UN Police and International Peacekeeping: A Strategic Assessment

Introduction: The Origins and Evolution of UN Civilian Police

The first United Nations peacekeeping mission was dispatched to the Middle East in 1948. Its mission was to bring about "a cessation of the hostilities in Palestine without prejudice to the rights, claims and position of either Arabs or Jews." The role of the military peacekeeping forces was not to engage in military action or to choose one side over the other, but by their presence to represent the member nation-states of the United Nations in its role as a negotiator — first, of a ceasefire, and subsequently, to engage the warring Arabs and Jews in non-violent conflict resolution. Non-violent conflict resolution has been the weighty undertaking of the United Nations in its role as a facilitator of peace ever since.

Towards this endeavour, the face of peacekeeping mission forces has changed. Beginning in 1960, with the deployment of forces through the UN Operation in the Congo (ONUC), the added component of a Police Adviser to the Department of Peacekeeping Operations reflected a mindset of "sustainable peace through security and justice." The first goal of the Congo mission's civilian police (CivPol) was to oversee the withdrawal of Belgian forces from the Congo and to work to ensure and maintain an internal governmental infrastructure through law and order. Providing technical assistance to the area's government and serving as a representative presence of legal authority, the ONUC was charged with the expanded responsibility of maintaining the territorial integrity and political independence of the Congo.

Since its first operation in the Congo and up to 1999, the UN police were deployed on a total of six policing missions. With a force today of 11,500 men and women, the civilian police component of the peacekeeping mission has grown in numbers and scope, largely as a result of the 2000 special panel report to the UN Security Council, commonly known as the Brahimi Report.

In 2000, the Brahimi Report — recognizing the integral role of a civilian police component as a continuation of the justice system in areas impacted by civil or transnational war — made recommendations to the UN Secretary-General calling for the expansion of the UN Police by creating a Police Division, and creating within that division a strong, capable, and responsive leadership as a first point of contact for gathering data and information to be used in making peacekeeping deployment decisions.

While the evolution of the UN Police Division has come about with perhaps less urgency than recommended in the report, the Division has nonetheless come to reflect one of the most important and noticeable changes in the UN's approach to its peacekeeping mandate since the creation of the UN itself. This change is indicative of the shifting nature of conflict as it exists today, in the 21st century. The following is a strategic assessment of contemporary conflict and the role of the UN Police Division in mitigating conflict, ensuring the creation or continuation of a system of justice in conflict zones, and maintaining vital infrastructures conducive to social order during episodes of upheaval.

Conflict in the 21st century is very different from that of the mid-20th century. Mary Kaldor (2006) cites Clausewitz as saying that "war is a social activity." Old wars, ending with World War II, had rules of engagement — conventions that warring countries were held accountable to, even if that accountability came after the fact. After WWII, trials were held to examine the extent to which crimes against humanity had been committed and to assign fault and penalty for those crimes. This marked a new facet of post-war assessment in the pursuit of justice, perhaps because WWII was the first war in the era of modern humanity where incomprehensible crimes against civilians were committed on a deliberate and massive scale.

War, as Kaldor points out, from the perspective of military strategists and politicians — and in its execution as one nation-state's military power pitted against another — remained much the same. However, WWII's crimes against humanity marked the inextricable merger of war theory and execution with the pursuit of justice. This was very different from the reparations assessed against Germany following WWI. Now war was being examined for criminal acts arising from hate and prejudice targeting civilian non-combatants. Wars in the past, especially those fought in pre-modern times, often involved civilian casualties, but the deliberate destruction of civilian non-combatants was not on the agenda of political and military strategists as it was during WWII. This type of war, targeting civilians, defied Clausewitz's description of war as "an act of violence intended to compel our opponent to fulfil our will."

Understanding Contemporary Conflict

Since WWII, the Allied nations led the world towards conflict resolution, wisely understanding that such resolution could only be achieved in an environment of ceasefire — halting hostilities and bringing parties to the negotiating table where they could defend their interests. Bringing in teams of qualified mediators and negotiators was seen as the only way to move humanity away from war and away from civilian and economic devastation.

Unfortunately, negotiated ceasefires between nation-states, and civil wars too, have been violated by the interested parties or by outside parties pursuing goals of self-interest. Agitators not involved in ceasefire or peace negotiations often attempt to sabotage these processes. Other parties take advantage of fragile ceasefire conditions, illegally pursuing opportunities of self-interest, including illegal weapons sales to guerrilla organizations.

The need to contain and mitigate interference during ceasefires and peace negotiations has evolved UN peacekeeping personnel to include police advisers and civilian police forces whose role is to train civilian police in investigation, security sector enforcement, disarmament of non-military and non-police persons, demining, and demobilization and reintegration processes.

