Peacekeeping And Un Intervention example essay topic

Peacekeeping, or Western Ideological Enforcement. Peacekeeping and its uses in the post cold war era. Dan Barham 100032310 April 6, 2000 POLS 4173 Dr Allen Chong. Peacekeeping, an action that is familiar to any student of international politics, or to anyone who watches the news on a regular to semi-regular basis. Peacekeeping has long been seen as one of the great Canadian contributions to the world. The rise of intra-state conflict in the years following the cold war has lead to a renewed interest in the possibilities of peacekeeping.

The idea of only sending in a force to keep the peace is no longer being looked at as the only option. Former United Nations secretary-general, Kofi Annan, wrote a paper entitled Peace Operations and the United Nations Preparing for the Next Century. It was within this paper that he outlined a need for the doctrine of peacekeeping to change to fit the new requirements that the changing world required. Kofi Annan advocated a new approach, an approach based on actions termed inducing consent and coercive inducement. The possibilities for the spread of peace, and the rise of humanism and its western definition were expanding even further.

This approach and ideal is an admirable one, however it brings peacekeeping closer to being an instrument of western influence, and further from being simply an exercise to prevent war. It is this shift in the direction of peacekeeping that is to be examined within the context of this paper. Is this new approach to peacekeeping valid, or is it merely a precursor to the further rise of western imperialism. The spread of humanism and the protection of the weak and oppressed is an admirable goal, however the framework that is being set up to allow for peace operations with sovereign states leads us to a dangerous set of possibilities later down the road. There is also the possibility for this frame work to be abused in the future. The qualifications for what necessitates an intervention are very important and must be weighed carefully in order to avoid setting dangerous precedents.

What happens when the principals of western democracy and humanism to a totalitarian regime such as China You end up with a whole lot of reasons that call for peace making or humanitarian intervention. It is for these reasons that we must examine the ground work that is being laid today, to make sure that the future structure and actions that may come out of framework are possibilities that one would even want to consider. Is peacekeeping becoming an excuse for something else Peacekeeping and UN intervention was for the most part limited during the cold war. Division in the security council prevented many actions from taking place.

With the fall of the USSR and the new partnership between Russia and its former opponents in the west, there has been more opportunity for the UN and the Security Council to intervene in the face of human suffering. Peacekeeping was pioneered and developed by the UN as one of the means for maintaining international peace and security. Most UN peacekeepers, often referred to as "blue helmets", have been soldiers, volunteered by their Governments to apply military discipline and training to the task of restoring and maintaining the peace. [1] Peacekeeping has been long seen as a humanitarian intervention to prevent great human tragedy. Peacekeeping has however failed in the past to prevent a large number of crisis and stop a variety of genocide acts. Too often the international community fails to do what is needed.

It failed to prevent the genocide in Rwanda. For too long it reacted with weakness and hesitation to the horror of ethnic cleansing in the former Yugoslavia. In East Timor, it acted too late to save many hundreds of lives and thousands of homes from wanton destruction [2] This inability for the UN and its peacekeeping operations to intervene effectively has called into question the very validity of peacekeeping operations. The example of the humanitarian crisis in Sudan, and the ongoing simmering conflict in Cyprus. In itself peacekeeping resolves very little. It is the ultimate non-solution.

Instead of launching a crusade, we attempt to arrange a cease-fire. Instead of choosing one side over another and then battling it out to the bitter end, we stall for time. We set up separate solitudes: isolated domains with a minimum of interaction. Sound familiar It is the blueprint of Canada, projected outwards onto the world. [3] Peacekeeping has been seen as a non solution to the problems of regional conflict, nothing is ever resolved when all that happens it the two sides are sent to their corners and told that they are not to get on each others nerves. The divisions simply simmer until the referee is not watching as closely and one side can lash out without getting into too much trouble.

The UN mission in Cypress is a touchstone of the Canadian way, just as surely as Vietnam remains an indictment of the American way. On cost more then a million lives and inspired Apocalypse Now. The other resulted in a constant vigil. Waiting, watching, holding our breath, standing on guard.

