In 2010, two Complex Humanitarian Emergencies (CHEs) befell Haiti: a devastating earthquake in January and in October, a cholera outbreak that continues to this day. This essay focuses on the latter ...and examines the paradoxical role of the United Nations Mission for the Stabilization of Haiti (MINUSTAH-now United Nations Mission for Justice Support in Haiti-MINUJUSTH) in this tragedy, particularly, in a chain of events that call into question its peacekeeping mission.
According to Barry Pakes, a Complex Humanitarian Emergency (CHE) is a "type of disaster event that is caused by and results in a complicated set of social, medical and often political circumstances, usually leading to great human suffering and death and requiring external assistance and aid." CHEs are associated with a variety of factors, such as war, poverty, overpopulation, human-caused environmental destruction and change, and natural disasters. The United Nations (UN) considers a CHE to be a crisis involving multiple causes and requiring a broad and integrated response with long-term political and peacekeeping efforts." The 2010 cholera outbreak in Haiti could be considered a CHE, according to this definition.
Brazil's role in UN peacekeeping operations has been subject to increasing attention from academics and policy makers alike. While some authors praise Brazil's engagement in the United Nations ...Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) as a case of innovative South-South cooperation, others accuse Brazil of using Haiti as a 'testing ground' for repressive anti-gang tactics that have subsequently been introduced at home. This article challenges these two dominant views on Brazil's role in Haiti. Based on a period of six months of fieldwork in Port-au-Prince and interviews with key Brazilian actors, the article draws a parallel between MINUSTAH's military raids in gang-ruled neighbourhoods coupled with police reform in Haiti, on one hand, and the Pacifying Police Units (Unidade de Polícia Pacificadora) plus the accompanying UPP Social in Rio de Janeiro, on the other hand. It is argued that Brazil's peacekeeping strategy, at home and abroad, is a mix of coercive and cooperative measures reminiscent of counterinsurgency (COIN) tactics already employed during the French colonial war in Algeria. Moreover, it is shown that policing techniques borrowed from the US are employed to ease the tension between carrots and sticks, notably so in the urban environment in which Brazilian peacekeeping is taking place.
Peacekeeping operations are used by the United Nations (UN) Security Council to maintain international peace and security and have often been mandated to fulfill this goal by promoting liberal ...democracy and human rights in post-conflict transitions. Yet, during the last decade, the Security Council has preferred to authorize ‘stabilization missions’ to support or reestablish state authority during active conflicts. Considering the significant differences between the operational contexts and mandates of stabilization missions during the 2010s and peacekeeping operations in the 1990s and 2000s, questions arise about whether UN stabilization missions produce the same form of international peace and security as earlier peacekeeping missions. This thesis asks, to what extent has a liberal construct of international peace and security been maintained in the UN discourses producing stabilization missions? To answer this question, this thesis utilizes post-structuralist discourse theory to analyze the evolution of ‘liberal’ meanings for international peace and security in UN stabilization discourses and the social conditions in which those meanings have been destabilized and contested over time. It draws on UN documents and interviews with Security Council members and mission officials to explore the construction of stabilization mission discourses for the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Mali, and the Central African Republic (CAR) between 2010 and 2019. In doing so, it finds that a liberal meaning for international peace and security was unstable and subservient to alternative meanings where national ownership, in which host states determined threats and appropriate responses, was the socially binding principle producing international security through stabilization mission discourses.
This article explores Sierra Leone's trajectory from host of the world's largest peace-support operation to post-conflict provider of peacekeepers elsewhere. Building on the authors' previous ...research, it aims to nuance contemporary theoretical discussions of why states contribute peacekeepers, arguing that existing frameworks are unable to fully explain such developments in the Sierra Leonean case. A key reason is that these frameworks principally focus on national-level decision-making, overlooking the influence of foreign governments and external political pressures. Sierra Leone's contribution of peacekeepers became integral to the post-conflict reconstruction of its armed forces, enabled and pushed forward by external partners, most prominently the UK. As such, internal and external factors intertwined to advance this trajectory, from national identity to income generation, international support and domestic crises. Sierra Leone's trajectory grew from unique circumstances - with international partners playing an exceptionally central role in driving the process forward. These factors make Sierra Leone an important case to interrogate, against the backdrop of existing theoretical frameworks that seek to explain why states contribute troops.
