SZABIST Model United Nations

Conference 2010

Special Political and

Decolonization Committee

Study Guide

A Message from the Director,

Hello Delegates,

On behalf of the ZABMUN council I welcome you all to the third annual ZABMUN Conference 2010. I am

very glad that you will be joining our talented staff and me this November for what is sure to be four days full

of exciting and intense debate. The topic that we will be debating upon in the committee need the utmost

attention from the youth of today as you will be leaders of tomorrow and it will depend on you to shape our

society and this world.

I believe that the two topics which will be part of the committee of SPECPOL are crucial in achieving world

peace. For the betterment of the society as a whole some ideologies need to be enforced at times no matter

how unpopular they might seem at that moment. The recent spur in the business of private Military

Corporations poses a direct threat to the sovereignty of many nations all around the world. On the other hand

the formation of a UN Military Intervention Force with the right logistical and tactical support can prevent the

casualties of thousands. Both these topics are interlinked in certain manners and need urgent attention for

World Order.

Now let me tell you a bit about myself. I am an MBA student at SZABIST and I have been a part of

ZABMUN since its initiation. I was a part of the Executive Body last year and was leading the organizing

committee of ZABMUN. I along with my team have organized many successful events of ZABMUN which

includes ZABMUN Conference 2008, Internal ZABMUN Conferences 2007 and 2008 and many other similar

events. I have also represented ZABMUN in an international conference that is OXIMUN (Oxford Model

UN). Apart from that I am also working as the Editor of Synergyzer which is one of the biggest marketing and

media journals of Pakistan.

I strongly believe in the importance of learning from people, and their different opinions and point of views so

I have as much to learn from you as you have from me. I look forward to meeting you all this October.

Good luck Delegates!

Regards,

Syed Ali Maisam Zaidi

Committee Director

SPECPOL

Hello everyone,

I, Abeera Jahangir, student of BBA V, welcome you all as the Assistant Committee Director for SPECPOL; a

committee where we look forward to four days of lively and heated debate.

It has been more than two years since I became associated with both SZABIST and ZABMUN. Earlier to this

I have experienced LUMUN and Internal ZABMUN as a delegate and have had many constructive and

interesting experiences.

MUNning has always been a great learning experience, and a platform for me to interact with people having a

different mindset. It has broadened my thinking, and made me more aware of current global issues.

I hope that four days together, we will have a tremendous MUN experience while knowing and respecting each

other, making new friends and having a great time.

Looking forward to meeting you all!

Regards,

Abeera Jahangir

Assistant Committee Director

SPECPOL

Topic A: Private Military Corporations (PMCs)

Introduction

Prior to the 1600s, most European conflicts were fought using armies composed almost entirely of

private, professional soldiers. Transnational corporations such as the British East India Company

boasted an army in the tens, even hundreds, of thousands as late as the 19th century. Modern private

military corporations (PMCs), of which famous (or infamous) organizations such as Blackwater,

DynCorp, Military Professional Resources Inc. (MPRI), and Armor Group are only a handful of

examples, represent the latest incarnation of the private security or military industry.

The PMC industry has experienced explosive growth over the past ten to fifteen years, with current

annual revenues believed to be near or over $100 billion. Their clients include states looking

to augment their existing forces, multinational corporations (MNCs), and even non-

governmental organizations (NGOs) and humanitarian groups wanting to protect personnel

and assets in unstable regions. PMCs now provide a wide range of military and security services,

including logistics, maintenance, operation of technological assets, intelligence, reconnaissance,

training, security and tactical analysis, as well as in some cases furnishing clients with actual

armed personnel. PMCs have been involved in most of the low-intensity conflicts of the past fifteen

years, usually in the employ of one of the state actors participating in the conflict or MNCs that have

assets in the zone of conflict. In past cases, involvement by PMCs has been instrumental in restoring

stability to war-torn regions, most notably in Angola in 1994 and Sierra Leone in 1995.

The involvement of PMCs in many regions that have become issues of peace and political stability

raises the question of the legality of such involvement and, if legal, what the relationship

between PMCs and the organizations that deal with questions of peace and stability, especially the

United Nations, should be.

Private Military Corporations and Mercenaries

Modern private military corporations have been referred to as mercenary groups. The term

“mercenary” conjures images of armed renegades who roam from battlefield to battlefield,

offering to fight alongside (and in some cases, lead) anyone or any group willing to pay their (often

exorbitant) fee, with no regard to ideology. Recent scandals involving armed (and sometimes

unarmed) employees of PMCs in Iraq have led the populace to find some resemblance between the

popular image of mercenaries and PMC contractors. However, while the public envisions

mercenaries as lone guns-for-hire, modern PMCs are, in the words of one scholar, “corporate

bodies that specialize in the provision of military skills – including tactical combat operations,

strategic planning, intelligence gathering and analysis, operational support, troop training, and

military technical assistance.”2 PMCs have grown to provide a plethora of services beyond simply

providing armed and trained individuals for combat operations – in fact, many modern PMCs do

not even have armed employees to furnish to clients.

