United Nations Main Responsibilities to International Community - Essay Example

1 Introduction 2 2 The United Nations’ Conflict and Peacemaking Approach 3 2 The Traditional Approach 3 2.2 Ghali’s Proposal 6 3 Discussion: Historical Examples 7 4 Conclusion 10 5 References 12 1 Introduction The United Nations has three fundamental and interrelated responsibilities towards the international community. These are conflict prevention, conflict resolution and peacemaking. The capacity of the United Nations to execute any of these responsibilities is inherently dependant upon its monitoring of potential conflict areas/zones/regions. The purposes of doing so is the diffusion of conflict prior to its development, resolving it post-development and should it fail in either, restore peace through peacemaking or peacekeeping strategies. While the responsibilities outlined may seem clear-cut, their execution is both complex and complicated. Indeed, considering the conflict situations which the United Nations has been involved in since the conclusion of World War II, it appears that it has had more failures, and spectacular failures at that, than successes. Rwanda, Bosnia, Somalia and Kosovo are, without doubt, conflicts that will stand out as a testament to the United Nations failures in all of conflict prevention, conflict resolution, peacekeeping and peacemaking. The source of the United Nations’ failure, its apparently persistent inability to fulfil its global peace mission, is the subject of much debate and controversy. Conflict management scholars, such as Clapham (1998) Ross (2000), Richmond (2001), Ghebremeskel (2002), to name but a handful, have identified various reason for the said failures, often presenting contrary explanatory arguments. Clapham (1998), for example, maintains failure to be a natural outcome of flawed peacekeeping, conflict resolution and conflict prevention models, while Ross (2000) maintains it to be a consequence of the UN’s lack of serious resolve. Ghebremeskel (2002), on the other hand, argues that failure is a by-product of the United Nations’ failure to appreciate the difference between peacemaking and collective security on the one hand, and its continued determination to adopt international as opposed to regional peacekeeping and conflict management efforts, on the other. The former United Nations Secretary General Boutros Boutros Ghali, publicly acknowledged the United Nations’ failure at maintaining the peace and preventing conflict. As he argued in Agenda for Peace, this was largely because the peacemaking process was perceived of in either/or terms and not as a continuum which embraced all of conflict prevention, conflict resolution, peacekeeping and post conflict restructuring. The validity of the aforementioned, however, cannot be assessed without relating Ghali’s propositions to the dominant UN peacemaking paradigms, followed by an historical analysis of past conflicts. 2 The United Nations’ Conflict and Peacemaking Approach 2.1 The Traditional Approach Clapham (1998), a conflict resolution scholar maintains that the United Nations’ has, since the conclusion of World War II, adopted a single approach to conflict management and peacemaking, failing to redesign that approach in light of both its proven shortcomings and the changed world order. Bertram (1995: p. 338) argues otherwise, insisting that the United Nations has not only reinvented itself multiple times in response to changing world orders but it has adopted numerous peacemaking, conflict prevention and conflict resolution models, allowing the circumstances of each individual conflict to determine the model to be deployed. Without disputing Bertram’s (1995) claim at this point, a review of these models referred to is necessary for determination of their peacemaking, peacekeeping and conflict resolution/prevention efficacy. Novosseloff (2001) and Richmond (2001) similarly argue that the United Nations has three different understandings of conflict and, therefore, three different response models. Within the context of the first, or the pre-conflict stage, identified through a set of warning signs which betray a strong likelihood of conflict outbreak, the United Nations launches diplomatic efforts whose primary purpose is the alleviation of tensions prior to their evolution into conflicts. The conflict prevention model focuses on diplomatic intervention and negotiations whose intent is the arrival at compromises which are acceptable to the parties involved and, accordingly, lead to the prevention of conflict outbreak. Novosseloff (2001) observes that more often than not conflict prevention fails. Diplomatic agreements are rescinded and full-scale conflict breaks out. Stedman (1997: p. 5) concurs, emphasizing that the united Nations’ success rates in conflict prevention is abysmal at best, citing all of Rwanda, Somalia, Bosnia and Sudan, as examples. The primary problem with the United Nations’ approach to conflict prevention is that in the wake of what appears to be the arrival at a successful compromise, culminating in the signing of an agreement, the UN considers the conflict to have been averted and, accordingly, withdraws. It does not as Guehenno (2006) stresses, maintain a strong enough presence in the area in question so as to ensure that the agreement is adhered to and that conflict is, indeed, averted and prevented. The second stage, conflict resolution, or conflict management, refers to United Nations’ intervention for the purpose of conflict cessation (Diehl, Druckman and Wall, 1998: pp. 37-38). The primary purpose of this phase is the rolling back of conflict to the tension stage. This necessitates the arrival at such compromises as would allow for the temporary halting of fighting, enabling representatives of the parties to the conflict to sit down together at a negotiating table and, at the very least, reduce conflicts from intractable to manageable