From the earliest UN peacekeeping deployments, the mandate of those forces has been to prevent violence, to promote peace, and not to be a party to the violence underway. This has, in part, left peacekeeping forces unprepared for the violent situations into which they were inserted — most often post-outbreak rather than pre-emptively. With their defensive abilities limited by their deployment mandates, UN peacekeeping forces have too often found themselves in the midst of violence being perpetrated against them and against civilians, with disastrous outcomes.

About this, the special panel convened by the Security Council commented:

"The Panel concurs that consent of local parties, impartiality and the use of force only in self-defence should remain the bedrock principles of peacekeeping. Experience shows, however, that in the context of intra-State/transnational conflicts, consent may be manipulated in many ways. Impartiality for United Nations operations must therefore mean adherence to the principles of the Charter: where one party to a peace agreement clearly and incontrovertibly violates its terms, continued equal treatment of all parties by the United Nations can in the best case result in ineffectiveness and in the worst case may amount to complicity with evil. No failure did more to damage the standing and credibility of United Nations peacekeeping in the 1990s than its reluctance to distinguish victim from aggressor."

This is a succinct observation and admonishment from the panel: United Nations peacekeeping forces are, in effect, constrained from making choices that might lead them to protect themselves and civilian non-combatants. One case in point is the genocide of Tutsi Rwandans by Hutu Rwandans during the Clinton administration. During that event, as many as one million people died, and thousands more were left homeless and forced into refugee camps. The UN peacekeeping forces — particularly those representing the United States — were prohibited from using force to protect civilians who were being brutally murdered without regard to gender or age.

Allan Thompson (2007), in his book The Media and the Rwanda Genocide, wrote:

"Anyone who tried to represent a government that was presiding over genocide — in fact was perpetrating it — should have been refused a place anywhere in the civilized world. Instead there was silence. For three months the British and U.S. administrations played down the crisis and tried to impede effective intervention by UN forces. There was even a reluctance to take the slightest action, such as jamming the hate radio, which could have saved lives. The lack of action over Rwanda should be the defining scandal of the presidency of Bill Clinton. Yet in the slew of articles on the Clinton years that followed his departure from power, there was barely a mention of the genocide."

The UN, pressured by the British and the United States and others, refused to use the word "genocide" during the event, or afterward when it issued its official statement of condemnation. Since that time, Bill Clinton has acknowledged that Rwanda is one of his deepest presidential regrets, stating that he lacked the information to "fully grasp what was going on in Rwanda." Reports filed via the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) indicated only a "probability" of certain individuals and groups being responsible for certain actions. Neither the UN, the UK, the United States, nor other member nation-states can react to probabilities — information must be factual before action can be authorized. In hindsight, and fully informed of the events, it is reasonable that the former president would regard Rwanda as one of his greatest regrets.

Had a fully empowered CivPol component been present in Rwanda in 1994, its investigative responsibilities under the expanded mission framework recommended by the Brahimi Report might have improved the quality of information reaching the Clinton administration about what was actually occurring on the ground. Few spectators who read after-the-fact reports on events of this nature, and who criticize the inaction of UN peacekeeping troops, fully appreciate that if UN forces engage with either side in a civil or transnational conflict, that engagement is construed as taking sides — thereby negating the UN's strategically powerful position as a negotiator of ceasefires and peace talks. Rwanda, and events like it, ultimately led the UN Secretary-General — with member-nation support — to commission the Brahimi panel.

Most Rwandan refugees were women with young children, though many women and children were also unable to escape. The violence that began in April 1994 was not an event that the United Nations peacekeeping forces in that country were properly prepared to respond to. As a result, the UN's failure to take action against the Hutu insurgents — either in self-protection or in protection of Rwandan civilians — led the public, especially in the UK and America, to perceive the UN as having been complicit in evil. Out of this and similar failures, the special panel recommended:

"United Nations peacekeepers — troops or police — who witness violence against civilians should be presumed to be authorized to stop it, within their means, in support of basic United Nations principles. However, operations given a broad and explicit mandate for civilian protection must be given the specific resources they need to carry out that mandate."

The contemporary face of war is not limited to civil war alone; it is a transnational phenomenon as well. While WWI and WWII were modern transnational wars, WWII marked a decisive change in post-war assessment. Since that time, transnational wars have included the American-Vietnam Conflict, the Soviet-Afghanistan War, the Iran-Iraq War, the 1990–1991 Gulf War under President George H.W. Bush, and the 2003 Gulf War under President George W. Bush. The American-Vietnam Conflict and the Soviet-Afghanistan War are notable as post-WWII events conducted under the watchful eye of the world's media.

