on overland routes. Land forces may employ a 46
An early example of operations in a situation of civil hostilities is found in ONUC (United Nations Operation in the Congo). When created in 1960, one of the guidelines governing ONUC was that the force was to be used only for self-‐defence. By February 1991, the chaotic conditions caused the Security Council to expand the guidelines to include directing the use of force to prevent civil war.
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combination of infantry, armour, engineer, military police, and aviation assets to accomplish this mission. Operations to deny movement of belligerent parties may involve the denial of air movement (air exclusion zone/no-fly zone) or overland movement to a specified area. The objective is to prevent the harassment of an unprotected population by the use of combat aircraft or to prevent the delivery of military supplies to a belligerent. Ground forces may conduct these operations by sealing a border to prevent passage. Land forces may employ a wide range of forces to fulfill these missions, including air defence forces to deny flight. Safe operation of air defence forces will require the coordinated offensive use of electronic emissions, as well as access to strategic and tactical intelligence assessments. The joint headquarters will determine day-to-day deployment of these assets.47 iv.
Enforcement of Sanctions
Sanctions concern the denial of supplies, diplomatic and trading privileges, and freedom of movement to a sanctioned state. They are usually applied only when diplomacy and less confrontational methods of conflict resolution have failed. Used alone, sanctions do not generally cause a government party to change its behaviour. However, they can reduce a state’s combat capability. v.
Establishment and Supervision of Protected Zones
As part of a conflict resolution effort, protected zones may be established. These zones are geographic entities that may contain substantial numbers of forces of one or more of the belligerent parties cut off from the main body of troops. Alternatively, these zones may contain large numbers of minorities or refugees that are subject to persecution by one of the belligerent parties.48 CA and PSYOP information operations may be playing a key role to the effort in establishing and sustaining the protected zones. CA units may be required to organize local governmental organizations on a temporary basis, pending resolution of the conflict. 47
An example of guarantee of movement and the application of PE techniques using the principle of restraint in operations other than war (OOTW) occurred in Panama in 1989. In the wake of continuing confrontation with the Panama Defense Forces (PDF) and with the deployment of additional forces to Panama from Operation Nimrod Dancer, US forces conducted exercises called Purple Storm and later Sand Fleas. Their purpose was to enforce to the maximum the Panama Canal Treaty guaranteed rights of movement within Panama. 48 UN action in northern Iraq following the Gulf War (1991) established protected zones for Iraq's Kurds. The zones were incidental to the provision of humanitarian assistance for the Kurds prior to turning the effort over to civil agencies (Operation Provide Comfort).
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vi.
Forcible Separation of Belligerents
It may become necessary to intervene in a conflict in order to establish the conditions necessary for peace against the will of one or more of the belligerent parties. Forcible separation of belligerent parties is the ultimate means to counter a serious threat to peace and security and should be used only when all other means of conflict resolution have been exhausted. This activity will require the use of sufficient force, but only the minimum offensive action consistent with achieving the enforcement objective may be used. PE forces involved are likely to be multinational and joint in composition and will require an offensive capability and necessary logistics support.49 Under these circumstances, PE forces may be employed to forcibly separate the belligerent parties. This may involve reducing or eliminating the combat capability of one or more of the parties. Commanders must consider that one or more of the belligerent forces may see this as cause for aggression against the PE force. The degree of resistance to PE operations may be proportional to the credibility of the separating force. The threat of force may serve as a powerful inducement to the engaged belligerent parties to separate. PE operations will normally require the establishment of a disengagement line or demilitarized zone. Establishment of this line or zone will require the separating force to interpose itself between belligerent parties. *Remarks by the Executive Board The intricacies of the functioning of a Peace Enforcement Unit are important to take into scrutiny because it forms the design guidelines for the working of a United Nations Standing Army (or any other proposed scheme). The fundamentals and principles that were discussed in this section were borrowed from the Peace enforcement principles of the United States Army, and it is only a prudent thought to borrow and nurture the idea of a new standing command for the purpose of Peace enforcement to the most successful and versatile Peace enforcement unit in the world – the United States Army.
