PEACEKEEPING NA HET BRAHIMI-RAPPORT Rondetafelseminar, Leuven, 15 november 2000 Interveniënten: PROF. DR. EM. E. SUY (K.U.Leuven, voormalig VN-Ondersecretaris-Generaal en Legal Counsel): ‘Peacekeeping: principes, evolutie en het Brahimi-rapport vanuit juridisch perspectief’ GEN. MAJ. J.-M. JOCKIN (Adj. Gen. ITC, voormalig chief of staff UNTAES): ‘UNTAES, lessons learned en evaluatie van het Brahimi-rapport vanuit militair perspectief’ DHR. D. LEURDIJK (Clingendael Instituut): ‘Het Brahimi-rapport vanuit politiek perspectief en de (vooruitzichten voor de ) implementatie ervan’ DHR. H.-B. WEISSERTH (EU, Secretariaat-Generaal van de Raad, Task Force ESDP): ‘EUpeacekeeping en de relatie EU-VN op dit vlak’ Voorzitter: PROF. DR. JAN WOUTERS (K.U.Leuven, Instituut voor Internationaal Recht) Documentatie: DHR. FREDERIK NAERT (K.U.Leuven, Instituut voor Internationaal Recht)
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Inhoud
- ‘An Introduction to United Nations Peacekeeping’ (VN fact-sheet)
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- ‘Preventive Action and Peacemaking’ (VN fact-sheet)
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- Lijst van lopende VN-peacekeeping missies (VN fact-sheet)
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- ‘The United Nations Transitional Administration in Eastern Slavonia, Baranja and Western Sirmium (UNTAES)’ (VN fact-sheet)
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- X., Report of the independent inquiry into the actions of the United Nations during the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, 15 december 1999, ‘IV. Recommendations’
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- Report of the panel on United Nations Peace Operations (‘Brahimi rapport’), Executive Summary
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- Report of the Secretary-General on the implementation of the report of the Panel on United Nations peace operations, 20 oktober 2000
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- ‘Aanzet tot een grondige hervorming van VN-vredesoperaties?’, Frederik Naert, assistent Instituut voor Internationaal recht, KULeuven
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- Europese Raad, Helsinki, 10-11 december 1999, Conclusies (fragment)
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- Europese Raad, Santa Maria da Feira, 19-20 juni 2000, Conclusies (fragment)
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- Toespraak van Védrine (namens EU) voor 55ste VN Algemene Vergadering
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- Persberichten (over de relatie EU-VN)
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AN INTRODUCTION TO UNITED NATIONS PEACEKEEPING (http://www.un.org/Depts/dpko/dpko/intro/index.htm) Preface In May 1948, the Security Council decided to establish a field operation to supervise a fragile truce in the first Arab--Israeli war. Two weeks later, an initial group of 36 unarmed military observers arrived in the Middle East as the first United Nations peacekeepers. More than a half century later, hundreds of thousands of individuals, the vast majority of them soldiers, have served in 53 United Nations peacekeeping operations. More than 1,650 military and civilian peacekeepers have died while serving in United Nations operations. Known widely as "blue helmets" or "blue berets" because of their distinctive headgear, United Nations peacekeepers have patrolled buffer zones between hostile parties, monitored ceasefires and helped defuse local conflicts, allowing the search for durable, political settlements to continue. This "traditional" United Nations peacekeeping continues. Military personnel and structure remain the backbone of most operations. Increasingly, however, the many faces of peacekeeping include civilian police officers, electoral experts and observers, deminers, human rights monitors, and specialists in civil affairs and communications. Their responsibilities range from protecting and delivering humanitarian assistance, to helping former opponents carry out complicated peace agreements; from assisting with the demobilization of former fighters and their return to normal life, to supervising and conducting elections; from training civilian police, to monitoring respect for human rights and investigating alleged violations. Peacekeeping missions are perhaps the United Nations most visible, but not its only presence in conflict zones. Field staff of United Nations agencies and offices, among them the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the World Food Programme, the UN Children's Fund and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights often work closely with peacekeepers. Together, they help alleviate suffering, deal with the problems of refugees and displaced persons, and contribute to reconciliation and reconstruction. Peacekeepers have been called upon to support the activities of these United Nations partners as well as the efforts of non-governmental and other organizations engaged in humanitarian assistance to people affected by conflicts and their aftermath. In many mission areas, a Special Representative of the SecretaryGeneral or other senior United Nations official is appointed to maintain political momentum towards peace, to direct the work of the peacekeeping operation and to provide overall coordination for the United Nations bodies working in the field. 1. An evolving technique Peacekeeping is a technique, pioneered and developed by the UN, which defies simple definition. The term is not found in the UN Charter. Dag Hammarskjold referred to it as belonging to "Chapter Six and a Half" of the Charter, placing it between traditional methods of resolving disputes peacefully, such as mediation and fact-finding (Chapter VI) and more forceful action, such as embargos and military intervention (Chapter VII). Peacekeeping operations have traditionally involved the deployment of primarily military personnel from a number of countries, under UN command, to help control and resolve armed conflict between hostile parties. From the first deployment of military observers in the UN Truce Supervision Organization (UNTSO) in 1948, UN peacekeeping has evolved to meet the unique demands of sharply different conflicts in a changing political landscape. Born during the cold war years, traditional peacekeeping developed under the ever-present shadow of potential nuclear confrontation. Figures such as Canada's Prime Minister Lester Pearson, UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld, his aide Ralph Bunche and personnel in the field from many countries adapted the technique to make peacekeeping an indispensable means for controlling conflict in a divided, tension-ridden world. Recent years have seen major changes in the number and nature of conflicts brought before the UN. The post-cold war period has been characterized by a proliferation of civil wars and other armed conflicts within States which threaten international peace and security and cause massive human suffering. Peacekeeping, initially developed as a means of dealing with inter-State conflict, has been increasingly applied to intra-State conflicts and civil wars. Today's conflicts frequently take place between multiple armed factions with different political objectives and fractured lines of command. Peacekeepers have, as a consequence, sometimes found themselves in situations where ceasefire agreements are ignored, where consent to the UN's presence is called into question, and where government and State institutions have ceased to function or have broken down. Actions by irregular forces and militias which ignore or wilfully violate humanitarian norms, and constantly shifting lines of confrontation have complicated the peacekeeper's task. Peacekeepers are often mandated to perform or to support complex civilian and military functions essential to maintain peace and to begin reconstruction and institution-building in societies devastated by war. During more than half a century of service, UN peacekeeping mandates have ranged from keeping hostile parties peacefully apart, to helping them work peacefully together. As tasks have become more varied and complex, proportionately larger numbers of civilians have joined military personnel as UN peacekeepers. 2. The logic of peacekeeping UN peacekeeping is based on the principle that an impartial UN presence on the ground can ease tensions and allow negotiated solutions in a conflict situation. The first step, which often involves intense diplomatic efforts by the United Nations SecretaryGeneral, is to secure a halt to fighting and the consent of the parties before peacekeepers are deployed. UN peacekeeping operations have normally fallen into two broad categories:
4 ! military observer missions composed of relatively small numbers of unarmed officers, charged with such tasks as monitoring ceasefires, verifying troop withdrawals, or patrolling borders or demilitarized zones; ! peacekeeping forces composed of national contingents of troops, deployed to carry out tasks similar to those of military observers and, often, to act as a buffer between hostile parties. Techniques and experience gained over the years have served as the basis for new peacekeeping tasks, such as preventive deployment, temporary administration or governance of a post-conflict region, protecting delivery of humanitarian assistance, and helping create stable and secure environments for ongoing efforts to consolidate the peace in the wake of conflict. The evolution of UN peacekeeping in response to changing needs has meant that a growing number of peacekeeping operations now fit into a third category: ! complex operations composed of military, civilian police and other civilian personnel mandated to help create political institutions and broaden their base, working alongside governments, non-governmental organizations and local citizens' groups to provide emergency relief, demobilize former fighters and reintegrate them into society, clear mines, organize and conduct elections and promote sustainable development practices. 3. The power of persuasion, backed by force Certain prerequisites for the success of a peacekeeping operation have become increasingly clear. Among them are: ! a genuine desire on the part of the warring parties to solve their differences peacefully; ! a clear mandate; ! strong political support by the international community; ! and the provision of the resources necessary to achieve the operation's objectives. The presence of armed soldiers who can return fire if fired upon is just one of several factors which contribute to the effectiveness of UN peacekeeping. Its real strength lies in the peacekeepers' impartiality, the moral authority of the international community, the pressure of world public opinion and above all, the commitment of the parties to pursue peace. The presence of the peacekeepers allows continued political and diplomatic efforts towards a more durable peace. Peacekeeping can work only if the parties to a conflict demonstrate the political will to respect agreements and permit UN personnel to carry out their tasks. UN peacekeeping forces have traditionally been only lightly armed and use minimum force in self-defense, or if armed persons try to stop them from carrying out their authorized tasks. UN military observers and civilian police are normally unarmed. Peacekeeping faces its most difficult challenges when conflicting parties fail to live up to their commitments and fighting resumes; or when they purposely thwart peacekeepers' efforts. Peacekeepers have sought to stabilize such situations and to minimize suffering of non-combatants--often at great personal risk and despite unclear mandates and insufficient resources-primarily through persuasion and negotiation. At times, however, the peacekeepers' job has become all but impossible. The conflicts in Rwanda in 1994, in Bosnia and Herzegovina and in Somalia between 1992 and 1995 demonstrate the limits of peacekeeping where there is no peace to keep, and the dilemmas posed by combining peacekeeping and the use of force. Once deployed, many operations have faced a difficult or hostile environment,where factions on the ground readily resort to threats or the use of force--and the threat of or resort to force has been an available option. During the 1960-1964 Congo operation, UN peacekeepers were authorized in 1961 by the Security Council to use the requisite measure of force to complete the removal of mercenaries who had contributed to the secession of the province of Katanga. In order to counteract foreign intervention that had led to the weakened position of the central Government, UN peacekeepers were drawn into violent exchanges with armed elements. In more recent situations, the Council has sought to equip peacekeeping operations with a credible military capacity that has helped avoid the need to resort to force. In 1996, for example, in such a demonstration of "robust"peacekeeping, the UN Transitional Administration in Eastern Slavonia, Baranja and Western Sirmium (UNTAES) was outfitted with some heavy weapons as a deterrent. The Security Council also authorized Member States to provide close air support or other forceful action in support of the mission. In Sierra Leone, the UN operation combined strong political pressure with a strong military posture to dissuade one of the parties from resuming the military option. In July 2000, following a series of unprovoked attacks on UNAMSIL troops, and after exhausting all other options, UNAMSIL undertook a military operation to free more than 230 United Nations peacekeepers who had been trapped for over two months by forces fighting against the Government. Just as a capacity to use force can deter attempts to hinder peacekeepers from performing their duties, recent experience has shown that civic action programmes aimed at improving the lives of people in the mission area can generate goodwill and serve as an incentive to the parties to cooperate with the peacekeepers. Peacekeepers in many missions have helped restore essential infrastructure, communications links and services damaged or destroyed during fighting. Today in Kosovo, for example, supporting these efforts constitutes one of the main responsibilities of the United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK). 4. The making of a peacekeeping operation The United Nations has no army. Each peacekeeping operation must be designed to meet the requirements of each new situation; and each time the Security Council calls for the creation of a new operation, its components must be assembled "from scratch".
5 The 15-member Security Council authorizes the deployment of a peacekeeping operation, and determines its mandate. Such decisions require at least nine votes in favour and are subject to a veto by the negative vote of any of the Council's five permanent members (China, France, the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom, the United States). The Secretary-General makes recommendations on how the operation is to be launched and carried out, and reports on its progress; the Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO) is responsible for day-to-day executive direction, management and logistical support for United Nations peacekeeping operations worldwide. The Secretary-General chooses the Force Commander and asks Member States to contribute troops, civilian police or other personnel. Supplies, equipment, transportation and logistical support must also be secured from Member States or from private contractors. Civilian support staff include personnel assigned from within the UN system, loaned by Member States and individuals recruited internationally or locally to fill specific jobs. The lead-time required to deploy a mission varies, and depends primarily upon the will of Member States to contribute troops to a particular operation. The timely availability of financial resources and strategic lift capacity also affect the time necessary for deployment. In 1973, for example, elements of the second UN Emergency Force (UNEF II) were deployed in the Middle East within 24 hours. However, for some missions with highly complex mandates or difficult logistics, or where peacekeepers face significant risks, it may take months to assemble and deploy the necessary elements. During this process, intensive contacts take place among Member States, the Secretariat and the parties on the ground. Members of the Security Council, particularly the five permanent members, and countries contributing personnel play a particularly important role. Regional organizations may also be involved. Consultation begins with the planning stage of an operation and continues throughout its duration. 5. How peacekeeping is financed The usual practice is for UN peacekeeping costs to be shared by all Member States in accordance with the Charter. The General Assembly accordingly apportions these expenses based on a special scale of assessements applicable to peacekeeping. This scale takes into account the relative economic wealth of Member States, with the permanent members of the Security Council required to pay a larger share because of their special responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security. In response to a request from the Secretary-General, countries may volunteer personnel, equipment, supplies or other support for a peacekeeping mission. Countries providing these essential elements are reimbursed from the mission budget at agreed rates. Contributing personnel to peacekeeping is not obligatory; a troop-contributing country retains the right to withdraw its personnel from an operation. Military and civilian police personnel in peacekeeping operations remain members of their own national establishments but serve under the operational control of the United Nations and are expected to conduct themselves in accordance with the exclusively international character of their mission. In addition, many countries have voluntarily made additional resources available to support UN peacekeeping efforts on a non-reimbursable basis in the form of transportation, supplies, personnel and financial contributions, above and beyond their asssessed share of peacekeeping costs. For decades, States have recognized the unique advantages of UN peacekeeping as a means of dealing with conflicts. Its universality makes it uniquely suited to a wide range of situations, and assures a legitimacy as action taken on behalf of a global organization rather than on the basis of national or regional interests. UN peacekeeping can also help focus global attention, promote coordination and burden?sharing among those seeking to advance peace from outside a conflict area.
PREVENTIVE ACTION AND PEACEMAKING, VN fact-sheet, http://www.un.org/Depts/dpa/docs/peacemak.htm Member States attach importance to preventive diplomacy and peacemaking as the most cost-effective ways of preventing disputes from arising, stopping existing disputes from escalating into conflicts and controlling and resolving existing conflicts. The Secretary-General continues to receive mandates from the General Assembly and the Security Council to maintain existing efforts, and to undertake new ones, in this field. The Secretary-General, through his special representatives, special envoys and other emissaries on a resident or visiting basis, is actively engaged in implementing these political mandates in several countries. Preventive diplomacy is particularly favoured by Member States as a means of preventing human suffering and as an alternative to costly politico-military operations to resolve conflicts after they have broken out. Although diplomacy is a welltried means of preventing conflict, the United Nations experience in recent years has shown that there are several other forms of action that can have a useful preventive effect: preventive deployment; preventive disarmament; preventive humanitarian action; and preventive peace-building, which can involve, with the consent of the Government or Governments concerned, a wide range of actions in the fields of good governance, human rights and economic and social development. For this reason, the Secretary-General has decided to rename the activity called "preventive diplomacy" as "preventive action". Peacemaking refers to the use of diplomatic means to persuade parties in conflict to cease hostilities and to negotiate a peaceful settlement of their dispute. As with preventive action, the United Nations can play a role only if the parties to the dispute agree that it should do so. Peacemaking thus excludes the use of force against one of the parties to enforce an end to hostilities, an activity that in United Nations parlance is referred to as "peace enforcement". The primary responsibility for preventive action and peacemaking rests with the Department of Political Affairs (DPA) headed by Under-Secretary-General Kieran Prendergast. Some examples of preventive measures:
6 Preventive Diplomacy / Peacemaking · Identification of potential crises areas through early warning; · Timely and accurate advice to the Secretary-General; · Secretary-General’s good offices; · Mediation/Negotiations; · Public statements and reports by the Secretary-General; · Fact finding, goodwill and other missions; · Political guidance and support to special representatives and other senior officials appointed by the Secretary-General for political missions; · Partnership with funds and programmes as well as other agencies in the UN system; · Support for UN legislative bodies (Security Council, General Assembly); · Deterrent value of targeted sanctions; · Support for Track II initiatives where the UN is not able to play a direct role; Preventive Peacebuilding · Political guidance and support to special representatives and other senior officials appointed by the Secretary-General for political missions and in particular, peace-building offices; · Partnership with funds and programmes as well as other agencies in the UN system; · Electoral assistance, including technical assistance and support of national electoral institutions and processes; · Support for the UN legislative bodies; · Cooperation with regional organizations; · Outreach to NGOs & Civil society, media .
LIJST VAN LOPENDE MISSIES (van de website UNDPKO, http://www.un.org/Depts/dpko/dpko/cu_mission/body.htm) Africa
Democratic Republic of the Congo - MONUC Ethiopia and Eritrea - UNMEE Sierra Leone - UNAMSIL Western Sahara - MINURSO
December 1999 -July 2000 -October 1999 -April 1991 --
Asia
East Timor- UNTAET India-Pakistan - UNMOGIP
October 1999 -January 1949 --
Europe
Bosnia & Herzegovina - UNMIBH Kosovo - UNMIK Croatia - UNMOP Cyprus - UNFICYP Georgia - UNOMIG
December 1995 -June 1999 -January 1996 -March 1964 -August 1993 --
Middle East
Golan Heights - UNDOF Iraq/Kuwait - UNIKOM Lebanon - UNIFIL Middle East - UNTSO
June 1974 -April 1991 -March 1978 -June 1948 --
UNITED NATIONS TRANSITIONAL ADMINISTRATION FOR EASTERN SLAVONIA, BARANJA AND WESTERN SIRMIUM (UNTAES), http://www.un.org/Depts/dpko/dpko/co_mission/untaes.htm MISSION ESTABLISHMENT AND MANDATE The United Nations Transitional Administration in Eastern Slavonia, Baranja and Western Sirmium was established on 15 January 1996 by the United Nations Security Council in its resolution 1037 (1996). The Council took this action after the Basic Agreement on the Region of Eastern Slavonia, Baranja and Western Sirmium had come into force. The Basic Agreement was concluded between the Government of the Republic of Croatia and the local Croatian Serb authorities in Eastern Slavonia and was signed on 12 November 1995. It requested the Security Council to set up a transitional administration to govern the Region for an initial period of 12 months, which could be extended to two years at the request of one of the parties. The transitional administration was to help reintegrate the Region peacefully into Croatia's legal and constitutional system. FUNCTION:
7 The 12 November 1995 Basic Agreement on the Region of Eastern Slavonia, Baranja and Western Sirmium provides for the peaceful integration of that region into Croatia. The Agreement requested the Security Council to establish a transitional administration to govern the region during the transititonal period of 12 months, and to authorize an international force to maintain peace and security during that period and to otherwise assist in the implementation of the Agreement. UNTAES was set up on 15 January 1996 for an initial period of 12 months, with both military and civilian components. The military component is to supervise and facilitate the demilitarization of the Region; monitor the voluntary and safe return of refugees and displaced persons to their homes of origin in cooperation with UNHCR; contribute, by its presence, to the maintenance of peace and security in the region; and otherwise assist in implementation of the Basic Agreement. The civilian component is to establish a temporary police force, define its structure and size, develop a training programme and oversee its implementation, and monitor treatment of offenders and the prison system; undertake tasks relating to civil administration and to the functioning of public services; facilitate the return of refugees; organize elections, assist in their conduct, and certify the results. The component has also been requested to undertake other activities relevant to the Basic Agreement, including assistance in the coordination of plans for the development and economic reconstruction of the Region and monitoring of the parties' compliance with their commitments to respect the highest standards of human rights and fundamental freedoms, promote an atmosphere of confidence among all local residents irrespective of their ethnic origin, monitor and facilitate the demining of territory within the Region, and maintain an active public affairs element. UNTAES is also to cooperate with the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in performing its mandate. Member States are authorized, acting nationally or through regional organizations, to take all necessary measures, including close air support to defend or help withdraw UNTAES, and that such actions would be based on UNTAES' request and procedures communicated to the United Nations. By adopting resolution 1079 (1996) on 15 November 1996, the Security Council extended UNTAES' mandate for six months, through 15 July 1997. By resolution 1120(1997) of 14 July 1997, the Security Council again extended UNTAES' mandate through 15 January 1998. The Council endorsed the plan for restructuring UNTAES and the drawdown of its military component by 15 October 1997 CONSENSUS ON SUCCESS The Secretary-General reported to the Council on 4 December 1997 that there was consensus between the Government of Croatia, local Serbs and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia that: (1) UNTAES had successfully achieved its basic objectives and completed the tasks within its power; but that (2) full implementation of Croatian commitments remained incomplete. According to the Secretary-General, the Croatian Government's major effort in October and November 1997 to meet those commitments and reassure its citizens should be the baseline from which additional efforts are made. Major milestones included the completion of demilitarization on 20 June 1996, the establishment of a Transitional Police Force on 1 July 1996; the holding of local and regional elections on 13 and 14 April 1997; and the return to their original homes, in the latter part of 1997, of some 6,000 Croats and 9,000 Serbs. Furthermore, within the UNTAES area, there was no large outflow of new refugees from the Region, and reintegration was peaceful. In addition, close cooperation with the International Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia resulted in the exhumation of the Ovcara mass grave site and the arrest of an indicted war criminal.Reviewing the two years of the UNTAES mandate, the Secretary-General saw the success of UNTAES in the entire reintegration process as a positive precedent for peace throughout the former Yugoslavia. UNTAES provided the necessary stability to enable Croatia and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia to normalize their relations, enter into increasingly cooperative bilateral agreements and re-establish normal commercial and traffic links between them. UNTAES also ensured that developments in its area did not have a negative effect on the situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
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X., REPORT OF THE INDEPENDENT INQUIRY INTO THE ACTIONS OF THE UNITED NATIONS DURING THE 1994 GENOCIDE IN RWANDA, 15 december 1999, volledige tekst op http://www.un.org/News/ossg/rwanda_report.htm; … IV. Recommendations 2. Renewed efforts should be made to improve the capacity of the UN in the field of peacekeeping, including the availability of resources: political momentum for action should be mobilized at the Millennium Summit and Assembly. In each peacekeeping operation it should be clear which Rules of Engagement apply. 3. The United Nations – and in particular the Security Council and troop contributing countries – must be prepared to act to prevent acts of genocide or gross violations of human rights wherever they may take place. The political will to act should not be subject to different standards. 4. The early warning capacity of the United Nations needs to be improved, through better cooperation with outside actors including NGOs and academics, as well as within the Secretariat. 5. Efforts need to be made to improve the protection of civilians in conflict situations. 6. Further improvements in the security of UN and associated personnel, including local staff, are necessary. Consideration should be given to changing existing rules to enable the evacuation of national staff from crisis areas. 7. Cooperation between officials responsible for the security of different categories of staff in the field [must] be ensured. 8. An effective flow of information needs to be ensured within the UN system. 9. Further improvements should be made in the flow of information to the Security Council. 10. The flow of information on human rights issues should be improved. 11. National evacuation operations must be coordinated with UN missions on the ground. … The Inquiry is aware that a number of steps have been taken over the past few years to improve the capacity of the United Nations to respond to conflicts, and specifically to respond to some of the mistakes made in Rwanda. For instance, welcome changes have been made with regard to how the Secretariat briefs the Security Council. Internal structures have also been set up with the aim of improving the Secretariat's capacity for early warning and early action. However, there is still need for determined action if the United Nations is to be better prepared to prevent future catastrophes than it was to prevent and respond to the tragedy in Rwanda. The Inquiry makes the following recommendations for action. … 2. The Inquiry recommends that action be taken to improve the capacity of the United Nations to conduct peacekeeping operations, and in particular to ensure the sufficiently rapid deployment of missions into the field. The issue is not a new one, and similar recommendations have been made by other bodies, but while the need has been repeated many times, the problem remains. The United Nations remains the only organization which can bring global legitimacy to peacekeeping efforts. Important initiatives can be taken at the regional level, but the United Nations must be prepared and willing to exercise the responsibility for international peace and security enshrined in its Charter, no matter where the conflict. The Inquiry hopes that the Secretary-General and the Member States of the Organization will use the opportunity provided by the Millennium Summit and Assembly next year to mobilise the political will necessary to solve the current problems facing United Nations peacekeeping, to look clearly at the challenges ahead, at what needs to be learnt from past failures, including in Rwanda, and what can be done to meet the challenges of tomorrow. This entails in particular: - Ensuring the necessary resources for peacekeeping. Member States must be prepared to provide the necessary troops at short notice to the United Nations. Participation in initiatives such as the United Nations standby-arrangements needs to be increased, but equally importantly, matched by the political will to allow those resources committed to be deployed in specific conflict situations. The credibility of United Nations peacekeeping depends on operations being given the resources necessary to fulfil their mandates. It also requires that troop contributors refrain from withdrawing unilaterally from a peacekeeping operation when that withdrawal may be expected to jeopardize or put in danger the operation in question. Close coordination is necessary with the Secretariat about any decision to withdraw or reduce a contingent. - Increasing preparedness to conduct contingency planning, both for expected new peacekeeping operations and to meet possible needs to adjust mandates of existing operations. - Taking action to make logistical resources rapidly available to contingents lacking in material, either by enhancing the use of the logistic base at Brindisi or by means of donor contributions. The Secretariat should be provided with the resources to enable it to function as a clearing-house for needs and available materiel and training resources. Concrete discussions should be held between the United Nations and relevant regional and subregional organisations on how to improve the availability of materiel for peacekeeping. The Inquiry urges that new momentum be given to solving the recurrent need for logistical support for troop contingents from developing countries. - Ensuring that mandates fully meet the needs on the ground. The overriding concern in formulating mandates must be what presence is needed on the ground, not short-term financial constraints. The Security Council should be presented with proposals reflecting the real needs of a mission, not ones tailored to a previously perceived consensus. Mandates must be made robust enough already from the beginning of a mission. They should also be flexible enough to allow the Force Commander the leeway to adapt to changing circumstances on the ground. - Ensuring that the leadership of an operation arrives in a well-planned manner. The Special Representative of the SecretaryGeneral should be appointed early, should preferrably have experience from peace negotiations which may have preceded a peacekeeping mission, and should be among the first to take up his post in the mission area. Good cooperation between the civilian and military leadership of a mission is essential.
