Search

Status agreements for EU crisis management operations and missions represent a necessary legal aspect of their consensual conduct and completion. The adopted Status of Forces (SOFA) and Status of Mission (SOMA) Model Agreements for military and civilian deployments respectively have been implemented regularly in Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) undertakings for the presence and transit of EU-led multinational contingents and assets on land or at sea. Variations and repetition in the application of the ready standard frameworks dominate the spectrum of evolved practice, but casual and adaptive solutions have also indicated the occasional need for specific modalities of status arrangements for CSDP operations and missions. These include the extension of existing SOFA arrangements of an EU member, a UN peacekeeping mission or North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) to an EU-led successive, supplementary or reinforcing multinational engagement in the same theatre of operation. With respect to non-standard arrangements for certain civilian CSDP crisis management deployments, their status came to be defined as activities of diplomatic missions due to the particular nature and context of EU undertakings in Bosnia, in Congo or in Kosovo. The available blueprints and tested modalities of status arrangements offer a comprehensive set of examples for the choice of adequate solutions for any future CSDP operation or mission. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the history of the emergence of modern states in Europe demonstrates, such conflicts form an integral part of the state-making enterprise during early stages of state making when the boundaries of states as well as the legitimacy of regimes are highly contested. Moreover, state elites in the Global South did not have the luxury of several centuries that it took their European counterparts to consolidate state power and augment regime legitimacy. In the post-Cold War era, UN Security Council actions continue to be largely driven by great-power interests and not necessarily by ground realities in the countries of the Global South or by concerns for justice. R2P has succeeded in providing the illusion that there is an emerging norm in international society that poses a substantial challenge to the established norm of state sovereignty and its corollaries; namely, the sanctity of domestic jurisdiction and the principle of nonintervention in the affairs of other states. [Extracted from the article]

We are pleased to introduce this special issue of I Global Governance i on the occasion of the 75th anniversary of the founding of the United Nations. Graph: Figure 1First Session of United Nations General Assembly on January 10, 1946 at Central Hall in London, United Kingdom UN Photo/Marcel Bolomey Graph: Figure 2Opening Ceremony of Fifteenth Session of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues on June 9, 2016 in General Assembly Hall, in New York UN Photo/Rick Bajornas The UN has shown itself to be surprisingly capable and flexible in many areas. At the time of this writing the United States, once the (ambiguous[23]) champion of the UN project,[24] has withdrawn from the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization and the Human Rights Council, cut all funding for the UN Relief and Works Agency, and announced its intention to terminate its relationship with the World Health Organization, while the United Kingdom is busy withdrawing from the European Union. The UN's iniquitous silence and lack of appropriate action in Bosnia and Rwanda in the 1990s and its inability to prevent the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 stand as particular failures, while its paralysis in Syria, Yemen, and Myanmar today demonstrates that when confronted with the intransigence of the most powerful countries in the world, the UN is ill-equipped to address human rights and humanitarian conflagrations. [Extracted from the article]