Heroic inaction. [4] The alternative, however, is not an acceptable option either. Peacekeeping, much like democracy itself, is the worst possible system except for all the others. [5] It is due to the greater number of human tragedies in the years since the cold war, and the sentiment that the current form of peacekeeping is not enough, that there has been a greater desire for the concept of peacekeeping to be reworked. Reworked from simple intervention once a conflict is already in the advanced and bloody stages, to a form of peacekeeping that is more preventative and has more power to intervene on behalf of the victims of human rights violations.

United Nations secretary-general Kofi Annan has of late been leading a drive towards a new direction for peacekeeping, and the intervention of the international community in the name of humanitarianism. Annan has termed it the United Nations humanitarian imperative. [6] Annan feels that the basic problem with peacekeeping as it stands today is that has had trouble identifying areas where action is needed the most, that too often states will put their own political interests in front of consistent humanitarian action and the consistent enforcement of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. [7] The new vision for peacekeeping is one where the ideals of human security, the prevention of genocide, and the protection of civilians in the advent of an internal conflict. The new vision is based on a duty to interfere (le devoir ding erence) a phrase that was coined by Bernard Kou chner, who was at the time, the head of the charity Medecine du Monde. His idea was that it was the duty of non-governmental organisations to cross national boundaries in order to administer aid to victims, even without the support of the local government.

This concept was recognised and endorsed by the United Nations General Assembly with the passing of two resolutions, one in 1988, and another in 1991. Each of these resolutions uphold the right of people in desperate circumstances to receive help, and the right of international organisations to provide it, even without the permission of the local government. [8] Annan wishes to extend this further to include peacekeeping operations. He sites the crime in French law that is called Failure to assist a person in danger [9] this coupled with the duty to interfere is a justification for making peacekeeping more preventative and moving with more force even when state sovereignty may be violated. The new direction that peacekeeping is moving under Annans direction is based on four new principals and a call for more consistency. His first principal is the need for intervention or peace intervention to be defined as broadly as possible, to include actions along a wide continuum from the most pacific to the most coercive.

[10] Armed intervention is the result of a failure by the international community to prevent the outbreak of conflict within a region due to a lack of preventative measures on the international communities behalf. It is necessary in Annans estimation that an effort must be made to increase the preventative abilities of the United Nations, to increase the capacity for early warning, preventative diplomacy, preventive deployment and preventive disarmament. [11] The second principal of the new peacekeeping is that the sovereignty of a state is not enough to prevent effective action in human rights or a humanitarian crisis. State frontiers should no longer be seen as a watertight protection for war criminals or mass murderers. The fact that a conflict is internal does not give the parties any right to disregard the most basic rules of human conduct. Besides, most internal conflicts do not stay internal for very long.

They soon spill over into neighbouring countries. [12] If States bent on criminal behaviour know that frontiers are not the absolute defence; if they know that the Security Council will take action to halt crimes against humanity, then they will not embark on such a course of action in expectation of sovereign impunity. [13] The third principal is that, in a situation where it becomes necessary for the UN to intervene with force, it must be ensured that the Security Council is able to act swiftly and effectively in order to prevent a human disaster. The problem with the Security Council in the past has been a lack of unity and inaction, in the face of such things as genocide, due to Council division. Annan feels that Council States, and the Member States of the United Nations should be able to find a common ground in the principals of the UN Charter, and in the defence of the common humanity of all peoples. Lastly the new formula for peacekeeping requires a continued and strong commitment to keeping the peace.

The commitment to peace must be as strong as the commitment to war was. [14] This is a caution against the conflict fatigue that many experience when a conflict goes on for too long. You see it on the news everyday, and eventually you stop caring, it is this fatigue that ends aid, and allows the hostilities to either go on, or start again. In order to fulfil the third principal of the new peace keeping there is a movement amongst member governments to create rapid-reaction peace forces. Peace Strike forces if you will. Able to quickly and effectively intervene in crisis situations.