9 - Ensuring full coordination between the Secretariat and other affected agencies in the planning and deployment of peacekeeping operations. It is also important to further improve coordination and cooperation between peacekeeping operations and NGOs active in the mission area. - Ensuring that Lessons Learned from previous missions are integrated into the planning of new peacekeeping operations. - Improve cooperation between the United Nations on the one hand, and regional and subregional organizations on the other. Existing contacts could be intensified, not least in order to enhance concrete cooperation with respect to peacekeeping activities. Regular and direct contacts between the Security Council and representatives of regional and subregional organizations active in the field of peace and security should be increased. - There should never be any doubt as to which Rules of Engagement apply during the conduct of a peacekeeping mission. Rules of Engagement must be given formal approval by Headquarters. 3. The United Nations – and in particular the Security Council and troop contributing countries – must be prepared to act to prevent acts of genocide or gross violations of human rights wherever they may take place. The political will to act should not be subject to double standards. 4. Improve the early warning capacity of the United Nations, in particular its capacity to analyse and react to information. Steps have been taken to improve the awareness of the need for early warning and early action within different parts of the Secretariat. Nonetheless, the Inquiry feels it essential both to continue to improve the capacity of the organization to analyse and respond to information about possible conflicts, and its operational capability for preventive action. Further enhancement of the cooperation between different Secretariat departments, UNSECOORD, programmes and agencies and outside actors, including regional and subregional organizations, NGOs and the academic world, is essential. As outlined under paragraph 1 above, the Inquiry believes that the prevention of genocide merits particular attention within the scope of early warning activities. 5. Improve efforts to protect civilians in conflict and potential conflict situations. Specific provisions related to the protection of civilian populations should be included in the mandates of peacekeeping operations wherever appropriate and ensure the necessary resources for such protection. In this context, the Inquiry supports intensified efforts by the Secretary-General and the Security Council to follow-up on the recommendations contained in the Secretary-General's recent report on the protection of civilians in armed conflict (S/1999/957). A strong and independent role for the Secretary-General is an essential component in efforts by the United Nations to prevent conflict. The Secretary-General deserves the constant support of the membership of the organization in his attempts to promote an early resolution to conflict. 6. Seek further improvements in the security of United Nations and associated personnel, including local staff. The SecretaryGeneral should actively consider expanding the possibility of evacuation to national staff of the United Nations. Members of the national staff must be kept clearly informed of the rules which apply to them. There should be no scope for misunderstanding about their status in the event of an evacuation. 7. Ensure full cooperation between officials responsible for the security of different categories of UN personnel in the field. Ensure functioning means of communication between such officials. 8. Improve the flow of information within the United Nations system. The trend towards a more coordinated approach to the prevention and resolution of conflicts means that information must be shared with all parts of the United Nations system involved in such efforts. In particular, an effective flow of information must be ensured between the Executive Office of the Secretary-General and the substantive departments of the Secretariat as well as between Headquarters and the field. 9. Further improve the flow of information to the Security Council. … The more direct the flow … , the better. 10. Improve the flow of information on human rights issues. Information about human rights must be a natural part of the basis for decision-making on peacekeeping operations, within the Secretariat and by the Security Council. Reports by the SecretaryGeneral to the Security Council should include an analysis of the human rights situation in the conflict concerned. Human rights information must be a brought to bear in the internal deliberations of the Secretariat on early warning, preventive action and peacekeeping. And increased efforts need to be made to ensure that the necessary human rights competence exists as part of the staff of UN missions in the field. 11. National evacuation operations must be coordinated with UN missions on the ground. …
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REPORT OF THE PANEL ON UNITED NATIONS PEACE OPERATIONS (augustus 2000), Executive Summary (voor het volledig rapport, zie http://www.un.org/peace/reports/peace_operations). The United Nations was founded, in the words of its Charter, in order "to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war." Meeting this challenge is the most important function of the Organization, and to a very significant degree it is the yardstick with which the Organization is judged by the peoples it exists to serve. Over the last decade, the United Nations has repeatedly failed to meet the challenge, and it can do no better today. Without renewed commitment on the part of Member States, significant institutional change and increased financial support, the United Nations will not be capable of executing the critical peacekeeping and peace-building tasks that the Member States assign to it in coming months and years. There are many tasks which United Nations peacekeeping forces should not be asked to undertake and many places they should not go. But when the United Nations does send its forces to uphold the peace, they must be prepared to confront the lingering forces of war and violence, with the ability and determination to defeat them. The Secretary-General has asked the Panel on United Nations Peace Operations, composed of individuals experienced in various aspects of conflict prevention, peacekeeping and peace-building, to assess the shortcomings of the existing system and to make frank, specific and realistic recommendations for change. Our recommendations focus not only on politics and strategy but also and perhaps even more so on operational and organizational areas of need. For preventive initiatives to succeed in reducing tension and averting conflict, the Secretary-General needs clear, strong and sustained political support from Member States. Furthermore, as the United Nations has bitterly and repeatedly discovered over the last decade, no amount of good intentions can substitute for the fundamental ability to project credible force if complex peacekeeping, in particular, is to succeed. But force alone cannot create peace; it can only create the space in which peace may be built. Moreover, the changes that the Panel recommends will have no lasting impact unless Member States summon the political will to support the United Nations politically, financially and operationally to enable the United Nations to be truly credible as a force for peace. Each of the recommendations contained in the present report is designed to remedy a serious problem in strategic direction, decision-making, rapid deployment, operational planning and support, and the use of modern information technology. Key assessments and recommendations are highlighted below, largely in the order in which they appear in the body of the text (the numbers of the relevant paragraphs in the main text are provided in parentheses). In addition, a summary of recommendations is contained in the annex. Experience of the past It should have come as no surprise to anyone that some of the missions of the past decade would be particularly hard to accomplish: they tended to deploy where conflict had not resulted in victory for any side, where a military stalemate or international pressure or both had brought fighting to a halt but at least some of the parties to the conflict were not seriously committed to ending the confrontation. United Nations operations thus did not deploy into post-conflict situations but tried to create them. In such complex operations, peacekeepers work to maintain a secure local environment while peacebuilders work to make that environment self-sustaining. Only such an environment offers a ready exit to peacekeeping forces, making peacekeepers and peacebuilders inseparable partners. Implications for preventive action and peace-building: the need for strategy and support The United Nations and its members face a pressing need to establish more effective strategies for conflict prevention, in both the long and short terms. In this context, the Panel endorses the recommendations of the Secretary-General with respect to conflict prevention contained in the Millennium Report (A/54/2000) and in his remarks before the Security Council’s second open meeting on conflict prevention in July 2000. It also encourages the Secretary-General’s more frequent use of fact-finding missions to areas of tension in support of short-term crisis-preventive action. Furthermore, the Security Council and the General Assembly’s Special Committee on Peacekeeping Operations, conscious that the United Nations will continue to face the prospect of having to assist communities and nations in making the transition from war to peace, have each recognized and acknowledged the key role of peace-building in complex peace operations. This will require that the United Nations system address what has hitherto been a fundamental deficiency in the way it has conceived of, funded and implemented peace-building strategies and activities. Thus, the Panel recommends that the Executive Committee on Peace and Security (ECPS) present to the Secretary-General a plan to strengthen the permanent capacity of the United Nations to develop peace-building strategies and to implement programmes in support of those strategies. Among the changes that the Panel supports are: a doctrinal shift in the use of civilian police and related rule of law elements in peace operations that emphasizes a team approach to upholding the rule of law and respect for human rights and helping communities coming out of a conflict to achieve national reconciliation; consolidation of disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration programmes into the assessed budgets of complex peace operations in their first phase; flexibility for heads of
11 United Nations peace operations to fund "quick impact projects" that make a real difference in the lives of people in the mission area; and better integration of electoral assistance into a broader strategy for the support of governance institutions. Implications for peacekeeping: the need for robust doctrine and realistic mandates The Panel concurs that consent of the local parties, impartiality and the use of force only in self-defence should remain the bedrock principles of peacekeeping. Experience shows, however, that in the context of intra-State/transnational conflicts, consent may be manipulated in many ways. Impartiality for United Nations operations must therefore mean adherence to the principles of the Charter: where one party to a peace agreement clearly and incontrovertibly is violating its terms, continued equal treatment of all parties by the United Nations can in the best case result in ineffectiveness and in the worst may amount to complicity with evil. No failure did more to damage the standing and credibility of United Nations peacekeeping in the 1990s than its reluctance to distinguish victim from aggressor. In the past, the United Nations has often found itself unable to respond effectively to such challenges. It is a fundamental premise of the present report, however, that it must be able to do so. Once deployed, United Nations peacekeepers must be able to carry out their mandate professionally and successfully. This means that United Nations military units must be capable of defending themselves, other mission components and the mission’s mandate. Rules of engagement should be sufficiently robust and not force United Nations contingents to cede the initiative to their attackers. This means, in turn, that the Secretariat must not apply best-case planning assumptions to situations where the local actors have historically exhibited worst-case behaviour. It means that mandates should specify an operation’s authority to use force. It means bigger forces, better equipped and more costly but able to be a credible deterrent. In particular, United Nations forces for complex operations should be afforded the field intelligence and other capabilities needed to mount an effective defence against violent challengers. Moreover, United Nations peacekeepers — troops or police — who witness violence against civilians should be presumed to be authorized to stop it, within their means, in support of basic United Nations principles. However, operations given a broad and explicit mandate for civilian protection must be given the specific resources needed to carry out that mandate. The Secretariat must tell the Security Council what it needs to know, not what it wants to hear, when recommending force and other resource levels for a new mission, and it must set those levels according to realistic scenarios that take into account likely challenges to implementation. Security Council mandates, in turn, should reflect the clarity that peacekeeping operations require for unity of effort when they deploy into potentially dangerous situations. The current practice is for the Secretary-General to be given a Security Council resolution specifying troop levels on paper, not knowing whether he will be given the troops and other personnel that the mission needs to function effectively, or whether they will be properly equipped. The Panel is of the view that, once realistic mission requirements have been set and agreed to, the Council should leave its authorizing resolution in draft form until the Secretary-General confirms that he has received troop and other commitments from Member States sufficient to meet those requirements. Member States that do commit formed military units to an operation should be invited to consult with the members of the Security Council during mandate formulation; such advice might usefully be institutionalized via the establishment of ad hoc subsidiary organs of the Council, as provided for in Article 29 of the Charter. Troop contributors should also be invited to attend Secretariat briefings of the Security Council pertaining to crises that affect the safety and security of mission personnel or to a change or reinterpretation of the mandate regarding the use of force. New headquarters capacity for information management and strategic analysis The Panel recommends that a new information-gathering and analysis entity be created to support the informational and analytical needs of the Secretary-General and the members of the Executive Committee on Peace and Security (ECPS). Without such capacity, the Secretariat will remain a reactive institution, unable to get ahead of daily events, and the ECPS will not be able to fulfil the role for which it was created. The Panel’s proposed ECPS Information and Strategic Analysis Secretariat (EISAS) would create and maintain integrated databases on peace and security issues, distribute that knowledge efficiently within the United Nations system, generate policy analyses, formulate long-term strategies for ECPS and bring budding crises to the attention of the ECPS leadership. It could also propose and manage the agenda of ECPS itself, helping to transform it into the decision-making body anticipated in the Secretary-General’s initial reforms. The Panel proposes that EISAS be created by consolidating the existing Situation Centre of the Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO) with a number of small, scattered policy planning offices, and adding a small team of military analysts, experts in international criminal networks and information systems specialists. EISAS should serve the needs of all members of ECPS.
12 Improved mission guidance and leadership The Panel believes it is essential to assemble the leadership of a new mission as early as possible at United Nations Headquarters, to participate in shaping a mission’s concept of operations, support plan, budget, staffing and Headquarters mission guidance. To that end, the Panel recommends that the Secretary-General compile, in a systematic fashion and with input from Member States, a comprehensive list of potential special representatives of the Secretary-General (SRSGs), force commanders, civilian police commissioners, their potential deputies and potential heads of other components of a mission, representing a broad geographic and equitable gender distribution. Rapid deployment standards and "on-call" expertise The first 6 to 12 weeks following a ceasefire or peace accord are often the most critical ones for establishing both a stable peace and the credibility of a new operation. Opportunities lost during that period are hard to regain. The Panel recommends that the United Nations define "rapid and effective deployment capacity" as the ability to fully deploy traditional peacekeeping operations within 30 days of the adoption of a Security Council resolution establishing such an operation, and within 90 days in the case of complex peacekeeping operations. The Panel recommends that the United Nations standby arrangements system (UNSAS) be developed further to include several coherent, multinational, brigade-size forces and the necessary enabling forces, created by Member States working in partnership, in order to better meet the need for the robust peacekeeping forces that the Panel has advocated. The Panel also recommends that the Secretariat send a team to confirm the readiness of each potential troop contributor to meet the requisite United Nations training and equipment requirements for peacekeeping operations, prior to deployment. Units that do not meet the requirements must not be deployed. To support such rapid and effective deployment, the Panel recommends that a revolving "on-call list" of about 100 experienced, well qualified military officers, carefully vetted and accepted by DPKO, be created within UNSAS. Teams drawn from this list and available for duty on seven days’ notice would translate broad, strategic-level mission concepts developed at Headquarters into concrete operational and tactical plans in advance of the deployment of troop contingents, and would augment a core element from DPKO to serve as part of a mission start-up team. Parallel on-call lists of civilian police, international judicial experts, penal experts and human rights specialists must be available in sufficient numbers to strengthen rule of law institutions, as needed, and should also be part of UNSAS. Pre-trained teams could then be drawn from this list to precede the main body of civilian police and related specialists into a new mission area, facilitating the rapid and effective deployment of the law and order component into the mission. The Panel also calls upon Member States to establish enhanced national "pools" of police officers and related experts, earmarked for deployment to United Nations peace operations, to help meet the high demand for civilian police and related criminal justice/rule of law expertise in peace operations dealing with intra-State conflict. The Panel also urges Member States to consider forming joint regional partnerships and programmes for the purpose of training members of the respective national pools to United Nations civilian police doctrine and standards. The Secretariat should also address, on an urgent basis, the needs: to put in place a transparent and decentralized recruitment mechanism for civilian field personnel; to improve the retention of the civilian specialists that are needed in every complex peace operation; and to create standby arrangements for their rapid deployment. Finally, the Panel recommends that the Secretariat radically alter the systems and procedures in place for peacekeeping procurement in order to facilitate rapid deployment. It recommends that responsibilities for peacekeeping budgeting and procurement be moved out of the Department of Management and placed in DPKO. The Panel proposes the creation of a new and distinct body of streamlined field procurement policies and procedures; increased delegation of procurement authority to the field; and greater flexibility for field missions in the management of their budgets. The Panel also urges that the SecretaryGeneral formulate and submit to the General Assembly, for its approval, a global logistics support strategy governing the stockpiling of equipment reserves and standing contracts with the private sector for common goods and services. In the interim, the Panel recommends that additional "start-up kits" of essential equipment be maintained at the United Nations Logistics Base (UNLB) in Brindisi, Italy. The Panel also recommends that the Secretary-General be given authority, with the approval of the Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions (ACABQ) to commit up to $50 million well in advance of the adoption of a Security Council resolution establishing a new operation once it becomes clear that an operation is likely to be established. Enhance Headquarters capacity to plan and support peace operations
13 The Panel recommends that Headquarters support for peacekeeping be treated as a core activity of the United Nations, and as such the majority of its resource requirements should be funded through the regular budget of the Organization. DPKO and other offices that plan and support peacekeeping are currently primarily funded by the Support Account, which is renewed each year and funds only temporary posts. That approach to funding and staff seems to confuse the temporary nature of specific operations with the evident permanence of peacekeeping and other peace operations activities as core functions of the United Nations, which is obviously an untenable state of affairs. The total cost of DPKO and related Headquarters support offices for peacekeeping does not exceed $50 million per annum, or roughly 2 per cent of total peacekeeping costs. Additional resources for those offices are urgently needed to ensure that more than $2 billion spent on peacekeeping in 2001 are well spent. The Panel therefore recommends that the Secretary-General submit a proposal to the General Assembly outlining the Organization’s requirements in full. The Panel believes that a methodical management review of DPKO should be conducted but also believes that staff shortages in certain areas are plainly obvious. For example, it is clearly not enough to have 32 officers providing military planning and guidance to 27,000 troops in the field, nine civilian police staff to identify, vet and provide guidance for up to 8,600 police, and 15 political desk officers for 14 current operations and two new ones, or to allocate just 1.25 per cent of the total costs of peacekeeping to Headquarters administrative and logistics support. Establish Integrated Mission Task Forces for mission planning and support The Panel recommends that Integrated Mission Task Forces (IMTFs) be created, with staff from throughout the United Nations system seconded to them, to plan new missions and help them reach full deployment, significantly enhancing the support that Headquarters provides to the field. There is currently no integrated planning or support cell in the Secretariat that brings together those responsible for political analysis, military operations, civilian police, electoral assistance, human rights, development, humanitarian assistance, refugees and displaced persons, public information, logistics, finance and recruitment. Structural adjustments are also required in other elements of DPKO, in particular to the Military and Civilian Police Division, which should be reorganized into two separate divisions, and the Field Administration and Logistics Division (FALD), which should be split into two divisions. The Lessons Learned Unit should be strengthened and moved into the DPKO Office of Operations. Public information planning and support at Headquarters also needs strengthening, as do elements in the Department of Political Affairs (DPA), particularly the electoral unit. Outside the Secretariat, the ability of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights to plan and support the human rights components of peace operations needs to be reinforced. Consideration should be given to allocating a third Assistant Secretary-General to DPKO and designating one of them as "Principal Assistant Secretary-General", functioning as the deputy to the Under-Secretary-General. Adapting peace operations to the information age Modern, well utilized information technology (IT) is a key enabler of many of the above-mentioned objectives, but gaps in strategy, policy and practice impede its effective use. In particular, Headquarters lacks a sufficiently strong responsibility centre for user-level IT strategy and policy in peace operations. A senior official with such responsibility in the peace and security arena should be appointed and located within EISAS, with counterparts in the offices of the SRSG in every United Nations peace operation. Headquarters and the field missions alike also need a substantive, global, Peace Operations Extranet (POE), through which missions would have access to, among other things, EISAS databases and analyses and lessons learned. Challenges to implementation The Panel believes that the above recommendations fall well within the bounds of what can be reasonably demanded of the Organization’s Member States. Implementing some of them will require additional resources for the Organization, but we do not mean to suggest that the best way to solve the problems of the United Nations is merely to throw additional resources at them. Indeed, no amount of money or resources can substitute for the significant changes that are urgently needed in the culture of the Organization. The Panel calls on the Secretariat to heed the Secretary-General’s initiatives to reach out to the institutions of civil society; to constantly keep in mind that the United Nations they serve is the universal organization. People everywhere are fully entitled to consider that it is their organization, and as such to pass judgement on its activities and the people who serve in it. Furthermore, wide disparities in staff quality exist and those in the system are the first to acknowledge it; better performers are given unreasonable workloads to compensate for those who are less capable. Unless the United Nations takes steps to become a true meritocracy, it will not be able to reverse the alarming trend of qualified personnel, the young among them in particular,
14 leaving the Organization. Moreover, qualified people will have no incentive to join it. Unless managers at all levels, beginning with the Secretary-General and his senior staff, seriously address this problem on a priority basis, reward excellence and remove incompetence, additional resources will be wasted and lasting reform will become impossible. Member States also acknowledge that they need to reflect on their working culture and methods. It is incumbent upon Security Council members, for example, and the membership at large to breathe life into the words that they produce, as did, for instance, the Security Council delegation that flew to Jakarta and Dili in the wake of the East Timor crisis in 1999, an example of effective Council action at its best: res, non verba. We — the members of the Panel on United Nations Peace Operations — call on the leaders of the world assembled at the Millennium Summit, as they renew their commitment to the ideals of the United Nations, to commit as well to strengthen the capacity of the United Nations to fully accomplish the mission which is, indeed, its very raison d’être: to help communities engulfed in strife and to maintain or restore peace. While building consensus for the recommendations in the present report, we have also come to a shared vision of a United Nations, extending a strong helping hand to a community, country or region to avert conflict or to end violence. We see an SRSG ending a mission well accomplished, having given the people of a country the opportunity to do for themselves what they could not do before: to build and hold onto peace, to find reconciliation, to strengthen democracy, to secure human rights. We see, above all, a United Nations that has not only the will but also the ability to fulfil its great promise, and to justify the confidence and trust placed in it by the overwhelming majority of humankind.