There are a number of international definitions of “mercenaries”. The first Protocol Additional the

Geneva Convention (1979) defines a mercenary as a person who is recruited to fight in an armed

conflict for the purpose of monetary gain (and is usually paid more than soldiers of similar rank

and function), and is not a citizen or a member of the armed forces of a party to the conflict or a

resident of the area where the conflict is taking place, nor is sent to the conflict as an official

member of the armed forces of a state not party to the conflict. The International

Convention against the Recruitment, Use, Financing, and Training of Mercenaries, which entered

force in 2001but currently only enjoys the support of thirty signatories, includes the Geneva

Convention definition, and further defines a mercenary as a person recruited specifically for

taking part in a violent act to overthrow a government or otherwise disrupt the order and

territorial integrity of a state, motivated for the purpose of monetary gain, and not a resident or

member of the armed forces of the state or sent by another state on official duty.

This widely accepted definition of mercenaries apparently includes the activities of armed PMC

contractors who participate in combat, though it is worth noting that contractors usually

participate in conflicts on the request of and on behalf of states party to the conflict. The

definition of a mercenary was established following a spate of mercenary activity in Africa

during the decolonization and independence movements of the 1960s and 1970s. It was in

response to the activities of these individuals such as Irishman Michael Hoare and Frenchman

Robert Denard, who fought in the Congo in the 1960s for various independence and rebel

groups in many countries in Africa during this period and who popularized the image of the

modern-day mercenary in the public consciousness, that the Geneva Convention definition of

mercenaries was written. Only a small percentage of the services provided by PMCs can be

considered to fall under the definition of mercenary activity, and they provide these services

to Fortune 500 companies and states, both big and small alike. For example, during the 1999

NATO operation in Kosovo, PMCs were involved with the U.S. effort at every level, including

supplying the military observers who made up the American contingent of the international

verification mission, providing logistics, aerial surveillance, and information warfare services to

U.S. forces, and constructing refugee camps. The PMC industry has quickly evolved beyond the

simple role of providing soldiers-for-hire to being able to work alongside military forces and

provide and perform virtually every function that those armed forces do.

PMCs and the services they provide can be organized into three categories: providing,

consulting, and support. It must be noted that the larger PMCs generally tend to provide two

or all of these categories of services, whereas smaller firms often specialize in only one type of

service. Provider firms offer services that include providing clients with individuals who can engage

in actual combat and/or command a client’s forces on the battlefield. Provider firms are often

contracted by clients who have low or inadequate military capabilities and face immediate,

serious threats to their security and stability. In such situations, provider firms may often spread

their employees across a client’s force to provide experience and leadership to a maximum number

of individual soldiers.

This differs from the role fulfilled by the second type of PMC, consulting firms. Consulting firms

assist clients with security and tactical analysis with the situations and threats a client’s force may

face. They can also provide advice to clients restructuring their forces, as well as help with training.

Consulting firms can provide expertise that clients with smaller and inexperienced forces may lack or

can augment the knowledge pool of even the most advanced and experienced militaries in the world.

The difference between PMCs that provide and those that consult is the trigger factor –

PMC consultants generally do not engage in combat.

The third type of PMC service is support, which generally includes many of the functions that the

military performs for itself and for the state outside of direct combat. PMC support services range

from logistics (such as providing food and shelter services to a client’s forces) to technical support,

maintenance, and transportation.

PMCs who provide these kinds of services are often engaged in long-term contracts with

clients, who rely on support service PMCs to provide logistical support that a client’s military is

unable to provide due to technological or manpower limitations, or at a lower cost, or to free up

a client’s military forces for combat-related duties. While companies that are strictly in the private

military industry often provide these services, a number of multinational conglomerates, such as

the U.S.-based Halliburton corporation, have expanded into this line of private military

services, blurring the lines between what is and what is not a PMC.

It is clear that PMCs have evolved beyond the traditional conceptions of the mercenary

profession. Unlike mercenaries who only work for one client at a time, even the smallest PMCs

generally work with several clients at a time in various regions of the world. Many of a PMC’s

employees are not permanent (especially those who work directly with clients), but instead

draw on databases of professionals based on the specific skills a particular contractor

possesses to meet the needs of the client. Most modern PMCs are legitimate national and

multinational corporations who remain answerable to owners, investors, and stockholders. As

legitimate businesses, they are subject to the industry laws of the countries in which they are

based or operate; they sign legally enforceable contracts with their clients, which provides a

measure of control and accountability to those clients should PMCs act in a manner

unsanctioned by their clients or8 default on their contractual obligations. Nevertheless, with the

lack of international regulatory mechanisms, PMCs continue to operate in a legally murky area,

with many loopholes in the national laws intended to regulate PMCs and protect clients, and

little or no impartial oversight over the clients themselves.

The Working Group on the Use of Mercenaries as a Means of Violating Human Rights and

Impeding the Exercise of the Right of People to Self-Determination detailed in its latest annual

report to the Human Rights Council its concerns about the activities of PMCs, particularly in

Afghanistan and Iraq, citing allegations of human rights violations by employees of PMCs

whilst providing contracted services for states and MNCs; more importantly, the Working

Group expressed reservations about the continued outsourcing of military and quasi-military

functions by states to PMCs and ramifications it could have for international peace and political

stability.

