“Are peace support operations under the auspices of the United Nations sufficiently accountable?”

Accountability of the UN Peace Support Operations

A Challenge to Eliminate Peacekeepers ' Impunity

Global peace and security are among the United Nations ' core missions "Charter of the UN chap . 1 , art . 1 . At its founding in 1945 , the UN aimed to serve as a global high command to keep the peace in a post-colonial , post-fascist world . The end of the Cold War has made the United Nations an ever more important partner and player in the varied tasks of conflict resolution and conflict avoidance . With the closing of the ideological gap between East

and West many look to the peacekeeping apparatus of the United Nations as the best tool to deal with the lesser crises that emerged after the collapse of the Soviet Union (Morrison Blair 243

Thus , there is a belief that the United Nations has a pre-eminent role to play in global peace and security (Falk 627 ) by means of undertaking measures that fall under the category of preventive diplomacy - peace-keeping , peace-making and peace building (Inoguchi 3 . At the same time there are many critics of the way the UN has managed its security roles in the post-Cold War period . Some see threatening trends in the strengthening of the powers of the UN Security Council since the Gulf War most agree that the Security Council has limits to its effectiveness as a global policeman . Both advocates and critics of the UN peacekeeping policies recognise that to be successful the peace support operations have to be sufficiently accountable - the same way as any use of military forces in democratic nations (Newman 16

The purpose of this study is to explore what channels of accountability of peace support operations under the auspices of the UN exist and how sufficient they are . Toward this end we will scrutinize how accountability is established , who is accountable for a mandate that cannot be carried out because of insufficient personnel , examine the degree of transparency in establishing responsibility of the parties involved , discuss the cases of peacekeepers ' misconduct , and make the conclusion

The Channels of Accountability of Peace Support Operations

Such conceptions as preventive diplomacy , preventive deployment humanitarian assistance , peacekeeping and peace-building make the essence of common vision on global peace missions . This has called forth an international partnership comprising the military , civilian police governments and NGOs , diplomatic services , mass communication media , and other establishments supporting democratisation and advancement processes (Newman 8

At present time decisions on the uses of military forces for peacekeeping operations can be taken in international establishments far from legislative authorities that democratic administrations relied on to ensure accountability . Sometimes the principles of decision-making in such supranational institutions run counter to democratic foundations (Ku Jacobson 24 . In the case of peace support operations carried out under the auspices of the UN the issue of accountability especially bring up when they deal with plenary powers and amenability for decisions on deploying military forces , incurring certain risks choosing mission goals , and carry mandates into effect (Morrison Blair 254 . Here it is of...