49
The commander must consider that the end state is not to destroy the belligerent parties but to force their disengagement.
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United Nations Standing Army: Proposed Scheme of Reform50 Peace-making, like war, involves the coordinated use of military, economic, diplomatic and propaganda instruments. But while war's objective is to terminate the military capacities of the adversary as economically as possible in order to subordinate it politically, peacemaking involves generating in or imposing on a body politic or a territory such structures as are necessary to make it an autonomous, self-sustaining political and economic entity in accord with the blueprint prepared by the United Nations.' Hence peace-making, though using many of war's instruments, has different conceptions and objectives. In particular, peace-making militates, by its nature, against the degree of collateral destruction that may be acceptable and even desirable in war making, especially insofar as destruction of the adversary minimizes one's own losses. Peace-making is not peaceful. In contrast to peace keeping, it must be willing to encounter stiff resistance if not to be actively belligerent. Hence, it may introduce and use, in its programs, some of the most modern and destructive instruments of warfare. This concept of peace-making or peace enforcement led to the idea of a United Nations Standing Army or an International Peace Command.51 Whatever a standing army of the United Nations may be called, its intent is almost clear to both the agents and the counter-agents of its proposition. Should a UN Army be formed, its intent would only be singular intervention to reform effectiveness and rapid deployment capability of the current Peace enforcement alternatives that the Security Council has in hands. Parameters of Reforms: Peace Operations of the United Nations As the United Nations Security Council has found cause to expand the frequency and scope of peace operations in the post-Cold War era, long dormant ideas have remerged for creating a UN military command, organizing a system of reliable standby forces, and establishing a standing UN military force. These ideas have also quickly encountered scepticism. One of the first parameters of reform and the initial point of the proposal scheme is the reform of the United Nations Military Command structure and dissolving the deliberative and political difficulties encountered in taking a military action upon an advent of a humanitarian crisis of the kind of Rwanda somewhere.52 50
Read More (Design Guidelines for the Formation of UN Standing Army) Carl Conetta, Charles Knight; Vital Force: A Proposal for the Overhaul of the UN Peace Operations System and for the Creation of a UN Legion, 1 October 1985. 51 W. Michael Reisman, Preparing to Wage Peace: Toward the Creation of an International Peacemaking Command and Staff College; Yale Law School Scholarship Repository, 1985 52 Because United Nations having its own military forces is not foreseeable right now, there is no formal military command structure attached to the draft of Chapter VII. The
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Sword and Olive Branch Proposal 53 During 1993 and early 1994, a group of US military officers attending the National Security Program of Harvard University’s JFK School of Government drafted a report proposing “a rigorous, comprehensive, and professional system for integrating military force considerations in the direction, planning, and implementation of peacekeeping and peace enforcement." The report, The Sword and the Olive Branch: Military Advice for United Nations Peacekeeping reviews the recent experience of UN peace operations and identifies a number of key problems, which include the institutions’; i. ii. iii. iv. v. vi. vii.
inability to anticipate the need for military force, failure to articulate the military conditions necessary to achieve political goals, failure to identify achievable military objectives, lack of a planning capability that can match military means and ends, failure to articulate clear success/failure criteria, failure to articulate appropriate rules of engagement (ROE), and lack of adequate feedback mechanisms to ensure operational adjustment.