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REPORT OF THE SECRETARY-GENERAL ON THE IMPLEMENTATION OF THE REPORT OF THE PANEL ON UNITED NATIONS PEACE OPERATIONS (Fifty-fifth session, Agenda item 86, Comprehensive review of the whole question of peacekeeping operations in all their aspects)
Contents I.
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
1–8
II.
Action taken since the issuance of the report of the Panel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
9–13
Proposed action for implementing the recommendations of the Panel . . . . . . .
14–154
III. A.
Enhancing the effectiveness of key peace and security instruments
14–41
B.
New mechanisms for improving system-wide integration
42–66
C.
Enhancing rapid and effective deployment capacities
D.
Funding of Headquarters support to peacekeeping operations
119–122
E.
Proposed restructuring of the Department of Peacekeeping Operations
123–142
F.
Strengthening other parts of the United Nations system . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
143–145
G.
Information technology and knowledge management
146–154
67–118
I.Introduction 1. On 21 August 2000, I transmitted to the Presidents of the General Assembly and the Security Council the report of the Panel on United Nations Peace Operations (A/55/305-S/2000/809). In my transmittal letter, I characterized the Panel’s recommendations as “far-reaching yet sensible and practical” and I urged all Member States to join me in considering, approving and supporting the implementation of those recommendations. 2. The General Assembly, in paragraph 9 of its resolution 55/2 of 8 September 2000 already took up the issue at the level of Heads of State and Government, by resolving to make the United Nations more effective in maintaining peace and security by giving it the resources and tools it needs for conflict prevention, peaceful resolution of disputes, peacekeeping, post-conflict peace-building and reconstruction. In that context, Heads of State and Government took note of the Panel’s report and requested the General Assembly to consider its recommendations expeditiously. 3. The Security Council has already begun consideration of the recommendations falling within its purview. Meeting at the level of Heads of State and Government, the Security Council (in resolution 1318 (2000)), welcomed the report and decided to consider the recommendations which fell within its area of responsibility expeditiously. 4. The present report provides supplementary information to the General Assembly to facilitate its consideration of the Panel’s recommendations. 5. Many of the Panel’s recommendations need no further elaboration on my part. The present report thus focuses on those recommendations which require further details on the steps that need to be taken and the time frames envisaged to implement them. It also provides clarification, where necessary, on the proposed creation of new mechanisms, structures, or working methods. 6. In order to implement a number of the Panel’s recommendations, additional resources will be required. I am therefore submitting to the General Assembly very shortly, a separate and detailed report on the resource requirements for implementation of the report of the Panel on United Nations Peace Operations. The budgetary implications of some of the Panel’s recommendations still require further study and I plan to submit to the General Assembly a second report on that issue in the course of 2001. 7.
Before proceeding further, I would like to begin with a few general observations:
(a) I commissioned the Panel’s report to contribute to the overall process of reform that I initiated since taking office. I am concurrently pursuing a major reform of the human resources management system and seeking to strengthen the Organization’s ability to ensure the safety and security of United Nations personnel. Separate major reports on both subjects will be taken up by the General Assembly at its fifty-fifth session and are closely inter-linked with the implementation of the Panel’s recommendations. Furthermore, the work of the Panel should assist me in responding to the many recommendations and requests of the Special Committee on Peacekeeping Operations to strengthen the United Nations capacities to conduct peacekeeping operations efficiently and
16 effectively. (b) The Panel’s report does not address the question of whether the United Nations should become involved in specific situations. It deals exclusively with how the United Nations can improve its performance, once a decision has been made to undertake a specific operation or activity. (c) Peacekeeping is the responsibility of all Member States, first and foremost, the members of the Security Council. The performance of the United Nations in this area will not improve unless Member States, and particularly those possessing the greatest capacity and means to do so, are ready to participate with soldiers, police officers and civilian experts, to support cooperation between countries of the South and of the North, including with equipment and training, and to pay their fair share of the costs in full and on time. (d) The Panel’s recommendations reflect the realities of peacekeeping in the post cold war era. Most of the missions authorized by the Council since the mission to Cambodia in 1992 have entailed a wide variety of tasks that go beyond the mere interposition of lightly armed peacekeepers between former warring States. Many of those operations have met with resistance and, in too many instances, our inability to respond to such resistance has seriously undermined our ability to effectively achieve our mandate and has done grave damage to the reputation of this Organization. Our policies, systems and procedures must reflect this reality. (e) The Panel’s recommendations regarding the use of force apply only to those operations in which armed United Nations peacekeepers have deployed with the consent of the parties concerned. I therefore do not interpret any portions of the Panel’s report as a recommendation to turn the United Nations into a war-fighting machine or to fundamentally change the principles according to which peacekeepers use force. The Panel’s recommendations for clear mandates, “robust” rules of engagement, and bigger and better equipped forces must be seen in that light. They are practical measures to achieve deterrence through strength, with the ultimate purpose of diminishing, not increasing, the likelihood for the need to use force, which should always be seen as a measure of last resort. Indeed, rules of engagement provide for a graduated response, precisely for that reason. (f) The Panel argued that the Secretariat could do a better job of supporting peace operations, if provided with additional resources with which to do so. I agree. As long as we continue to peg our staffing levels according to what is needed to provide just the bare minimum of support to the field, we will not be able to improve the quality of that support, nor will we be able to build the systems that are required to be more efficient and effective in the long term. There is some scope for more efficiently utilizing existing resources and I plan to do this to the maximum extent possible, but this will not suffice. This is why I am submitting an emergency request for additional resources under the Support Account. In 2001, I will present proposals for more appropriate funding mechanisms for Headquarters support to peacekeeping operations. I am convinced that a judicious investment of additional resources into our peace missions will be beneficial for all Member States and may in fact result in reduced costs over time. (g) I do not suggest, however, that increased resources is all that is needed to ensure a better performance by the United Nations. Rules and procedures must be better adapted to the demands placed on the Organization. Attitudes and work habits must change as well. Some progress has been made since I initiated my reform programme, but much remains to be done to improve management within the Secretariat and coordination between the Secretariat and other entities of the United Nations system. (h) I echo the concerns expressed by many developing countries to the effect that the increase in resources for peace operations must not come at the expense of the resources needed for development. The Millennium Declaration makes it very clear that increased resources are needed on both fronts and I have called repeatedly on the developed countries to increase overseas development assistance, accelerate debt forgiveness and open their markets to imports from the poorer countries. (i) With regard to the role in conflict prevention and peace-building envisaged in the report for the United Nations agencies, funds and programmes, the intention is not to displace the authority of their respective governing bodies in dictating their policies and priorities. My intention is to achieve greater coherence within the United Nations system as a whole in places of armed conflict, to ensure that all of our various efforts work in greater harmony. The aim is not to integrate the work of the agencies, funds and programmes around a narrow agenda, but to ensure that there is proper collaboration among all the United Nations actors in the field with common guidance and support from Headquarters. This will be crucial in addressing the point raised by the Special Committee on Peacekeeping Operations, namely, that peacekeeping operations should not be used as a substitute for addressing the root causes of conflict. Those causes should be addressed in a coherent, wellplanned, coordinated and comprehensive manner with political, social and developmental instruments (A/54/839, para. 53). 8. I am conscious that other issues before the Assembly, notably the reform of the Security Council and the scales of assessments for Member States, are of considerable importance for the role of the United Nations in peace and security matters. I would urge Members not to hold the implementation of the Panel’s recommendations hostage to the resolution of those issues. The need to improve the capacity of the United Nations to carry out peace operations is urgent. The impact of our success or failure is felt by millions of human beings, very often the poorest on this Earth.
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II.Action taken since the issuance of the report of the Panel 9. I have already implemented the Panel’s recommendation to designate a senior official to oversee the implementation of its report, by assigning the Deputy Secretary-General that responsibility, as I indicated in my transmittal letters to the Presidents of the General Assembly and the Security Council (A/55/305-S/2000/809). 10. The Deputy Secretary-General has involved the following entities in the preparation of this implementation plan: the Departments of Peacekeeping Operations, Political Affairs, Management, Public Information and Disarmament Affairs; the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the Offices of Internal Oversight Services, Legal Affairs, the Department of Economic and Social Affairs, the Special Adviser on Gender Issues and Advancement of Women, and the Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict; the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP); the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR); the World Food Programme (WFP); the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF); the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM); the World Health Organization (WHO); and the United Nations Office for Project Services. 11. Concurrent with internal planning for the preparation of the present report, the Chairman of the Panel on United Nations Peace Operations, Mr. Lakhdar Brahimi, met with individual delegations and groups that sought clarification on the details of the Panel’s report, or its intent. He briefed the Francophone Summit, the ministeriallevel meeting of the Movement of Non-Aligned Countries, an ambassadorial-level joint meeting of the coordinating committee of the Non-Aligned Movement and the Group of 77, and regional groups, particularly from Africa, Arab States and Latin America. Furthermore, on 27 September 2000, the Deputy Secretary-General and Mr. Brahimi briefed the Security Council during its informal consultations on the report of the Panel. On 2 October 2000, they also met with the members of the Special Committee on Peacekeeping Operations. 12. I have asked the Deputy Secretary-General to oversee the implementation of the plans laid out in the present report. She and members of the Secretariat will continue to be available to meet with any and all delegations that wish to make suggestions or obtain information on how the implementation process is progressing. 13. Many of the clarifications contained in the present report respond to concerns that we have heard from Member States over the past month. I sincerely appreciate the interest that they have taken in this important matter. It is this type of collaborative and collective process that I hope we can all pursue in the months to come.
III. Proposed action for implementing the recommendations of the Panel A.Enhancing the effectiveness of key peace and security instruments 1.Conflict prevention The Panel endorses the recommendations of the Secretary-General with respect to conflict prevention contained in the Millennium Report and in his remarks before the Security Council’s second open meeting on conflict prevention in July 2000, in particular his appeal to “all who are engaged in conflict prevention and development — the United Nations, the Bretton Woods institutions, Governments and civil society organizations — [to] address these challenges in a more integrated fashion” (A/55/305S/2000/809 , para. 34 (a). 14. In my “Millennium report” (A/54/2000), I stressed that the majority of wars today are wars among the poor. I noted that poor countries have few economic and political resources with which to manage conflicts. They lack the capacity to make extensive financial transfers to minority groups or regions, for example, and they may fear that their state apparatus is too fragile to countenance devolution. I characterized every step taken towards reducing poverty and achieving broad-based economic growth as a step towards conflict prevention. The Panel’s recommendation must be seen in that light. 15. The initiatives we are now taking in the field of conflict prevention have their genesis in our collective realization that, in order to be effective, prevention strategies must address the root causes of violent conflict and the environments that promote it. These strategies must target factors that inflame conflict. The biggest deterrent to violent conflict is the promotion of sustainable human development and a healthy democratic society based on strong rule of law and civic institutions, including adherence to all human rights — economic, social, political and cultural. 16. Given the cross-cutting nature of long-term prevention, we have already begun to harness, to the widest extent possible, the resources and expertise of all relevant actors: the United Nations system, the Bretton Woods institutions, regional and subregional organizations, national and international non-governmental organizations
18 and women’s groups, including governments and civil society in recipient countries, academia, the private sector, etc. For this reason, I also intend to submit to the General Assembly and the Security Council in May 2001 the report on conflict prevention requested by the Council (S/PRST/2000/25). 17. In my annual report for 2000,1 I have described some of our most recent initiatives to undertake conflict prevention measures in an integrated fashion. I am asking the Executive Committees on Peace and Security and on Humanitarian Affairs, and the United Nations Development Group to explore, together with the Bretton Woods institutions, additional initiatives over the next six months, in preparation for my forthcoming report. 18. Another of the Panel’s recommendations is for the creation of the Executive Committee on Peace and Security Strategic Information and Analysis Secretariat, which is described in subsequent portions of the present report. Given that the secretariat will provide a common analytical service for all United Nations departments, agencies, funds and programmes, I have proposed that it serve as the focal point for the various inter-agency coordinating mechanisms now in place for the formulation of conflict prevention strategies. The Panel supports the Secretary-General’s more frequent use of fact-finding missions to areas of tension, and stresses Member States obligations, under Article 2 (5) of the Charter, to give “every assistance” to such activities of the United Nations (A/55/305-S/2000/809, para. 34 (b)). 19. I welcome the recommendation calling for more frequent use of fact-finding missions to areas of tension. There is no substitute for my being able to send an individual or a team of women and men to a place of potential armed conflict, to speak in person to the parties involved in the tension, to discuss the situation with both domestic and regional actors, including women and men, to identify for me the very specific and practical steps that the United Nations may take in averting war. This would help me to provide the legislative bodies with better informed and higher quality recommendations. I intend to engage Member States on ways in which these factfinding missions may be best received by countries or regions on the verge of conflict. 20. I will elaborate further on this and other potential conflict-prevention tools, such as the preventive deployment of peacekeeping operations, the concept of preventive disarmament, the preventive role of human rights promotion and protection, and strengthening of rule of law in my forthcoming report dedicated to conflict prevention, to be submitted to Member States in May 2001. 2. Peace-building The Panel recommends that the Executive Committee on Peace and Security discuss and recommend to the Secretary-General a plan to strengthen the permanent capacity of the United Nations to develop peace-building strategies and to implement programmes in support of those strategies (A/55/305S/2000/809, para. 47 (d)). 21. Virtually every part of the United Nations system, including the Bretton Woods institutions, is currently engaged in one form of peace-building or another, including in the fields of: disarmament, demobilization and reintegration of former combatants, including children; strengthening of rule of law institutions; human rights; electoral and governance assistance, including to national human rights institutions and national machineries for the advancement of women; the development of civil society and the support of free media; and the promotion of conflict resolution and reconciliation techniques. This is but a very short list of activities in which many parts of the United Nations system are engaged, in the pursuit of not merely prolonging the absence of war, but helping to build the structures of durable peace and the foundations for sustainable development. 22. It makes sense that so many parts of the system are engaged in peace-building, because it embraces multiple sectors of activity including political, military, diplomatic, development, human rights, child protection, gender issues, humanitarian and many others. However, a clear division of labour has not yet emerged within the system, neither in the formulation of comprehensive peace-building strategies, nor in their implementation. As a result of this lack of clarity, the Panel implied that there were risks of competing demands on limited donor resources, potential duplication of efforts, and/or gaps in key areas that needed to be addressed. 23. Stronger measures to reduce poverty and promote economic growth are also important dimensions of peacebuilding. I therefore concur with the Panel’s recommendation, and have instructed the Executive Committee on Peace and Security, in consultation with the other Executive Committees, to formulate a plan to address these issues, by the end of March 2001. 24. The plan must help to identify the ways in which different parts of the system might properly work together to devise country-specific peace-building strategies and to implement them together, in the context of the country team. Arrangements for peace-building must be coherent, flexible and field-driven, mobilizing all relevant resources of the United Nations system and other international actors in support of national initiatives, and building or reorienting ongoing activities so that they contribute to peace. What is required is a headquarters capacity to provide those resources necessary for the country team to propose specific strategies and see them through. This capacity must help to identify best practices and lessons to be learned from within the system,
19 provide knowledge of discussions and debates on peace-building from external institutions and organizations and formulate system-wide guidelines and generic methodologies. A small percentage of a mission’s first-year budget should be made available to the representative or special representative of the Secretary-General leading the mission to fund quick impact projects in its area of operations, with the advice of the United Nations country team’s resident coordinator (A/55/305S/2000/809, para. 47 (a)). 25. I will seek the legislative bodies’ approval for the implementation of this recommendation, on a case-bycase basis, when presenting concepts of operations and budgets for future peace operations. The percentage of the mission budgets to be sought for this purpose, and the manner in which the quick-impact projects would be conducted, will vary according to the specific nature of the mission environments and the status of ongoing programmes being undertaken by the United Nations system in the countries concerned. Quick-impact projects would be undertaken with the consent of the local parties and benefiting communities concerned, and in an impartial manner. The Panel recommends that the legislative bodies consider bringing demobilization and reintegration programmes into the assessed budgets of complex peace operations for the first phase of an operation in order to facilitate the rapid disassembly of fighting factions and reduce the likelihood of resumed conflict (A/55/305-S/2000/809, para. 47 (c)). 26. I have already stressed this point in my report to the Security Council (S/2000/101) of 11 February 2000. In response, the Security Council recognized that adequate and timely funding for disarmament, demobilization and reintegration is critical to the successful implementation of a peace process, and called for coordination of voluntary and assessed funding to that end, including among all elements of the United Nations system (S/PRST/2000/10). The Special Committee on Peacekeeping Operations noted in its report that, in some peacekeeping operations, an effective disarmament, demobilization and reintegration programme can make a valuable contribution to peace and regional stability and it recommended that the programmes be provided with adequate resources (A/54/839, para. 106). I will include comprehensive disarmament, demobilization and reintegration programmes in my plans for future peace operations, as appropriate, so that the Security Council can consider including aspects of the disarmament, demobilization and reintegration programmes in the operations’ mandates and the General Assembly can review proposals for funding demobilization and reintegration programmes, in the start-up phase, through the mission budgets. The Panel recommends a doctrinal shift in the use of civilian police, other rule of law elements and human rights experts in complex peace operations to reflect an increased focus on strengthening rule of law institutions and improving respect for human rights in post-conflict environments (A/55/305S/2000/809, para. 47 (b)).
27. It should be recalled that, in the Millennium Declaration, Heads of State and Government pledged to spare no effort to promote democracy and strengthen the rule of law, as well as respect for all internationally recognized human rights and fundamental freedoms, as well as the right to development (General Assembly resolution 55/2, para. 24). Seen in this context, there is no “doctrinal shift” required, but rather, a need to review how civilian police, human rights experts and related specialists can work more closely together in peace operations to achieve the objective set out by Member States at the highest level. 28. The primary purpose of deploying international civilian police to a particular post-conflict environment is for them, in one way or another, to help strengthen the capacity of local police forces to maintain law and order and respect for human rights in a post-conflict environment, in which lawlessness and politically or ethnically motivated crime may be rampant. I agree with the Panel’s message that the police are but one part of the solution to strengthening local rule of law capacities, which may be plagued as well by deficiencies in or the non-existence of an independent judiciary and penal system. For example, local police forces might eventually reach the point when they are ready to and capable of arresting perpetrators of serious crimes, including gross human rights violations, only to have judges or prosecutors free such suspected criminals without bringing them to trial. It is therefore critical that United Nations civilian police and human rights specialists work closely together in such environments, and that the capacities of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights be strengthened to assist with the training of United Nations civilian police. 29. I therefore intend, when presenting future concepts of operations and missions budgets to the General Assembly and the Security Council, to spell out more clearly what the United Nations system can collectively do to help strengthen local rule of law and human rights institutions, drawing on existing civilian police, human rights, gender and judicial expertise. Thus, I will seek legislative approval for the implementation of this recommendation on a case-by-case basis.