levels. Again, however, and as (Diehl, Druckman and Wall, 1998: pp. 40-42) outliner, success rates tend to be low and cessation of conflict tends towards the temporary. The third stage, that of peacekeeping, unfolds within a war, or full-scale military conflict, theatre and necessitates the United Nations’ deployment of peacekeeping forces, for the purpose of enforcing the cessation of military confrontation. Within the context of this particular conflict stage and its associate responsibilities, the United Nations has deployed variant models, depending on the nature of the conflict in question. In Somalia and Yugoslavia, it opted for peace enforcement as necessitated military intervention but in Rwanda it opted for diplomatic intervention as would create the political conditions which would allow for the successful negotiation of a sustainable peace (Bertram, 1995; pp. 337-338). In theory, at least, the peacekeeping model deployed is determined by the nature of the conflict in question. Not withstanding instances of success, the fact is that the United Nations’ approach to all of conflict prevention, conflict resolution and peacekeeping tends towards the unsuccessful. As a direct result of the stated, numerous proposals for a reformed approach have been suggested, amongst them those outlined by Ghali. 2.2 Ghali’s Proposal As is evident in his Agenda for Peace, Boutros Ghali disputes the logic which informs the traditional approach to all of peacekeeping, conflict prevention and conflict resolution, outlined in the preceding. As Paris (2000; pp. 27-32) notes, Ghali’s primary objection to the United Nations’ traditional approach to the aforementioned security responsibilities is the assumption of a disconnect between conflict prevention, resolution and peacekeeping. Each is perceived of as a separate stage in the security maintenance process whereas, according to Ghali, they are integral parts of a single whole, wherein each stage directly informs and completes the other. This, according to Ghali is nothing other than a piecemeal approach which is bound to fail since to allows for no continuity. Ghali advocates a holistic approach to peacekeeping. This approach does not only embrace all of conflict prevention, conflict resolution and peacekeeping but, more importantly, post-conflict restructuring for the purpose of building the conditions which allow for the sustenance of peace (Smith, 1998; Kak, 2000). As argued in Agenda for Peace, peacemaking must be perceived of as a single continuum, comprised of different stages, all of which complete and compliment one another with it being, therefore, impossible to engage in conflict prevention without embarking on such peacekeeping and peace building efforts as would ensure that conflict prevention is successful and would minimize the potentialities for tension to re-develop into intractable and non-manageable conflicts (Smith, 1998; Kak, 2000). The implication here is that Ghali is at fundamental odds with the traditional approach earlier outlined because of definitional disagreements. Quite simply stated, whereas the earlier discussed defined peacekeeping as a three-stage process, allowing for a disconnect between each of the stages referred to, Ghali defines the process as a single whole, allowing for no separation between the variant stages, maintaining that each plays a fundamental role in the maintenance of peace. A more fundamental difference between the two approaches lies in that the earlier one focused upon the concept of peacekeeping (within the discussed limits) while Ghali’s proposal emphasized peace keeping as an integral componential element of collective security. Within the context of the stated and as outlined by Thakur (1994; 1998) Ghali envisioned a much expanded international peacekeeping and peace building role for the United Nations and contended that it will further have to involve itself in situations of human rights violations as the aforementioned functioned as one of the root causes of conflict, especially if directed against minority groups. Indeed, quite reasonably establishing an inextricable link between the concepts of collective security and conflict prevention, Ghali determined that UN involvement was predicated on collective security objectives (Thakur, 1994; 1998). While conceding to the intrinsic validity of Ghali’s proposal for peacekeeping and collective security approaches and acknowledging their potential for greater success than that discussed at the outset, the fact is that the proposal is inherently unsound consequent to logistical problems; specifically, the resources required versus the resources available. This shall be illustrated in the succeeding discussion, with reference to historical conflicts, ultimately arguing in favour of the regional approach. 3 Discussion: Historical Examples Determination of the validity and viability of either approach as well as the elucidation of their points of similarity and divergence can best be illustrated through reference to conflicts which demanded UN intervention but wherein, even post-intervention, the UN failed to contain the situation. The most notable of these are the Bosnia, Somalia, and Rwanda conflicts. Two of these shall be discussed here, the Bosnian and the Rwandan conflicts. The Bosnia and the Rwanda conflicts were ethnic conflicts which did not just border on ethnic cleansing but spilled over to become full-fledged genocides. The tensions which precede any conflict were evident prior to the outbreak of violence and despite the fact that numerous political observers, international relations scholars and conflict management specialists drew attention to the warning signs, insisting that they were indicative of inevitable violence were the United Nations not to intervene, the UN chose not to at the outset of the Bosnian conflict and not at all in relation to the Rwandan (Jacobsen, 1996: pp. 209-210). The non-intervention decision