UN-led Operations
Non-UN Multinational Forces
UN-approved Multinational Forces
Legal Framework
Cooperation with Regional Organizations
Financing Peacekeeping

Traditional Peacekeeping Operations (PKO) were organized and led by the UN. Today a decreasing number of missions are planned and executed from New York. While the UN maintains an important role of initiator and coordinator of PKOs, the execution is often delegated to Member States and Regional Organizations. Peacekeeping is also executed outside the framework of the United Nations. The existing options for the institutional structure behind a PKO are: UN-led forces; Multinational Forces outside the UN framework, organized either by a coalition of Member States or by a Regional Organization; and "coalition of the willing"-operations approved by the UN but delegated to Member States or Regional Organizations.

UN-led Operations

The United Nations remains the single most relevant actor in Peacekeeping, with a fundamental role in initiating, legitimizing and coordinating PKOs. Some of the operations managed directly by the UN are older missions with a traditional First-Generation mandate. Their role is limited to tasks of monitoring and reporting in regions where conflicts are protracted and far from being resolved, such as the Middle East, Cyprus, and Kashmir. In other larger PKOs, such as in the Balkans, the presence of the UN is limited to civilian personnel for policing and administrative tasks. The few large operations that are still completely managed by the UN are in regions where the stakes of major powers are not involved, most commonly in Africa.

The UN Charter does not provide guidance for the organization of PKOs. The provisions of Chapter VII, artt.43 to 47, regarding permanent military structures under UN command, have never been implemented. First Generation PKOs have been improvised through ad hoc procedures. The Security Council approves the deployment of PKOs, while the Secretariat is responsible for the planning. The Secretary General nominally directs the missions, usually through the delegation to a Special Representative. The Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO) takes the larger share in the planning and the execution of PKOs. To facilitate rapid and efficient deployment of troops, the DPKO has developed a system of agreements with Member States based on commitments ?to contribute specified resources within agreed response times?. The UN Standby Arrangements System (UNSAS) and similar procedures for civilian police and civilian personnel have only been approved by a small number of states. Outside the provisions of these Standby Arrangements, the size, composition, and structure of UN Peacekeeping forces has to be negotiated on a case-by-case basis with the Member States that voluntarily provide the personnel.

Non-UN Multinational Forces

Traditional PKOs led by the UN did not include troops from the Super-Powers and the other Permanent Members of the Security Council participated only in rare cases of close political ties with the "host" country resulting from a colonial past. In particular occasions, at the request of interested countries, a multinational force has been preferred over an UN-led Operation. In the cases of Sinai and Lebanon, for instance, a Multinational Force led by the US was deployed in order to avoid obstructionism from Arab countries and the USSR. In Lebanon this force acted parallel to a UN PKO. In the Sinai (1981) it substituted a UN force that was disbanded following Soviet opposition to the extension of the mandate. Similarly, in Macedonia, NATO forces had to substitute the UN Preventive Deployment Force after China vetoed the extension of its mandate in 1999.

Multinational Missions, such as those in the Sinai and Lebanon, were created outside the UN framework, and agreed upon by the interested parties. Today the only examples of such deployments are the Peacekeeping activities of Russia-led CIS Forces in former Soviet Republics. In these cases the UN involvement is also limited to coordination efforts, cease-fire monitoring and humanitarian aid. Russia-led PKOs have been implemented unilaterally, mainly relying on former Soviet troops that were already present in the region. Such was the case in Moldova and Georgia. Likewise Tajikistan gave its initial consent to Russian deployment, but in this operation Peacekeeping troops have become directly involved in the fighting and are now more a player than a referee, tilting the balance of forces in the conflict. The deployment of NATO's Implementation Force in Bosnia Herzegovina was also decided outside the UN framework, in the peace accords between the parties to the conflict. However the operation was immediately recognized by a Security Council Resolution and integrated in the broader Peace Implementation mission coordinated by the UN. Other ongoing NATO missions were previously approved by Security Council Resolutions and are strictly coordinated with UN civil and humanitarian missions.

The 1990 ECOMOG (the Military Observer Group of the Economic Organization of West African States) was the first case of a regional organization forming a PKO independently from a UN mandate. Since their deployment in Liberia, UN agencies kept a presence solely for humanitarian assistance. In 1992 the Security Council was seized with the issue of the Liberian civil war; it approved the ECOWAS (Economic Community of West African States) mission, and in 1993 it deployed a UN monitoring mission, UNOMIL (United Nations Observer Mission in Liberia). UNOMIL relied completely for its security on ECOMOG and even though it was supposed to function as the coordinator of international security and humanitarian efforts, it remained subordinated to the control of ECOMOG.

UN-approved Multinational Forces

Some multinational missions are approved by the United Nations and their execution is delegated to Member States or Regional Organizations. Generally the multinational force manages the military and security aspects of the mission, while civilian UN structures coordinate the administrative and humanitarian interventions. In these cases of "outsourcing" of the military component of the operation, the mandate follows a standard pattern:

Examples are the US-led mission to Haiti (Resolution 940) (1994), the French-led mission to Rwanda (Resolution 918) (Operation Turqoise, 1994), the Italian-led mission to Albania (Resolution 1101) (Operation Alba, 1997), the Australian-led mission to East Timor (Resolution 1246) (INTERFET, 1999), and the NATO-led mission to Kosovo.