A History of Private Military Corporations

The origins of the rise of the private military industry can be traced to the end of the Cold War,

during the late 1980s and early 1990s. The collapse of Communism and the Soviet Union ended the

ideological struggle between it and its superpower counterpart, the United States. As a result, the

economic, political, and military aid both nations had been providing to their client states in Latin

America, Southeast Asia, and Africa virtually disappeared overnight. The involvement of the United

States and/or the Soviet Union was often the primary force keeping many Third-World nations

from disintegrating into wide-scale violence. The rapid withdrawal of the superpowers unleashed a

wave of instability and violent, low-intensity conflicts across the globe.

Simultaneously, the U.S. and Russia, along with most of the other Western powers, significantly

downsized their armed forces, either due to a lack of available funding, as in the case of the

former Soviet republics and Warsaw Pact nations, or public demand for fiscal responsibility,

as was the case in the NATO powers. As a result, large numbers of individuals highly trained in a

number of military roles, including combat, strategy and tactics, force organization, training,

logistics, military technology, and non-violent forms of warfare, entered civilian life and the

private sector. Some of these former soldiers and technical experts found it difficult to adjust to

civilian life; others, seeing the breakdown of order and escalation of violence in the Third World,

saw an opportunity to continue practicing their trade on behalf of many Third World governments

whose militaries and police forces were inadequate to combat the various criminal and insurgent

groups who took advantage of the wide-scale availability of small arms and light weapons caused

by decades of military aid from the superpowers and more recently the collapse of the Soviet

military and its fire sale of its weapons stockpiles. These former soldiers formed the first modern

private military corporations, which included the now-defunct Executive Outcomes and Sandline

International.

The American involvement in the second United Nations mission in Somalia that ended prematurely

with the death of 18 US soldiers in the Battle of Mogadishu demonstrated a reticence among the

major powers to commit to the peacekeeping and humanitarian missions that became necessary to

stem the tide of violence occurring in many unstable nations in the Third World such as Angola,

Sierra Leone, and Liberia. The governments of these nations lacked the military power to

control the insurgent militia causing havoc in their borders. With UN intervention unable to

effectively restore order in war-torn countries and the major powers unwilling to incur the domestic

political costs of casualties, PMCs stepped in to provide their services to governments under siege.

PMCs provided logistical support to Third World armies, trained troops, advised on tactics and

strategy, and in many instances conducted combat operations either solely using its own employees,

or in conjunction with or leadership of the state client’s own armed forces.

The first major involvement by a PMC in the low-intensity conflicts of the 1990s came in 1993

when South African-based Executive Outcomes (EO) was contracted by the Angolan government

to provide military support in its struggle to subdue the rebel group National Union for the Total

Independence of Angola (UNITA) and bring it to the negotiating table. Executive Outcomes was

established in 1989 and staffed almost entirely by veterans of the South African Defense Force, the

military and internal security force of the apartheid-era government. In Angola, EO provided badly

needed weapons to the Angolan army (coincidence with the lifting of the arms embargo on the

country) and trained its troops. Over the next three years, the revamped Angolan military delivered a

series of defeats to UNITA, forcing them to resume negotiations with the Angolan government.

In 1995, EO signed another major contract with the Sierra Leonean government, facing a situation

similar to that in Angola with the Revolutionary United Front (RUF). In Sierra Leone, EO

contractors entered combat, both with small units consisting entirely of EO personnel as well as in

larger formations alongside local civilian militias. Utilizing close air support provided by helicopter

gunships owned and operated by EO, a few hundred contractors were able to liberate territory held

by the RUF which contained natural resources vital to the Leonean economy and at least

temporarily put a halt to the internal violence while more long-term efforts at peace were

undertaken.

With the relative success of its contracts in Angola and Sierra Leone, Executive Outcomes, notoriety

grew. In response to concerns about the activities of EO, as well as the pasts of many of its

contractors, the South African government passed the Regulation of Foreign Military Assistance

Act, which outlawed for South African nationals the direct participation in conflicts to which South

Africa was not a party and required government approval of contracts for foreign military assistance.

The law prevented Executive Outcomes from operating with the same visibility as before, so the

company officially dissolved in 1999, though it is believed that its leadership simply continued their

activities in different countries under different company names.

As PMCs in South Africa and other countries such as the United Kingdom and France grabbed

headlines and international attention with their involvement in low-intensity conflicts, the industry

was developing in the United States. And while some Western powers took steps to forbid or limit

the ability of their citizens to operate or work for PMCs, the U.S. government embraced the industry

as a force multiplier for the American military. Whereas the United States employed about one PMC

contractor for every fifty active-duty personnel deployed to the Middle East for Operation

Desert Storm in 1991, in 1999 during the U.S. involvement in Kosovo the ratio had increased to

about 1 to 10.