Most analyses of legitimacy and legitimation in international organizations (IOs) focus on the perceptions of external audiences. In so doing, they fail to consider self-legitimation, where an IO undertakes legitimation internally, as a way of developing and reinforcing its identity. Moreover, most studies of IO legitimacy neglect the fact that IO identities are rarely uniform and instead are multiple and conflicting. I address these omissions by examining self-legitimation in three IOs—the United Nations (UN), the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and the World Bank. These organizations are both operational and normative actors, and both institutions dependent on member states and autonomous bodies with independent expertise and capacities. These identities sometimes dictate contradictory goals and practices, forcing the organizations to violate the principles and activities considered appropriate to one of their identities, thus complicating legitimation. Based on extensive fieldwork and drawing on a range of disciplines, this article proposes a novel theory of IO self-legitimation: I argue that the need for self-legitimation depends on the degree of identity cohesion and identity hierarchy of the organization. I identify two temporal dimensions of self-legitimation, three categories of self-legitimation practices, and three broader repercussions of self-legitimation, ultimately showing that self-legitimation is a necessary and constitutive activity for IOs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent research has begun to examine patterns of sexual exploitation and abuse (SEA) perpetrated by peacekeepers deployed in United Nations (UN) peacekeeping operations (PKOs). Yet, SEA makes up only a fraction of credible allegations of misconduct by peacekeepers. In this article we explore the contours of misconduct in UN PKOs beyond SEA allegations. We argue that the behavior of military forces in their own countries should easily predict their behavior when deployed as part of UN PKOs, which are typically set in fragile, postconflict countries where civilians have minimal protections or legal recourse. Using an original dataset of misconduct in PKOs from 2009 to 2016, we find the behavior of PKO contributor states toward their own populations strongly and consistently predicts the behavior of these states' military forces in UN PKOs. These findings have implications for the vetting, supervision, and composition of PKOs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Peace operations of the United Nations (UN) have changed significantly since the 1990s. The turn towards "stabilisation" operations increasingly allows the use of military force against armed groups. For some troop contributing armies, this means that peacekeeping has become the first occasion on which soldiers gain combat experience. Yet, what are the consequences of this development for eventual internal public security roles of armed forces? Contributing to discussions on conditions for organisational change, this article develops a model for blending the analysis of bottom-up adaptation and top-down military innovation with studies on civil-military relations. This model is used for examining military learning that resulted from the reciprocal relationship between the Brazilian military's internal "Guaranteeing Law and Order" (GLO) operations and coercive operations against urban crime groups during the UN Stabilisation Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH). The article finds that a complex interplay between bottom-up adaptation and top-down innovation – enabled by politicians who supported the transfer of lessons – led to a process in which internal missions and peacekeeping deployments mutually informed military change. Soldiers' adaptation to coercive operations, changes in the legal framework for internal missions, and the development of appropriate doctrine for urban operations resulted in the institutionalisation of military learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite some harsh criticisms of United Nations (UN) peace operations, research demonstrates that many UN missions are successful, though evaluations depend on how success is defined. Even UN missions that fail in one or more aspects provide a net benefit to peace processes and help to save lives and alleviate human suffering. While an understanding of the flaws and limitations of peace operations can help improve the operations, some unfair criticism must be directly challenged. For instance, contrary to critiques in a recent paper by Séverine Autesserre, the UN has helped end civil wars, and it does not have a fixation on elections nor does it ignore the bottom-up approach. Most UN multidimensional missions pursue multiple levels of engagement, from local to national leaders. Elections are a key way to engage locals. With decades of experience, the UN has many positive lessons to offer in making, keeping, and building peace. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

United Nations peacekeeping operations (UN PKOs) increasingly engage with local communities to support peace processes in war-torn countries. Yet, while existing research tends to focus on the coercive and state-building functions of UN PKOs, their concrete local activities with community leaders and populations remain, empirically and theoretically, understudied. Thus, this study investigates how peacekeepers' community-based intergroup dialogue activities influence communal violence. It argues that facilitating dialogue between different communal identity-based groups locally can revive intergroup coordination and diminish negative biases against other groups, thereby reducing the risk of communal conflict escalation. This argument is tested using a novel data set of intergroup dialogue activities organized by the UN PKO in Côte d'Ivoire across 107 departments from October 2011 to May 2016. Bivariate probit and matching address the nonrandom assignment of these interventions. The analyses provide robust evidence that the UN PKO mitigated communal violence by organizing intergroup dialogues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Uganda has announced the withdrawal of its troops from eastern DR Congo, where they were part of the East African Community force (EACF). The EACF, deployed in late 2022, faced criticism for failing to stop rebel-backed violence. The withdrawal of Ugandan troops follows that of soldiers from South Sudan, Kenya, and Burundi. The regional force was invited to liberate territory under rebel control, but the government deemed them ineffective and will now rely on troops from the Southern African Community (SADC). Additionally, Burundian troops have been accused of committing human rights abuses in eastern DR Congo. A political-military alliance has also been formed between Congolese opposition figures and rebel groups, leading to tensions with the Congolese government and diplomatic consequences with Kenya. Hostilities have resumed between armed groups and the DR Congo army, resulting in casualties. The situation remains volatile, with the threat of armed conflict between DR Congo and Rwanda still high. [Extracted from the article]