The report concentrates on designing military advisory structures for those missions that have been called “aggressive,” “forceful,” “enhanced,” or “non-traditional” peacekeeping. The author states that at the root of the United Nations’ failure in recent operations is the incompatibility between the increased use of enforcement actions in nontraditional peacekeeping and the command and control arrangements that evolved during the traditional peacekeeping of the Cold War era. The principal elements of the Sword and Olive Branch proposal, some of which anticipated the UN reforms now underway, are Revitalization of the MSC as a military advisory and liaison body, Provision of the Secretary-General with a full-time military advisor, Creation of a separate Military Planning and Operations Division within the DPKO, Conversion of the situation centre into a fully staffed operations centre, and Relocation of the Field Operations Divisions to the DPKO as a fully empowered logistics and acquisition office. The proposed reforms of UN military planning would begin with revitalization of the MSC, which the 1994 reorganization of peacekeeping proposal also includes the formation of International Military Staff Support to serve Chapter VII requirements. 53 Whole Citation; JFK School of Governance, Pub. 308, Sword and Olive Brach Proposition, 12 August 1994
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failed to address. The authors believe that an active MSC is needed to provide strategic direction to the Security Council. As long as the MSC remains defunct, critics will point to this fact as an indication of lack of commitment to UN peacekeeping. ***
Â
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Excerpts from
“Renewing the United Nations Military Staff Committee” By J. Patrick Murray, Colonel, U.S. Army (retired) Commentary by Siddharth Soni
I
n sketching out the structure of the nascent United Nations, the founders correctly avoided being overly prescriptive, leaving the details to the main bodies such as the Security Council and the General Assembly. One exception to this was the decision to create the Military Staff Committee (MSC), the only committee to which the Charter of the United Nations explicitly refers. MSC membership consists of the military representatives from each of the Permanent Five members of the SC, with the primary mission being “to advise and assist the Security Council on all questions relating to the Security Council’s military requirements for the maintenance of international peace and security, the employment and command of forces placed at its disposal….” At the time, it was anticipated that the UN would have forces at its disposal, and that the SC would therefore require a body of military experts in order to render advice regarding the employment of those forces. The UN never developed a standing army, and the MSC as an organization succumbed quickly to early Cold War divisions within the P5. However, because it is anchored the UN Charter, the MSC still exists, although today it is little more than a ceremonial institution, consigned to bi-weekly meetings of little relevance in accordance with its own Rules of Procedure. One questions why, despite the end of the Cold War, the MSC remains dormant as opposed to fulfilling its role of providing security advice and assistance to the SC, particularly when military input for PKOs is so clearly lacking in the Council. Conflicting national interests within the P5 continue to block any MSC activity, although contemporary national fault lines have changed dramatically since the Cold War. This is unfortunate; as a truly viable entity, the MSC could go a long way toward strengthening UN peacekeeping operations across the spectrum. Utilizing the Military Staff Committee As the Security Council deliberates the creation of new PKOs and the extension of existing peacekeeping mandates, it needs its own internal body of military experts to assist and to interface with the Secretariat and with TCCs for security issues. For the military aspects of peacekeeping operations, this is precisely what New Horizons seeks with its call for a “renewed global partnership “among the Security Council, the contributing Member States and the Secretariat. Specifically, an operational MSC could provide critical support in three critical areas:
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i.
Providing military advice to the Security Council.
The well-known Report of the Panel on United Nations Peace Operations (“Brahimi Report”) stated that: “Security Council mandates… should reflect the clarity that peacekeeping operations require for unity of effort when they deploy into potentially dangerous situations." To enhance the chances for success, a PKO mandate should be clear, credible and achievable. Before creating a new PKO, the SC must determine what it expects to accomplish, and determine if conditions exist for an operation to be established that would be capable of meeting those objectives. Each PKO should have clearly articulated benchmarks and timelines, ideally within a prescribed budget. Additionally, the political and humanitarian components of the operations should be coordinated with, and mutually supportive of, the security component. Concerning existing PKOs, mandate renewals must go beyond the reading of prepared statements and an automatic vote to perpetuate the operation.
“The SC should take advantage of the mandate renewal process to conduct a careful review of existing PKOs, modifying as necessary, and prior to renewal. Mandate renewals are an ideal tool for the SC to ensure that PKO leadership and participants, including the SRSG, Force Commander, TCCs, the Secretariat, even the host nation(s), are dedicated to the success of the operation. Accomplishing this entails a clear, sober understanding of the situation on the ground as well as an assessment of what the Secretariat and TCCs are capable of regarding the concept of operations, force structure, force generation, logistics planning and deployment timelines.” ii.
Interface with the Secretariat.
