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Towards a Standing UN Force for Peacekeeping

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Perspectives on Peacekeeping and Atrocity Prevention

Part of the book series: Humanitarian Solutions in the 21st Century ((HSIC))

Abstract

The idea of a standing United Nations (UN) military force to respond rapidly to quell violence or maintain a fragile peace is as old as the UN and there exists a substantial body of research pertaining to the proposed shape and scope of such a force capacity. Proposals have come from within the UN (linked to the moribund Military Staff Committee, see Fabian, Soldiers without enemies: preparing the United Nations for peacekeeping. Brookings Institution, Washington, pp 60–61, 1971), from national governments (the Netherlands, Canada and Denmark), and through proposals from within parliamentary structures, such as the United Nations Rapid Deployment Act, proposed to the US House of Representatives in 2001 (US Congress, United Nations Rapid Deployment Act. Introduced to the House of Representatives 08 March 2001: 07th Congress, 1st Session H. R. 938. United States of America House of Representatives, 2001). More detailed proposals have emanated from governmental think tanks, such as the Royal United Services Institute paper on a “UN Intervention Force” (Codner, Royal United Services Instit J 153(3):62, 2008). The most developed set of proposals for standing peacekeeping capacities have been the series of proposals for a United Nations Emergency Peace Service (UNEPS) and have evolved to include force capacities for “protection, security, health and hope” (Langille, Preparing for a UN emergency peace service. Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, New York, p 113, 2012).

This chapter seeks to move beyond discussions surrounding the technicalities of a proposed UN standing peacekeeping capacity. Rather, this chapter will investigate and critique how the discussion for a standing UN peacekeeping capacity is a critical component of the discussion around the capacity of UN peacekeeping to deliver increasingly complex protection mandates. It concludes by outlining where further academic research may be necessary to develop the concept of standing peacekeeping forces, as well as offering thoughts policy recommendations for those engaged with standing peacekeeping forces.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    For a comprehensive overview of PoC, see: Breakey et al. (2011).

  2. 2.

    See, for example, the UN’s Standardized Training Materials on the Protection of Civilians, found at http://peacekeepingresourcehub.unlb.org/.

  3. 3.

    Mission de l’Organisation des Nations Unies en République démocratique du Congo.

  4. 4.

    The Belgian and Swedish Governments were particularly enthusiastic about intervention. The latter having just been a framework nation for the Nordic battlegroup in the first half of 2008, and willing to re-mobilize forces.

  5. 5.

    Sixteen nations signed one or more SHIRBRIG Documents. They are—Argentina, Austria, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Italy, Ireland, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia, Spain, and Sweden. Seven other nations (Chile, Croatia, Czech Republic, Egypt, Jordan, Latvia, and Senegal) are participating as observers.

  6. 6.

    UNMEE (Ethiopia/Eritrea), UNMIS (Sudan), UNOCI (Cote d’Ivoire), UNMIL (Liberia), UNAMIS.

  7. 7.

    Indicative studies have been made. See Koops (2009).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Trust, Peace and Social Relations, Coventry University, Innovation Village Building No. 5, Cheetah Road, Coventry, CV1 2TL, UK

    David Curran

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  1. David Curran
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Correspondence to David Curran .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Coventry, Coventry, West Yorkshire, United Kingdom

    David Curran

  2. www.trudufraser.com, New York, New York, USA

    Trudy Fraser

  3. VA, Virginia, USA

    Larry Roeder

  4. and Armed Conflict, Global Action to Prevent War, New York, New York, USA

    Robert Zuber

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Curran, D. (2015). Towards a Standing UN Force for Peacekeeping. In: Curran, D., Fraser, T., Roeder, L., Zuber, R. (eds) Perspectives on Peacekeeping and Atrocity Prevention. Humanitarian Solutions in the 21st Century. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16372-7_3

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