The article discusses the ongoing conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), particularly in the eastern region. The M23 rebels, backed by Rwanda, have been engaged in clashes with the national army and have captured several key cities, forcing thousands of people to flee their homes. The UN peacekeeping force, MONUSCO, has announced a joint operation with the Congolese army to protect Goma and other towns from the advancing rebels. Additionally, the ADF militant group has carried out attacks in Ituri province, resulting in civilian casualties and displacement. The article also mentions the deployment of Southern African Development Community (SADC) peacekeeping troops in the east of the country. [Extracted from the article]

A recent series of attacks in the disputed region of Abyei, located on the border between Sudan and South Sudan, has resulted in the deaths of 32 people, including a UN peacekeeper. The attacks were carried out by armed militias and soldiers wearing uniforms of South Sudan's national army. Abyei, known for its oil resources, is claimed by both Sudan and South Sudan. The UN has expressed concern that the fighting between rival forces in Sudan is drawing closer to the border with South Sudan and Abyei, potentially destabilizing the region. South Sudan has called for an urgent investigation into the attacks. The UN Security Council has voted to extend the UN peacekeeping mission in Abyei. [Extracted from the article]

Looks at the state of the peacekeeping missions initiated by the United Nations (UN) as of July 1, 2004. Reaction of the U.S. George W. Bush administration to the UN peacekeeping operations; Role of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in Iraq; Variety of tasks involved in the UN peacekeeping operations.

Unlike many works, the cases are not necessarily tied to a UN peacekeeping operation, but rather speak to peacebuilding in more holistic fashion; this is useful in that it doesn't confound peacekeeping with peacebuilding even as they can be related. Yet it also addresses UN-African Union interactions (see especially the chapter by Arthur Stein and Marie Joelle Zahar that details impediments to cooperation); such partnerships are understudied, but a key feature of contemporary peacebuilding operations. [Extracted from the article]

The article focuses on United Nations peacekeepers which negate the basic principles of peacekeeping, urging peacekeepers to turn to the tactics of counterinsurgency instead. It mentions division of labour between military and peacekeeping forces, which would enable greater effectiveness for both and effort is led by Brazilian military leader Lt. Gen. Carlos Alberto dos Santos Cruz and several of his colleagues. It also mentions economic activity began to pick up with refugees.

The article focuses on changing of United Nations (UN) peacekeeping in the era of U.S. President Donald Trump and nationalism. It mentions retreat from globalism and a reduction in financial contributions to the UN and other international organizations are two reflections of such changes. It also mentions factors suggest that armed conflict will continue to be a threat to international peace and security.

The article focuses on significant implications of United Nations (UN) peacekeeping with increase in the economic and political influence of countries like China and India in the global system. It mentions networked peace operations, several international actors, including the World Bank and other regional development banks, multilateral donors, bilateral powers and donors, and regional organizations each play an important role alongside national and local actors.

The article focuses on purposes of United Nations (UN) peacekeeping that will always reflect international power politics. It mentions end of the Cold War first expanded the limits of UN peacekeeping, leading to new typologies of peace operations that blended and blurred the distinction between warfighting and UN peacekeeping. It also mentions UN peacekeeping in the age of the global war on terror is enabling perpetual war by providing a cover for the French-led counter-terrorist operations.

The article focuses on implications of developments for the functioning of the United Nations (UN) and UN peace operations in particular. It mentions post-Cold War era has been eclipsed by major power rivalry that has at times rendered the Security Council incapable of dealing with severe crises, such as the civil war in Syria. It also mentions China has pushed back on the use of force with regard to humanitarian intervention, responsibility to protect (R2P) and robust peacekeeping.