20 3. Transitional administration The Panel recommends that the Secretary-General invite a panel of international legal experts, including individuals with experience in United Nations operations that have transitional administration mandates, to evaluate the feasibility and utility of developing an interim criminal code, including any regional adaptations potentially required, for use by such operations pending the re-establishment of a local rule of law and local law enforcement capacity (A/55/305-S/2000/809, para. 83). 30. It is worth noting that, of the 57 recommendations in the Panel’s report, this is the only one which specifically concerns a United Nations mission that has executive powers of the kind given to the United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) or the United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor (UNTAET). Although they looked closely at the problems faced by these two important missions, members of the Panel were careful to address mainly those issues that are common to these two missions and other peacekeeping operations. 31. The Secretariat has already initiated action on this recommendation, by establishing a working group, comprised of experts at Headquarters and the legal and judicial experts in UNMIK and UNTAET, to examine the implications of the Panel’s proposal. The working group’s initial review concluded that the rebuilding of a legal system, or a sector thereof, and the promulgation of substantive rules of criminal law would be a long-term exercise. It requires extensive participation and training of the local judicial and legal communities concerned, which will ultimately bear the burden of applying the law. The group thus doubted whether it would be practical, or even desirable given the diversity of country specific legal traditions, for the Secretariat to try to elaborate a model criminal code, whether worldwide, regional, or civil or common law-based, for use by future transitional administration missions. 32. The working group agreed, however, that both UNMIK and UNTAET had faced serious difficulties during the start-up phase, because the mission personnel engaged in law enforcement duties did not have a common set of criminal procedures on which to rely, for example, in the case of arrests, detentions, searches and seizures. In the absence of a common set of procedures, law enforcement officials were forced to resort to their national and widely differing procedures, which did not engender the local populations’ confidence in the ability of the United Nations to uphold the law in a fair and consistent manner. The group thus agreed that further elaboration of the practical aspects of criminal procedures, as opposed to the substantive elements of the law itself, would be of great benefit. These rules should take fully into account the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and the Statute of the International Criminal Court. 33. In fact, a number of United Nations organs have already made progress in the field of practical criminal procedures, notably the Centre for International Crime Prevention of the United Nations Office at Vienna, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, UNDP and UNICEF (in the area of juvenile justice), and the Office of the Special Adviser on Gender Issues/Division for the Advancement of Women in the Department of Economic and Social Affairs. I have therefore asked the aforementioned offices, together with the relevant experts in the Office of Legal Affairs, UNMIK and UNTAET, to conduct a needs assessment of the areas in which it would be feasible and useful to draft a simple, common set of interim procedures (referred to in legal parlance more precisely as interim “rules” of criminal law and criminal procedure). No additional resources are required to undertake this work, which should be completed by the end of January 2001. 34. Once the needs assessment is completed, I expect that the team, consulting with outside expertise, as required, could produce the first draft of interim rules by the end of July 2001. At that point, the Secretariat would be in a position to discuss with Member States how to take the project a step further, in terms of finalizing the rules and disseminating them to potential contributors for the training of contingents in future transitional administrations. 35. Naturally, it remains to be seen if the United Nations will be asked to take on governance mandates in the future. However, there are many lessons that could be learned from UNMIK and UNTAET on these and other areas such as the maintenance of physical and social infrastructure, operation of public utilities, creation and running of a banking system, and the collection of taxes, and work that could be done to better prepare for potential future transitional administration missions. Should the General Assembly indicate its interest in pursuing the matter further, I would submit to it a more detailed plan of action (and request for additional resources related thereto) in the context of my next report on the implementation of the report of the Panel. 4. Peacekeeping operations Once deployed, United Nations peacekeepers must be able to carry out their mandates professionally and successfully and be capable of defending themselves, other mission components and the mission’s
21 mandate, with robust rules of engagement, against those who renege on their commitments to a peace accord or otherwise seek to undermine it by violence (A/55/305-S/2000/809, para. 55). 36. While it is within the Secretariat’s responsibility to draft rules of engagement for each operation, these are individually tailored to the mandates adopted by the Security Council. As such, the Council will have a leading role to play in the implementation of this recommendation. 37. The clarity and achievability of mandates on which the Panel made four specific recommendations (paras. 64 (a)-(d) are also issues for the Security Council’s action. In this regard, the Council affirmed its determination at the level of Heads of State and Government, to adopt clearly defined, credible, achievable and appropriate mandates (resolution 1318 (2000), section III). I will remain in discussion with the Security Council on how to apply this principle in the case of individual missions. 38. Troop contributors will have an important role to play, because it is their military contingents who will be called upon to discharge their responsibilities professionally, in accordance with the mission mandates, the rules of engagement, and consistent with the long-established principle of “unity of command”. 39. I therefore wholeheartedly concur with the Panel’s assessment that closer consultation between troop contributors and the Security Council, including through new mechanisms and procedures, is needed (A/55/305S/2000/809, para. 61). This would help to ensure that the contributors were fully aware of what was expected of them before they deployed personnel to the field, as well as during volatile situations. Indeed, the Special Committee on Peacekeeping Operations has stressed this point on several occasions. It is therefore a positive development that the Security Council, in section III of its resolution 1318 (2000), affirmed its intention to strengthen consultations with troop-contributing countries. 40. There are also a certain number of measures that the Secretariat could take to help peacekeepers in the field carry out their mandates in a professional manner, provided that it is given the means to do so. For example, the Secretariat could improve the way it assesses force requirements and devises concepts of operations. It could enhance the quality of military guidance provided to the field. It could promulgate standard operating procedures for a whole host of activities, as well as produce training materials and conduct more training for the benefit of troop contributors, including on international humanitarian and human rights law and on gender issues. While some of these issues have been stressed by the Special Committee on Peacekeeping Operations and the Panel, it must be recognized that no significant headway can be made on them within existing resources. As the Panel pointed out, there are only 32 posts authorized for military officers in the Department of Peacekeeping Operations, in comparison with over 30,000 military personnel in the field. I hope that few would doubt the need for additional staff in this regard, and I have thus requested an increase in resources for the Military Division (including for the Training Unit). The provision of additional posts should be accompanied by a restructuring of the Military Division, as described in section III.C.2 below. 41. Lessons learned from previous operations in which peacekeepers have been challenged also need to be reflected in the planning of new operations, as the Special Committee on Peacekeeping Operations has stressed (A/54/839, para. 102). I am therefore requesting a modest increase in resources for the Lessons Learned Unit in the Department of Peacekeeping Operations, as recommended by the Panel.
B.New mechanisms for improving system-wide integration 1. The Executive Committee on Peace and Security and the Executive Committee on Peace and Security Information and Strategic Analysis Secretariat The Secretary-General should establish an entity, referred to here as the ECPS Information and Strategic Analysis Secretariat, that would support the information and analysis needs of all members of the Executive Committee on Peace and Security; for management purposes, it should be administered by and report jointly to the heads of the Department of Political Affairs and the Department of Peacekeeping Operations (A/55/305-S/2000/809, para. 75). 42. I propose to create the above-mentioned secretariat, effective January 2001, primarily through the consolidation of existing resources in the Department of Political Affairs, the Department of Peacekeeping Operations, the Department of Public Information, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the Department for Disarmament Affairs, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, UNHCR and the Department of Economic and Social Affairs and through the loaning of posts from United Nations agencies, funds and programmes. The Office of the Special Adviser on Gender Issues/Division for the Advancement of Women would maintain close contact with the secretariat, which should be headed by a Director, who would report to the Under-Secretaries-General for Political Affairs and Peacekeeping Operations, as recommended by the Panel. For administrative purposes, it would be backstopped by the Executive Office of the
22 Department of Political Affairs, and its personnel and related expenditures would appear in that department’s budget. 43. The primary objectives of the Executive Committee on Peace and Security Information and Strategic Analysis Secretariat would be as follows: (a) Provide substantive secretariat services for the Executive Committee on Peace and Security, and for interdepartmental/agency work in relation to conflict prevention; (b) Serve as a catalyst and focal point for the formulation, in coordination with the other executive committees, of medium to long-term strategies of a cross-cutting nature that require a multidisciplinary approach, blending the political, military, development, socio-economic, humanitarian, human rights and gender perspectives into a coherent whole. This is particularly the case for the formulation of conflict prevention and peace-building strategies, and for the identification of options for United Nations presence following the termination of peacekeeping operations; (c) Serve as an in-house centre of knowledge for mission planners and desk officers in the Department of Peacekeeping Operations, the Department of Political Affairs and other parts of the system, by researching and analysing issues which are fundamental to the successful implementation of mandated peace and security activities, but which those engaged in daily operational activities generally do not have either the time or expertise to look at more carefully. This is particularly the case for achieving a better understanding of the root causes of particular conflicts, which requires a multidisciplinary approach; (d) Serve as the focal point for applying modern information systems and technology to the work of all parts of the United Nations system engaged in peace and security activities, thus rendering the dissemination and accumulation of information more efficient and effective, and enabling information products to be customized according to the needs of the members of the Executive Committee on Peace and Security (as detailed in section III.G below). 44. I believe the creation of the secretariat could ultimately stand to benefit the Security Council, and troop contributors, by helping to improve the analytical content of the concepts of operations for new missions. It could also help to address the Panel’s call for the Secretariat to provide would-be troop contributors with an assessment of risk that describes what the conflict and the peace are about, evaluates the capabilities and objectives of the local parties, and assesses the independent financial resources at their disposal and the implications of those resources for the maintenance of peace (A/55/305-S/2000/809, para. 52). 45. The information and analysis functions of the secretariat should not, in any way, be confused with the creation of an “intelligence-gathering capacity” in the Secretariat. The secretariat would serve as the vehicle to better use information that already exists in the United Nations system or has been generated for public consumption by the media, non-governmental organizations, academic institutions, etc. 46. The personnel of the secretariat would work in close cooperation with those best placed to initiate the formulation of strategies, notably the United Nations personnel on the ground and their parent departments, offices, agencies, funds and programmes. The primary function of the secretariat’s analysts would be to ensure that such strategies conformed to some basic standards of professionalism, consistency and analytical rigour, and had been tested against what outside specialists may have written on the subject, prior to being presented to the members of the Executive Committee on Peace and Security. There should also be a reasonable degree of rotation to ensure that the secretariat’s personnel are sufficiently up to date with developments in their parent organizations and their fields of expertise. 47. Given the multidisciplinary nature of the Executive Committee on Peace and Security Information and Strategic Analysis Secretariat and its direct reporting line to the Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs, who is the United Nations focal point for peace-building in his capacity as convenor of the Executive Committee on Peace and Security, it would seem logical to assign it the role of coordinating the formulation of system-wide peace-building strategies. I am thus establishing a Peace-building Unit, to be financed from extrabudgetary resources, to be located within the secretariat. It should be recalled that the Panel urged that the programme development of that Unit be evaluated in consultation with all stakeholders in the United Nations system (A/55/305-S/2000/809, para. 240). I am pleased that those stakeholders, notably the United Nations agencies, funds and programmes, together with the Department of Political Affairs, the Department of Peacekeeping Operations and the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, have already addressed the issue and have arrived at this proposal together. 48. Further details on the structure envisaged for the Executive Committee on Peace and Security Information and Strategic Analysis Secretariat, and the resources required for its creation will be provided in my report on the resource requirements for implementation of the report of the Panel on United Nations Peace Operations. I have made slight modifications to the Panel’s proposals for constituting the secretariat. For example, I have decided not to transfer the Situation Centre/Department of Peacekeeping Operations to it, because of the necessity to maintain an around-the-clock duty room that is essential for contact with the field missions. Because this function
23 is integrally linked with the day-to-day management of operations, I believe that it should remain in the Office of Operations/Department of Peacekeeping Operations. 2. Integrated mission task forces Integrated mission task forces, with members seconded from throughout the United Nations system, as necessary, should be the standard vehicle for mission-specific planning and support. They should serve as the first point of contact for all such support, and their leaders should have temporary line authority over seconded personnel, in accordance with agreements between the Department of Peacekeeping Operations, the Department of Political Affairs and other contributing departments, programmes, funds and agencies (A/55/305-S/2000/809, para. 217). 49. In my view, the integrated mission task force concept is geared to providing the Secretariat with a management tool to ensure that all the relevant parts of the United Nations system are included in key mission planning activities, and during periods of crisis, from both the conceptual and operational perspectives, and that they each do their fair share, on time and within budget, to make sure that those missions are then deployed rapidly, with the human, material, financial, and information assets that they require to do their jobs. 50. The Executive Committee on Peace and Security (with the Department of Peacekeeping Operations and the Department of Political Affairs taking the lead) supported by the Executive Committee on Peace and Security Information and Strategic Analysis Secretariat, will decide when to recommend to me that an integrated mission task force should be formed, what its composition should be, who should lead it, when it should be disbanded and when it needs to be reconstituted in times of crisis. Task force leaders will report to the Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations in the case of peacekeeping operations, and to the Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs for peacemaking efforts, peace-building support offices, and special political missions. 51. I view an integrated mission task force as a project management team, with its head as the project manager. The primary task of the task force leader is to clearly define the parameters of the project, ensuring that all parts of the United Nations system are aware of what is expected of them during the mission planning process, and to then follow up to make sure that assignments are completed on time. 52. In order for the integrated mission task force leader to be able to function effectively, (s)he must be given the authority to directly task individuals or offices with assignments, irrespective of the established hierarchical or bureaucratic structures in place. I have decided to delegate task force leaders that authority, and expect that all concerned will respect my decision. I realize that it will require a change in attitudes, but I am also confident that we are up to the challenge. Given this heavy responsibility, leaders should be at the rank of D-1 or D-2 and available on a full-time basis for the duration of the task force. 53. To ensure effective management and well-designed projects, the integrated mission task force leader will need a small core team of officers, with a range of relevant expertise, available full time and collocated with him/her. This team would normally include one or two political officers, involved from the beginning in premission negotiations, one representative each from the humanitarian and development fields bringing specific field knowledge of the mission area, one military and/or civilian police officer (depending on the mission), and one representative from the administrative and logistics support area. 54. The membership of the task force would not be restricted to the core team, but would involve designated experts across the entire system, in the Secretariat and the agencies, funds and programmes, in such areas as public information, human rights, legal affairs, security and safety of personnel, refugees and the internally displaced, disarmament affairs, gender equality issues and child protection. The non-core members of the integrated mission task forces would not be collocated, but would continue to work from within their respective offices. 55. During the planning process immediately leading up to mission deployment, the membership of the task force would also include the senior members of a mission start-up team, as discussed below. 56. Naturally, the entire membership of the integrated mission task force will need to keep in close contact with one another, meeting together as a group as frequently as required, and/or making more extensive use of video and teleconferencing. Such facilities should also be utilized to establish and maintain contact with the resident coordinator/humanitarian coordinator and the country team. I would expect the information service in the Executive Committee on Peace and Security Information and Strategic Analysis Secretariat to explore new and more efficient ways of how internal and interactive web sites and project management software might also be employed to modernize the way in which this is done. I am asking the Learning Service in the Office of Human Resources Management to also put together training programmes on project management techniques, so that the ad hoc way in which projects are sometimes undertaken are professionalized. 57. I intend to institute the integrated mission task force mechanism for the planning and initial deployment phases of all new multidisciplinary operations, henceforth.
24 58. The mechanism will apply not only to the planning of new operations, but may also be instituted for support to peacemaking efforts, in which it is envisaged that the conclusion of a peace agreement would result in the deployment of a United Nations peace operation. As the Panel has pointed out, it is vital that all relevant parts of the United Nations system are able to advise my special envoys, who may be leading or participating in such peacemaking efforts, about the practicality and achievability of tasks and time frames envisaged in an agreement. 59. I believe that the participation of the Bretton Woods institutions, in particular, would be critical in that effort, so that realistic assessments of their support to a peace process can be taken into consideration. I will thus be inviting the Bretton Woods institutions to participate in the integrated mission task force structure, both during the peacemaking and mission planning stages, as appropriate. 60. This well-coordinated approach is required for support to all peace operations, in all their phases, even when an integrated mission task force is not in existence. The “lead” department concept, which was clarified a few months ago, provides for such coordination. The Department of Peacekeeping Operations, as the lead department for peacekeeping operations, and the Department of Political Affairs for peacemaking efforts, peacebuilding support offices and special missions, will continue to have primary responsibility for managing all peace operations. These “lead” departments will work closely with all those departments, agencies, funds and programmes that have been or would normally be represented in an integrated mission task force, in particular with those representing the country team already in place. They will hold regular consultations of the group to provide consistent guidance on policy issues, exchange information on all matters of common interest and to coordinate activities. 61. The ability of the Department of Peacekeeping Operations and the Department of Political Affairs to perform their daily coordinating role effectively and regularly, whether through the integrated mission task force mechanism or otherwise, requires that they have sufficient staff to do so. I should stress in this regard, as did the Panel, that I find it totally unreasonable that large multidisciplinary operations would have only one or two desk officers in the Office of Operations/Department of Peacekeeping Operations available on a full-time basis to support them. Desk officers should be able to spend more time responding to queries from members of the Security Council, troop contributors and the field missions, which they should visit more frequently. They would be able to do so if the regional divisions had enough staff to back one another up effectively. Since, at present, they do not, the support to Security Council members, troop contributors, field missions and senior Headquarters officials suffers. Similarly, Department of Political Affairs desk officers should be able to dedicate full-time attention to countries facing major conflicts, for which they are in the lead. The present level of staffing leaves virtually no flexibility for the two departments to respond to pressing or temporary needs. 62. I am requesting additional resources for the Department of Peacekeeping Operations Office of Operations to enable it to perform the full range of its activities effectively. I am also requesting a few additional posts for the Department of Political Affairs. I am not, however, requesting additional posts specifically for the integrated mission task force mechanism, which will be activated and disbanded as and when required, for temporary periods of time. 63. I have decided, in principle, to form an integrated mission task force for Burundi but, pending additional resources, will only be able to employ an embryonic version of the concept at this stage. The entire leadership of a mission should be selected and assembled at Headquarters as early as possible to enable their participation in key aspects of the mission planning process, for briefings on the situation in the mission area and to meet and work with their colleagues in a mission leadership (A/55/305S/2000/809, para. 101 (b)). 64. It should be recalled that, in its 1999 report (A/54/839), the Special Committee on Peacekeeping Operations stressed the importance of having senior military commanders, police commissioners and key staff personnel selected, prepared and trained prior to their deployment to a peacekeeping operation (para. 72). I fully agree that those who will ultimately have to start up and run a mission on the ground should be involved in the planning of that mission. Once an integrated mission task force is formed, therefore, one of its first tasks will be to identify the individuals who will be the first to board the plane en route to establishing the mission headquarters. Among them, to the maximum extent possible, will be the prospective acting Special Representative of the SecretaryGeneral/Representative of the Secretary-General, the prospective Chief Administrative Officer, and acting heads of mission components and other senior advisory personnel. Officers from the “on-call lists”, discussed in detail in paragraph 100 below, would also be in that group. The Resident Coordinator/Humanitarian Coordinator should be actively involved in the mission- planning process, particularly when he/she will serve as a Deputy Special Representative of the Secretary-General, and links will be maintained with her/him through videoconferencing and visits to Headquarters. 65. As soon as possible prior to the anticipated deployment of the start-up team, its members should be brought to Headquarters to participate in the planning of the mission and to serve as core integrated mission task force members for that period.
25 66. I have asked the Department of Management to identify office space that could be fully equipped and set aside to accommodate at least one full integrated mission task force (consisting of its core members and a mission start-up team) at any given time.
C.Enhancing rapid and effective deployment capacities 1. Timelines for deployment The United Nations should define “rapid and effective deployment capacities” as the ability, from an operational perspective, to fully deploy traditional peacekeeping operations within 30 days after the adoption of a Security Council resolution, and within 90 days in the case of complex peacekeeping operations (A/55/305-S/2000/809, para. 91). 67. The Panel noted that the Special Committee on Peacekeeping Operations, among others, has long emphasized the need for the United Nations to strengthen its rapid deployment capacities. I agree with the Panel that a first step in meeting that objective would be to define what “rapid” and “effective” deployment actually means. The standard that the Panel has proposed is very ambitious. At the same time, it must be recalled that the Secretariat was asked to fully deploy the United Nations Mission in the Central African Republic (MINURCA) in less than three weeks. Similar time constraints applied with regard to the United Nations Mission in East Timor (UNAMET). Peace processes are often most fragile in the initial phases and we must be able to deploy operations when they can make the greatest contribution. 68. I have therefore asked the relevant parts of the Secretariat to use the timelines proposed by the Panel as the basis for evaluating the capacity of our existing systems to provide field missions with the human, material, financial and information assets that they require, in quantitative and qualitative terms. 2. Mission leadership The Secretary-General should systematize the method of selecting mission leaders, beginning with the compilation of a comprehensive list of potential representatives or special representatives of the Secretary-General, force commanders, civilian police commissioners and their deputies and other heads of substantive and administrative components, within a fair geographic and gender distribution and with input from Member States (A/55/305-S/2000/809, para. 101 (a)). 69. It will be recalled that the Special Committee on Peacekeeping Operations also recommended that a more thorough review of candidates was needed, and noted that further refinements could be instituted in the selection of senior field appointments (A/54/839, para. 72). The Panel’s recommendations on this subject were nearly identical and built upon what the Committee has already urged. I therefore take this issue very seriously, while being mindful of the Panel’s assessment of the constraints faced (A/55/305-S/2000/809, para. 94). 70. The selection process could be improved in a number of ways, including in the areas of gender balance and geographical distribution. I have decided to form a senior appointments group, consisting of the Department of Political Affairs, the Department of Peacekeeping Operations, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, UNDP, the Office of Human Resources Management and the Office of the Special Adviser on Gender Issues to oversee the formulation of recommendations to me for the selection of senior personnel. The senior appointments group will, inter alia, oversee the following, by February 2001: (a) Establishment of a profile of general qualities required in special representatives of the Secretary-General, force commanders, police commissioners, their deputies and other senior staff. In this connection, in addition to direct political, peace-building and peacekeeping experience, special emphasis will be placed on managerial experience; (b) Expansion and centralization of the existing senior appointment roster system by consolidating one roster for all senior appointments to peace operations. The new central roster will be kept by the senior appointments group and by my Executive Office and will be updated on a regular basis; (c) Identification of United Nations personnel ready to take on senior field assignments through consultation with the departments, agencies, funds and programmes concerned. These individuals should be included in the rapid deployment roster and appropriate arrangements made in advance to ensure cover of their regular duties so they can be quickly deployed; (d) Revision of non-United Nations candidates and preparation of a short list of those who should be considered for senior positions. Every opportunity to meet and interview such personnel will be used. For instance, senior personnel on mission to the home countries of candidates should use this opportunity to meet with them.