Legal Framework of PKOs

UN Peacekeeping missions can be legally authorized both by the Security Council and the General Assembly. The control of the international security functions of the UN is politically in the hands of the Security Council, while the bulk of the logistical and implementation work is left to the Secretary General.

The Security Council acts in its competence to maintain or restore international peace and security under Article 24 (1) of the UN Charter. The UN Charter did not envision Peacekeeping missions and it was not originally clear under which provision they were authorized. They fell between Chapter VI's mediation efforts for a pacific solution of conflicts, and Chapter VII's measures of enforcement, including the use of force. For this reason they were often referred to as "Chapter VI ½ Operations".

Chapter VII of the UN Charter has been increasingly used to authorize Second Generation PKOs, as a response to threats to or breaches of international peace and security.

Peacekeeping missions can be deployed as a complement to the provisional measures adopted in the process of solving a dispute (art.40, Chapter VII). The parties to the dispute accept such measures, and the Peacekeeping force is deployed to facilitate their observance. The parties consent to the deployment of forces on their territoriy is necessary.

In the case of internal conflicts where it is difficult to obtain the consent of all parties, the Security Council generally proceeds declaring the situation of violence and humanitarian emergency as a threat to peace and security in the region, and on these grounds authorizes intervention. Security Council Resolution 1296 (2000) has established that violence against civilians in armed conflicts and opposition to the deployment of humanitarian assistance can be considered threats to international peace and stability.

Cooperation with Regional Organizations

One important new feature of Peacekeeping is the increasing role played by regional organizations. Regional and sub-regional organizations often play a fundamental role in the implementation of different aspects of the PKO and of subsequent Peacebuilding operations. In some cases there is a clear division of labor between different institutions, the best example being the structure of the UN Mission to Kosovo (UNMIK). Since its beginning the mission has been subdivided into different tasks, each assigned to different organizations. The first subdivision was between "international security presence" and "international civil presence". The first was delegated to NATO, while the second was coordinated by the UN, and was subdivided into four different pillars. The first two pillars are Police and Justice and Civil Administration, and are under the direct leadership of the UN. The third pillar, Democratization and Institution Building, is led by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). The fourth pillar, Reconstruction and Economic Development, is led by the European Union. These four pillars go beyond the purposes of Peacekeeping; nevertheless they were present from the beginning of the deployment of the PKO, when pillar 1 was Humanitarian Assistance and was led by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

Chapter VIII of the Covenant of the United Nations legitimizes the action of Regional Organizations for the maintenance of international peace and security and encourages the cooperation between such institutions and the UN. An Agenda for Peace recognized the new relevance of these provisions of the Charter and underlined the importance of "regional action as a matter of decentralization, delegation and cooperation with United Nations efforts". The 1995 Supplement to An Agenda for Peace listed more systematically the different forms of cooperation between the UN and Regional Organizations and arrangements in the implementation of PKOs: consultation; diplomatic support; operational support; co-deployment; and joint operations. A number of Regional Organizations have developed mechanisms for conflict resolution that include the deployment of PKOs.

As noted in the Brahimi Report on UN Peace Operations, many of these institutions lack the means and the experience to independently deploy a complex PKO. It is important that adequate training, equipment and logistical support be supplied to ensure that their contribution to the Peacekeeping efforts be most effective.

Financing Peacekeeping

The financing of PKOs has changed over the years, with new budgetary sources having been created. The result is a system of multiple mechanisms that are activated on a case-by-case basis. The absence of a UN budget clearly assigned to PKOs constitutes an obstacle to rapid approval and deployment of new missions. The financial crisis of the UN brings a more cautious approach to the organization of PKOs and a wider reliance on cooperation with regional arrangements as well as delegation to Multinational Forces.

There are four different ways PKOs can be financed by UN funds: the regular budget; separate assessments; voluntary contributions; and reserve funds. The General Budget finances the UN central structures involved in Peacekeeping, such as the DPKO and long-standing traditional monitoring operations, with a limited mandate and limited resources. The Separate Assessments refer to the different shares, as defined in 1973, paid on a case-by-case basis, regardless of the level of unpaid contributions. Voluntary Contributions exceed the contributions to the general budget and are paid by single Member States, often directly to the UN Agencies involved in the PKO. Reserve Funds are of limited dimensions but can be useful to pay for early deployments in case of delays in budgetary approval.

UN Peacekeeping was originally financed through the regular budget until in 1956; after a dispute over the financing of the UNEF1 mission to the Suez Canal, it was decided that Peacekeeping would be financed through a special budget. In 1963 the General Assembly defined the general principles for the sharing of Peacekeeping expenses: financing PKOs is a collective responsibility of all member states; member states are encouraged to make voluntary contributions; developing countries? contributions are proportional to their limited economic resources; and permanent members of the Security Council bear a special responsibility also in financing Peacekeeping.

The fact that the budget for PKOs is provided by ad hoc contributions through complicated bureaucratic procedures constitutes an important obstacle to the planning and execution of new PKOs and to the rapid expansion of the mandate of old ones when necessary.

All the operations delegated to Multinational Forces led by Member States are directly financed by the countries that decide to take part to the mission.