The Secretariat, particularly the Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO) and Department of Field Support (DFS) are responsible for generating and deploying the force and overseeing its operation. Planning shortfalls become more acute given that the respective priorities of the Secretariat, TCCs and the SC often diverge when it comes to peacekeeping. As mandates are drafted, it is important that the SC and the Secretariat communicate closely. Key aspects such as force size and structure, mission, mandate interpretation, command and control, rules of engagement, timelines and costs should be worked out mutually and in advance. The Brahimi Report alluded to this, noting that: “The Secretariat must tell the Security Council what it needs to know, not what it wants to hear, when recommending force and other resource levels for a new mission, and it must set those levels according to realistic scenarios that take into account likely challenges to implementation.” In fact such conversations seldom if ever occur; the SC simply does not get into this level of detail because it has no capacity to do so. However, as the body responsible for PKOs, it should. New Horizons agrees, stating that: “Early dialogue between the Secretariat and the Security Council can also assist in better defining the objectives and the focus of a technical assessment and can enable members of the Security Council to share relevant information with planners. Once troop and police contributors deploy, they should be included in dialogues on subsequent assessment" What is missing, however, is any mechanism within the SC to achieve this. An MSC-facilitated dialogue between the SC and the Secretariat on security
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issues will add badly-needed clarity and reality to the mandate process, assisting in defining objectives and conducting viable technical assessments. Interface with TCCs. In addition to close consultations with the Secretariat, the SC must also interact with Troop (and Police) Contributing Countries. The Brahimi Report noted that: “Member States that do commit formed military units to an operation should be invited to consult with the members of the Security Council during mandate formulation…Troop contributors should also be invited to attend Secretariat briefings of the Security Council pertaining to crises that affect the safety and security of mission personnel or to a change or reinterpretation of the mandate regarding the use of force.” The SC owes TCCs a preview of what their troops will be asked to do, when, where, and for how long, as well as a realistic assessment of the risks involved. New Horizons states that: “Where troop or police contributing countries are expected to deploy significant force levels to operate in volatile or high-risk situations and to be ready to perform to the full extent of their capabilities, they need confidence in the command and control of the mission. And they have a legitimate interest in plans and directives that affect their personnel. Meaningful dialogue between the Secretariat and contributing countries and, as noted above, systematic and timely consultation before planning documents are issued or reviewed is critical.” TCCs and the PKO leadership must know what will be expected of them and on what general timeline. Conversely, the SC needs an assessment of capabilities, readiness and equipment of perspective TCCs before it finalizes a mission. The MSC could play a key role in pulling all of this together between the SC, TCCs and the Secretariat from the outset of deliberations, with the goal of ensuring that PKOs are suitably configured to make a quick, positive impact, and have the highest probabilities of success with minimal risk to UN personnel. SC-TCC interaction benefits both sides by bringing TCCs into the process and giving them a bit of early “ownership” and visibility into the mission their troops will be asked to fulfil. It also provides the SC another key component as it drafts and renews mandates. One caveat should be stressed: while bringing TCCs into the mandate process is important, it should only go so far. Specifically, TCCs have no role in the drafting of mandates. That is—and should remain—the sole responsibility of the SC.
Addressing Practical Issues Enabling the MSC requires little more than P5 consensus. Because it already exists, it does not require the passage of additional resolutions in the Security Council or the General Assembly. MSC authority is vested in the UN Charter and the Security Council; it simply requires the will of the P5 to act, and for the MSC to update its own draft Statute and Rules of Procedure. Additionally, provisions exist in the UN Charter that would allow the MSC to shape itself as appropriate: “Any member of the United Nations not permanently represented on the (Military Staff) Committee shall be invited by the Committee to be associated with it when the efficient discharge of the Committee’s responsibilities requires the participation of that Member in its work.” This could include TCCs, representatives of DPKO and DFS as appropriate. Under the provisions of the Charter, it would also be possible to expand the MSC beyond its present P5 membership to include military representation from all Security Council members. In the end, the MSC would be in a position provide military input to the SC, assess and provide feedback to the Secretariat during planning, and interface with TCCs.