The private military industry experienced its largest burst in growth – and visibility – after

9/11 as the U.S. military undertook its Global War on Terror. Finding itself unable to fight a war

and undertake subsequent nation-building in two separate countries with the current manpower of

the military, the U.S. turned to PMCs to perform many of the support tasks needed by the military

to free up its soldiers for actual combat duty. By now many of the first PMCs formed after the end

of the Cold War, such as Executive Outcomes and Sandline International, had closed up shop and

moved on. Now, a new breed of PMCs had taken their place – Blackwater Worldwide (formerly

Blackwater USA), DynCorp, Armor Group, Aegis Defence Services, to name a few. And unlike

their predecessors who deployed no more than a few hundred contractors into any conflict

zone, tens of thousands of PMC employees flooded into Afghanistan and later Iraq. Although the

U.S. government professed not using PMC contractors for core combat tasks, the evolution of the

War on Terror from traditional formats of combat to insurgent warfare means that contractors

are often thrust into combat.

The PMC industry reached new levels of notoriety via its involvement in the U.S. occupation of

Iraq. In 2004, four Blackwater contractors were ambushed and killed, and their bodies later

mutilated before a cheering crowd, in Fallujah, Iraq, leading to the subsequent Battle of

Fallujah later that year. The deaths of those contractors, along with the deaths of dozens more,

raised questions among the American public as well as the international community as to how

civilian contractors can become involved in combat, or whether they even should. However, a series

of scandals involving PMC contractors in Iraq, including the indictment of two PMC translators in

the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, the shooting of seventeen Iraqi civilians by Blackwater

personnel, and the shooting of a bodyguard to the Iraqi Vice President, also by a Blackwater

contractor, increased the visibility of the private military industry and associated it in the minds of

the public with the highly unpopular Iraq War. The heavy involvement by PMCs in Iraq and

the lack of restraint or U.S. oversight in their activity perceived by some has seriously damaged the

credibility of the industry and raised questions about how it operates and will operate in the

future that must be answered.

PMCs in Humanitarian/Peacekeeping Missions or Low-Intensity Conflicts

Recent scandals notwithstanding, some scholars have advocated the use of PMCs by the United

Nations and other intergovernmental organizations to either supplement or replace traditional

peacekeepers, who are professional soldiers lent to the organization by its member states.

Proponents of PMCs entering into peacekeeping roles argue that PMCs can undertake peacekeeping

and humanitarian missions at a much lower cost than traditional peacekeeping forces, can provide

more highly trained former soldiers of the Western powers as peacekeepers (nations in the South

with smaller, less advanced militaries currently beat the larger portion of the burden of UN

peacekeeping), and remove the burden on states to provide peacekeeping troops and then

potentially have to explain to their citizens casualties in what is essentially for many nations

who participate in peacekeeping missions a foreign war and ensure that there are always

peacekeepers for every mandate.

Cost-effectiveness is often given as one of the prime arguments in favor of using PMC contractors

as peacekeepers. Scholars point to two examples where PMCs and subsequently UN peacekeepers

operated as proof of the cost-effectiveness of PMCs. In Angola, the government contracted with

Executive Outcomes to provide 500 employees over a three-year period to help stabilize the

country and bring UNITA rebels to the negotiating table; the cost to Angola was approximately $40-

60 million a year (which reportedly covered all costs associated with bringing in 500 personnel as

well purchased weapons for the Angolan army), and EO suffered about 20 casualties.18 In Sierra

Leone, EO was brought in for 22 months at a cost to the government of $35 million; EO never

had any more than about 250 min in the country at any time. The UN missions as well as the

Economic Community of West African States Monitoring Group (ECOMOG) that followed

EO’s involvement in both countries ran both organizations over $1 million per day for each

mission.

However, the EO contracts in both Angola and Sierra Leone represented significant fractions (up to

a third) of each country’s military budget. In addition, there were allegations that EO was also

guaranteed rights to some of both countries’ natural resources in addition to the monetary

payments, and that foreign firms invested in both countries’ natural resource markets were

involved in bringing EO into the fight; as a result some believe that EO took home far more

income than was initially reported on paper. Also worth nothing is the small number of contractors

EO brought into both countries. Peacekeeping missions tend to employ thousands of troops,

whereas EO was able to keep its numbers down by working alongside the Angolan army, and in

Sierra Leone alongside local militias when the arm initially proved unreliable; in Sierra Leone this

had the unfortunate effect of strengthening the militias and fostering a conflict between the

army and the militias and is blamed for delaying the peace process.

PMCs today are more accustomed to deploying thousands of employees; at the current rate of

$1,000 a day for some contractors, bringing in only a couple thousand contractors could easily

exceed the cost of a much larger traditional peacekeeping force. To keep the number of contractors

down would require their working in collaboration with another force – working with traditional

peacekeepers would add to the cost of a mission, while working with local armed forces essentially

equates to picking a side in a conflict. While peacekeeping missions have in the past worked with

local armed forces, peacekeepers are by their very nature an independent, impartial actors whose

mission to halt a conflict with the minimum amount of force.22 Such a mission would be

uncharacteristic for a PMC.

