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Thread: What do you think of UN's role in maintaining peace in 21st century?

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[quote=JCNILE123,263915]As the United Nations practice has evolved over the years, a peace-keeping operation has come to be defined as an operation involving military personnel, but without enforcement powers, undertaken by the United Nations to help maintain or restore international peace and security in areas of conflict. These operations are voluntary and are based on consent and cooperation. While they involve the use of military personnel, they achieve their objectives not by force of arms, thus contrasting them with the Ôenforcement actionÕ of the United Nations under Article 42. 3 
Peace-keeping operations have been most commonly employed to supervise and help maintain ceasefires, to assist in troop withdrawals, and to provide a buffer between opposing forces. However, peace-keeping operations are flexible instruments of policy and have been adopted to a variety of uses, including helping to implement the final settlement of a conflict. 
Peace-keeping operations are never purely military. The have always included civilian personnel to carry out essential political or administrative functions, sometimes on a very large scale, as, for instance, in the Congo operation or in the independence process in Namibia.4 
Initially, questions were raised about the legality of the United NationsÕ use of military personnel in a manner not specifically provided for in the charter. In recent years, however, something close to consensus has developed that these operations can be considered as having a basis, apart from the principle of consent, in the broad powers conferred by the charter upon the United Nations and especially the Security Council. 
Basic Characteristics of Peace-keeping Operations 
In practice, there has evolved a broad consensus on the essential characteristics of peace-keeping operations and on the conditions that must be met if they are to succeed. 
The first of these essential characteristics is that peacekeeping operations are set up only with the consent of the parties to the conflict in question. Their consent is required not only for the operations establishment but also, in broad terms, for the way in which it will carry out its mandate. The parties are also consulted about the countries which will contribute troops to the operation. It is a key principle that the operation must not interfere in internal affairs of the host countries and must not in any way favour one party against another. The requirement of impartiality is fundamental, not only on grounds of principle but also to ensure that the operation is effective. For their part, the parties to the conflict are expected to provide continuing support to the operation by allowing it the 
freedom of movement and the facilities which it needs to carry out its task. This cooperation is essential. The peace-keepers have no rights of enforcement and their use of force is limited to self-defence, as a last resort.[/quote]

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