Peacekeeping mitigates killing, but nonlethal violence also influences both positive peace and stability. We evaluate peacekeepers' effect on one such type of abuse, sexual violence. We posit that peacekeepers raise the cost of abuses and foster institutional and cultural changes that curb violence. We find that missions both reduce the chance of any violence and limit its prevalence; larger deployments and multidimensional missions are more effective. Governments curtail violence more quickly than rebels do in response to military contingents; rebels are especially responsive when missions include large civilian components. These findings contribute to our understanding of peacekeeping in three primary ways: we expand the evaluation of peacekeeping to consider nonlethal violence; we draw attention to mission size, capacity to use force, and civilian-led programming as determinants of effectiveness; and we demonstrate how addressing nonlethal violence requires similar tools as lethal violence but is further enhanced by specific civilian-led initiatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While United Nations (UN) peacekeeping operations (PKOs) are generally considered to reduce the likelihood of civil war recurrence, attention in recent years has shifted to understanding the dynamics unique to post‐Cold War peacekeeping, including the changing makeup and mandate of PKOs, and associated patterns of peacekeeper misconduct. While several studies of misconduct emphasize peacekeepers' implication in sexual exploitation and abuse of host country citizens, this study goes the next step by assessing peacekeeping's relationship to human trafficking more broadly—a perennial concern in post‐conflict states. Though UN PKOs are not always directly responsible for increases in human trafficking in mission host countries, this paper considers how the attributes of UN peacekeeping missions may create the conditions where trafficking is likely to flourish or flounder. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research shows that peacekeepers reduce conflict intensity; however, effects of deployment on nonpolitical violence are unknown. This article focuses on criminal violence and proposes a twofold mechanism to explain why peacekeeping missions, even when effectively reducing conflict, can inadvertently increase criminal violence. First, less conflict opens up economic opportunities (so‐called peacekeeping economies) and provides operational security for organized crime, thus increasing violent competition among criminal groups. Second, demobilized combatants are vulnerable to turn to crime because of limited legal livelihood opportunities and their training in warfare. While UN troops may exacerbate these dynamics, UN police's peculiar role is likely to successfully contain criminal violence. Cross‐national and subnational empirical analyses show that large UN military deployments result in higher homicide rates, whereas UN police, overall, moderate this collateral effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

United Nations peacekeeping soldiers commit atrocities while deployed despite their mandate to protect civilians from harm. Yet, there is tremendous variation across missions in reported human rights abuses. Why are some missions more susceptible to misconduct than others? To answer this puzzle, we identify three broad sources of influence on peacekeeper behavior: institutions, society, and military culture. Using newly collected data, we find that host-country and contributing-country institutions, particularly press freedoms and rule of law, dramatically decrease violations. Compliance with international humanitarian law also decreases violations, though to a lesser degree than institutions. Societal influences, such as gender norms and income inequality, have virtually no impact on abuses. We illustrate the utility of these findings by generating out-of-sample predictions for hypothetical peacekeeping missions in countries with recent political turmoil. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Does the presence of UN peacekeeping force lower civilian fatalities at the local level? If it does, is it because of their coercive military capacity or for other reasons such as their roles in monitoring and reporting violent atrocities? To explore these questions, I study the deployment of peacekeeping units in Darfur and its impact on violence against civilians. Using original geocoded data of UN deployments before and after the intervention, I examine what aspects of such deployments impact one-sided civilian killings by government and rebel groups. Results indicate that deploying UN peacekeepers in an area restrains belligerent from targeting civilians. However, the military capacity of peacekeepers is not a significant predictor of violence against civilians. While their ability to defend themselves is extremely important for peacekeepers, these findings caution against the militarization trend in UN peacekeeping and seek to reshift focus on other substantive aspects of peacekeeping. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Consequentially the concepts of "fragile state", "state collapse" and "failed state" can equivalently be applied to the realm of a municipality, albeit dovetailed to the specifics of such a structure of state machinery. State collapse is the complete failure of a mode of government within a sovereign state and may coincide with economic collapse. Fragile state, state collapse and failed state A fragile state is a developing country characterised by weak state capacity or weak state legitimacy leaving citizens vulnerable to a range of shocks. [Extracted from the article]