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“As noted above, initially it was Cold War politics that precluded the MSC from becoming operational. Today, political divisions within the P5 over the MSC continue, although for entirely different reasons. Some worry that given the already substantial resentment over P5 influence and power amongst other member states, resurrecting the MSC would exacerbate this anger. This concern is misplaced. While animosity toward the SC in general and the P5 in particular, clearly exists, it remains the responsibility of the Security Council to do what is necessary to ensure that UN PKOs are safe, efficient and successful. In fact, a fundamental aspect of the anger directed at the SC and the P5 by other Member States, particularly the major TCCs (many of which are members of the influential Non-Aligned Movement), is that the SC has been thus far unwilling to reach out to them on peacekeeping matters. A number of Member States explain that they feel as if they are expected to sit quietly in their proverbial corner until the SC unilaterally determines what is to be done, after which the TCCs are supposed to unquestionably provide troops. An active MSC would mitigate, not exacerbate, these concerns by directly working with TCCs on security-related issues in ways that the SC is presently unable to do.” There are also concerns about how military input would manifest, and whether it would even be reasonable to expect coherent military input to emerge from the P5 military advisers. No doubt there would be issues surrounding this concern, particularly in the initial implementation period. However, that is hardly causing for not moving forward. Over the years, P5 Permanent Representatives and political counsellors have learned to find political solutions through compromise and cooperation, and the MSC will learn to do likewise. Additionally, the potential exists for the accrual of unforeseen benefits, such as enhanced military-to-military cooperation between the U.S. and China. The intent of the on-going Security Council reform process is for UN Member States to look at how Security Council membership could be modified and increased so that it closer resembles the world of today rather than that of 1945, and to modify its working methods to make it a more efficient body. Given its Charter-imposed responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security, the SC should do everything possible to enhance and strengthen UN peacekeeping. Additionally, with over 116,000 of their own soldiers, police and civilians deployed, all UN member states should welcome any credible measure designed to improve the UN’s capacity to reduce conflict, and save lives, time and money. It is time for the P5 to find a way forward with the MSC in the Security Council in order to assure that UN peacekeeping remains viable.
No P5 member state would allow its own national military operations to be planned and executed the way that PKOs are presently done. Sending peacekeepers into harm’s way is the most solemn function the UN undertakes; the SC must recognize that the increasing demands of modern peacekeeping necessitates an updated, more holistic approach to peacekeeping that includes the presence of military expertise when making the decisions that will impact those deployments.
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Regional instability and failed states will continue to exist despite everyone’s best efforts. The best planning in New York, including an active MSC, will not solve all of the issues surrounding global peacekeeping. Underlying this reality is recognition that UN peacekeeping is not a panacea for each and every global problem; sending UN troops into all conflicts is a recipe for failure, diminished UN credibility, and gratuitous loss of life. In some cases, the UN may resolve that a PKO is not a viable solution for a given situation at a given time. The Brahimi Report wisely advises: “Rather than send an operation into danger with unclear instructions, the Panel urges that the Council refrain from mandating such a mission.” New Horizons concurs: “Peacekeeping is not always the right answer.” ***
Acknowledgements i A New Partnership Agenda: Charting a New Horizon for UN Peacekeeping, page ii http://www.un.org/Depts/dpko/dpko/newhorizon.pdf ii Charter of the United Nations, Article 47 http://www.un.org/aboutun/charter/ iii A New Partnership Agenda: Charting a New Horizon for UN Peacekeeping, page 6-7 http://www.un.org/Depts/dpko/dpko/newhorizon.pdf iv Report of the Panel on United Nations Peace Operations, UN Document S/2000/809, Executive Summary, page 10. http://www.un.org/peace/reports/peace_operations/ v Report of the Panel on United Nations Peace Operations, UN Document S/2000/809, Executive Summary, page 10. http://www.un.org/peace/reports/peace_operations/ vi A New Partnership Agenda: Charting a New Horizon for UN Peacekeeping, page 11 http://www.un.org/Depts/dpko/dpko/newhorizon.pdf vii IBID, page 10. http://www.un.org/peace/reports/peace_operations/ viii A New Partnership Agenda: Charting a New Horizon for UN Peacekeeping, page 14 http://www.un.org/Depts/dpko/dpko/newhorizon.pdf ix Charter of the United Nations, Article 47 http://www.un.org/aboutun/charter/ x Report of the Panel on United Nations Peace Operations, UN Document S/2000/809, Executive Summary, page 10 http://www.un.org/peace/reports/peace_operations/ xi A New Partnership Agenda: Charting a New Horizon for UN Peacekeeping, page 9 http://www.un.org/Depts/dpko/dpko/newhorizon.pdf