OTTAWA - The Canadian Armed Forces intends to establish a combat-ready strike force to respond swiftly to global crises to prevent the loss of innocent life and strengthen Canada's influence with its allies, says Art Eggleton, the Defence Minister. The European Union has already announced it will set up a 60,000-member rapid-reaction force outside of NATO to intervene in crisis situations in Europe in which the United States does not wish to become involved. [15] These forces are to be able to quickly descend on a crisis situation and prevent the sort of massive bloodshed and humanitarian tragedy that we have seen in the past with Rwanda and Kosovo. The justification for these forces are the number of lives that could be saved if only they peacekeepers could have arrived there more quickly. Annan cites the actions of the Security Council and the UN forces in East Timor as a prime example of the benefits to be had when the Council and the UN is able to quickly set up a multinational force that has the authorisation to go in and prevent an astronomical human tragedy, there is a caution however in that the problem in East Timor is not over yet, and it is too soon for congratulations and to sit back and rest on what has been accomplished, the fourth aspect of peacekeeping is still needed, there must be a strong commitment on the part of the international community to maintain the peace.

And yet the commitment of the international community to peacekeeping, to humanitarian assistance, to rehabilitation, and reconstruction varies greatly from region to region, and crisis to crisis. [16] This sums up one of the major problems with peacekeeping so far. The Member States of the UN are firstly interested in pursuing their national interests, above all else. The enforcement of the principals of human rights have been uneven at best.

Western governments will go in when there is an need for the enforcement of human rights, and it does not affect any of their national interests. What this has lead to is a number of UN actions in third world, and smaller nations to prevent human tragedy while violations of the western standard of human rights goes unpunished in larger countries, say for example China. It is here that we run into the dangers of this new peacekeeping, the possibility that it could lead to a greater war if it was fully and evenly applied. There has been some concern on the part of China that this new direction in peacekeeping could eventually lead to a humanitarian intervention within their borders as the concept of sovereignty is becoming less of an absolute, and frontiers are not the absolute defence [17] What happens when western standards of human rights are used as the ruler against which all other governments are measured. When you apply that standard to an totalitarian regime such as China, you immediately run into a cause for a humanitarian intervention. It could be argued that the totalitarian regime of China doesnt represent the people of China, that it oppresses and violates the basic human rights of its own citizens and therefore should not believe that it can disregard the most basic rules of human conduct.

[18] Or at least disregard the most basic rules of western based human conduct. There is however an argument to be made for China, and that is that the people have spoken, the Chinese government does represent the people of China as they had a revolution and chose their leader to be General Mau. While the system of government may not be one that we as western nations approve of, would we just be spreading our own empire of democratic capitalism to people who may not want it The argument over whos system of government is better is a long one and not one that we are going to get into in this paper. Bibliography Cooper, Andrew F. Canadian Foreign Policy, Old Habits and New Directions. Prentice- Hall Canada Inc. Scarborough Ontario.

1997 Documents: The UN Secretary Generals report, An Agenda For Peace. This report outlines the UN position on Peacekeeping and the New World Order. The document stresses the need for the establishment of conflict management and greater peacekeeping efforts. Speech by Minister Loyd Ax worthy given at the Canadian Land Mines Foundation Luncheon on the Group of 12 December 1998 at the Royal York Hotel. Toronto. The future policy and direction of the Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade and the future of Canadian peace keeping is outlined within this speech.

Websites: National Post. The National Post ran a story titled Military plans rapid-reaction force to respond to global crises Which is excerpted above. This and other articles on Peacekeeping make the Post a good resource for seeing the media spin on this international issue. British Ministry of Defence The MOD white pages are outlined online and the site is a good tool for finding the British governments position on the various embodiments of peacekeeping and peace enforcement that they have made part of this governments foreign policy. The topics of Peace Inducement and Inducing consent are terms that are on that site and are of a concern and part of the major focus of this paper. [1] United Nations Home page, web [2] Annan, Kofi A. A Shared vision of a better world Newsweek.

[3] Ferguson. W. Keeping the (uneasy) Peace. Saturday Night, p. 42. [4] Ibid. [5] Ibid. [6] Annan, Kofi A. The humanitarian challenge Vital Speeches of the Day, p. 486. [7] Annan, Kofi A. A Shared vision and Human security and intervention [8] Annan, Kofi A. From the Secretary-General UN Chronicle; 1998, p.