The American-Vietnam War was served with nightly dinner in American homes. Americans saw firsthand — via live televised footage — the devastation, destruction, and brutal loss of life that manifested not just in individual family grief but in national mourning. No matter how optimistically the American government or military portrayed the nation's technological advantage, Americans could see that young soldiers were dying every day and that the Vietnamese people were victims too. The Vietnamese non-combatants seen on the nightly news were mostly farmers — simple people living in thatched-roofed villages, subsistent in their ways and traditions. Americans began to view them as people whose lives would not be improved by an American victory, nor greatly changed by an American loss. The coverage of live war shocked American audiences. Images of American soldiers and dead Vietnamese civilians — especially women and children — gave rise to growing anti-war sentiment and distrust of government. American college students became active in protests, some of which turned violent.

Kent State is one such example, where four young students were killed by National Guard troops called in to maintain order during protests. The pressure brought to bear by young Americans was in large part responsible for bringing about an end to the Vietnam Conflict.

While the Soviet-Afghanistan War was less prominent in American consciousness, coverage accurately portrayed the Soviet military as a superpower unable to contend with indigenous forces that — like the Vietnamese against the Americans — used their intimate knowledge of their terrain and guerrilla warfare tactics to defeat a more technologically advanced opponent.

It was, however, the 2003 Gulf War invasion of Iraq that reached an unprecedented height of media war coverage when the George W. Bush administration allowed journalists to be "embedded" with troops during the invasion. Recognizing the dramatic change in how war was being portrayed — and that mass media was being transformed from a reporting instrument into a political tool — Anthony Dimaggio (2008), in Mass Media, Mass Propaganda: Examining American News in the War on Terror, wrote:

"To the approval of the Pentagon and the Bush administration, embedding became the preferred method of reporting for establishment journalists in Iraq. Jim Wilkinson, Director of Strategic Communications at U.S. Central Command, conveys the psyche of most mainstream American reporters well, stating: 'There are two types of reporters in the world today: those who are embedded and those who wish they were embedded.'"

The impact of media on warfare, international diplomacy, and foreign policy has been dubbed the CNN Effect. Livingston (1997) observed:

"In recent years, observers of international affairs have raised concerns that media have expanded their ability to affect the conduct of U.S. diplomacy and foreign policy. Dubbed the 'CNN Effect' (or CNN Curve or CNN Factor), the impact of these new global, real-time media is typically regarded as substantial, if not profound."

Livingston's assessment does not fully account for the evolution of war coverage beginning with the Vietnam Conflict, but what he does clarify is that public understanding of conflict is increasingly shaped by television media portrayals, and that the importance assigned to a given conflict in the public mind is proportional to the extent of media coverage devoted to it.

Returning to Dimaggio's point about embedded reporters — that there are those who are embedded and those who wish they were — suggests that some journalists had motivations beyond straightforward reporting. Danny Schechter (2003) alleges that embedded coverage of the second Gulf War was intentionally shaped to appease the Bush administration, reflecting a merger between the Pentagon and the media to produce a spectacle the American people wanted to see. However, Schechter does not go far enough in his assessment, failing to recognize that many journalists may also have been motivated by personal ambition — the embedded perspective of rolling into Baghdad with troops represented, for some, a potential book deal or even journalism's highest honour, the Pulitzer Prize.

Livingston takes a less accusatory tone and makes the more succinct point that media can make a world event — diplomatic or military — a crisis or a non-crisis in the minds of the global public. Rwanda is again a prime example: the genocide was a far bigger media event after the fact than the series of events leading up to it, and the underlying trouble in Rwanda was largely unknown to American audiences prior to the mass killings.

The other face of contemporary war is terrorism — a more elusive, shadow form of warfare, because terrorists claim no country. Motivated by ideological beliefs that today often carry a religious foundation, terrorism has created a billion-dollar industry in illegal arms trading. Terrorists are not conventional armies; they can expand their numbers without formal field exercises or training, communicating and organizing through modern technology — email, cell phones, and multilingual mass media websites. Terrorists do not represent any one nation and cannot be invited to peace conferences to negotiate their interests. Most members of their high commands appear on INTERPOL's most-wanted lists for masterminding attacks against non-combatants — as is the case with Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, whose 11 September 2001 attack on the United States led to the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq.

In February 2002, Wall Street Journal journalist Daniel Pearl — seeking an insider perspective on both sides of the post-9/11 world — used contacts in Pakistan to arrange a meeting with Al Qaeda operatives. Pearl was kidnapped, held hostage, and executed. His execution was videotaped and made public by the terrorists, sending a clear message that the media held no influence over them and that their only statements appeared on those execution tapes.

These are the players in contemporary war: traditional military forces, the governments behind them, the UN as the forum through which member states coordinate world-peace policy, arms dealers, terrorists, the mass media, and a global public whose opinion — regardless of how it is shaped — brings pressure to bear on world leaders. It is this array of contemporary players that has caused the UN to recognize the need to reinvent itself and its approach to promoting and maintaining world peace, and that demanded the creation of a larger UN Police component with a revised mission mandate that includes defensive capabilities.