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Case Studies One of the driving ideas behind making UN Intervention a singular entity with provisions of a standing force in command of the Secretary General is an argument that is rooted in the failures that United Nations has witnessed in the past peace operations. A lot of attempts at Peace Enforcement have met partial and complete doom, often leading to humanitarian loss and waste of capital. The following four case studies (three real, one putative) is presented in this section which compel us to re-imagine UN peacekeeping as it is today, and to look forward into the direction of peace enforcement. *** Case Study: Somalia In 1992, Somalia became centre stage for world news. Images of thousands of people dying of starvation and disease were broadcast around the globe. Nations and individual citizens felt something needed to be done. The UN Security Council passed a resolution calling for the establishment of UNOSOM I. The mission was humanitarian in nature, but the challenge was beyond the UN’s immature structure. With no established government in Somalia, and a civil war raging around the peacekeepers, the force was too small and did not have enough resources to meet this challenge. The United States responded by sending in a force of over 28,000 troops to conduct the mission. To assist them, 9,000 soldiers from 20 other countries also participated. Responding initially with Marines, and then the 10th Mountain Division, the US-led force in Operation Restore Hope overcame the malady of the millions of starving people. Once the situation was relatively under control, the mission was handed back to the United Nations to provide a more long-term solution. The United States remained engaged by providing a quick reaction force to the UN under a separate, not UN, command arrangement. In August 1993, in response to the ambush and killing of 24 Pakistani soldiers and other incidents of violence against UN forces, the United
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States deployed an elite force of US Army Rangers to find and detain those responsible for the attacks. Command arrangements for all these forces were complicated and strained to say the least. In October 1993, the US Ranger force attempted to capture the Somali warlord, Mohammed Farah Aideed. The mission went terribly wrong, and images of dead US soldiers being dragged through the streets of Mogadishu and the death of 18 American soldiers caused the United States to re-evaluate what it was doing in this failed nation. The end result was that the United States pulled out, and the UN was left to go it alone. Again, the challenges were insurmountable and beyond the organization’s capability. Within a few months the UN was gone as well. This peace enforcement mission was the international communities’ first post-Cold War attempt to control a civil war. Many lessons were learned from this, but the most important one was that command and control of combat forces in peace enforcement operations must be clear and unambiguous. Somalia demonstrated the worst case of coordinating and controlling the use of force in peace enforcement missions. Remarks: United Nations clear failure in this attempt at Peace Enforcement is evident of the fact that Peace Enforcement’s requirements are significantly different from that of Peacekeeping or Diplomatic Peacebuilding involving conflict resolution and preventive diplomacy. One of the main reasons for the UN failure in the beginning of operation in February 1992 was nonavailability of troops. A standing army at the command of United Nations could have led to better enforcement of peace in this situation.54 Case Study: Rwanda Probably the lowest point in the entire history of UN peacekeeping came in 1994. Following the Arusha Peace Agreement, a small UN force was deployed to Rwanda to assist in the monitoring of the peace agreement. On 6 April 1994 the plane carrying the Presidents of Rwanda and Burundi was shot down.55 This was the signal for a planned mayhem where marauding bands of militia singled out people and brutally murdered them – many by machetes. The UN Security Council tried to find a solution, but the Council was deadlocked. The Council realized the UN did not have the capability to deploy a force rapidly, and no nation was willing to send in 54
K. Allard, Somalia Operations: Lessons Learned (Washington DC: National Defense University, 1995), p. 34. 55 Report of the Independent Inquiry into the Actions of the United Nations during the 1994 Genocide in Rwanda, from UN web site; http://www.un.org/Depts/dpko/lessons/rwanda.htm, 15 December 1999, UN Headquarters, New York, New York, p. 50.
