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The
Development of the United Nations (III):
The
United Nations After the End of the Cold War
(1989-2004)
The
epochal changes of 1989/90 "pushed the United Nations back into the center
of international political events almost overnight after decades of close to
complete paralysis. The Security
Council ...
achieved
a capacity to exercise rights and make decisions unknown of until that
date" (Gareis/Varwick). The initiative here came from the Soviet Union, as
the following text excerpt from Helmut Volger shows:
"Until
the end of the Eighties. the potential for the United Nations had remained
relatively weak, particularly with regard to peace-keeping and settling
disputes, because the decisive UN organ, the Security Council, had hardly been
able to carry out its work due to poor cooperation between the two superpowers,
the USA and the USSR. Although a limited cooperation resulted during the phase
of policy relaxation following the Cuba Crisis, this was continually disrupted
by other crises.
This
resulted, for instance, in the Security Council not being able to act
effectively during the Afghanistan conflict and the Gulf War between Iraq and
Iran, because both major powers were involved in the conflicts. In Afghanistan,
the USSR was the aggressor and the USA supplied weapons to the Afghanistan
resistance groups, and in the Iraq-Iran war, both superpowers functioned as
weapons' suppliers.
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The
radical change in course in the USSR's policy towards the UN within the
context of Gorbatschow's foreign policy concept, which was answered after
some hesitation by similar political steps by the USA in the United
Nations, first made a fundamental transformation in the work of the United
Nations possible (...). The USSR's new course was expressed mostly deeply
in the speech held by Gorbatschow on 7th December 1998 in front
of the UN General Assembly (...). He spoke in favour of strengthening the
United Nations and highlighted the new challenges and opportunities."
[taken from: Helmut Volger, Zur Geschichte der
Vereinten Nationen; in: Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte 42/1995, Bundeszentrale
für politische Bildung Bonn, P. 9]
After
initial hesitation by the USA under Reagan, lively cooperation resulted,
particularly under his successor George Bush Snr. "The number of
vetoes fell to zero, whereas conversely, an explosion in the consensus for
resolutions and measures passed resulted" (Gareis/Varwick). It was
possible to end the first Gulf War between Iran and Iraq, and the conflict
in Afghanistan.
Peace
missions were sent to both conflict zones, and their number increased
suddenly. The Blue Helmets recovered from being a marginal element in
international politics and rose to become a central instrument. They
received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1988. The conflicts in Angola, Namibia,
Cambodia and Western Sahara could also be settled with success. Great
optimism was abound just like it was during the foundation phase of the
United Nations. Georgia Bush spoke of a "new world order" in
which an important role would be played by the United Nations.
"Iraq's
attack on Kuwait destroyed any hopes of a world devoid of
intergovernmental wars, and the break-up of the states in Africa (Somalia)
and Europe (Yugoslavia) that were so rich in conflict confronted the world
organisation with a completely new set of challenges. The United Nations
also had to increasingly face up to innerstate confrontations. |
A
step-by-step expansion in the powers of the Security Council concerning
processes which would have fallen under the non-involvement rule of the UN
Charter a few years previously was the result, and the prerequisite for creating
a new generation of UN peace missions at the same time. (...). Between 1988 and
1992 ... 14 new missions were set up, more than in all four decades previously
(...). In 1993, six peace missions were added, and despite a periodical factual
moratorium in the mid-90s, the number of UN peace missions increased to a total
of 54 by 2001."
[taken from: Sven Gareis/Johannes
Varwick, Die Vereinten Nationen. Aufgaben, Instrumente und Reformen;
Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung Schriftenreihe Band 403, Bonn 2003,
P. 125]
World
Conferences of the 1990s
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"Whereas
the United Nations was forced to repeatedly suffer defeats in the Seventies
and Eighties in their efforts to sooth the increasing social, economic,
ecological and humanitarian problems in many of their member states due
mainly to the resistance of the industrialised nations to the cost-intensive
multilateral aid programme and the demands to restructure the international
economic system [see previous section], it attempted in the Nineties to find
concepts for solutions to the every-increasingly acute problems by staging
intensively prepared conferences (...) [an overview of important world
conferences is available under the
Main
Subject Group of Globalisation].