Conclusion: The Future of International Policing

The need for all member states to contribute civilian assets to the United Nations civilian police forces — and for those forces to be prepared for rapid deployment — is a recommendation of the utmost urgency. A diverse and gender-balanced civilian police force exemplifies the UN's respect for the traditions and customs of the areas in which they are deployed, while simultaneously representing the presence of a functioning system of justice. The presence of civilian police officers whose role is to train and educate indigenous personnel in the pursuit of justice is less intimidating to conflicting parties than a military peacekeeping presence. It minimizes the internal fear of country takeover by outside military powers by empowering in-country forces to act in the best interests of the nation's citizens.

Expanding the number of civilian police personnel for this training mission is not an undertaking to be taken lightly. The Brahimi Report urges the United Nations Security Council to redirect necessary financial resources towards building a strong, capable, and effective civilian police component for rapid deployments. To accomplish this, the report emphasizes the need for Integrated Mission Task Forces (IMTFs) to be a standard vehicle for mission planning. IMTFs, as a first point of contact, can begin providing the necessary investigative information that supports the UN in its mandate. Information arising from IMTF work in-country was identified by the report as sorely lacking in previous failed missions; the report suggests that the role of civilian police in gathering and bringing back firsthand information on in-country conditions is essential to the Security Council's decision-making processes and its ability to prevent violence.

The special panel acknowledges that what they are recommending is a drastic change in the UN's approach to its peacekeeping mandate. The emphasis placed on civilian police forces to build in-country stability represents a pre-emptive approach, as opposed to the long-standing post-violence presence. The expanded civilian police unit is not merely a reallocation of financial resources but also a realignment of responsibility and power. The report recommends that the Security Council place its confidence in a new leadership structure to head the civilian police component and empower that leadership to carry out its mission in support of the overall peacekeeping mandate. The panel acknowledges this as a complete change in how the UN goes about its peacekeeping work, but considers it consistent with the mandate and a more comprehensive approach to accomplishing it. The report also makes a prudent assessment of the current civilian police component's weaknesses, citing high turnover as a major impairment and outlining concrete steps to address it.

The post-WWI environment of Cold War and then the collapse of Soviet communism represent a case of one set of dangers giving rise to others from its ashes: cultural hate and division in former Eastern Bloc countries, and the illicit sale of Russian military arms and, more seriously, nuclear materials. At the same time, looking around the world today, one sees limitless acts of humanity being carried out in the form of relief to Haiti, Doctors Without Borders, and other charitable and philanthropic endeavours to relieve human suffering. The elements of cultural and ethnic hatred, illicit arms trading, and the extreme opposites of humanitarianism stand in deep tension with one another — as contentious in their opposition as the warring factions the UN is called upon to mediate.

So long as illicit arms trading continues to fuel turmoil and upheaval in vulnerable regions — unravelling the bonds of humanitarian efforts — there is a need for UN police to monitor, protect, and defend otherwise defenceless civilian populations. But the UN police can only operate to the extent that their mandate allows, and that mandate, though revised, has been slow to materialize fully. It will require the ongoing interaction of UN police with civilian populations, criminal elements, and armed insurgents and terrorists. The public sector that promotes and delivers humanitarian services and aid must be prepared to face the reality of a dangerous world and to support the UN police in doing their jobs. As front-line deliverers of humanitarian services, humanitarians must take a role in educating the public about the need to protect and defend the people they serve — even if that means UN police engaging in conflict in the course of their duties. There are times when it is necessary to confront violence in order to bring about its end.

International policing in the 21st century is an essential part of the peacemaking and peacekeeping processes. The role of the civilian police in performing investigations, mitigating outside influences that might interrupt ceasefires and negotiations, and maintaining the presence of law enforcement serves as a deterrent to organized criminal activity and insurgency, while lending itself to the protection of civilian populations — as cited in the Brahimi Report to the United Nations Security Council in 2000. The Report recommends strongly that the UN increase and expand the role of UN police by funding them adequately and providing the tools and resources they need to be effective in their deployments. While this paper has focused in detail on the failures of UN peacekeeping missions, it has also emphasized the successes; and in order to turn future failures into successes, the UN must move rapidly to reach the full breadth of the recommendations made in the Brahimi Report.

While there remains much strife in the world — especially in the Middle East, where the threat of nuclear proliferation looms, and in the dark underground world of terrorism — there is also the integrity, humanity, and dedication of people from member nation-states around the globe who are equally determined to bring about peace. The UN must work actively to recruit those people and put them to work on behalf of the world community as UN police officers.