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its troops to solve an internal conflict. The Organization of African Unity, the regional organization closest to the issue, did not have a military capability or a planning staff, and neither did any other nearby nation. Over 800,000 people were violently killed in this ethnic war before an international force could stop the killing. The UN peacekeepers on the ground were helpless, and ten Belgian peacekeepers were tortured and murdered trying to protect the Prime Minister. Peacekeepers did what they thought was right, but the force was too small and did not have the Security Council’s authority to take action. This was another lesson learned the hard way. Secretary General Kofi Annan felt personally responsible for the genocide, but in reality the blame should go to the nations of the world. The Security Council was left with few options. The UN was incapable of responding rapidly, and the Organization of African Unity had no capability to act. Lastly, no nation was willing to step forward. The task would have required immediate deployment of a relatively large force with the combat capability to conduct operations under Chapter VII (peace enforcement). Finally the French responded in Operation Turquoise, but the response was too late. At the opening session of the 1999 General Assembly, Secretary General Kofi Annan stood before the assembled heads of State and declared that the world should never allow genocides like Rwanda to occur again.56 Remarks: Rwandan Genocide was probably the most painful event in history after the two world wars and the blame of its dignity can only be a burden upon a yet another failure of the United Nations policy. Political challenges once again came as hurdles in line of rapid deployment of a policing force or an army as national interests were kept above the interests of humanity, and to intervene in an Internal Armed Conflict made it quite impossible for willing forces to act. One of the greatest gifts of a standing United Nations army would be the evasion of political interests in the interest of humanity and the ability of rapid deployment which is lacking today even in the case of a prompt Security Council authorization. At the same time, the greatest counter-argument by political theorists is the balancing wheel between the dollars spent and the occurrence of another Rwandan Genocide. Case Study: Kosovo Several years later, unfinished business in the Balkan region erupted in Kosovo. President Slobodan Milosevic, President of the Federal Republic 56
UN website, http://www.un.org/Docs/SG/Report99/intro99.htm, (Accessed 9 August 2012)
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of Yugoslavia, wanted to regain control over the historic Serbian province. The majority of the people in the region were ethnic Albanians. Albanian freedom fighters wanted an independent country, and Milosevic was determined to reassert his control. Throughout 1998 and 1999, Milosevic carried out a campaign to cleanse Kosovo of all Albanians.57 The world again witnessed the ethnic cleansing in living colour. With Rwanda still in the minds of world leaders, something needed to be done. Human rights were being abused and action was necessary. US envoy Richard Holbrooke and other world leaders tried in vain to negotiate with Milosevic. Although he initially agreed to international demands and permitted the deployment of an Organization for the Security and Cooperation of Europe observer mission, Milosevic continued his campaign against the Kosovar Albanians. The only alternative was to use force. This time, NATO took the lead and conducted a massive air campaign to force the Serbs back to the bargaining table. The Yugoslav people and leadership demonstrated enormous stamina. Most political decision makers felt the Serbs would give in to NATO’s demands in a few days, but the air campaign lasted 78 days. In the final days of the air war there was considerable debate on how would administer the province of Kosovo. NATO was willing to do it, but Russia was uncomfortable with NATO being responsible for everything. The UN had to play a role. Finally an agreement was reached. Milosevic would move his forces out of Kosovo; the UN would administer the province, while NATO troops would provide security. UN Security Council Resolution 1244 authorized under Chapter VII, a peace enforcement force comprised of 40,000 NATO and other non-NATO troops.58 Their mission was to make sure the Serb military and national police lived up to the agreements. The UN, assisted by several European regional organizations, began preparations to be the transitional administrator. This mission was a new role for the UN – total control of a region. The Secretariat had some experience in this type of mission, but not to the magnitude it faced in Kosovo. As of November 2002, there are still over 40,000 NATO troops in Kosovo and another 10,000 outside Kosovo keeping the peace, while the United Nations is coordinating the many facets of nation building. The synchronized efforts of the European Union (EU), the Organization for the Security and Cooperation of Europe (OSCE), and the UN are making considerable progress. In this case very capable regional organizations are conducting the peace enforcement role, while the UN with the help of other regional organizations rebuilds the nation. 57
