Long term

• The UN from 1990 onwards...


  Cold war ended in 1991 and UN work continued to grow.

  3 Key developments

  1. Increase in peacekeeping missions
  2. 1992: Boutros-Ghali produced an 'agenda for peace'
  3. 2005: World summit approves the 'Responsibility to protect' policies (for internal conflicts + civil wars)
• Increase in (successful) missions

  • No cold war tensions = less use of VETO

  1989-2011: 48 peacekeeping missions, compared to only 18 from 1946-89
• Peace making

  Bringing fighting parties to an agreement through peaceful means - diplomacy, negotiation, compromise

  Peace enforcement

  More heavily armed forces are involved as not all the fighting parties have given their assent; UN forces became involved in fighting to impose Security Council resolutions.

  Peace keeping

  Monitoring a truce 'on the ground' so that peace can be implemented. Light military presence is required to protect everyone involved
• Humanitarian intervention

  Tackling issues affecting human welfare (for example famine or disease) and abuses of human rights (for example persecution, violence, torture, rape or imprisonment without trial)

  Peace building

  Also called 'nation building'

  Preventing further violence by developing political systems and government institutions; encouraging co-operation and building trust; addressing social and economic injustice
• Responsibility to protect

  • UN believed conflicts arose from social + economic inequality and a lack of respect for human rights.
  • 2 genocides in 1990s: Bosnia + Rwanda, highlighted UN's failure to protect ethnic communities
• Secretary General, Kofi Annon challenged the country's right to sovereignty if it ignored human rights abuses - speech in 1998 followed by Millennium report in 2000

  2005 UN World Summit - 'Responsibility to Protect' principles

  1. Nations are responsible for protecting all their people from genocide/ethnic cleansing/war crimes
  2. International community must support/encourage each other to ensure these responsibilities are achieved
  3. If a country fails to protect its people, the international community must take action
• Boutros-Ghali's: 'An Agenda for Peace'

  • Peace building + Peacekeeping
  • Peacebuilding = dealing with the causes of conflict

  The UN should work to

  1. Disarm fighting factories
  2. Protect human rights
  3. Create and reform political systems and government organisations
  4. Monitor elections
  5. Repatriate refugees
  6. Train security forces

  1992: DPKO set up (Department of Peacekeeping Operations)

  (managed the UN's work in maintaining peace.
• Somalia: 1991-95


  Example of UN being unable to restore long term peace.

  • Stop-gap measures for example the UN missions; UNITAG+ UNOSOM were able to provide some humanitarian relief

  However, focus was not on long-term peace as the UN and USA were threatened by General Aided, who was a warlord against peace enforcement and disarmament.

  The UN failed to establish conditions for long term peace building and left Somalia in the same bad political situation it had intervened with.