26 71. Once the senior appointments group has finalized the profiles for the positions concerned, I will be sending a request to all Member States to propose candidates accordingly. I hope that this can take place by March 2001. 72. At present, there is no standard briefing and training procedure for senior staff of peace operations. I will therefore ask the new senior appointments group to recommend such a training/briefing procedure and will make it standard practice for all selected senior mission personnel. 73. As part of my overall review of United Nations peace-building efforts, I will ask UNDP and the United Nations Development Group to offer recommendations, by March 2001, on improving the selection, training and support to resident coordinators who are sent to posts with strong prevention and peace-building demands, as well as procedures for reviewing those currently serving in such posts. In many cases, these resident coordinators will either lead United Nations peace-building efforts with the United Nations country team, or will serve as Deputy Representative of the Secretary-General or Deputy Special Representative of the Secretary-General. 74. I will try to meet the above-mentioned objective of the early identification of senior staff, but there will be cases when senior personnel must be dispatched to the field as soon as they are identified. For this reason, and in order to continue training in the field, I will establish the regular practice wherein a training team, including women and men, from Headquarters will deploy to the field when a mission is established to conduct training in situ for senior and middle managers as they arrive in the mission. I also intend to establish, as a matter of regular practice, training cells in each mission to conduct regular training for mission personnel at all levels and in all components. Provision will be made in the budgets of peace operations for such training. 75. In addition to the above, I have asked the Learning Service in the Office of Human Resources Management, to work with the United Nations Institute for Training and Research, which is developing a systematic approach for briefing and debriefing Special Representatives of the Secretary-General. In addition to preparing a handbook for Special Representatives of the Secretary-General, an annual seminar for them will be organized as a forum for sharing of experiences and discussion with Headquarters personnel. The first of these seminars will take place in the first part of 2001, on the basis of voluntary contributions. The Secretariat should routinely provide the mission leadership with strategic guidance and plans for anticipating and overcoming challenges to mandate implementation and, whenever possible, should formulate such guidance and plans together with the mission leadership (A/55/305-S/2000/809, para. 101 (c)). 76. The proposed creation of the Executive Committee on Peace and Security Information and Strategic Analysis Secretariat should help to implement this recommendation, by creating the capacity to conduct the type of medium to long-term strategizing proposed. The early inclusion of mission leadership in the planning process, working together with the integrated mission task force members, will also help to implement this recommendation, with which I am in full agreement. Where a peace mission deploys to the field, it is also essential that the role and functions of my representative are defined in relation to those of senior officials of the United Nations already on the ground, such as the resident or humanitarian coordinator. Recent consultations between the Department of Political Affairs, the Department of Peacekeeping Operations, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs and UNDP have already produced clear guidance on this matter, which I have endorsed. 3. Military personnel Member States should be encouraged, where appropriate, to enter into partnerships with one another, within the context of the United Nations standby arrangements system, to form several coherent brigadesize forces, with necessary enabling forces, ready for effective deployment within 30 days of the adoption of a Security Council resolution establishing a traditional peacekeeping operation and within 90 days for complex peacekeeping operations (A/55/305-S/2000/809, para. 117 (a)). The Secretary-General should be given the authority to formally canvass Member States participating in the United Nations standby arrangements system to contribute troops to a potential operation once it appears likely that a ceasefire accord or agreement envisaging an implementing role for the United Nations might be reached (A/55/305-S/2000/809, para. 117 (b)). 77. In its 1999 report (A/54/839), the Special Committee on Peacekeeping Operations welcomed increased contributions of Member States to the standby arrangements system and encouraged other Member States which had not already done so to join it (para. 90). Therefore, there is already agreement that the standby arrangements system is a useful tool and could be further strengthened. I view the Panel’s recommendations in that light. 78. At the same time, the Panel also made the point that it would not be particularly useful to continue to increase the numbers of troops and other personnel in the standby arrangements system, if it is not actually used as a basis for soliciting troop contributions for a particular operation. It is therefore important to address some
27 fundamental shortcomings in how the system is presently utilized, before speaking directly to the Panel’s recommendations. 79. First, I invite participants in the United Nations standby arrangements system to inform the Department of Peacekeeping Operations, by 1 December 2000, if the assets that they have listed in the system are in fact available for deployment, today. I anticipate that some of those assets have already been committed elsewhere, and thus may not be available. Such information will not be treated as an unconditional offer to contribute troops anywhere, but merely an indication that they are potentially available. It would be preferable to have a much smaller number of assets listed in the system that are actually available, rather than having a large figure that is unrealistic or bears little resemblance to what contributions may actually be made. 80. Second, I invite participants to automatically indicate, at the end of each month, any changes to the status of availability of the assets that have potentially been made available. I have asked the Department of Peacekeeping Operations to explore ways of enabling this information flow to occur in the most efficient manner possible, and to report back to me before the issuance of my next report on the implementation of the Panel’s report. While there are already provisions for a regular updating of the contributions to the United Nations standby arrangements system, they do not seem to be working as intended. 81. Third, I have asked the Department of Peacekeeping Operations to institute procedures to systematically contact standby arrangements system participants regarding the availability of their assets, in a mission-specific context. I expect that Department to maintain statistics on response rates, so that such information can be contained in my periodic status reports on the system. 82. Fourth, to better manage the system, the Standby Arrangements Unit now in the Mission Planning Service/Department of Peacekeeping Operations will need to be strengthened, as described in the request for additional resources. 83. The combination of these measures should help to at least partially meet the call by the Special Committee on Peacekeeping Operations for exercising transparency in selecting troop contributors, in particular in the use of the United Nations standby arrangements system (A/54/839, para. 90). 84. On a related note, the Panel rightly mentioned the importance of “enabling forces”, which includes the provision of specialized units for movement control, communications, terminal or air-traffic control capability. I appeal to Member States to indicate by end February 2001 whether they are able to contribute any of these services. I also appeal to Member States to indicate at that time their ability and willingness to provide strategic lift assistance to troop contributors. The Secretariat would immediately commence thereafter detailed negotiations with those States to determine rates of reimbursement. The Secretariat could also complete detailed contingent-owned-equipment negotiations for all contributions involving equipment placed at two months’ notice within the standby arrangements system. 85. As regards the “coherent brigade-size forces”, I do not anticipate that the Panel expects this recommendation to be fully implemented immediately. 86. The first step in meeting the spirit of this recommendation would be to create a common standard and set of procedures for contingents to work together when they arrive in theatre. Such standards and guidance documents should be prepared in consultation with Member States, finalized and then circulated to them so that they may be used during pre-mission training at the national level. The Department of Peacekeeping Operations is not in a position to prepare all the documentation at this stage, because of resource constraints, as mentioned previously, and as detailed further in the request for additional resources. 87. The second step would be to enhance the Secretariat’s capacity to assist Member States with training initiatives. The importance of training has also been stressed by the Special Committee on Peacekeeping Operations. I am therefore requesting additional resources for that purpose. 88. I have also asked the Department of Peacekeeping Operations to examine various proposals for the establishment of a new United Nations military staff college, and/or enhancements to existing capacities and facilities, such as in Turin, Italy, for the purposes of providing training to national command-level military staff in United Nations peacekeeping standards and techniques. I will report on this subject as and when concrete proposals are formulated by the Secretariat. 89. Last, I have asked the Department of Peacekeeping Operations to consult with the United Nations standby arrangements system participants regarding their concerns and views about the proposed formation of “coherent brigade-sized forces”, and to then report to me by February 2001 on a detailed plan for taking the implementation of this recommendation a step further. 90. None of the aforementioned actions should preclude or delay those Member States with the means to enhance their bilateral and/or multilateral efforts to assist other Member States with training and equipment
28 requirements. Nor should it preclude them from discussing how they might engage in joint training exercises with one another, at the command level, which would be a step in the direction the Panel recommended. The Secretariat should, as a standard practice, send a team to confirm the preparedness of each potential troop contributor to meet the provisions of the memoranda of understanding on the requisite training and equipment requirements, prior to deployment; those that do not meet the requirements must not deploy (A/55/305-S/2000/809, para. 117 (c)). 91. I ultimately view the implementation of this recommendation as a tremendous cost-saving measure for the Organization as a whole, because the expense of procuring basic equipment for contingents, once deployed, has been prohibitively expensive and time-consuming. Furthermore, the costs of sustaining contingents in situ, which do not possess the training or equipment to undertake their mandated tasks, is an unnecessary expense to the Organization, both in financial terms, and to its reputation. In some instances where the Department of Peacekeeping Operations has been able to send a team out to troop-contributing countries, prior to deployment, it has helped to preclude deployments that would be premature. In some cases, bilateral assistance was rendered to help the countries concerned meet the requisite standards. 92. I am seeking an increase in resources to enable the Secretariat to implement this recommendation. While the cost of those additional posts may be in the thousands, the resulting savings could be in the millions. 93. I also propose to send a team from the Department of Peacekeeping Operations to each mission every six months, to ensure that standards are continuing to be met. Any shortfalls noticed should be reflected in training efforts, so as to preclude such drops in standards in the future. I will seek appropriate funding in each of the mission budgets to dispatch these teams. The Panel recommends that a revolving “on-call list” of about 100 military officers be created in the United Nations standby arrangements system to be available on seven days’ notice to augment nuclei of Department of Peacekeeping Operations planners with teams trained to create a mission headquarters for a new peacekeeping operation (A/55/305-S/2000/809, para. 117 (d)). 94. The Secretariat will be defining the profiles of the expertise required and will consult with Member States concerning implementation of the system during the next two months. The Secretariat will communicate its requirements to Member States by February 2001, along with a request for them to participate within the context of the standby arrangements system. 4. Civilian police and related personnel Member States are encouraged to each establish a national pool of civilian police officers that would be ready for deployment to United Nations peace operations on short notice, within the context of the United Nations standby arrangements system (A/55/305-S/2000/809, para. 126 (a)). Member States are encouraged to enter into regional training partnerships for civilian police in the respective national pools in order to promote a common level of preparedness in accordance with guidelines, standard operating procedures and performance standards to be promulgated by the United Nations (A/55/305-S/2000/809, para. 126 (b)). 95. The Secretariat could assist Member States in strengthening their capacity to identify suitably qualified civilian police for peace operations, and cooperate with one another on training initiatives, by articulating more detailed standard profiles, generic job descriptions, standard operating procedures and guidelines. I am pleased to note that work has already begun in this area. The Department of Peacekeeping Operations has addressed the broad operational issues through the development of “Principles and guidelines for United Nations civilian police operations”. This document reviews the shift in civilian police doctrine and sets down parameters and guidelines for their work. It was developed on the basis of inputs received from international police experts, Member States and related organizations. It will be finalized by 15 November 2000 and its publication and distribution is anticipated to be by the end of February 2001. 96. A significant amount of additional work is required in carrying out related projects to support civilian police in the field, and provide potential police contributors with the information that they require to identify and prepare their personnel, and to enter into the regional training partnerships recommended. This includes, inter alia: (a) Development of detailed operating procedures for missions with training, reform and restructuring mandates, as well as for missions mandated to establish institutions (standard curriculum, evaluation systems, local institutional development); (b) Information management (as it relates to standardizing the management and deployment of United Nations civilian police, as well as the recruitment and management of local police, collection and analysis of crime statistics);
29 (c) Pre-mission training packages and programmes for civilian police; (d) Strategies and standard operating procedures for assisting the development of local police institutions and local police (organizational policies, codes of conduct, including with respect to domestic crime and crime in general, evaluation and assessment mechanisms, standard curricula and recruitment policies); (e) Development of tools through which local police can work with judicial counterparts; (f) Development of methodologies and standard operating procedures for the transition from the provision of security by international military to international police and finally to local police. 97. At present, the Civilian Police Unit in the Department of Peacekeeping Operations, with only nine officers in total, has been able to spare only one officer, part-time, to work on these various projects. I consider these to be essential activities that are urgently required to support existing missions, let alone implement the ambitious recommendations proposed by the Panel. I am therefore seeking additional resources to strengthen the Civilian Police Unit, as indicated in my report on resource requirements. In this regard, I appeal to Member States to redouble their efforts to identify female civilian police candidates (and, in fact, female candidates in all other areas covered by the United Nations standby arrangements system). The Civilian Police Unit will work closely with the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and the Office of the Special Adviser on Gender Issues in implementing these projects. 98. Given the complexity of the initiatives, and provided that the additional resources are provided (and positions quickly filled), I expect completion of the entire range of projects noted above by mid-2002. Nevertheless, it is anticipated that the standardization of the management and deployment of United Nations civilian police will be completed by March 2001, and that a revised pre-deployment training package for civilian police will be finalized by April 2001. 99. It should be recalled that, in its 1999 report (A/55/839), the Special Committee on Peacekeeping Operations recommended that the Secretariat urgently undertake, in close cooperation with Member States, the development of a comprehensive set of policies on the activities carried out by United Nations civilian police. It recommended that these policies be articulated through the guidelines for civilian police (para. 133) and stressed the need to strengthen the Civilian Police Unit (para. 131). I believe that the steps outlined above are consistent with what the Special Committee has already asked of the Secretariat on this subject and should help to expedite it. Member States are encouraged to designate a single point of contact within their governmental structures for the provision of civilian police to United Nations peace operations (A/55/305-S/2000/809, para. 126 (c)). 100. While the responsibility for implementing this recommendation rests entirely within the purview of individual Member States, I wish to offer a few clarifications on how I view its intent. The “point of contact” for the Secretariat will continue to be the Permanent Missions to the United Nations of the respective Member States. The recommendation is directed at States as a suggestion for how they might be able to coordinate with one another more easily, such as on regional training initiatives. A number of Member States have openly indicated previously that several of their ministries or governmental agencies might be involved in the selection and training of civilian police for deployment to United Nations peace operations. This could potentially, though not necessarily, hinder inter-State cooperation on policing matters. Moreover, it has made it difficult for some States to rapidly identify and deploy civilian police to peace operations. The Panel recommends that a revolving “on-call list” of about 100 police officers and related experts be created in the United Nations standby arrangements system to be available on seven days’ notice with teams trained to create the civilian police component of a new peacekeeping operation, train incoming personnel and give the component greater coherence at an early date (A/55/305-S/2000/809, para. 126 (d)). 101. The same procedure outlined in paragraph 94 applies with regard to this recommendation. The Panel recommends that parallel arrangements for recommendations (a), (b) and (c) above be established for judicial, penal, human rights and other relevant specialists, who with specialist civilian police will make up collegial “rule of law” teams (A/55/305-S/2000/809, para. 126 (e)). 102. Further work needs to be undertaken on the broader issues related to the rule of law in peace operations, in order to assist Member States in implementing this recommendation. I have therefore requested the Department of Peacekeeping Operations to work with the Department of Political Affairs, the Office of Legal Affairs, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and UNDP in drafting guidelines covering the principles and practices of the rule of law sector of peace operations. These guidelines and standard operating procedures should build on the considerable amount of work already undertaken within the system, as well as lessons learned in the field, and should be finalized only after consultations with Member States. 5. Civilian specialists
30 The Department of Peacekeeping Operations should formulate a comprehensive staffing strategy for peace operations, outlining, among other issues, the use of United Nations Volunteers, standby arrangements for the provision of civilian personnel on 72 hours’ notice to facilitate mission start-up, and the divisions of responsibility among the members of the Executive Committee on Peace and Security for implementing that strategy” (A/55/305-S/2000/809, para. 145 (d)). The Field Service category of personnel should be reformed to mirror the recurrent demands faced by all peace operations, especially at the mid- to senior-level in the administrative and logistics areas (A/55/305-S/2000/809, para. 145 (b)). The Secretariat should establish a central Internet/Intranet-based roster of pre-selected civilian candidates available to deploy to peace operations on short notice. The field missions should be granted access to and delegated authority to recruit candidates from it, in accordance with guidelines on fair geographic and gender distribution to be promulgated by the Secretariat (A/55/305-S/2000/809, para. 145 (a)). 103. It should be recalled that the Special Committee on Peacekeeping Operations, in its 1999 report, recommended that the internal staffing procedures in use by the Secretariat be reviewed with a view to ensuring that the process adequately supports the particular demands of rapid deployment (A/54/839, para. 77). The Panel’s recommendations address the Committee’s request. 104. A dedicated and interdepartmental team, working on these three inter-linked issues for nine months, is what I believe is required to prepare a comprehensive report on the subject, outlining those elements and financial implications which require legislative approval. Unfortunately, such a team cannot be financed from existing resources, which is why additional staff are being sought for this purpose, as well as to design other new efficiency enhancing systems on an ongoing basis, and to then maintain them. 105. The dedicated team should undertake the following tasks, inter alia: (a) Conduct an in-depth study of all existing occupational groups in peace operations and devise generic job descriptions which will assist in identifying the right candidates; (b) Evaluate the effectiveness (including cost-effectiveness) of various sources of personnel to fill the positions identified; (c) Identify training requirements, training tools and develop a systematic training plan for all occupational groups; (d) Conduct a technical review and redesign of existing roster systems to enable access on a system-wide basis, including for the field missions; (e) Redesign the application process to be compatible with the Internet-based systems; (f) Promulgate selection criteria and guidelines to ensure compliance with the existing regulatory framework adopted by the General Assembly; (g) Clarify the roles and responsibilities of departments, agencies, funds and programmes to help manage the newly designed system, as well as to pre-select and make available their own staff for deployment to peace operations on short notice. 106. In preparing these various plans, I expect the Department of Peacekeeping Operations, the Office of Human Resources Management and all other departments concerned to ensure compliance with General Assembly resolutions related to the use of gratis personnel, and to make all the necessary provisions to preclude against disadvantaging candidates, particularly in developing countries, who may not have access to Internet-based facilities. 107. Should the resources requested be provided, I would expect a comprehensive package of reforms to be ready for submission to the General Assembly in early 2002. Given that some work has already been undertaken on the Field Service category, I expect that a proposal on this particular subject could be ready for submission to the General Assembly at its fifty-sixth session. Meaningful implementation of these three recommendations could be expected by end-2002. 108. In the interim, I believe that progress could be made in implementing the Panel’s recommendation for greater delegation of authority to the field. Recruitment authority was delegated to UNMIK, on a pilot basis, in mid-2000. Vacancy rates in that mission have dropped considerably over the course of just a few months. I have asked the Department of Peacekeeping Operations, in consultation with the Office of Human Resources Management and the Office of the Special Adviser on Gender Issues, to review the effectiveness of the delegated recruitment authority to UNMIK and to report to me, by March 2001, on a plan of action for delegating recruitment authority to a few additional missions and field offices, together with the guidelines required to ensure due regard for geographic distribution and gender balance.
31 Conditions of service for externally recruited civilian staff should be revised to enable the United Nations to attract the most highly qualified candidates and to then offer those who have served with distinction greater career prospects (A/55/305-S/2000/809, para. 145 (c)). 109. Effective 1 July 2000, a revision of the compensation package of all field staff recruited under the 300 series appointments was undertaken, including providing eligible staff with a family supplement, access to life insurance, and subsidized medical insurance for themselves and their dependants. An enhanced rest and recuperation programme for field staff will be in place in early 2001. 110. These, among other enhancements, were undertaken within the authority delegated to me by the General Assembly. A number of other far-reaching proposals of the Panel on this subject have already been addressed in my report on human resources management reform, which is currently before the General Assembly (A/55/253). Nevertheless, a comprehensive review specific to the conditions of service in the field is also needed, for which additional resources will be required to dedicate experts to the task. 111. I have asked the Office of Human Resources Management, together with the departments concerned, to also look at two key issues of importance, which are related to the Panel’s recommendation on this subject. First, a feasibility study should be conducted on the establishment of a system of staff rotation between field missions and between field missions and Headquarters. Such a study should address the need for better spouse employment and work/life arrangements. Second, adequate resources for staff counselling services and improved medical facilities and arrangements should be provided at all field missions, including those at the start-up phase. I have asked that a detailed proposal on both subjects be submitted to me by mid-2001. 6. Logistics support and expenditure management The Secretariat should prepare a global logistics support strategy to enable rapid and effective mission deployment within the timelines proposed and corresponding to planning assumptions established by the substantive offices of the Department of Peacekeeping Operations (A/55/305-S/2000/809, para. 169 (a)). The General Assembly should authorize and approve a one-time expenditure to maintain at least five mission start-up kits in Brindisi, which should include rapidly deployable communications equipment. The start-up kits should then be routinely replenished with funding from the assessed contributions to the operations that drew on them (A/55/305-S/2000/809, para. 169 (b)). The Secretary-General should be given authority to draw up to US$ 50 million from the Peacekeeping Reserve Fund once it becomes clear that an operation is likely to be established, with the approval of the Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions, but prior to the adoption of a Security Council resolution (A/55/305-S/2000/809, para. 169 (c)). The Secretariat should undertake a review of the entire procurement policies and procedures (with proposals to the General Assembly for amendments to the Financial Rules and Regulations, as required), to facilitate in particular the rapid and full deployment of an operation within the proposed timelines (A/55/305-S/2000/809, para. 169 (d)). The Secretariat should conduct a review of the policies and procedures governing the management of financial resources in the field missions with a view to providing field missions with much greater flexibility in the management of their budgets (A/55/305-S/2000/809, para. 169 (e)). The Secretariat should increase the level of procurement authority delegated to the field missions (from $200,000 to as high as $1 million, depending on mission size and needs) for all goods and services that are available locally and are not covered under systems contracts or standing commercial services contracts (A/55/305-S/2000/809, para. 169 (f)). 112. All of these issues are interrelated and need to be evaluated in the light of the Panel’s proposed deployment timelines. The Secretariat is simply not able to meet those timelines within our existing logistics support systems. The system needs to be redesigned and this will require a thorough review of a variety of areas, including the procurement and financial procedures now in place. 113. I anticipate that the General Assembly would therefore not yet be in a position to approve those aspects of the above-mentioned recommendations which are within its purview without fuller information and cost estimates for the overhauling of our existing systems. I have therefore asked the Field Administration and Logistics Division/Department of Peacekeeping Operations, supported by the Department of Management, to address all of these issues in tandem and to commence work in January 2001. I would expect them to prepare a detailed set of proposals, along with financial implications, for presentation to the General Assembly within the context of my next report on the implementation of the Panel’s report. I have asked the Office of Internal Oversight Services to participate in this exercise, to ensure that internal controls are properly addressed.