W.G. O’Neil, Kosovo: An Unfinished Peace (Boulder, Colorado: Lynne Rienner Publisher, 2002), p15. 58 NATO website, http://www.nato.int/kfor/kfor/about.htm, (Accessed 30 November 2002)
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Remarks: One of the fundamental failures of United Nations in Kosovo was before the Peace Enforcement Action took place, unilaterally by NATO. While the debate on legality of NATO’s intervention is still in question, it is a majority belief that NATO’s swift action saved a humanitarian crisis situation. A very elementary analysis will lead one to believe that this could only happen because NATO has no political conflict within its nation and has a commitment based standing army of its own which is capable of rapid deployment, something that is lacking in the United Nations making it an unsuccessful IGO in situations such as these. An analysis of this case study would also lead one to believe that UN’s post conflict Peacekeeping Operations were well-planned and commendably carried out. A similar kind of feat was also accomplished when United Nations established the International Security and Assistance Force in Afghanistan (ISAF) to carry out the peacekeeping operations in Afghanistan after the conflict. Putative Case Analysis: Extra-terrestrial Invasion One of the perfectly sane arguments that has been theoretically made, but with less serious reception for the existence of a skilled and highly trained United Nations Standing Force or United Nations Peace Command, and not merely singular peace enforcement per say, is the argument that all of humanity needs a reliable defence against the enemies we still don’t know of. The root of this idea is based in the belief of the existence of extraterrestrial elements, and while most regard the presence of a UN Standing Army as a must in order to combat Martians when they finally arrive, a lot of people believe the presence of NATO’s allied forces are robust enough. There is no dearth of arguments against this proposition, because of the very nature of extra-terrestrial invasion. Theorists have contested that even if an invasion occurs, we would be completely unsuited to its way and abilities and an investment of a standing force to fight an army whose existence is not even known is a witless idea, and too childish to be brought up in an International forum. Despite this, a lot of International conferences have talked about the idea of Uniformity for Humanity principles, and it’s only thoughtful to have this perspective on this provisional scheme.
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A Note from the Executive Board “Peacekeeping is not a job for soldiers, But only a soldier can do it.” Peace Operations are not new to United Nations, and none of us are unfamiliar with the failures and the triumphs of these peace operations, except under the light of an even larger idea, it is close to a spectacle to find out by diligent research that the fate of the peace operations, and the characteristic peculiarities of these peace operations cause the difference to diplomacy like no other war. Essentially, in the deliberation through this agenda we are trying to find a diplomatic, legal and practical ground for formation of a Peace Enforcement Unit, whatever the council considers fit to name it which could do the work of a peace enforcement call without doing any juridical disobedience to the Charter of its birth. You may have observed that the background guide strictly refrains from using the term intervention, and adhering to the dictates of new humanitarianism, it has been replaced with the term act of peace enforcement. United Nations has developed a mild disinclination to the term intervention because of the ever-increasing scope and dynamics of a peace process that it now involves. The entire idea behind this background guide was not to acquaint delegates with the design and principles of the United Nations Standing Army because it’s based on a hypothetical treaty, even whose draft hasn’t been made. The UN Standing Army might come when it has to, but the underlying essence of writing this guide was to find a ground of debate in the viability of a United Nations Standing Army. The essence of this section is to realize that laying out the design guidelines for a UN Standing Military is a job that is very comprehensive and challenging, and the best procedure that a Security Council could follow is to set up a Preparatory Committee (PrepComm) to formulate the design guidelines of a United Nations Standing Military Proposition Plan, or similarly as the council deems to name it, but our agenda limits us to evaluate whether a singular intervention by the United Nations is of any agreeable attribute. Siddharth Soni President, Security Council unsc@cbitmun.com
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Notes
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