Over at least the past fifteen years the nations of the South have borne a disproportionate

share of the international peacekeeping mission proportional to military strength. The nations

that are considered to have the best-trained, best-equipped, and most advanced armies

provide comparatively little to peacekeeping efforts. Some of this can be attributed to the NATO

powers’ occupation with fighting terrorism, but the fact remains that the major powers are hesitant

to commit troops and potentially incur casualties in conflicts that they do not deem vital to their

security and interests. PMCs could provide peacekeeping forces with trained former soldiers. PMC

contractors do not permanently work for a particular PMC, rather firms maintain databases of

former military personnel, which allow PMCs to contract personnel with the skill sets necessary to

complete the job. However, using PMCs as peacekeepers runs counter to the current trend of

utilizing “local solutions to local problems” – the UN has recently tried to engage regional security

organizations in organizing peacekeeping missions for their region. But relying on local solutions

to solve local problems risks widening the conflict and erodes universal standards. Having

consistent, high standards for peacekeepers can improve the chances of the peacekeeping mission

being effective.

Using PMCs as opposed to traditional peacekeepers eliminates an important source of support

and opportunity for experience for the smaller militaries that participate in peacekeeping. Many

smaller nations may be threatened by the presence of highly trained armed foreign nationals within

their borders, which explains the move towards regional peacekeepers. Furthermore, current issues

involving PMCs revolve around the past histories of some of the contractors they employ.

Executive Outcomes contractors almost exclusively came from the South African Defense Force

(SADF) which was used within South Africa to suppress opposition to apartheid; former SADF

soldiers continue to make up a significant portion of PMC contractors. Blackwater Worldwide has

been accused of employing in Iraq former members of the special police of the Pinochet regime in

Chile. Utilizing PMCs requires ensuring that individuals with unacceptable backgrounds are not

contracted to represent one’s organization.

The Future of Private Military Corporations: Inclusion, Acceptance, or Exclusion?

In 1997, then-UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan dismissed suggestions that the UN would ever

work with “respectable” PMCs, stating there was no “distinction between respectable mercenaries

and non-respectable mercenaries.” However, the rapid growth of the industry over the past decade

combined with its acceptance and utilization by a number of the world’s governments means that

the industry is unlikely to fade away any time soon. More likely PMCs will continue to be involved in

many of the world’s low-intensity conflicts. As the UN and PMCs continue to cross paths, it is

perhaps time for the UN to reexamine its stance towards the industry. At the same time, the UN

could study the lessons provided by the private military industry and its actions, both

successes and failures in low-intensity conflicts, and how they could be applied to improve the

effectiveness of UN and other intergovernmental organizations’ peacekeeping and humanitarian

missions to those very same low-intensity conflicts.

The current international framework regarding mercenaries and their activities is inadequate to cover

PMCs. Relying on individual states to identify PMCs as mercenary organizations and then take

approximate action is a hit-or-miss strategy – a number of states have proven receptive, to varying

degrees, of the industry. Furthermore, the private military industry has evolved to offer far more

services than guns-for-hire, the traditionally sole trade of mercenaries. In addition, PMCs have

almost entirely – so far – participated in low-intensity conflicts on behalf of a state party to the

conflict, and so raises the issue of whether a state has the sovereign right to hire whomever it wants

to work for or alongside its armed forces. The time is right for the creation of a framework

governing the private military industry. Such a regulatory framework should address a number of

issues regarding the industry: the involvement of PMCs in low-intensity conflicts, the selection

of contractors hired to work for PMCs, the nature of the clients of PMCs, the ability of clients to

control PMCs in their employ, the legal recourses available to both clients and individual

employee-contractors against PMCs, the entities who should shoulder the burden of direct

supervision of PMCs, and the possible creation of international, independent oversight of the

industry. Moreover, it is important to the effectiveness of any international frameworks governing

the private military industry that states key to the industry – those contract PMCs as well as those

that are home to significant numbers of firms – are consulted in the creation of a

framework and accede to it.

Depending on their level of success, PMCs involved in low-intensity conflicts are either a stabilizing

or a destabilizing force in the conflict area. When international peacekeepers are deployed to an

area where PMCs operate or have recently operated, in the case of PMCs being a stabilizing force it

is necessary for the UN to figure out how to fulfill its mandate without jeopardizing the stability a

PMC provides; in the case of the presence of a PMC being a destabilizing force, peacekeeping

forces need to work out how to neutralize the negative effects of the PMC and remove it from

the area of conflict with as little disturbance as possible. Either way, when peacekeepers arrive in an

area of conflict it is difficult to ignore the presence of PMCs already operating in the area. Whether

the international organization decides to work with PMCs or remove them from the conflict,

they should be engaged to ensure a smooth transition from the activities of the PMC to the

authority of the international organization and its peacekeeping mission. PMCs can maintain

the enforcement of a peaceful status quo while the UN deploys its peacekeeping mission and

begins the implementation of peace building and post-conflict programs.