Successes
and defeats were recorded at all the conferences as a result. The massive
participation of the NGOs, the strong presence of top politicians from the
member states and the broad echo found amongst the media for the conferences
can be valued as a success. Only partial successes could be recorded for
agreements subject to international law, and as a rule, acquiescence was
made to declarations of intent and action programmes; only two general
conventions concerning the protection of species and climate protection were
passed at the environment conference in Rio, which required contextual
specifications on their effectiveness to be made at further conferences."
[taken from: Helmut Volger, Zur Geschichte der
Vereinten Nationen; in: Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte 42/1995, Bundeszentrale
für politische Bildung Bonn, P. 11]
Despite
the absence of a binding quality to many of the declarations on world
problems, the United Nations has established itself as a forum for dealing
with global problems. In all
global
governance concepts, it
plays a central role, as it did before, as the only global organisation. The
essential problem with policy forums which aspire to approach the
globalisation of problems justly consists of organising governance
effectively and democratically at the same time, beyond the national state.
As before, one of the most urgent problems of political science is to
develop innovative models to this end. |
The Balance in Securing Peace
The
balance in the main tasks of securing peace and international security during
this phase in the development of the United Nations is also mixed. The initial
options referred to above - and above all, the operation in Namibia during the
country's transition to independence - stand in contrast to the serious mistakes
made in Somalia and Bosnia among others, which have damaged the image of the
world organisation lastingly.
As in
the case of the Congo mission in 1960 [see
previous section],
Blue
Helmets were overwhelmed by tasks for which they had not been created, and which
they could therefore not fulfil. "Whereas the classical peace missions ...
were mainly characterised by their function as a buffer between the armed forces
of the conflicting parties, the mandate in the 'second generation' was marked by
a range of tasks that was becoming broader and broader all the time.
Aid for
states in transitional or national election conciliation processes, support for
democratic consolidation processes, disarmament and reintegration processes for
civil war armies, repatriation of refugees and finally the periodical takeover
of quasi-sovereign powers for a whole country belonged to the new tasks of the
peace missions."
[taken from: Sven Gareis/Johannes
Varwick, Die Vereinten Nationen. Aufgaben, Instrumente und Reformen;
Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung Schriftenreihe Band 403, Bonn 2003, P.
127]
Second
generation missions of this nature were not just carried out in Namibia, but
relatively successfully in Nicaragua, El Salvador,
on the border to Iraq following the liberation
of Kuwait which was given a mandate by the Security Council, and in Cambodia,
where a complete transitional administration was set up in the largest and most
expensive mission to-date. What was common about these operations was that they
upheld the tradition of classical peace-keeping, in that they took place after,
and not during warring conflicts, as the following text excerpt highlights:
"The
predevelopment of the peace-keeping doctrine in the 'second generation' was of a
gradual nature to the extent that missions in post-conflict situations mostly
took place in a peaceful environment, built upon previously negotiated peace
agreements or consensus between the conflicting parties. Several of the peace
operations which took place after 1992 came into conflict with the tried and
tested principles of the Blue Helmets (...).
With
UNOSOM II, a mandate for a peace-keeping force according to the stipulations of
Chapter VII of the Charter was linked to the use of military force in Somalia
for the first time since the Congo commitment. However, this first humanitarian
intervention by the United Nations ... failed to achieve its aim of disarming
the battling clans and ensuring continuous humanitarian aid for the population.
The Blue Helmets dispensed with their neutrality following the death of 24
Pakistani soldiers and became a party to the conflict themselves (...). UNOSOM
II failed not least due to this fundamental contradiction: instead of securing
the peace negotiated by the parties, the Blue Helmets were meant to enforce it
and became a party to the conflict making heavy losses.
The
UNPROFOR operations in former Yugoslavia on the other hand, were
characterised by their attempt to practice classical peace-keeping from the very
start. However, the shortcomings of a tried and tested instrument being used in
a context for which it was not designed quickly became obvious. Blue Helmets
were transferred without a reliable agreement between the parties creating a
foundation for this. Due to the creeping expansion of the mandate, the mission
started in Croatia in 1992 extended to Bosnia-Herzegovina from 1993 ... in an
intervention to protect the civil population from massive human rights
violations.