was largely consequent to both logistical difficulties as in insufficient resources for conflict prevention, resolution or peacekeeping, on the one hand, and the movement away from collective to regional security, on the other (Ghebremeskel, 2002; pp. 9-10). The implication here is that even while conceding, at least in the case of Bosnia, to the imperatives of conflict management if only to negate the threat which such conflicts posed to collective/global security, the United Nations had effectively adopted a position which held that the intervention of Western powers often exacerbated, rather than alleviated tensions and that the maintenance of security, except in few cases, should pass from the international community to the relevant regional ones (Ghebremeskel, 2002; pp. 9-10). In the case of Bosnia, intervention did not occur except when the conflict had reached the third stage outlined in the previous, in which instance, the focus was upon the enforcement of peace, assuming the form of military humanitarian intervention and did not, at least according to both D’Amato (1994) and Lumsden (1997) expand to include the peace-building emphasised by Ghali. Indeed, UN involvement was largely motivated by the locale of the conflict, by the fact that it was unfolding within Europe allowing for the risk of the destabilisation of European security. If UN intervention in Bosnia was retarded, thereby allowing for the evolution of tensions into intractable conflicts an eventually, to genocide, intervention in Rwanda was non-existent insofar as the international community, a embodied by the UN was concerned. Indeed, as Stedman (1997: pp. 24-25) points out, as a direct result of the conflict being in an `unimportant’ country in a largely `unimportant’ region, the UN Security Council, or at least some of its permanent members, as the United States, were completely uninterested in the Rwandan events and, as a matter of fact, did not want to hear about it so that they would not have to later admit not acting despite knowledge of the genocide. The conflict was finally brought to a conclusion, not by the United Nations but through the intervention of neighbouring African nations to whom the events I question represented a direct security threat and functioning as a very real potential destabiliser (Stedman, 1997: pp. 24-26). The implications of the above stated are clear:: the United Nations’ failure is not a consequence of the model it employs for conflict prevention, resolution or peacekeeping but an outcome of inaction of retarded action. Failure is not a consequence of the manner in which it defines conflict or that it does not perceive of the process as a continuum or of peacekeeping ad peace-building as inextricably linked but a consequence of failure to act. 4 Conclusion On the bass of the above stated, two facts become evident. The first is that Ghali adopts a more holistic approach to the discussed process than does the UN per se. The second is that the UN’s failure to prevent or manage conflict, on the one hand, or enforce a permanent or stable peace, on the other, is not an outcome of the identified difference but of a persistent failure to act or act to late. This, however, does not signify the UN’s callousness in the face of human suffering but is symptomatic of the lack of resources available for the stated purposes. In other words, irrespective of the concept of collective security, whose validity is incontrovertible, the UN simply does not have the resources requisite for the effective and efficient intervention in all of the conflicts, or nascent conflicts across the world. Limited resources take one from collective to regional security. Not withstanding the fact that conflicts have the potential to spread ad adversely impact global/collective security, their immediate impact is upon the region in question. Accordingly, it is incumbent that regional actors/organisations/leaders act as the first line of defence. Conflict prevention and diffusion mechanisms have to be established on the regional level, thereby allowing for the often more effective regional intervention to unfold vis-à-vis conflict. This does not mean that the UN will have no role in the stated but only that its role will be limited to the more serious of he conflicts, on the one hand and to the more complex peace building process on the other. It is, thus that this research concludes that despite differences between Ghali’s perception of the ideal response on he one hand and that preferred by the UN on the other, failure is a consequence of limited resources. It is precisely for this reason that it is imperative to move away from collective to regional security as the first line of defence. 5 References Bertram, E. 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(19970 `Breaking the cycle of violence.’ Journal of Peace Research, 34(4). Novosseloff, A. (2001) `Revitalizing the United Nations: Anticipation and prevention as primary goals.’ Strategic Analysis, 25(8). Paris, R (2000) `Broadening the study of peace operations.’ International Studies Review, 2(3), 21-54. Richmond, O P. (2001) `A genealogy of peacemaking: The creation and recreation of order.” Alternatives: Global, Local, Political, 26(3). 26.3. Ross, M.H. (2000) `Creating the Conditions for Peacemaking: Theories of Practice in Ethnic Conflict Resolution.’ Ethnic and Racial Studies, 23(6). Smith, M.J. (1998) `Humanitarian intervention: An overview of ethical issues.’ Ethics and International Affairs Annual Journal of the Carnegie council on Ethics and International Affairs, 12. Stedman, J.S. (1997) `Spoiler problems in peace processes. International Security, 22(2), 1-25. Thakur, R. (1994) `From peacekeeping to peace enforcement: The UN operation in Somalia.’ The Journal of Modern African Studies, 32(3), 387-410. Thakur, R. (1998) `The new age peacekeepers.’ Peace and Conflict: Journal of Peace Psychology, 4(1), 83-85. Read More