This study explores how the duration of missions affects the participation of women in United Nations (UN) peace operations. I argue that women are less likely to be deployed in the early stages of ...missions because new missions are associated with high levels of operational uncertainty, which is ultimately a type of risk. Instead, women's participation will increase over time as the uncertainty decreases and the operating environment becomes more predictable. In an extended analysis, I also explore if the level of gender equality in a troop contributing country affects the decision to deploy women to the early phases of missions. Applying a large-N approach, I study the proportion of women in military contributions to UN peace operations between 2009 and 2015. Using a set of multilevel mixed-effects generalized linear models, the main argument find empirical support. However, when the robustness of the findings is challenged, there is indication that there could be additional factors that affect operational uncertainty and the perceived risk associated with an operating environment. The result of the extended analysis indicate that more gender equal countries are more prone to deploy larger proportions of female military personnel, regardless of when the deployment takes place.
The Bosnian War (1992-1995) was one of the most brutal conflicts in Europe since the end of World War II. Thirty-four cease-fires failed to produce peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina until the late ...American diplomat, Richard Holbrooke, brokered one that set the stage for a series of negotiations-starting in the Balkans and ending in Dayton, Ohio. The Dayton peace process finally terminated the Bosnian War. The interplay of military intervention by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and diplomacy by the United States was remarkable. This article highlights thirteen conflict resolution lessons or "Holbrookeisms" that can be learned from the Dayton peace process. Some aspects of Holbrooke's approach toward the peace process helped him to successfully mediate an end to the Bosnian War, while others contributed toward some of the existing cleavages in today's Bosnian society.
The present study aims to investigate the effectiveness of a training programme targeted at United Nations (UN) staff interpreters who go on field missions. The UN deploys staff interpreters to ...ensure effective multilingual communication in field missions. Whilst being professional interpreters, however, these interpreters do not have any formal training in interpreting in the field, where they sometimes face situations for which they may not be properly equipped. Against this background, a joint training programme was organised by the Faculty of Translation and Interpreting, University of Geneva, and the United Nations Office at Geneva (UNOG) in January 2019. After the course, a mixed-methods study was carried out to evaluate its effectiveness. In this paper, the following aspects will be discussed: the particularities of UN field missions; the functioning and the contents of the programme; and the results of the study. Our findings show that, at the end of the programme, the participants felt better equipped to face the challenges of interpreting in the field. We conclude that training programme design must take into account the specific needs of the participants and the contexts in which they work.
The creation of the Force Intervention Brigade (FIB) as the sharp tactical edge of the United Nations Stabilisation Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO), tasked with the ...neutralising of armed groups, was a watershed moment in the history of modern peace missions. What was more significant was that sub-Saharan national leaders were instrumental in the creation of the FIB (South Africa, Tanzania and Malawi), but lacked the resources to deploy such a force and consequently the brigade was deployed under the banner of the UN. With the legacy of an African Renaissance, and its role in the conception of the FIB, South Africa remains a critical player in international peace and security in sub-Saharan Africa, and therefore holds a key strategic role in achieving the FIB's objectives. This comes at a critical time where blue helmets are increasingly exposed to complex and challenging security contexts. The aim of this work is to provide a conceptual model for South African military future operations and UN offensive peacekeeping operations. In this undertaking, a layer of military and Clausewitzian theory is added to offensive peacekeeping operations. Furthermore, there are sections on operational constructs (capstone and operating concepts), doctrine and structural elements, as well a section on mine action. This book contributes towards an understanding of the nature of modern strategy through the lens of UN offensive peacekeeping operations and provides insights into operational challenges.
This article presents a socio-linguistic analysis of interpreting in conflict zones and paints a picture of the limits on the interpreter's agency when working in the field. It focuses on the ...interpreter's behaviour towards cultural and linguistic barriers in communication between foreign military personnel and the civilian population in Lebanon. The aim is to analyse the level of agency that the interpreter has when working in a military deployment, taking into account the context and the narrative features that require mediation. Data were gathered through interviews with interpreters in Lebanon and analysed by applying narrative theory. Knowing and appreciating both the theoretical context and the linguistic and cultural barriers identified through the analysis are fundamental to understanding the difficult role that the interpreter-mediator plays in conflict settings and to reflecting on interpreter training that is appropriate to this context.
Although the demand for UN peacekeepers shows little sign of abating, a sense of uncertainty and malaise continues to colour discussions about the future of UN peacekeeping. Of the many issues facing ...the UN High-Level Independent Panel on Peace Operations that was set up in 2014, the use of force by UN peacekeepers is likely to attract particular attention. It is also likely to prove divisive, both among member states and within the Secretariat. While steps can be taken to strengthen the capacity of the UN to mount and conduct field operations, Mats Berdal and David H Ucko argue that the way forward does not lie simply in entrusting UN forces with ever-more 'robust' war-fighting mandates. Instead, more systematic attention needs to be given to strategically linking UN peacekeeping activities to political processes aimed at bringing violent conflict to an end. This will require far greater honesty from member states regarding their own responsibility in enabling the UN to do what they ask of it.
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