According to one scholar, recent empirical studies conclude that outright victories rather than

negotiated peace deals have settled the majority of the twentieth century’s civil wars and internal

conflicts. The Report of the Panel on United Nations Peace Operations, also known as the

Brahimi Report, noted that UN and other intergovernmental organizations’ peacekeeping and

peacebuilding operations are deployed to conflicts that due either to military stalemate or

international pressure have temporarily halted, although one or more of the parties involved are less

than interested in resolving the conflict peacefully. Peacekeeping operations are commonly criticized

for their lack of forceful coercion of both parties to come to the negotiating table and make

serious efforts at a mediated settlement. Although peacekeepers are sent to a conflict to halt it, in

order to effectively enforce peace and stability in a war-torn region, suggested former U.S. Chairman

of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral William Crowe, planning a peacekeeping operation requires

planners taking the same approach as if they were planning for war – essentially, peacekeepers

must be prepared to fight a war if they are to have the means necessary to stop one.29

Peacekeepers need to be better trained and better armed, as PMC contractors in Angola and

Sierra Leone have been (including effective ground and air equipment), and perhaps more so

than countries who regularly participate in peacekeeping missions are capable of. Prepared and well-

equipped peacekeepers are less prone to being forced from the conflict by military defeat.

PMCs cannot entirely replace traditional peacekeepers. To employ enough contractors to effectively

do the same job is cost-prohibitive, and it is likely that costs will only continue to rise. However,

there are ways that the private military industry can be integrated into international

peacekeeping operations. Among the suggestions listed by the Brahimi report, PMCs could be

used to train troops intended for deployment to peacekeeping missions and raise the standard

of peacekeeping troops, analyze and develop tactics and security strategies, and provide much-

needed support to peacekeepers in the field. Naturally, the level of training or equipment employed

by a peacekeeping force has little effect if their mandate renders the mission ineffective – a

peacekeeping mission is only as good as its mandate. While PMC contractors may be better at

coercing the parties in a conflict to peace, the limitations imposed by a UN mandate may

hamper its effectiveness.30 Improving peacekeeping efforts begins with examining and

improving how peacekeepers establish and maintain peace in an area of conflict.

Peacekeeping is only part of the solution to resolving low-intensity conflicts. Peacekeepers or PMCs

resolve conflicts and restore peace in the short-term; it is up to peace negotiators and post-conflict

programs to defuse tensions among the parties in a conflict and establish a long-term peaceful status

quo.

Topic B: Developing a Permanent United Nations Military Intervention Force

Introduction and Overview

Some of the challenging situations for the UN would be:

Should UN establish its own intervention force for peacekeeping operations?

How will such a force be organized?

This question lies at the centre of debates between state sovereignty and the UN’s

“responsibility to protect” as well as the role of humanitarian intervention.

It can only be answered when the practices and limitations of current UN peacekeeping, peace

enforcement andpeace-building operations are understood. On the other hand the

question addresses how the international community can respond to mass extermination, which

is arguably the worst crime of humanity.

Should the UN agree on having an intervention force, helping avoid future wars and saving

many lives?

The UN peacekeeping operation is an instrument developed by the Organization to help

countries torn by conflicts, to help initiate long lasting peace. It initiates from the Chapter VI of

the UN charter, which emphasizes negotiation and Mediation, and Chapter VII, allows forceful

action by the UN to help retain peace. The Charter gives the UN Security Council the power

and the responsibility to take multilateral action to protect international peace and security.

Therefore the UN peacekeeping operations are initiated and authorized by the United Nations

Security Council.

The UN does not have its own intervention force. So for every UNpeacekeeping operations

the UN department UNPKO has to ask its member states such as NATO to donate troops for

peacekeeping tasks. The troops then operate under the UN command but remain members of

their respective armed forces. The other option UN has is to mandate peacekeeping tasks to

regional organizations or coalitions of willing countries whose troops operate under their own

respective force’s command but the operation is legalized by a UN mandate.Mostly European

countries that believe the UN command is very bureaucratic and ineffective prefer this

alternative arrangement of an intervention force. The countries that had donated most troops to

UNPKO’s by 2007 were Pakistan, Bangladesh and India. About 63 troops have been placed

around the world to date. As of December 2008, 91,000 peacekeepers were deployed in 16

missions around the world. The United Nations peacekeeping operations are planned prepared

and managed by the department of Peacekeeping Operations.

Not all the peace keeping operations carried out by United Nations has been successful.

Rwanda genocide, 1994 and the Srebrenica massacre, 1995, to name few of the failures of the

international community. UN, NATO and African Union have all been involved in working for

the humanitarian cause within their own territories. The most problematic era was of the

intervention. However, even in the face of severe humanitarian crisis, United Nation had

responded too leisurely to the genocide and Rwanda cause. Few of the reasons highlighted for

their behavior was the laziness of the member countries when contributing towards the troop

fund and donating military services. To quote, at the time of genocide in Rwanda, they turn

down their promise of providing 31000 peacekeeping troops to save the massacre.

After achieving some success in creating the political will to actively stop mass extermination,

supporters of humanitarian intervention believe the essential need to provide more effective

methods of intervention than the current United Nations peacekeeping operation system.