32 114. This work cannot commence immediately, owing to current serious staffing shortfalls in the logistics and procurement areas in meeting the present demands of the field missions, let alone to engage in such a labourintensive exercise. In fact, I am requesting additional resources for all parts of the Field Administration and Logistics Division, in particular, the Logistics and Communications Service. Therefore, in order to enable the most knowledgeable staff to participate in this task, we will need to call upon seasoned staff in the field to assist with the process and/or to enable others at Headquarters to leave existing duties to participate in the exercise. This will have the added benefit not only of strengthening the team in quantitative terms, but also of helping to ensure that the field perspective is properly reflected in the review. 115. I expect particular emphasis to be placed on reducing as much as possible the delays that virtually all field missions have reported during the mission start-up phase, while ensuring that appropriate financial controls remain in place. When assessing different options available for achieving the rapidity of deployment that the Panel has recommended, the need to promote cost-effectiveness and transparency wherever possible should be borne in mind. 116. Troop-contributing countries will ultimately stand to benefit from an enhanced logistics support capacity. As such, they are one of the primary “customers” of this improved logistics system to be developed and should thus be consulted on the problems that they have been encountering in this area. The recommendations of the Special Committee on Peacekeeping Operations on this subject should therefore guide the determination of priorities during the conduct of this comprehensive review. In this context, I wish to recall that the Special Committee has already invited the Secretariat to explore means of enhancing the logistics readiness of the United Nations, in particular through a broader use of the United Nations Logistics Base at Brindisi and reserve stocks, as well as a reassessment of the start-up kits, including their scope and number (A/54/839, para. 93). The Committee has also reiterated its support for the provision of the necessary funding to permit immediate replenishment of start-up kits and has strongly urged the Secretariat to review the current role and function of the Logistics Base with a view to promoting its potential as a forward logistics and materiel staging area for peacekeeping operations (A/54/839, para. 147). The Under-Secretary-General for Management should delegate authority and responsibility for peacekeeping-related budgeting and procurement functions to the Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations for a two-year trial period (A/55/305-S/2000/809, para. 233 (d)). 117. In view of the fact that the entire logistics support system for the field needs to be enhanced and effectively redesigned, I think it would be premature at this stage to decide where these key functions and activities are performed, before having decided how they would be undertaken. I therefore believe that it would be prudent to postpone taking any action on this recommendation until the logistics support strategy and procedural reviews of the field procurement and financial systems have been completed. To relieve demand on the Field Administration and Logistics Division and the Executive Office of the Department of Political Affairs, and to improve support services rendered to smaller political and peacebuilding field offices, the Panel recommends that procurement, logistics, staff recruitment and other support services for all such smaller, non-military field missions be provided by the United Nations Office for Project Services (A/55/305-S/2000/809, para. 243 (c)). 118. Though I believe that the Field Administration and Logistics Division should, in principle, provide support to all United Nations peace operations and should be given the resources to do so, I agree, for the time being, with the Panel’s recommendation. Consequently, and until the Field Administration and Logistics Division and other Secretariat administrative structures have been given the necessary resources to adequately support nonmilitary field missions and activities, the United Nations Office for Project Services will be called upon to do so.
D.Funding of Headquarters support to peacekeeping operations The Panel recommends a substantial increase in resources for Headquarters support of peacekeeping operations, and urges the Secretary-General to submit a proposal to the General Assembly outlining his requirements in full (A/55/305-S/2000/809, para. 197 (a)). Headquarters support for peacekeeping should be treated as a core activity of the United Nations, and as such the majority of it resource requirements for that purpose should be funded through the mechanism of the regular biennium programme budget of the Organization (A/55/305-S/2000/809, para. 197 (b)). Pending the preparation of the next regular budget submission, the Panel recommends that the Secretary-General approach the General Assembly with a request for an emergency supplemental increase to the Support Account to allow immediate recruitment of additional personnel, particularly in the Department of Peacekeeping Operations (A/55/305-S/2000/809, para. 197 (c)).
33 119. As stated in the introduction to the present report, I agree that additional resources are needed for the Secretariat to better support existing operations, build efficiency and performance enhancing systems for the future and then maintain them, as well as to implement the Panel’s recommendations. 120. I am therefore requesting, on an emergency basis, through the Support Account for 2000-2001, additional resources for the Secretariat to better support peacekeeping operations. That request does not represent our complete needs, but it is a realistic indication of the areas that need to be strengthened on a priority basis. Some of the key areas requiring immediate strengthening have been mentioned in this document. 121. There remains a need to properly define a predictable baseline level and mechanism of funding for Headquarters support to peacekeeping and for temporary increases in activity, as the Panel suggested. We will be developing proposals to do this over the course of the next six months. The Special Committee on Peacekeeping had already called for a comprehensive review (to include the management, structure, recruitment processes and interrelationships of all relevant elements within the Secretariat that play a role in peacekeeping operations, which should focus on the coordinated planning, deployment, management and support of United Nations peacekeeping operations, logistics and procurement (A/54/839, para. 67). I will be initiating that review within the next month and may consider calling upon Member States and/or experts in the private sector to help conduct it. 122. At the same time, I consider that the work of the Panel on United Nations Peace Operations represents a partial completion of the review called for by the Special Committee on Peacekeeping Operations.
E.Proposed restructuring of the Department of Peacekeeping Operations 1. Senior management Consideration should be given to increasing the number of assistant secretaries-general in the Department of Peacekeeping Operations from two to three, with one of the three designated as the “Principal Assistant Secretary-General” and functioning as the deputy to the Under-Secretary-General” (A/55/305-S/2000/809, para. 233 (f)). 123. I agree that the responsibilities invested in the Department of Peacekeeping Operations are heavy. They involve the management of missions with annual budgets totalling over two billion dollars per annum, and tens of thousands of military, police and civilian personnel, whose security and safety are directly affected by the decisions taken by the department’s senior management. The time demands on the Under-Secretary-General and Assistant Secretary-Generals are also heavy, given their reporting responsibilities to me and the legislative bodies. The addition of one Assistant Secretary-General in the Department of Peacekeeping Operations is a necessary investment to ensure that the department’s senior management team is big enough to enable high-level availability, to manage the department effectively, share the burden of responsibility, provide back-up for one another, and enable greater and more frequent interaction with the field missions, including through extended visits and deployment thereto as heads of mission start-up teams. I am therefore requesting the addition of one Assistant Secretary-General. 124. The proposed responsibilities of each of the three Assistant Secretary-Generals are detailed in the report on the resource requirements for implementing the report of the Panel on United Nations Peace Operations. The Assistant Secretary-General for Operations would be the senior of the three. 125. The Assistant Secretary-General for Military and Civilian Police Affairs should be a civilian who has accumulated extensive experience managing large numbers of military and/or civilian police personnel, either in a United Nations field mission and/or in a national capacity. While the Military Adviser would report to the Assistant Secretary-General for Military and Civilian Police Affairs, (s)he will nonetheless be the highest ranking military officer at Headquarters and, as such, should continue to have direct access to the Under-SecretaryGeneral for Peacekeeping Operations and to me, as required. 2. The Military and Civilian Police Division(s) The current Military and Civilian Police Division should be restructured, moving the Civilian Police Unit out of the military reporting chain. Consideration should be given to upgrading the rank and level of the Civilian Police Adviser (A/55/305-S/2000/809, para. 233 (a)). 126. I am proposing in the request for additional resources that the rank of the Civilian Police Adviser be upgraded to the D-2 level and that (s)he no longer report to the Military Adviser, but rather to the Assistant Secretary-General for Military and Civilian Police Affairs. I believe this to be consistent with the expressed desire of the Special Committee on Peacekeeping Operations to enhance the role of the Civilian Police Adviser (A/54/839, para. 131).
34 A new unit should be established in the Department of Peacekeeping Operations and staffed with the relevant expertise for the provision of advice on criminal law issues that are critical to the effective use of civilian police in United Nations peace operations (A/55/305-S/2000/809, para 233 (c)). 127. Every police force in the world has the benefit of legal advice during the conduct of its work. The United Nations should not be any different. When the Civilian Police Adviser is asked to propose a concept of operations for the civilian police component of a new mission, (s)he should have the benefit of counsel on the type of judicial system in place, the interrelation between the police and the judiciary in a particular country and the nature of criminal procedures and laws in effect. If the civilian police component is mandated to restructure a local police force, then it is imperative that such restructuring be done with some cognizance of the entire criminal justice system in the country concerned. Before civilian police deploy to a country, they should be properly trained in the applicable criminal and judicial system, so that they have credibility with their local counterparts. The Office of Legal Affairs cannot provide this kind of expertise to the Civilian Police Unit, nor is it designed to do so. 128. The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and UNDP are engaged in institution and capacity-building programmes to strengthen rule of law institutions. They are the appropriate organizations for engaging in this kind of work, and the new Unit would not be asked to duplicate their efforts. It would, instead, draw on their expertise to provide the necessary advice and support to peace operations. 129. The new Unit would be primarily of an operational nature, working alongside the officers of the Civilian Police Unit on a daily basis, providing them and mission counterparts with relevant guidance and providing interface with the rest of the United Nations system to mobilize expertise and resources to assist peace operations in the development of comprehensive rule of law strategies. 130. The existence of such a unit (staffed with just a handful of experts) would have been of great benefit, for example, during the planning of and support to police-oriented missions in Haiti (United Nations Mission in Haiti/United Nations Civilian Police Mission in Haiti) and Bosnia (United Nations Mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina), as well as those in East Timor (UNTAET) and Kosovo (UNMIK). The Military Adviser’s Office [Division] in the Department of Peacekeeping Operations should be restructured to correspond more closely to the way in which the military field headquarters in United Nations peacekeeping operations are structured (A/55/305-S/2000/809, para. 233 (b)). 131. I am proposing not only to strengthen the Military Division, but to extensively restructure it as well, as described in the request for additional resources. In summary, the Military Division would consist of the following: (a) Office of the Military Adviser; (b) Current Military Operations Service; (c) Military Planning Service; (d) Force Generation and Military Personnel Service (including United Nations standby arrangements system management); (e) Training and Evaluation Service. 132. I believe that this structure would provide greater clarity for and support to troop contributors and the field missions with regard to the allocation of responsibilities in the Department of Peacekeeping Operations, by designating a senior military officer (at the rank of colonel) to be in charge of each of the key military activities specific to peacekeeping operations. A significant change would be the separation of force generation activities (the identification, deployment and rotation of troops) and the United Nations standby arrangements system management from the Mission Planning Service. The Training Unit would also be strengthened and expanded to enable it to take on the evaluation tasks referred to previously. 3. Operational planning and support for public information A unit for operational planning and support of public information in peace operations should be established, either within the Department of Peacekeeping Operations or within a new Peace and Security Information Service in the Department of Public Information reporting directly to the UnderSecretary-General for Communication and Public Information (A/55/305-S/2000/809, para. 238)). 133. Past experience has shown that the public information components of peacekeeping operations have often not been properly planned or effectively supported, contrary to the extreme importance of this function as a forcemultiplier, particularly during times of crises. The Special Committee on Peacekeeping Operations recognized the important contribution which public information, especially radio, can make towards the attainment of mission mandates (para. 120). It also reinforced its support for the Secretariat’s efforts to address public information requirements in the planning process as well as in the start-up phase of peacekeeping operations and strongly supported the close cooperation between the Department of Peacekeeping Operations and the Department of
35 Public Information and encouraged further enhancement of that cooperation (para. 120). I am therefore in full agreement that the establishment of a distinct unit responsible for operational planning and support of public information components in peace operations is warranted. 134. In principle, I do not favour creating new capacities in the Department of Peacekeeping Operations that might otherwise already exist in the United Nations system and could be marshalled in support of peace operations through stronger coordinating mechanisms. This has been the premise according to which the integrated mission task force mechanism has been established. However, there may be certain instances where proximity to the daily decision-making processes overrides the benefits of central support structures providing assistance to the Department of Peacekeeping Operations through the integrated mission task force mechanism. 135. Bearing in mind that the task force mechanism will not apply to the planning of smaller and traditional operations, nor to supporting fully deployed missions, I have decided that this unit would be best placed in the Office of Operations/Department of Peacekeeping Operations, so that it could be of benefit to the planning of and support to all missions at all times. 136. Its principal functions would be to ensure that the public information components in United Nations peace operations, both peacekeeping and political missions, are fully staffed and rapidly deployed with all necessary equipment, able to respond effectively to all information requirements in the field and provided with full support and guidance from Headquarters. A key responsibility of the unit would be to translate the overall political and strategic information requirements of each mission into operational public information plans and to develop standard operating procedures and guidelines for the public information components of peace missions and familiarize mission information personnel with them. In addition, the unit would facilitate coverage of peace operations by the media, work with United Nations agencies active in the mission area on the shared use of information assets in field operations and, in particular, maintain a constant information exchange between the Office of the Spokesman and the spokespersons of the Special Representatives of the Secretary-General in the field. 137. In cooperation with other departments, particularly the Department of Public Information, the unit would lead the development of a rapidly deployable capacity for public information. This would include the establishment of a roster of pre-screened experts with field experience to be deployed on short notice for the initial phase of new peace missions, as well as a roster of pre-selected information experts who would be available for longer-term service. The new unit would develop and secure basic start-up kits, memoranda of understanding, or other standby arrangements with Member States and/or other United Nations system partners and non-governmental organizations, to enable team experts to work effectively in the field from the moment of arrival. Due consideration would be accorded to the need for a rapid procurement facility, given the early obsolescence of television and radio equipment, as well as standby arrangements with Member States. 138. The unit would be established primarily through redeployment of existing resources in the Department of Public Information as described in the report on the resource requirements for the implementation of the report of the Panel on Peace Operations. Additional resources should be devoted in mission budgets to public information and the associated personnel and information technology required to get an operation’s message out and build effective internal communications links (A/55/305-S/2000/809, para. 150). 139. I will be seeking the implementation of this recommendation on a case-by-case basis, within the context of mission budgets submitted to the General Assembly for its approval. The unit proposed above would bear primary responsibility for ensuring that due consideration is given to the Panel’s suggestions in this area. 4. The Lessons Learned Unit The Lessons Learned Unit should be substantially enhanced and moved into a revamped Department of Peacekeeping Operations Office of Operations (A/55/305-S/2000/809, para. 233 (e)). 140. The Special Committee on Peacekeeping Operations has already recommended that experience derived from past peacekeeping operations be incorporated into peacekeeping policy and planning, so as to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of future missions (A/54/839, para. 102). The Panel’s recommendation to enhance the Lessons Learned Unit is a step in that direction and I am thus seeking additional resources for it. An enhanced capacity of that Unit would enable it to make progress on the development of multidimensional doctrine, guidelines, and standard operating procedures, as well as sharing of “best practices” between missions. 141. In order to ensure that the work of the Unit is properly reflected in the mission-planning processes, its officers will work closely with each integrated mission task force, as a matter of practice. However, I do not propose to move it from the Office of the Under-Secretary-General/Department of Peacekeeping Operations to the Office of Operations at this time. Given the importance that I attach to this function, I would like the Under-
36 Secretary-General/Department of Peacekeeping Operations to personally oversee its development at this early stage. 5. Gender Unit/Department of Peacekeeping Operations 142. In keeping with the strengthened mandate for integrating gender perspectives into peace operations provided through the special session of the General Assembly entitled “Women 2000: Gender Equality, Development and Peace for the Twenty-First Century” (June 2000), in its report, the Panel raises two important issues relating to gender balance in appointments to senior management positions and the need for gender sensitivity among personnel in their interaction with local communities. However, integrating gender perspectives in peacekeeping operations requires much more than that, as clearly illustrated by the outcome document from the special session of the General Assembly and the Windhoek Declaration and the Namibia Plan of Action on Mainstreaming a Gender Perspective in Multidimensional Peace Support Operations (May 2000). I am therefore proposing the creation of a small Gender Unit in the Office of the Under-Secretary-General/Department of Peacekeeping Operations, as described in the request for additional resources.
F.Strengthening other parts of the United Nations system 1. The Electoral Assistance Division/Department of Political Affairs The Panel recommends that regular budget resources for Electoral Assistance Division programmatic expenses be substantially increased to meet the rapidly growing demand for its services, in lieu of voluntary contributions (A/55/305-S/2000/809, para. 243 (b)). 143. I agree with the Panel’s view that there is a need to put electoral assistance on a more secure footing in order for the Organization to be able to respond to the increasing demand for this vital element of democratic institution-building. I believe that a measured increase in resources is needed in the regular budget to ensure a more effective response and follow-up to requests for electoral assistance. I propose to also increase provision for regular budget financing for needs- assessment missions, which are a prerequisite for all electoral-assistance activities. The relevant provisions are submitted in the report on the resource requirements for the implementation of the Panel’s report. 2. Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) The Panel recommends substantially enhancing the field mission planning and preparation capacity of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, with funding partly from the regular budget and partly from peace operations mission budgets (A/55/305-S/2000/809, para. 245). 144. I fully agree with the Panel’s conclusions on the centrality of human rights to United Nations peace activities and on the need to integrate human rights more effectively into prevention, peacekeeping and peacebuilding strategies. To this end, it is necessary to strengthen the Organization’s capacity both to plan, conceptualize and deploy human rights elements of peace operations and to provide them with specialized guidance and support, so as to achieve a more coherent and systematic approach to human rights work in peace operations. 145. Accordingly, I am seeking a modest increase in resources for the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, as detailed in my report on the resource requirements for the implementation of the report of the Panel on United Nations Peace Operations, to strengthen its ability to take on the following tasks, among others: (a) Analyse the experience of past peace operations and draw therefrom lessons applicable to future planning (both directly and by linking up to relevant expertise within research and civil society institutions); (b) Develop best practices in the design of human rights components of peace operations, the definition of effective human rights strategies and the integration of human rights into the work of other components; (c) Develop guidelines and methodological tools; (d) Rapidly deploy staff to gather information and assess needs to support the planning of human rights components; (e) Develop a standardized information management system for information gathered by human rights components of peace operations, to be applied consistently in all peace operations; (f) Develop standard profiles for human rights staff of field operations and create a system for vetting candidates prior to their inclusion in the rosters; (g) Develop cooperative arrangements and partnerships with non-governmental organizations and national institutes with a view to establishing standby arrangements for the staffing of human rights components of peace operations, as well as the fielding of human rights specialists to other components (for example civilian police
37 and judicial, penal and other specialists, as required; (h) Develop training materials on human rights, provide and assist international, national and regional partners in providing pre-deployment and in-mission training for peace operations staff.
G.Information technology and knowledge management Headquarters peace and security departments need a responsibility centre to devise and oversee the implementation of common information technology strategy and training for peace operations, residing in the Executive Committee on Peace and Security Information and Strategic Analysis Secretariat. Mission counterparts to that responsibility centre should also be appointed to serve in the offices of the Special Representatives of the Secretary-General in complex peace operations to oversee the implementation of that strategy (A/55/305-S/2000/809, para. 251). The Executive Committee on Peace and Security Information and Strategic Analysis Secretariat in cooperation with the Information Technology Services Division, should implement an enhanced peace operations element on the current United Nations Intranet and link it to the missions through a Peace Operations Extranet (A/55/305-S/2000/809, para. 258 (a)). Peace operations could benefit greatly from more extensive use of geographic information systems (GIS) technology, which quickly integrates operational information with electronic maps of the mission area, for applications as diverse as demobilization, civilian policing, voter registration, human rights monitoring and reconstruction (A/55/305-S/2000/809, para. 258 (b)). The information technology needs of mission components with unique information technology needs, such as civilian police and human rights, should be anticipated and met more consistently in mission planning and implementation (A/55/305-S/2000/809, para. 258 (c)). 146. A working group of information technology experts throughout the United Nations system has already prepared an initial plan for implementing the recommendations of the Panel. That group noted that, while the Panel’s recommendations were fairly specific, they provided the impetus for rethinking information technology needs of members of the Executive Committee on Peace and Security on a wider level and served as a catalyst to more closely coordinate ongoing efforts in several forums. To guard against duplication of effort, the group agreed upon a cost-effective and efficient division of labour, and a rough outline of the steps to be taken over the next six to twelve months. 147. Given its composition and functions, the Information Service of the Executive Committee on Peace and Security Information and Strategic Analysis Secretariat would be best equipped to play the role of coordinator and integrator of information management. 148. The Department of Peacekeeping Operations/ Field Administration and Logistics Division is best positioned to provide information communications technology support for peace operations and their field counterparts in the United Nations agencies, funds and programmes. (Information communications technology refers to the hardware, software and information systems etc., whereas information management refers to the management of the processes to populate and extract relevant information from those systems.) 149. At present there is no comprehensive system-wide inventory of the information systems and information and communications technology resources related to peace operations, including geographical information. Establishing and maintaining such an inventory should be the first step in any attempt to integrate and share information. 150. A working group comprised of all intended users of the products of the Executive Committee on Peace and Security Information and Strategic Analysis Secretariat, will define the content and information needs for the information management capacity in the area of peace and security. The further development and enhancement of the above-mentioned information communications technology infrastructure by the Information Technology Services Division and the Department of Peacekeeping Operations/Field Administration and Logistics Division will require initial investments and detailed studies of the requirements and design of the system. 151. The Department of Political Affairs and the Department of Peacekeeping Operations should also, in close liaison with the Executive Committee on Peace and Security Information and Strategic Analysis Secretariat, and in coordination with the relevant departments and agencies, assess the information management needs of peace operation components. 152. The United Nations Geographic Information Working Group, the Field Administration and Logistics Division and the Executive Committee on Peace and Security Information and Strategic Analysis Secretariat should identify logistic support and other peacekeeping-related applications which would benefit from GIS technology, such as movements control, demobilization and civilian policing. All existing applications for these
38 components identified in the geographic information inventory have to be evaluated, and a set of recommended application templates established. 153. The additional post and non-post requirements to get the project started are included in my report on the resources requirements for the implementation of the report of the Panel on United Nations Peace Operations. I will submit a more detailed proposal in my second report. The Panel encourages the development of web site co-management by Headquarters and the field missions, in which Headquarters would maintain oversight but individual missions would have staff authorized to produce and post web content that conforms to basic presentational standards and policy (A/55/305S/2000/809, para. 263).
