Search results

In January 2010, the UN Security Council will decide whether to renew the mandate of the UN Mission in Nepal (UNMIN), established almost three years ago to assist Nepalis in implementing their 2006 peace agreements. Tasked with an arms monitoring & electoral assistance mandate, this "boutique mission" -- with a comparatively small footprint -- features a number of notable innovations in structure & design. It is widely credited with having played an important role in creating conditions for free & fair elections to a Constituent Assembly in April 2008. Since then, the peace process seems to have run aground with the unresolved fate of around 20,000 cantoned Maoist combatants constituting a major stumbling block for progress. The mission, hobbled by an unusually constrained mandate, has little room for maneuver to help revive the peace process, & its presence on the ground is showing diminishing returns. Against this background, the UN faces a dilemma: if it renews the mission's mandate, it risks being criticized for ineffectiveness or being held co- responsible for any further deterioration; if the UN withdraws the mission, it risks being accused of premature exit & failing to bring the peace process to its conclusion. Adapted from the source document.

The UN High-level Panel on Threats, Challenges, & Change issued their report for reform of the collective security system & the UN in December 2004. Impatiently awaited, primarily in anticipation of recommendations for reform of the Security Council, the broad goal of the report was to establish a new vision of collective security for the 21st century, though it simultaneously offers practical recommendations as to how the UN can more effectively & efficiently approach current & future threats ranging from poverty & civil war to terrorism, criminality, & WMD. Initial reactions are hopeful, though the ultimate success of the reforms depends on the degree to which the G-77 are prepared to accept robust measures with certain limits to their sovereignty in the fight against hard threats, if & in what measure the donor nations are prepared to & in the position to offer more resources for the fight against poverty & infections in developing nations, & what attitude the US & President Bush will take toward the UN during his second term. 1 Table, 1 Photograph. L. Reed

Germany's two year period on the UN Security Council began in 2003, after a close vote in 2002 that again refused Germany permanent membership, with high aims for strengthening the conflict prevention & peace consolidation, increasing transparency, & raising the profile of a Common Foreign & Security Policy of the EU within the organization. Simultaneously, Berlin sought to underline Germany's readiness to play a role in peace keeping missions outside Europe. Germany's role in the UN mirrors its development from a defeated nation without influence, legitimacy, & sovereignty to acknowledged supporter of the world organization with an increasing self-assurance in foreign policy. The controversy over the Iraq War, coinciding with German membership, highlighted Germany's emancipation from the US & cost it US support. Though Germany may have lost its bid for a permanent seat, perhaps in part due to its restricted foreign policy orientation & relative inability to practically address collective systemic & security issues beyond an insistence on the rule of international law, Germany remains a primary contributor, & strides have been taken in addressing the institutional & security challenges. L. Reed

Today the relevance, legitimacy and credibility of the United Nations are widely seen as a function of its efforts to end civil wars and prevent the worst mass atrocities. Despite advances in recent years, the un's protection record over the past decade is mixed. Considering the ever-growing global expectations of the un to protect populations from large-scale violence, along with a rise in protection risks, these issues will naturally feature highly on the agenda of António Guterres when he assumes the post of Secretary-General in January 2017. He will need to overcome a number of daunting challenges to ensure the un realizes its protection promise and restores the organization's damaged credibility in this area. To achieve this, he will need to make progress on three fronts in particular: first, fostering a renewed consensus around the Responsibility to Protect norm; second, strengthening the ability of peace operations to implement protection mandates while ensuring that expectations are in line with what blue helmets can deliver; and third, improving the un's response to severe human rights violations in non-mission settings.

In early 2004, the outbreak of political violence in Haiti and President Aristide's departure into exile provoked first a US and French military intervention to stabilize the security situation, and then deployment of a UN peacekeeping force. This article will first offer a historical narrative, placing the UN's recent intervention in the larger context of the intense international involvement in Haiti's affairs throughout the 1990s, including sanctions, UN-authorized use of force, a peacekeeping operation and years of peacebuilding efforts, all ending in failure. After identifying some of the policy lessons derived from the saga, the article then looks at the challenges ahead in relation to recent UN policy initiatives and reforms, notably on peacebuilding. It attempts to assess whether prospects for sustainable state-building in Haiti are consequently better than they were in 1994.