Without an effective mechanism to intervene when mass extermination occurs, the UN

resolution will have little effect and by the time the UNPKO is set, there would have already

been great losses. This is where the idea of setting up a standing military invention force under

the UN command is required. This standing force will be able to deploy immediately and

rapidly to make prompt actions on any emerging crisis.

The possibility of a UN intervention force has been in discussion since 1948, during its early

days. The UN charter itself includes provisions for such a force in article 45. Many proposals

for the logistics of a UN intervention force have been put forward, suggestions for having an

army of 6,000 to 500,000 personnel. None of the suggestions have been implemented by any

member states of the UN. The main advantage of the UN intervention force would increase the

UN’s response time to possibly only 48 hours and remove the unplanned way of leading

peacekeeping operations.

The History of UN Peacekeeping

Military intrusion inherently challenges the core principal of national autonomy. Hence in 1956

the UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjold defined three key principles for UNPKOs to

guarantee the protection of national sovereignty and to limit the use of force to self-defense:

1) The consent of all conflicting parties to the activities of the mission is required prior to

deployment;

2) The impartially of the peacekeepers in their association with the conflicting parties must

be ensured;

3) The use of force is only to be used as a last resort and only in self-defense.

But these principles and the character of UNPKOs have changed drastically overtime. Before

the 1990s these three principals were adhered to. Traditional peacekeeping tried to build

confidence and facilitate political dialogue for the conflicting parties to resolve the conflict,

rather than the peacekeepers attempting to do so themselves. Supervising elections, building

democratic institutions, training police and protecting human rights were few other

responsibilities that were incorporated. During the 1990s the number of UNPKOs increased

dramatically and additional tasks were taken onboard, such as securing the delivery of

humanitarian assistance and protecting civilians from imminent physical threats and ongoing

violence. In a hostile environment, it became more difficult to hold fast to these core principles

and avoid military force. The assassination of American soldiers during a peacekeeping mission

in Somalia in 1993 and the failure of UN peacekeepers to protect civilians against ethnic

cleansing in Rwanda and in Bosnia encouraged a reassessment of UNPKOs.

The UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, in 2000, invited a panel to examine all aspects of

UNPKOs and to give suggestions for further missions. The so-called Brahimi report gives four

key recommendations:

1) Peacekeepers should be explicitly mandated to defend themselves, defend their

missions and defend civilians under imminent threat of attack

2) The UN should not mandate a mission before it has resources available to fulfill it

3) There should be a better consultation between the UNSC and troop-contributing

countries

4) A multidimensional approach in peace building should become an integral part of

UNPKOs, including disarmament, reintegration of former combatants and protecting

Human Rights.

As a result of the report, UNPKO principles were reinterpreted and missions took a different

character: Since 2000, peace enforcement became more prominent as an element of

UNPKOs. Peace enforcement intends to coerce the conflicting parties to comply with a

previously negotiated agreement by using military force under the authorization of the UNSC.

The original three principles are interpreted in a way that groups who try to undermine peace by

using violence can be penalized in order to protect the success of the mission. In UNPKOs

along with a robust military force there comes a strong civilian component that carries out civil

administration, and humanitarian tasks. This allows for successful peace building once a cease-

fire has been established.

Possible elements of UNPKOs

Conflict prevention consists of structural or diplomatic efforts utilised before the escalation of a conflict.

Good intelligence measures and awareness of early warning signs are crucial for conflict prevention.

Peacemaking addresses a conflict already in progress and attempts to bring hostile parties to negotiations.

Peacemaking can include UN Secretary-General Envoys and other means of negotiation and

meditation.

Peace enforcement is an action (usually military) authorised by the UNSC to restore “international peace

and security”. The UNSC can mandate regional organisations to conduct the operation on its behalf.

Peacekeeping is designed to preserve peace after a ceasefire and to oversee the implementation process of

a ceasefire or a peace agreement.

Peacebuilding is a long-term and complex process designed to prevent the reoccurrence of conflict. Any

peace building activity should address the roots of a conflict.

It is worthy to note that some states, particularly China, have been strong defenders of the principle of

non-intervention in the affairs of sovereign states. However, reforms in the way in which UN

peacekeeping missions are conducted after the Brahimi Report have made China much more positive

towards such efforts and it has voted in favor to a clear majority of them since 2000.

Possible Elements of UNPKOs

Conflict prevention consists of structural or diplomatic efforts utilized before the escalation of a

conflict. Good intelligence measures and awareness of early warning signs are crucial for

conflict prevention. Peacemaking addresses a conflict already in progress and attempts to bring

hostile parties to negotiations. Peacemaking contains UN Secretary-General Envoys and other

means of negotiation and meditation. Peace enforcement is an action (usually military) authorized

by the UNSC to restore “international peace and security”. The UNSC can mandate regional

organizations to conduct the operation on its behalf. Peacekeeping is planned to safeguard peace

after a ceasefire and to oversee the implementation process of a ceasefire or a peace agreement.

Peace building is a long-term and complex process designed to prevent the reoccurrence of

conflict. Any peace building activity should address the roots of a conflict.