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AANZET TOT EEN GRONDIGE HERVORMING VAN VN-VREDESOPERATIES?, FREDERIK NAERT In deze bijdrage wordt het Report of the Panel on United Nations Peace Operations1 (hierna genoemd ‘Brahimi Rapport’, naar de voorzitter van het panel) kort besproken in de context van ruimere ontwikkelingen betreffende de handhaving van de internationale vrede en veiligheid. Na een situering van het rapport (I) worden de aanbevelingen van het rapport met betrekking tot VN-vredesoperaties in het algemeen (II) en vredesbewarende operaties in het bijzonder (III) besproken. Tot slot wordt kort ingegaan op de vooruitzichten voor de tenuitvoerlegging van het rapport (IV) en volgt de conclusie (V). De materie is bijgehouden tot 30 september 2000. I. DE TOTSTANDKOMING VAN HET RAPPORT Reeds in 1965 richtte de VN Algemene Vergadering een ‘Special Committee on Peacekeeping Operations’ op, om alle aangelegenheden met betrekking tot vredesbewarende operaties uitvoerig te herzien.2 Sindsdien staat op de agenda van de Algemene Vergadering telkenmale het punt ‘comprehensive review of the whole question of peacekeeping operations in all their aspects’. Dit comité heeft in de loop der jaren meer dan 30 rapporten gepubliceerd en aan de Algemene Vergadering voorgelegd.3 Doorgaans werden de voorgelegde rapporten goedgekeurd of werd er nota van genomen en werd het mandaat van het comité verlengd. Geen enkel rapport is echter even grondig of verregaand dan het Brahimi Rapport en de rapporten hebben geen sterke impact gehad. Naast de rapporten van dit comité verschenen in 1999 twee (openbaar gemaakte) rapporten over het falen van de VN in Bosnië en Ruanda.4 Het Ruanda-rapport werd opgesteld door onafhankelijke experts en het Srebrenica-rapport door de Secretaris-Generaal. Opmerkelijk is, naast de trieste inhoud van beide rapporten, de openheid waarmee de VN toegeeft zware fouten te hebben gemaakt. De moeizame vooruitgang in het bijzonder comité inzake peacekeeping en de openheid van de VN t.a.v. haar optreden in Bosnië en Ruanda verklaart allicht de keuze voor een doorlichting van de VNvredesoperaties door een onafhankelijk panel. De rapporten van het bijzonder comité zijn voor het panel waarschijnlijk wel nuttig geweest, maar het contrast tussen wat het panel in vijf maanden deed en wat het bijzonder comité in 35 jaar heeft bereikt stemt tot nadenken over de efficiëntie van de werkwijze van de Algemene Vergadering. II. AANBEVELINGEN INZAKE VREDESOPERATIES IN HET ALGEMEEN Het Brahimi Rapport beperkt zich geenszins tot een bespreking van vredesbewarende (‘peacekeeping’) operaties: het geeft ook aanbevelingen m.b.t. preventie, vredestichting (‘peace-making’, d.w.z. met vreedzame middelen partijen bij een geschil tot een akkoord brengen - niet te verwarren met vredesafdwinging (‘peace enforcement’)) en vredebouwende operaties (‘peacebuilding’, d.w.z. het versterken van processen en instellingen die duurzame vrede bevorderen), dit in het kader van een ruim veiligheidsconcept. Veiligheid wordt immers al enige tijd niet meer beperkt tot een politiek-militair concept en omvat ook economische, ecologische en menselijke aspecten. Dit gaat gepaard met het besef dat o.a. respect voor de rechtsstaat en mensenrechten, economische welvaart en een gezond milieu van belang zijn wil men de oorzaken van conflicten aanpakken, eerder dan de symptomen.5
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VN Document A/55/305-S/2000/809, 17 Augustus 2000, http://www.un.org/peace/reports/peace_operations. Zie Resolutie (XIX) van de VN Algemene Vergadering van 18 februari 1965. 3 De lijst met rapporten vindt men op http://www.un.org/Depts/dhl/resguide/specpk.htm#scpko (klik op reports). 4 Report of the Secretary-General pursuant to General Assembly resolution 53/35 (1998) (‘Report on the fall of Srebrenica’), VNDocument A/54/549, 15 november 1999, http://www.nrc.nl/Doc/un-srebrenica.html en Report of the Independent Inquiry into the Actions of the United Nations During the 1994 Genocide in Rwanda, 15 december 1999, http://www.un.org/News/ossg/rwanda_report.htm. 5 Zie voor de VN o.a. An Agenda for Peace (A/47/277-S/24111, 17 juni 1992), para. 5 en 12-13. Zie ook de toespraken van volgende landen op de Millennium Summit: China (‘… the promotion of common development … serves as an important guarantee for the maintenance of world peace’), Frankrijk (‘La démocratie, … est … [l]e plus sûr moyen … de garantir la paix.’), Duitsland (‘effective protection of human rights is an important prerequisite for peace and stability’), Oekraine (‘The best and the most reliable weapon of peace is a steady economic development’) en Indië (‘It now needs to be recognised that the continuing poverty of some nations, even while others prosper, … threatens peace among nations’). De toespraken staan op http://www.un.org/millennium/statements_summit.htm. 2
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Dit heeft uiteraard implicaties voor het handhaven van de internationale veiligheid. In eerste instantie dienen conflicten voorkomen te worden, zodat preventie een grote prioriteit krijgt. Preventie vereist eerst en vooral een capaciteit voor het verzamelen en analyseren van inlichtingen en een early warning systeem.6 Het Brahimi Rapport onderscheidt voorts preventie op lange en op korte termijn. Preventie op lange termijn omvat ‘elke maatregel die de armoede verminderd en brede economische groei bevordert’ en gebeurt best op een meer geïntegreerde wijze dan nu het geval is.7 Dit heeft tot gevolg dat bij preventie tal van (al dan niet VN-) organisaties dienen te worden betrokken: het Brahimi Rapport noemt o.a. het VN Ontwikkelingsprogramma (‘UNDP’), de Wereldbank, de VN Hoge Commissaris voor de Vluchtelingen (‘UNHCR’) en de VN Hoge Commissaris voor de rechten van de Mens (‘UNHCHR’).8 Op Europees vlak kunnen de OVSE, de Raad van Europa en de EU in dit opzicht een belangrijke rol spelen.9 Diplomatieke demarches, fact-finding missies en de preventieve ontplooiing van militairen zijn instrumenten van korte termijn preventie, ter aanvulling van lange termijn preventie in geval van escalatie.10 Wat vredesbewarende operaties betreft is vooreerst de afbakening met vredesafdwinging van belang. Het Brahimi Rapport stelt in dit verband vast dat de VN niet aan vredesafdwinging doet: ze geeft daar enkel de toestemming voor aan ‘coalitions of the willing’.11 Verder pleit het panel voor het behoud van de basisprincipes van vredesbewarende missies: toestemming van de partijen, onpartijdigheid en gebruik van geweld enkel in geval van zelfverdediging.12 Dit is volledig in overeenstemming met het klassieke concept van vredesbewarende operaties. De invulling die het panel evenwel geeft aan deze principes eens een missie ontplooid is, is niet meer zo evident. Met name de aanbeveling om in staat te zijn effectief met ‘spoilers’ (inclusief partijen die hun toestemming intrekken) om te gaan brengt een element van afdwinging in het mandaat.13 Hetzelfde geldt voor de mogelijkheid de bescherming van de burgerbevolking in het mandaat op te nemen.14 Dit zijn lovenswaardige doelstellingen die voor de credibiliteit van de VN allicht noodzakelijk zijn. Zij zullen evenwel de nodige middelen, en dus ook de drempel voor het initiëren van een missie, verhogen.15 In het licht van de negatieve ervaringen met dergelijke afdwingingselementen in vredesbewarende operaties (men denke aan UNPROFOR) zijn deze aanbevelingen alles behalve evident. Het panel lijkt evenwel uit te gaan van het standpunt dat het falen in het verleden niet te wijten was aan een te uitgebreid mandaat, maar wel aan te beperkte middelen. Wel is het zich ervan bewust dat het robuuste mandaat eens een missie ontplooid is, vereist dat de basisprincipes bij de beslissing tot het opzetten van een missie des te meer gerespecteerd worden.16 Dat zal van de leden van de Veiligheidsraad een tot nog toe ongekende discipline vergen. Cruciaal is volgens het Brahimi Rapport ook de noodzakelijke samenhang tussen operaties ter bewaring van de vrede en vredebouwende operaties: ‘while the peacebuilders may not be able to function without the peacekeepers’ support, the peacekeepers have no exit without the peacebuilders’ work’.17 De voornaamste aanbevelingen m.b.t. vredebouwende operaties zijn (i) de mogelijkheid met concrete projecten onmiddellijk een zichtbare verbetering van het lot van de bevolking te creëren; (ii) het bevorderen van een breed democratiseringsproces en het versterken van democratische instellingen, rechtsstaat en respect voor de mensenrechten; (iii) een actieve internationale politiemacht die de lokale politie (her)opleidt en de orde kan handhaven, vergezeld van experts inzake gerechtelijke aangelegenheden; (iv) een sterke mensenrechtencomponent die ook de andere componenten van de missie traint inzake mensenrechten en (v) ontwapening, demobilisering en reïntegratie van voormalige strijders. Ook pleit het panel voor een
6
Para. 65-75. Ter vergelijking: toen het Verdrag van Amsterdam de EU een bevoegdheid verleende inzake crisisbeheersing richtte het meteen ook een planning- en analysecel op. 7 Para. 29-34, met verwijzing naar het Millennium Report van de VN Secretaris-Generaal (A/54/2000). 8 Para. 30-31 en 34. 9 Zie b.v. de rol van deze organisaties onder het Stabiliteitspact voor Zuid-Oost-Europa. 10 Para. 10, 16 en 32. Het preventief ontplooien van troepen wordt niet vermeld maar komt wel voor in An Agenda for Peace (supra, vn. 5, para. 28-32) en heeft zijn waarde reeds bewezen in Macedonië, waar van december 1992 tot februari 1999 UNPREDEP actief was (aanvankelijk als onderdeel van UNPROFOR). 11 Para. 53. Hoewel dit inderdaad het geval is, kan men zich de vraag stellen of dit zo hoeft te zijn. 12 Para. 48. 13 Para 21-22 en 48-50 en 55. 14 Para. 62-63. Het panel voegt eraan toe dat in dat geval de missie de nodige middelen daarvoor dient te krijgen. 15 Het panel zegt dit zelf in para. 59. 16 Dit blijkt o.a. uit para. 58. 17 Para. 28.
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permanent en geïnstitutionaliseerd coördinatiemechanisme voor vredebouwende operaties binnen de VN en voor een grotere rol voor het UNDP en de Wereldbank in dergelijke operaties.18 III. AANBEVELINGEN INZAKE VREDESBEWARENDE OPERATIES A. Hervormingen in het VN-Hoofdkwartier Het Brahimi Rapport gaan er terecht van uit dat peacekeeping een permanente kernactiviteit van de VN is en geen tijdelijk fenomeen.19 Daaruit leidt het een aantal aanbevelingen af m.b.t. de noodzakelijke institutionele structuur, de financiering en het personeelsbeleid. Vooreerst wordt gewezen op de nood aan meer middelen en personeel in het VN-Hoofdkwartier, vooral in het Departement Peacekeeping Operations (‘DPKO’). Er zou een minimale permanente personeelsbezetting en financiering moeten komen (beduidend hoger dan de huidige), aangevuld met bijkomend personeel en middelen in functie van het aantal en de omvang van courante missies. De financiering dient overwegend ten laste van het gewone budget te komen (nu wordt die bijna volledig voorzien door het apart budget voor vredesoperaties). In afwachting dient onmiddellijk meer personeel aangeworven te worden. Verder moet werk gemaakt worden van een goed personeelsbeleid, zowel voor het Hoofdkwartier als voor de missies. De VN moet over databanken beschikken, vooral gevoed door de lidstaten, met gegevens over zowel militair als civiel personeel dat potentieel inzetbaar is voor het leiden van, ondersteunen van of deelnemen aan missies.20 De VN, lidstaten en relevante internationale organisaties moeten ervoor zorgen dat dit personeel (waar nodig gezamenlijk) opgeleid, getraind en uitgerust is tot een bepaalde (minimum- of gemeenschappelijke) standaard.21 Bij de selectie dient de kwaliteit van de kandidaten minstens even zwaar te wegen als politieke en geografische factoren.22 Door middel van deze databanken en verbeterde stand-by akkoorden moet de VN in staat zijn snel (d.w.z. binnen 30 of 90 dagen na het aannemen van de desbetreffende Veiligheidsraadresolutie voor een ‘eenvoudige’, respectievelijk ‘complexe’ missie23) een missie te ontplooien. Daarnaast moeten de carrièremogelijkheden van goed presterend personeel verbeteren en moet er een coherente aanwervingsstrategie komen.24 Het DPKO moet volgens het panel grondig geherstructureerd worden. De meest vernieuwende aanbeveling is het voorstel Integrated Mission Task Forces (‘IMTF’) op te richten binnen de ‘Office of Operations’, waarin mensen van alle betrokken afdelingen, organisaties en agentschappen bijeen komen en een missie van het begin tot het einde plannen, organiseren en begeleiden op het Hoofdkwartier.25 Verder pleit het panel ervoor de ‘Lessons Learned Unit’ onder te brengen in de Office of Operations; de ‘Military and Civilian Police Division’ in twee te splitsen; een nieuwe eenheid met experts inzake strafrecht op te richten; de ‘Field Administration and Logistics Division’ te splitsen in een ‘Administrative Services’ en ‘Integrated Support Services’ Division en aan het DPKO een derde Adjunct Secretaris-Generaal toe te wijzen.26 Het Brahimi Rapport stelt ook voor een eenheid op te richten voor ‘operational planning and support for public information’ inzake vredesoperaties, hetzij binnen het DPKO, hetzij in het Departement Publieksvoorlichting; de ‘Peace-building Support’ en ‘Electoral Assistance’ Units in het Departement Political Affairs uit te bouwen; kleinere missies door de UN Office of Project Services te laten organiseren en begeleiden en de operationele capaciteiten van het Bureau van de UNHCHR (‘OHCHR’) te verhogen.27 B. Hervormingen m.b.t. de totstandkoming en werking van een missie
18
Para. 35-47. Para. 176 en vooral 192 en 197. 20 Para. 96, 101 (a), 110-115, 117 (a) en (d), 122, 125, 126 (a), (d) en (e), 130-132, 143 en 145 (a). 21 Zie o.a. para. 111, 114, 116, en 122-123. 22 Para. 95. 23 Para. 86-91. 24 Zie respectievelijk para. 133-138 en para. 141-145. 25 Para. 198-217. 26 Para. 218-233. 27 Para. 234-245. 19
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Het Secretariaat dient de Veiligheidsraad een realistisch beeld te geven van situaties waarin de ontplooiing een VN-missie gevraagd wordt.28 Wanneer de oprichting van een missie waarschijnlijk is, moet de Secretaris-Generaal de mogelijkheid krijgen reeds voor het aannemen van een Veiligheidsraadresolutie bepaalde uitgaven te doen; een IMTF op te richten; het leidend personeel van een missie te selecteren en op te roepen en vooral na te gaan of de lidstaten bereid zijn voldoende gekwalificeerd personeel te leveren.29 Op basis van deze gegevens dient de Veiligheidsraad dan te beslissen of er een missie komt, en zo ja met welk mandaat en welke middelen. Wanneer de toestand niet geschikt is of er onvoldoende gekwalificeerd personeel is, moet de Veiligheidsraad besluiten geen missie te sturen.30 Als een missie wordt opgericht, moet de resolutie voorzien in een duidelijk, realistisch en geloofwaardig mandaat.31 De ontplooiing moet snel gebeuren (cf. supra). Daarvoor dient niet alleen personeel op stand-by te staan, maar moeten ook ‘start-up kits’ voorradig zijn en moet een soepeler aankoopsysteem ontwikkeld worden.32 Er moet ook een hulporgaan van de Veiligheidsraad worden opgericht waarin nauw overleg met de troepenleverende staten mogelijk is.33 Naast een goed mandaat moet een missie ook over de nodige middelen beschikken.34 Gezien de invulling van de karakteristieken van een vredesbewarende missie door het panel en de aanbeveling in staat te zijn om met ‘spoilers’ te kunnen afrekenen, zullen vredesoperaties beduidend meer middelen vergen dan zij tot nog toe ter beschikking hadden (met uitzondering van IFOR/SFOR en KFOR, maar dat zijn in wezen NAVO-operaties). In de woorden van het panel: ‘It means bigger forces, better equipped and more costly’.35 IV. KANS OP SLAGEN? Hoewel tal van deze aanbevelingen vrij evident zijn (het panel zelf is van oordeel dat zij ‘the minimum treshold of change’ zijn),36 zou het ten uitvoer leggen van het geheel van de aanbevelingen een hele herstructurering en mentaliteitsverandering vorderen. Waar heel wat kan gebeuren door een reorganisatie van verschillende VN-organen en een andere instelling vanwege de lidstaten (vooral vanwege de leden van de Veiligheidsraad en troepenleverende landen), vereisen andere maatregelen moeilijke onderhandelingen (vooral de financiering). Tot nog toe zijn de reacties overwegend positief, hoewel het thema vredesoperaties op de Millennium Summit nog in belangrijke mate werd overschaduwd door de discussie omtrent de hervorming van de veiligheidsraad. Het Britse standpunt ging het verst: premier Blair stelde dat de implementatie van de aanbevelingen van het Brahimi Rapport binnen het jaar diende te gebeuren.37 De Amerikaanse president Clinton nam verschillende aanbevelingen uit het rapport over.38 Verder heeft de Veiligheidsraad bij resolutie 1318 (7 september 2000) het Brahimi Rapport verwelkomd, beslist de aanbevelingen in overweging te nemen en het voornemen geuit VN vredesbewarende operaties te versterken. De resolutie noemt ook reeds verschillende concrete maatregelen die nauw aansluiten bij de aanbevelingen van het Brahimi Rapport.39 De Veiligheidsraad heeft ondertussen een werkgroep opgericht die de voorstellen verder zal bespreken.40 De toespraken op de 55ste VN Algemene Vergadering bevatten bovendien in vele gevallen verwijzingen naar het Brahimi Rapport.41 Door bepaalde landen wordt het rapport verwelkomd,42 volgens anderen moet het in overweging worden genomen43 en voor sommigen dient het zonder meer uitgevoerd te worden.44 28
Para. 64 (d) : ‘The Secretariat must tell the Security Council what it needs to know, not what it wants to hear’. Zie o.a. para. 164, 169 (c), 109, 117 (b) en (c), 101 (b) en 58. 30 Zie para. 1 (‘There are many tasks which the [UN] peacekeeping forces should not be asked to undertake, and many places they should not go’) en 60 (‘until the Secretary-General is able to obtain solid commitments … for the forces … necessary to carry out an operation, it should not go forward at all’). 31 Para. 6 (b) en 56-64 (para. 56 : ‘Rather than send an operation into danger with unclear instructions, … [the Security Council should] refrain from mandating such a mission’). 32 Para. 156-169. 33 Para. 61. 34 Zie vooral para. 6 (b), 49 en 59-60. 35 Para. 51. Zie ook para. 3: ‘no amount of good intentions can substitute for the ability to project force’. 36 Para. 7. 37 ‘The Brahimi report is right. We should implement it, and do so within a twelve month timescale’. 38 ‘We need better machinery to ensure UN peacekeepers can be rapidly deployed, with the right training and equipment, the ability to project credible force, and missions well-defined by a well functioning headquarters. To meet this challenge, we must also more effectively deploy civilian police to UN missions’. 39 Respectievelijk punten I-IV en III-VII. 40 VN-persbericht van 27 september 2000. 41 Zie naast de hieronder genoemde landen o.a. Rusland, België, Duitsland, Luxemburg, Turkije, Tsjechië en Angola. De toespraken 29
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Inzake het potentieel ter beschikking stellen van goed opgeleide militairen en civiele experts wijzen enkele ontwikkelingen op Europees niveau in de juiste richting: binnen de OVSE wordt gewerkt aan een civiele capaciteit45 en binnen de EU aan een civiele en militaire capaciteit.46 De Franse minister van buitenlandse zaken, in zijn hoedanigheid van Voorzitter van de Raad van de EU, drong voor de VN Algemene Vergadering aan op het tot stand brengen van een nauwere samenwerking tussen de EU en de VN inzake de handhaving van de internationale vrede en veiligheid.47 De Belgische premier hield in zijn rede op de Millennium Summit een gelijkaardig betoog en stelde voor in andere regio’s gelijkaardige capaciteiten te ontwikkelen.48 Hij besefte daarbij dat dit voor de armere regio’s onmogelijk is zonder steun van de rijkere regio’s.49 Verder heeft het Verenigd Koninkrijk voorgesteld een ‘permanent staff college for UN peacekeeping’ op te richten.50 V. CONCLUSIE Het waardevolle Brahimi Rapport bevat slechts die aanbevelingen die absoluut noodzakelijk zijn voor het behoud (herstel) van de geloofwaardigheid van de VN. Toch vergt de tenuitvoerlegging ervan een verregaande hervorming van de VN-vredesoperaties, een mentaliteitswijziging in hoofde van de lidstaten en VN-organen en meer middelen. Vooral het laatste zal de doorslag geven: een hervormd systeem, politieke wil en ‘goede’ mandaten zullen weinig baten als de lidstaten niet in staat zijn voldoende personeel en middelen te leveren. En precies de beschikbaarheid van voldoende stand-by personeel is allicht niet voor morgen, als men weet dat de EU vier jaar nodig heeft om een snelle interventiemacht van 60.000 manschappen op te richten. Op korte termijn lijkt derhalve, wil men de aanbevelingen van het rapport echt naleven, slechts een beperkt aantal missies mogelijk. Het rapport zegt wel zeer weinig over de rol van regionale organisaties in vredesoperaties, een spoor dat nochtans mogelijkheden biedt.
voor de 55ste Algemene Vergadering staan op http://www.un.org/ga/webcast/retro.htm. 42 O.a. Japan en Zuid-Afrika. 43 O.a. de VS, Australië en Frankrijk (namens de EU). 44 O.a. Canada (‘we will be [the report’s] strongest advocate’) en Spanje (‘Spain steadfastly supports [the report’s] recommendations and hopes that they will be rapidly implemented’). 45 Het Europees Veiligheidshandvest (Istanboel, 19 november 1999) voorziet in de oprichting van Rapid Expert Assistance and Cooperation Teams (‘REACT’). 46 Zie de conclusies van de Europese Raad te Keulen (3-4 juni 1999), Helsinki (10-11 december 1999) en Santa Maria da Feira (1920 juni 2000) en de in uitvoering daarvan genomen besluiten van de Raad 2000/134/GBVB, 2000/144/GBVB, 2000/145/GBVB en 2000/345/GBVB. 47 Rede van Védrine van 12 September 2000. 48 De rede van Verhofstad vindt men op http://www.un.int/belgium/Speeches/Millennium_EN.html. 48 Punten I-IV. 49 Dit wordt ook erkend in het Brahimi Rapport, para. 54. 50 Rede van Robin Cook voor VN Algemene Vergadering, 14 september 2000.