[Boutros Boutros-Ghali,
UN Secretary-General
1991-1996] |
Although
the Secretary-General had severely warned several times against
transferring duties to the peace-keeping troops which were not suitable
for them, the successive extension of the UNPROFOR mandate under the
pressure of events found no equivalent in the military logistics at hand
and the legal and political clarification of the rules of the game for the
operation ... The Blue Helmets were taken hostage in several cases ... and
became caught up between the fronts, where it was frequently unclear as to
whether they were made up of regular forces or so-called warlords (...).
The
failed missions in Somalia and former Yugoslavia symbolised the beginning
of the crisis for UN peace-keeping and the securing of peace by the United
Nations as a whole. The experiences made with what is frequently referred
to as the 'third generation' of peace-keeping, during the course of which
the implementation of the Blue Helmet mandate was extended around the
means of enforcement and military force, proved to be conflicting. The
photographs distributed around the world of dead US soldiers in Somalia,
or the hostage-taking of UN peace-keeping troops in Bosnia-Herzegovina
caused a dramatic reduction in the readiness of many states to place their
soldiers in danger in difficult missions.
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The
taking of the UN protection zone Srebrenica by the Bosnian Serbs in July
1995 (during which at least 7,000 Bosnians who had falsely placed their
trust in the protection of the United Nations were killed) became a symbol
of the failure of the United Nations in real situations of conflict."
[taken from: Sven Gareis/Johannes
Varwick, Die Vereinten Nationen. Aufgaben, Instrumente und Reformen;
Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung Schriftenreihe Band 403, Bonn 2003, P.
128-130]
Despite
the presence of a UN peace mission in Rwanda, over 800,000 people were
murdered before it was possible to agree on military intervention.
"Due to these failures, the UNO was placed in a poor light
particularly in the public sphere, and it appeared much like an
incompetent paper tiger" (Gareis/Varwick). It became clear that the
new generation of peace missions required a completely new concept. Gareis
and Varwick conclude in summary: "Although the balance in UN
peace-keeping did not appear to be just negative, the world organisation
fell into a deep crisis in its original sphere of responsibility during
the course of the 90s."
[taken from: Sven Gareis/Johannes
Varwick, Die Vereinten Nationen. Aufgaben, Instrumente und Reformen;
Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung Schriftenreihe Band 403, Bonn 2003, P.
131] |
Despite
intense attempts at reform and innovative concepts (particularly Boutros-Ghali's "Agenda
for Peace"),
this
crisis finally resulted in the focus of securing peace being moved from the
United Nations and its Security Council to regional alliances and national
groups. This tendency became clear during the Kosovo War and has been amplified
in the USA's "war against terror". The world organisation was not just
placed in jeopardy because of this, but also the fundamental concept of the
joint responsibility of all nations for peace, as the following summary by
Gareis and Varwick emphasises:
"The
claim by the United Nations of forming a global peace security system with
comprehensive responsibility and legitimate claim to international compliance
with the standards and rules established firmly in the Charter was visibly
placed in question. The accusation ... fulminated that the industrial nations
would instrumentalise the United Nations in a selective manner to implement
their own interests. This threatened the United Nations with the marginalisation
of the principal tasks for which it was founded in 1945.
The
anxiety concerning the possible decline of an international organisation is not
linked to this development alone. The fundamental problem concerning the
question of whether world peace and international security is to remain the
responsibility of a collective system for securing peace, or to be transferred
to state level or regional systems of alliance is foremost here (...).
If this
decision actually remains in the hands of the states on an ad-hoc basis, this
will lead to a turning away from the international legal system in the long or
short run which developed whilst suffering many setbacks following the Second
World War, about which a large consensus exists concerning its important between
the states despite the degree of fragility."
[taken from: Sven Gareis/Johannes
Varwick, Die Vereinten Nationen. Aufgaben, Instrumente und Reformen;
Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung Schriftenreihe Band 403, Bonn 2003, P.
132]
[Author: Ragnar Müller]
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