last used to take action against Israel in 1997 – but its primary function was always ‘to make a political point rather than to authorize the kinds of specific actions that the Charter clearly intended to be left to the Council’ (Luck 2006: 70). The General Assembly, through its Fifth Committee, also plays important roles in relation to the financing of peacekeeping operations (see below).
Box 2.1 ‘Uniting for peace’ in the UN General Assembly
If the Security Council, because of the lack of unanimity of the permanent members, fails to exercise its primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security in any case where there appears to be a threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression, the General Assembly shall consider the matter immediately with a view to making appropriate recommendations to Members for collective measures, including in the case of a breach of the peace or acts of aggression the use of armed force when necessary, to maintain or restore international peace and security. If not in session at the time the General Assembly may meet in emergency special session within twenty four hours of the request therefor. Such emergency special session may be called if requested by the Security Council on the vote of any seven members, or by a majority of the Members of the United Nations. (General Assembly Resolution 377 (V, A1), 3 November 1950)
The Security Council’s powers are set out in Chapters V–VIII and XII of the Charter, where it is given primary responsibility for the maintenance of peace and security (see Sievers and Daws 2014; von Einsiedel et al. 2016). Its resolutions are binding on all member states, who are in turn required to assist in their fulfilment should the Council instruct them to do so. The Security Council consists of fifteen member states (expanded in 1965 from the original eleven). There are five permanent members (China, France, the Russian Federation, the UK and the US), and ten members are elected by the General Assembly on a two-year rotational basis. Resolutions (except on procedural matters, where the veto is not applicable) require nine affirmative votes and the concurrence of the permanent members. Although the tendency of the P5 members to use their veto has decreased since the end of the Cold War, it continues. Between 2000 and 2019, forty-seven vetoes were cast in the Security Council (twenty-three by Russia, thirteen by the United States and eleven by China). On occasion, a veto has been used to terminate a peace operation. This happened when China vetoed the extension of UNPREDEP’s mandate in Macedonia in 1999 and when the US vetoed the extension of UNMIBH’s mandate in Bosnia in 2002. Importantly, a veto does not have to be cast to influence the shape of the Council’s activities. As the permanent representative of Jamaica explained, ‘the mere presence of the threat of the veto or its possible use more often than not determined the way the Council conduct[ed] its business’ (cited in Hulton 2004: 239).
In the post-Cold War era, the Council took a more proactive approach to addressing issues of international peace and security and engaging in dialogue with other relevant actors, both within and outside the UN system. Two examples are its increased use of fact-finding missions to parts of the world under discussion within the Council and engaging in substantive and regular dialogue with NGOs about issues of peace and security. The latter development started in 1992 under the so-called Arria formula, when the Venezuelan permanent representative to the UN, Diego Arria, invited fellow members of the Council to meet away from the Council’s chambers with independent experts on the Balkans.
The bureaucratic framework for UN peace operations
Before the creation of the Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO) in February 1992, UN peace operations were assembled and managed on what was effectively an ad hoc basis. We noted above how UNSCOB was established by the General Assembly; so was UNEF I in the Sinai (1956–67). In the latter case, the then Secretary-General, Dag Hammarskjöld, assumed responsibility for organizing the operation, raising the force itself by lobbying potential troop contributors, borrowing the commanding officer from UNTSO, creating its mandate and developing the rules of engagement (Baehr and Gordenker 1994: 78). And so it continued during the Cold War, with every UN peacekeeping operation set up, structured and deployed from scratch.
In 1961, Hammarskjöld created the Office for Special Political Affairs, run by two Under-Secretaries-General. This gave the UN a limited planning and implementation infrastructure for peacekeeping that proved adequate for dealing with the small numbers of operations undertaken during the Cold War. However, the twenty or so full-time staff in the Office for Special Political Affairs were clearly unable to plan and run large numbers of complex operations. In addition, the separation of peacekeeping and related functions across several departments and bureaus (such as the Field Operations Division and the Department of Administration and Management) meant that more than twenty Under-Secretaries-General reported directly to the Secretary-General, often without coordinating their activities with each other (Durch 1994b: 62).
In 1992 the UN Secretariat was restructured and the DPKO was created to alleviate some of these problems. The UN began to develop a greater institutional capacity for peacekeeping by gradually providing the DPKO with sections to deal with planning and support, logistics and procurement and lessons learning, as well as a permanently staffed situation room. Gradually, the Secretariat focused on peace operations became more professionalized and was expanded to include divisions dealing with police and rule of law and security institutions (Benner et al. 2011; Weinlich 2014; Karlsrud 2015b). While there were just fifty staffers in early 1993, by 1997 their number had grown to 450. By 2001, the number was just under 600, and by 2017 DPKO and its partner institution the (now defunct) Department of Field Support had about 920 staff between them (Novosseloff 2018: ch. 2). Despite this expansion, the pressure on the UN’s bureaucrats was huge. By mid-2007, for example, the ratio of DPKO staff to field personnel was an unbearable 1:149 (Barcena 2007: 4). A further restructuring in 2019 led to the DPKO being replaced by the UN’s new Department of Peace Operations (DPO), which has three main offices: the Office of Rule of Law and Security Institutions (OROLSI); the Office of Military Affairs (OMA); and the Policy, Evaluation and Training Division (DPET).
It is this bureaucracy that shepherds the process of assembling UN peacekeeping operations and works with the member states to generate the required capabilities for the mission. Box 2.2 describes how UN peace operations are assembled in theory. In practice, however, the process rarely works smoothly, as discussed in chapter 12. During the twenty-first century, the majority of the UN’s peacekeeping troops and police came from states in South Asia and Africa, with Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Nepal, Ethiopia, Nigeria and Rwanda being particular stalwarts.
Box 2.2 Assembling a United Nations peacekeeping operation
The UN has no army. Each peace operation must be designed to meet the requirements of each new situation; every time the Security Council calls for the creation of a new operation, its components must be assembled ‘from scratch’.
Following a Technical Assessment Mission to the region concerned carried out by a team from the UN Secretariat, the Secretary-General usually presents several options and recommendations to the Council on how the operation should be designed. After considering the Secretary-General’s recommendations, the Council authorizes the mission and determines its capabilities and mandate. Security Council votes are also subsequently required to change the mandate or strength of an existing mission. The mission’s budget is set by the General Assembly’s Fifth Committee.
Once established, the Secretary-General selects a Special Representative to lead the mission and asks member states to contribute troops, police or other civilian personnel. Supplies, equipment, transportation and logistical support must also be secured from member states or procured from private contractors. Civilian support staff include personnel assigned from within the UN system, loaned by member states and individuals recruited internationally or locally to fill specific jobs. Once deployed, the Department of Peace Operations