It should be noted that some states, mainly China, have been strong defenders of the principle

of non-intervention in the dealings of superior states. However, reforms in the way in which

UN peacekeeping missions are conducted after the Brahimi Report have made China much

more affirmative towards such efforts and it has voted in favor to a clear majority of them since

2000.

The Possibility of a UN Intervention Force: Political and Legal Considerations

UNPKO’S have had unsuitable and slow responses to enhance UN rapid use which include

frequent delays, vast human suffering, opportunities lost, diminished credibility, rising costs etc.

Up till now there hasn’t been a consensus on intervening in the domestic affairs of other states

despite nations being in favor of stopping genocide and interfering for humanitarian efforts.

International authorities have been vague about how they will act upon this matter. UN Charter

only allows the right to take military steps in cases of self defense. The UN can only act if

international peace is threatened but it has been hesitant to implement this right and many

countries oppose intervention.

UN intervention can be facilitated legally by activating UN Charter Article 43 or by establishing

a reaction force outside the current legal system. Article 43 mentions that all members of the

UN have to make armed forces available to the Security Council to maintain international peace

and security. Troops are supposed to be at the disposal of the UNSC and the UNPKOs could

be organized rapidly as a result. Chapter VII would authorize the use of force by UNSC. This

article wasn’t used for UNPKO’s because of the Cold War and various other reasons.

UN Standby Arrangement System (UNSAS) can also fulfill Article 43 in theory but is

ineffective to improve UNPKO’s practically. UNSAS was established in 1993 and stated that all

UN member states had to voluntarily reserve proportions of their military resources for some

time. Although troops would remain in their own countries they would be trained in accordance

to UN guidelines until a situation arises where they are supposed to go for a peacekeeping

mission. UNSAS’s shortcoming is that all members aren’t required to contribute; it is to be

done voluntarily. States can also opt out whenever they want which makes peace keeping

resources unreliable through this system.

The UNSAS has been modified in several proposals such as The Canadian Proposal 1995 and

The Danish Proposal 1995. The latter has led to the formation of Stand-by Forces High

Readiness Brigade (SHIRBRIG), which was first declared available in 2000. SHIRBRIG can

deploy 5000 soldiers within a maximum of 30 days of UNSC authorization and for a maximum

of 6 months. These forces have been deployed in Sudan so far.

These suggestions emphasize on the fact that a UN intervention force is more realistic if

maintained by the members voluntarily rather than where the UN recruits, trains and positions

its own forces.

The Possibility of a UN Intervention Force: Logistical Considerations

With the committee's main focus on the political issue, I would also like you all to take into

consideration the matter of the development of the UN intervention force. Logistic point of

view would be highly appreciated. The committee should be able to negotiate and come up with

a means to facilitate cease-fire and humanitarian relief operation. The past dialogues had shown

fierce discussions on this issue and had concluded that the right level of intervention will

require a blend of the following factors:

Size and composition: small forces are more mobile but have limited effect.

Capability: highly trained infantry units are probably required, but these need to be

supported by armored vehicles, anti-air and anti- tank missile launchers, battle tanks

and helicopters, the capacity for purifying and storing water, etc.

Command arrangements: depending on the mandate, strategic command may remain at

the UN, while tactical command lies with the donating state/coalition.

Equipment logistics: shipping heavy equipment will take 30 days at best.

Recruitment: depending on whether the decision is for a force which resembles an

independent UN army or one made up of many contributing countries, the recruitment

can either be managed by the force itself or by delegating it to the contributing

countries.

Training: this might have to be higher than the level some states donating to current

UNPKOs are able to provide.

Cost: how is funding provided?

Points to be Addressed in the Resolution

The fundamental question this Committee has to address is whether UNPKOs can be

improved by establishing a permanent UN military intervention force, and if so, how this force

can be realized politically and legally. Possible ways include, but are not limited to

Start using Article 43 for UNPKOs

Reform UNSAS

Establish voluntary rapid intervention capabilities

Establish a UN owned intervention force

Each of these options has its limitations, costs and risks. States will support different options,

or none of them, according to the extent to which their governments prioritize humanitarian

interventions over state sovereignty.

Considering all hurdles that need to be taken for a UN intervention force to come into

operation, debate in this Committee might remain mere academic exercise. For the victims of

the next genocide to come, the question of UN intervention will be anything but academic.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

This guide is heavily based on the following articles:

Codner, Michael (2008): Permanent United Nations Military Intervention

Capability, RUSI, 153: 3, pp 85-67

Diehl, Paul F. (2005): Once Again: Nations agree Genocide Must Be

Stopped. Can They Find the Mechanism to Do it?, Global Policy Forum

[http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/peacekpg/reform/2005/0515again.h

tm]

Langille, H. Peter (2000): Conflict prevention: Options for rapid

deployment and UN standing forces, International Peacekeeping, 7:1, pp.

219-253

McCarthy, Patrick A. (2000): Building a Reliable Rapid-Reaction Capability

for the United Nations, International Peacekeeping, 7:2, pp. 139-154

Stähle, Stefan (2008): China’s Shifting Attitude towards United Nations

Peacekeeping Operations, The China Quarterly, 195, pp 631-655