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Process and structure
Formation
Once a peace treaty has been negotiated, the parties
involved might ask the United Nations for a peacekeeping
force to oversee various elements of the agreed upon
plan. This is often done because a group controlled by
the United Nations is less likely to follow the
interests of any one party, since it itself is
controlled by many groups, namely the 15-member Security
Council and the intentionally-diverse United Nations
Secretariat.
If the Security Council approves the creation of a
mission, then the Department of Peacekeeping Operations
begins planning for the necessary elements. At this
point, the senior leadership team is selected (see
below). The department will then seek contributions from
member nations. Since the UN has no standing force or
supplies, it must form ad hoc coalitions for every task
undertaken. Doing so results in both the possibility of
failure to form a suitable force, and a general slowdown
in procurement once the operation is in the field. Romeo
Dallaire, force commander in Rwanda during the genocide
there, described the problems this poses by comparison
to more traditional military deployments:
"He told me the UN was a 'pull' system, not a 'push'
system like I had been used to with NATO, because the UN
had absolutely no pool of resources to draw on. You had
to make a request for everything you needed, and then
you had to wait while that request was analyzed...For
instance, soldiers everywhere have to eat and drink. In
a push system, food and water for the number of soldiers
deployed is automatically supplied. In a pull system,
you have to ask for those rations, and no common sense
seems to ever apply." (Shake Hands With the Devil,
Dallaire, pp. 99-100)
While the peacekeeping force is being assembled, a
variety of diplomatic activities are being undertaken by
UN staff. The exact size and strength of the force must
be agreed to by the government of the nation whose
territory the conflict is on. The Rules of Engagement
must be developed and approved by both the parties
involved and the Security Council. These give the
specific mandate and scope of the mission (e.g. when may
the peacekeepers, if armed, use force, and where may
they go within the host nation). Often, it will be
mandated that peacekeepers have host government minders
with them whenever they leave their base. This
complexity has caused problems in the field.
When all agreements are in place, the required personnel
are assembled, and final approval has been given by the
Security Council, the peacekeepers are deployed to the
region in question.
Cost
Peacekeeping costs, especially since the end of the Cold
War, have risen dramatically. In 1993, annual UN
peacekeeping costs had peaked at some $3.6 billion,
reflecting the expense of operations in the former
Yugoslavia and Somalia. By 1998, costs had dropped to
just under $1 billion. With the resurgence of
larger-scale operations, costs for UN peacekeeping rose
to $3 billion in 2001. In 2004, the approved budget was
$2.8 billion, although the total amount was higher than
that. For the fiscal year which ended on June 30, 2006,
UN peacekeeping costs were about US$5.03 billion.
All member states are legally obliged to pay their share
of peacekeeping costs under a complex formula that they
themselves have established. Despite this legal
obligation, member states owed approximately $1.20
billion in current and back peacekeeping dues as of June
2004.
Structure
A United Nations peacekeeping mission has three power
centers. The first is the Special Representative of the
Secretary-General, the official leader of the mission.
This person is responsible for all political and
diplomatic activity, overseeing relations with both the
parties to the peace treaty and the UN member-states in
general. They are often a senior member of the
Secretariat. The second is the Force Commander, who is
responsible for the military forces deployed. They are a
senior officer of their nation's armed services, and are
often from the nation committing the highest number of
troops to the project. Finally, the Chief Administrative
Officer oversees supplies and logistics, and coordinates
the procurement of any supplies needed. |
