International Security: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions) by Christopher S. Browning Read Free Book Online Page B

is that peacekeeping mandates are founded on three core principles. First, peacekeeping missions are dependent upon preserving the consent of the relevant parties for their continued presence. If consent is withdrawn peacekeepers are required to leave. Second, to preserve consent UN peacekeepers must therefore remain impartial and neutral with respect to all parties. Third, this means that in peacekeeping missions the UN refrains from directly intervening in conflicts by enforcing agreements as this could be construed as breaching impartiality. For critics, peacekeeping missions can therefore result in morally uncomfortable outcomes, while in other cases they may only serve to freeze, rather than resolve, conflicts. The ongoing UN mission to supervise ceasefire lines and maintain a buffer zone between Turkish Cypriot and Greek Cypriot communities in Cyprus, which was originally deployed in 1964, is one example ( Figure 3 ). As of June 2012 there were a total of 118,100 personnel deployed on 16 ongoing UN peacekeeping operations.
    In contrast, peace enforcement entails the UN undertaking actions to force an end to a conflict by imposing the will of the UNSC in situations where it has identified a threat to or a breach of the peace, or an act of aggression. Enforcement, however, can take several forms. At its weakest it may entail the condemnation of one or more sides to a conflict in the hope of shaming them into compliance. More significant are the imposition of sanctions, typically targeted at a belligerent’s economy. Economic sanctions, however, are controversial since they often impact most on the poorest and most vulnerable and therefore raise both questions of utility and morality. For example, economic sanctions imposed on Iraq throughout the 1990s are widely believed to have contributed to hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths, without having a discernible impact on the specified goal of ending Iraq’s programme of developing weapons of mass destruction. Consequently sanctions have become increasingly targeted, often focusing on individual officials through the freezing of bank accounts and imposing travel restrictions.

3. The UN at the border in Cyprus
    Most significant, however, is the use of military force to enforce UNSC resolutions. Since the end of the Cold War the UNSC has, among others, authorized the use of military force in Bosnia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Haiti, Iraq, Rwanda, Libya,and Mali. Such operations have coincided with the UNSC’s greater willingness to broaden its understanding of what constitutes a threat to international peace and security. Instead of emphasizing inter-state conflicts the UN increasingly feels compelled to respond to the challenges posed by failed states and the outbreak of various intra-state conflicts that have afflicted various parts of the world since the early 1990s. As highlighted in Chapter 5 , such conflicts frequently involve diverse groups of participants, some of whom may have little desire to end the violence and who are therefore unlikely to be interested in providing consent for the presence of UN peacekeepers. However, irrespective of their specific nature, in general it is because such conflicts have the potential to spill across borders (rather than their humanitarian costs, for example) that has put them on the UNSC’s agenda as representing possible threats to international peace and security requiring action.
    Several things are worth noting about peace enforcement missions. First, since peace enforcement entails taking sides through identifying an aggressor and guilty party, it not only challenges the UN’s traditional emphasis on impartiality, but is potentially more divisive. Unlike peacekeeping operations, which are generally uncontroversial given their foundation on gaining the respective parties’ consent, peace enforcement operations can easily raise political sensitivities within the UNSC over when the UN should be prepared to use