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EUROPESE RAAD, HELSINKI, 10-11 DECEMBER 1999, CONCLUSIES (van de EU-website). II. GEMEENSCHAPPELIJK EUROPEES BELEID INZAKE VEILIGHEID EN DEFENSIE … 26. De Unie zal bijdragen tot internationale vrede en veiligheid overeenkomstig de beginselen van het Handvest der Verenigde Naties. De Unie erkent de primaire verantwoordelijkheid van de Veiligheidsraad van de Verenigde Naties voor de handhaving van de internationale vrede en veiligheid. … 28. Op basis van de tijdens de Europese Raad van Keulen gegeven algemene richtsnoeren en de verslagen van het voorzitterschap is de Europese Raad met name het volgende overeengekomen: - de lidstaten moeten, in het kader van vrijwillige samenwerking, bij door de EU geleide operaties, uiterlijk in 2003 in staat zijn binnen 60 dagen strijdkrachten ten belope van maximaal 50.000-60.000 manschappen die alle Petersbergtaken kunnen uitvoeren, in te zetten en gedurende ten minste 1 jaar operationeel te houden; - binnen de Raad zullen nieuwe politieke en militaire instanties en structuren worden opgezet om de Unie in staat te stellen te zorgen voor de nodige politieke richtsnoeren en strategische leiding ten behoeve van dergelijke operaties, met inachtneming van het ene institutionele kader; - … - er zullen niet-militaire crisisbeheersingsmechanismen worden ingesteld met het oog op het coördineren en effectiever maken van de verschillende civiele middelen en instrumenten die de Unie en de lidstaten ter beschikking staan, zulks parallel aan de militaire middelen en instrumenten. … BIJLAGE IV: VERSLAGEN VAN HET VOORZITTERSCHAP AAN DE EUROPESE RAAD VAN HELSINKI OVER DE VERSTERKING VAN HET GEMEENSCHAPPELIJK EUROPEES BELEID INZAKE VEILIGHEID EN DEFENSIE EN OVER NIET-MILITAIRE CRISISBEHEERSING VAN DE EUROPESE UNIE … Om hun verantwoordelijkheid te kunnen opnemen voor het volledige gamma van taken op het gebied van conflictpreventie en crisisbeheersing als omschreven in het Verdrag betreffende de Europese Unie, de Petersbergtaken, hebben de lidstaten besloten effectiever militaire capaciteiten te ontwikkelen en nieuwe politieke en militaire structuren voor deze taken in het leven te roepen. Het is in dit verband de bedoeling dat de Unie zelfstandig beslissingen kan nemen en, in gevallen waarbij de NAVO als geheel niet betrokken is, als respons op internationale crises door de EU geleide militaire operaties te starten en vervolgens te voeren. Om zich beter van deze verantwoordelijkheden te kunnen kwijten, zal de Unie tevens de middelen voor civiele crisisbeheersing waarmee de Unie en de lidstaten al aanzienlijke ervaring hebben opgedaan, verbeteren en doeltreffender aanwenden. Bijzondere aandacht zal worden besteed aan de capaciteit om snel in te grijpen. Al deze maatregelen zullen het gemeenschappelijk buitenlands en veiligheidsbeleid ondersteunen en de veelomvattende externe rol van de Unie versterken en uitbreiden. De versterking en de coördinatie van het militaire en civiele instrumentarium om op crises te reageren, zal de Unie in staat stellen een beroep te doen op het gehele gamma van instrumenten, gaande van diplomatieke activiteit, humanitaire hulp en economische maatregelen tot civiele politietaken en militaire crisisbeheersingsoperaties. … De Unie zal tot de internationale vrede en veiligheid bijdragen overeenkomstig de beginselen van het Handvest der Verenigde Naties. De Unie erkent de primaire verantwoordelijkheid van de Veiligheidsraad van de Verenigde Naties voor de handhaving van de internationale vrede en veiligheid. Overeenkomstig de beginselen en doelstellingen van het Handvest voor de Europese Veiligheid van de OVSE, zal de Unie op een wederzijds versterkende wijze met de VN, de OVSE, de Raad van Europa en andere internationale organisaties samenwerken bij de bevordering van stabiliteit, vroegtijdige waarschuwing, conflictpreventie, crisisbeheersing en wederopbouw na conflicten. Bijlage 1 bij BIJLAGE IV: VOORTGANGSVERSLAG VAN HET VOORZITTERSCHAP AAN DE EUROPESE RAAD VAN HELSINKI OVER DE VERSTERKING VAN HET GEMEENSCHAPPELIJK EUROPEES BELEID INZAKE VEILIGHEID EN DEFENSIE Inleiding
Ter ondersteuning van het gemeenschappelijk buitenlands en veiligheidsbeleid (GBVB) moet de Europese Unie zelfstandig beslissingen kunnen nemen en, in gevallen waarbij de NAVO als geheel niet is betrokken, door de EU geleide militaire operaties starten en voeren als respons op internationale crises. Het optreden van de Unie zal in overeenstemming zijn met de beginselen van het Handvest der Verenigde Naties en met de beginselen en doelstellingen van het Handvest voor de Europese Veiligheid van de OVSE. De Unie erkent de primaire verantwoordelijkheid van de Veiligheidsraad van de Verenigde Naties voor de handhaving van de internationale vrede en veiligheid.
45 Daartoe is het volgende overeengekomen: Om het gehele gamma van Petersbergtaken te kunnen uitvoeren wordt er een gemeenschappelijk Europees hoofddoel bepaald ter zake van snel inzetbare militaire capaciteiten en worden er op korte termijn collectieve capaciteitsdoelstellingen op het gebied van bevelvoering en controle, inlichtingen en strategisch transport ontwikkeld welke bereikt moeten worden door gecoördineerde nationale en multinationale acties op vrijwillige basis. Er worden bij de Raad nieuwe politieke en militaire organen in het leven geroepen om de Unie in staat te stellen inzake door de EU geleide Petersbergoperaties besluiten te nemen en, onder het gezag van de Raad, voor de noodzakelijke politieke controle en strategische leiding van deze operaties te zorgen. … Militaire capaciteit voor Petersbergtaken Hun in Keulen aangegane engagement indachtig, memoreren de lidstaten hun vastberaden wil om de EU de passende capaciteiten te geven, zonder onnodige duplicatie om het gehele gamma van de Petersbergtaken te kunnen uitvoeren ter ondersteuning van het GBVB. Deze capaciteiten zullen de lidstaten in staat stellen om doeltreffende door de EU geleide acties te ondernemen en, voor de desbetreffende landen, ten volle hun rol in de NAVO en door de NAVO geleide operaties te spelen. Er zullen doeltreffender Europese militaire capaciteiten worden ontwikkeld op basis van de bestaande nationale, binationale en multinationale capaciteiten, die zullen worden samengebracht voor door de EU geleide crisisbeheersingsoperaties met of zonder gebruikmaking van NAVO-middelen en -capaciteiten. Bijzondere aandacht zal worden besteed aan de voor een doeltreffende crisisbeheersing vereiste capaciteiten: inzetbaarheid, voortzettingsvermogen, interoperabiliteit, flexibiliteit, mobiliteit, overlevingsvermogen en bevelvoering en controle, rekening houdend met de resultaten van de WEU-audit van middelen en capaciteiten en hun implicaties voor door de EU geleide operaties. Om de Europese capaciteiten te ontwikkelen, hebben de lidstaten zich het volgende hoofddoel gesteld: op basis van vrijwillige samenwerking zullen zij tegen het jaar 2003 in staat zijn tot het snel inzetten en vervolgens in het veld houden van troepen met de nodige capaciteit voor het gehele gamma van Petersbergtaken als omschreven in het Verdrag van Amsterdam, met inbegrip van de meest veeleisende, voor operaties tot op het niveau van een legercorps (waarbij tot 15 brigades of 50.000 tot 60.000 man betrokken zijn). Deze troepen moeten militair zelfvoorzienend zijn, met de nodige capaciteiten voor bevelvoering, controle en inlichtingendiensten, logistiek, andere inzetondersteunende diensten en daarnaast, waar van toepassing, lucht- en zeemachtelementen. De lidstaten moeten binnen zestig dagen op dit niveau volledig kunnen ontplooien en binnen deze termijn moeten zij kleinere eenheden kunnen leveren voor een snelle-reactie met een hoge graad van inzetbaarheid. Zij moeten een dergelijke inzet gedurende ten minste een jaar kunnen volhouden. Dit zal een bijkomende pool van inzetbare eenheden (en ondersteunende elementen) vergen met een lagere graad van inzetbaarheid om de initiële troepen te kunnen vervangen. De lidstaten hebben tevens besloten snel collectieve capaciteitsdoelstellingen te ontwikkelen op de - ook in de WEU-audit aangegeven - gebieden bevelvoering en controle, inlichtingendiensten en strategisch vervoer. In dit verband zijn zij ingenomen met de door bepaalde lidstaten reeds aangekondigde besluiten in die richting: - ontwikkeling en coördinatie van militaire voorzieningen voor monitoring en vroegtijdige waarschuwing; - openstelling van bestaande gezamenlijke nationale hoofdkwartieren voor officieren van andere lidstaten; - versterking van de snelle-reactiecapaciteiten van de bestaande Europese multinationale strijdkrachten; - voorbereiding van een Europees luchttransportcommando; - verhoging van het aantal snel inzetbare manschappen; - vergroting van de capaciteit voor strategisch maritiem transport. Met deelneming van de ministers van Defensie zal de Raad Algemene Zaken de hoofddoelstelling en de capaciteitsdoelstellingen opstellen. Hij zal een consultatiemethode uitwerken … Besluitvorming De Raad bepaalt het beleid inzake de betrokkenheid van de Unie bij alle fasen en aspecten van de crisisbeheersing, met inbegrip van besluiten tot uitvoering van Petersbergtaken overeenkomstig artikel 23 van het EU-verdrag. In de besluiten, die in het kader van het ene institutionele kader worden genomen, worden de bevoegdheden van de Europese Gemeenschap geëerbiedigd en wordt de samenhang tussen de pijlers overeenkomstig artikel 3 van het EU-verdrag verzekerd. Alle lidstaten zijn gerechtigd volledig en op voet van gelijkheid deel te nemen aan alle besluiten en beraadslagingen van de Raad en de Raadsorganen over door de EU geleide operaties. De lidstaten beslissen soeverein over de nationale middelen die zij voor dergelijke operaties inzetten. De lidstaten nemen deel aan het ad hoc comité van contribuanten overeenkomstig het bepaalde in punt 24.
46 De ministers van Defensie worden bij het gemeenschappelijk Europees veiligheids- en defensiebeleid (GEVDB) betrokken. Wanneer de Raad Algemene Zaken met het GEVDB verband houdende aangelegenheden bespreekt, nemen de ministers van Defensie in voorkomend geval aan de besprekingen deel om te adviseren over defensieaangelegenheden. Bij de Raad worden de volgende nieuwe permanente politieke en militaire organen in het leven geroepen: a) Een permanent Comité voor politieke en veiligheidsvraagstukken (CPV) in Brussel, samengesteld uit nationale vertegenwoordigers op hoog niveau/ambassadeursniveau. Dit CPV gaat over alle aspecten van het GBVB, met inbegrip van het GEVDB, overeenkomstig de bepalingen van het EU-verdrag en zonder afbreuk te doen aan de bevoegdheden van de Gemeenschap. In geval van een militaire crisisbeheersingsoperatie oefent het CPV onder het gezag van de Raad de politieke controle op en de strategische leiding van de operatie uit. Daartoe worden passende procedures aangenomen om een doeltreffende en snelle besluitvorming mogelijk te maken. Het CPV geeft ook richtsnoeren aan het Militair Comité. b) Het Militair Comité (MC), samengesteld uit de Chefs Defensiestaf, vertegenwoordigd door hun militaire afgevaardigden. Telkens als dat nodig is, komt het MC bijeen op het niveau van de Chefs Defensiestaf. Dit comité verstrekt militair advies, doet aanbevelingen aan het CPV en geeft militaire leiding aan de militaire staf. De voorzitter van het MC woont de bijeenkomsten van de Raad bij wanneer besluiten met gevolgen op defensiegebied moeten worden genomen. c) De Militaire Staf (MS), die binnen de structuren van de Raad militaire expertise verstrekt en steun voor het GEVDB, met inbegrip van de leiding over door de EU geleide militaire crisisbeheersingsoperaties. De militaire staf voert taken uit op het gebied van vroegtijdige waarschuwing, situatiebeoordeling en strategische planning voor Petersbergtaken, met inbegrip van het aanwijzen van Europese nationale en multinationale strijdkrachten. Als tussentijdse maatregel worden bij de Raad per 1 maart 2000 de volgende organen ingesteld. a) Met volledige inachtneming van de verdragsbepalingen stelt de Raad een interim-permanent Comité voor politieke en veiligheidsvraagstukken in op hoog niveau/ambassadeursniveau, dat onder leiding van het Politiek Comité zorg draagt voor de follow-up van de Europese Raad van Helsinki door aanbevelingen op te stellen betreffende de toekomstige werking van het GEVDB, en dat zich in nauw contact met de SG/HV bezighoudt met de dagelijkse GBVB-aangelegenheden. b) Er wordt een interim-lichaam ingesteld, bestaande uit militaire vertegenwoordigers van de Chefs Defensiestaf van de lidstaten om op verzoek advies te verstrekken aan het interim-Comité voor politieke en veiligheidsvraagstukken. c) Om het Raadssecretariaat in zijn werkzaamheden met betrekking tot het GEVDB bij te staan, wordt het versterkt met door de lidstaten gedetacheerde militaire deskundigen, die de kern van de toekomstige Militaire Staf uitmaken. De secretaris-generaal/hoge vertegenwoordigers (SG/HV), die de Raadszittingen bijwoont, levert een essentiële bijdrage tot de doeltreffendheid en de samenhang van het GBVB en de ontwikkeling van het gemeenschappelijk veiligheids- en defensiebeleid. Overeenkomstig het EU-verdrag draagt de SG/HV bij tot de formulering, voorbereiding en uitvoering van beleidsbeslissingen. In de tussenperiode zal de SG/HV, secretaris-generaal van de WEU, overeenkomstig artikel 17 van het EU-verdrag ten volle gebruik maken van de middelen van de WEU om de Raad van advies te dienen. … geïnteresseerde landen kunnen worden verzocht deel te nemen aan door de EU geleide operaties. Alle landen die hebben bevestigd dat zij met inzet van significante militaire middelen aan een door de EU geleide operatie deelnemen, hebben dezelfde rechten en verplichtingen als de deelnemende EU-lidstaten bij de dagelijkse leiding en uitvoering van een dergelijke operatie. In het geval van een door de EU geleide operatie wordt een ad hoc comité van contribuanten opgericht voor de dagelijkse leiding en uitvoering van die operatie. Alle EU-lidstaten hebben het recht het ad hoc comité bij te wonen, ongeacht of zij aan de operatie deelnemen, maar alleen de contribuerende staten nemen deel aan de dagelijkse leiding en uitvoering van deze operatie. Het besluit om een operatie te beëindigen wordt genomen door de Raad na overleg tussen de deelnemende staten in het comité van contribuanten. …
47
EUROPESE RAAD, SANTA MARIA
DA
FEIRA, CONCLUSIES, AANHANGSEL 3: STUDIE INZAKE CONCRETE
DOELSTELLINGEN BETREFFENDE CIVIELE ASPECTEN VAN CRISISBEHEERSING A. Inleiding De Europese Raad is vastbesloten de doeltreffendheid te versterken en te verbeteren van het vermogen van de Unie om op crises te reageren, onder meer door acties op civiele gebieden. Die versterkte doeltreffendheid kan worden aangewend als respons op een verzoek van een leidende instantie als de VN of de OVSE, of, in voorkomend geval, bij zelfstandige acties van de EU. De Unie moet ernaar streven haar vermogen inzake de civiele aspecten van crisisbeheersing op alle relevante gebieden te versterken, teneinde haar vermogen tot het redden van mensenlevens in crisissituaties te verbeteren, een minimum aan openbare orde te handhaven, verdere escalatie te voorkomen, de terugkeer naar een vreedzame, stabiele en zichzelf bestendigende situatie te vergemakkelijken, nadelige gevolgen voor EU-lidstaten te beheersen en de daarmee samenhangende coördinatieproblemen aan te pakken. Bijzondere aandacht kan worden besteed aan gebieden waarop de internationale gemeenschap tot dusver zwak is gebleken. Dit alles zou een meerwaarde betekenen, want het reactievermogen van de Unie zou toenemen en zij zou ook beter kunnen voldoen aan verzoeken van andere leidende organisaties, die meer systematisch zouden kunnen rekenen op een in kwantitatief en kwalitatief opzicht belangrijke bijdrage als kern van een aantal missies. Dit zou bovendien de zichtbaarheid van de Unie versterken. De versterking van de vermogens van de Unie inzake de civiele aspecten van crisisbeheersing moet de Unie in de eerste plaats adequate middelen verschaffen voor het aanpakken van complexe politieke crises door: - het uitbreken of escaleren van conflicten te voorkomen; - de vrede en de interne stabiliteit tijdens overgangsperiodes te consolideren; - de complementariteit te garanderen tussen de militaire en de civiele aspecten van crisisbeheersing waarbij het volledige gamma van de Petersbergtaken wordt bestreken. Er werd overeengekomen dat het bepalen van concrete doelstellingen gebaseerd moet zijn op een pragmatische bottom-up aanpak, die toegespitst is op operationele vereisten en die een weerspiegeling is van de politieke preoccupaties van de Europese Raad. De opgestelde inventarissen tonen duidelijk aan dat de lidstaten, de Unie of beide aanzienlijke ervaring hebben opgedaan of op een groot aantal gebieden over aanzienlijke middelen beschikken; een aantal van die middelen wordt reeds gebruikt bij de ontwikkelingssamenwerking. De Unie moet haar inspanningen prioritair toespitsen op de gebieden waarop een snelle reactie het meest nodig is, en waarop de meerwaarde van een versterkte en gecoördineerde inspanning van de Unie en de lidstaten het duidelijkst merkbaar is; daarbij moet de Unie de opgedane ervaring en de bestaande instrumenten en middelen ten volle in aanmerking nemen en zich daarop baseren. Dit proces kan stap voor stap verder worden uitgebreid tot een breed gamma van beperkte, maar ook complexe operaties inzake civiele crisisbeheersing. Het in kaart brengen van de prioriteiten waarop de EU haar gecoördineerde inspanningen in een eerste fase zal toespitsen sluit geenszins het gebruik uit van alle andere instrumenten waarover de Unie en de lidstaten beschikken. B. Prioriteiten Het eerste prioritaire gebied dat is bepaald in het kader van de crises waarmee Europa de jongste tijd te kampen heeft gehad en nog steeds te kampen heeft, is politie. I. POLITIE De lidstaten hebben in het kader van de vrijwillige samenwerking ex artikel 12, vijfde streepje, van het VEU, concrete doelstellingen betreffende de politievermogens vastgesteld die voor 2003 moeten worden gehaald. Deze concrete doelstellingen zijn gedetailleerd uitgewerkt in bijlage 4 bij het verslag van het voorzitterschap. II. VERSTERKING VAN DE RECHTSSTAAT Intensievere werkzaamheden op het gebied van politie moeten noodzakelijkerwijs gepaard gaan met werk op andere gebieden dat nodig wordt geacht om te garanderen dat een politieopdracht tot een positief resultaat leidt. Meer specifiek gaat het om de bijstand met het oog op herstel van het gerechtelijk en penitentiair apparaat. Daarbij kan aan de volgende maatregelen worden gedacht: i) de lidstaten kunnen nationale regelingen instellen voor de selectie van rechters, procureurs, strafrechtdeskundigen en andere relevante beroepsgroepen binnen het gerechtelijk en penitentiair apparaat, die op korte termijn kunnen worden ingezet ter ondersteuning van vredeshandhavingsoperaties; de lidstaten kunnen tevens bedenken hoe deze mensen goed kunnen worden opgeleid; ii) de EU kan streven naar de bevordering van richtsnoeren voor de selectie en opleiding van internationale rechters en penitentiair deskundigen in verbinding met de Verenigde Naties en regionale organisaties (meer bepaald de Raad van Europa en de OVSE);
48 iii) de EU kan onderzoeken op welke manier de bouw/vernieuwing van de infrastructuur van plaatselijke rechtbanken en gevangenissen, alsmede de aanwerving van plaatselijk personeel voor rechtbanken en gevangenissen in de context van vredeshandhavingsoperaties kan worden ondersteund. III. VERSTERKING VAN HET CIVIEL BESTUUR Een ander gebied waarop versterking nodig is met het oog op de steunverlening aan samenlevingen in een overgangsfase, is het civiel bestuur. i) De lidstaten kunnen denken aan de verbetering van de selectie, de opleiding en de inzet van deskundigen inzake civiel bestuur die worden belast met het herstel van ineengestorte bestuurssystemen; ii) de lidstaten kunnen er tevens aan denken om plaatselijke ambtenaren van het civiel bestuur van samenlevingen in een overgangsfase te gaan opleiden. IV. CIVIELE BESCHERMING Naast de hierboven genoemde prioritaire gebieden hebben de lidstaten ook de civiele bescherming, met inbegrip van zoek- en reddingsacties bij rampenbestrijding als prioriteit gesteld. Hierbij moet een onderscheid worden gemaakt tussen civiele bescherming in het kader van crisisbeheersingsoperaties, en andere soorten hulpoperaties bij rampen. Laatstgenoemde operaties zijn van specifieke aard. Bij crisisbeheersingsoperaties in het kader van het GBVB moet het evenwel mogelijk zijn een beroep te doen op de instrumenten en vermogens inzake civiele bescherming van de EU-lidstaten. Hoewel er reeds specifieke coördinatiemechanismen op het gebied van civiele bescherming bestaan, heeft de ervaring bij recente grote natuurrampen uitgewezen dat verbetering nodig en mogelijk is. Er zijn ideeën geopperd voor een betere organisatie van de respons van de Unie, zoals het concept van een leidende natie en specialisatie. De werkzaamheden die thans bij de Raad aan de gang zijn en waarbij praktijkdeskundigen betrokken zijn, zullen het mogelijk maken ook op dit gebied concrete doelstellingen uit te werken. Die concrete doelstellingen kunnen worden gedefinieerd in de zin van de menselijke en materiële middelen die elke lidstaat ter beschikking moet kunnen stellen, het type mandaat en de status van de operatie voor de deelnemende landen en de bevordering van de compatibiliteit van materieel tussen de lidstaten. C. Middelen Een betere coördinatie op EU-niveau kan leiden tot meer efficiëntie en synergie van de reactie van de EU. Samen met de definitie van de concrete doelstellingen door de Europese Raad zal zulks zorgen voor een tastbare verbetering van de bijdrage van de Unie aan crisisbeheersingsoperaties. D. Verdere werkzaamheden inzake concrete doelstellingen na Feira Het Comité voor de civiele aspecten van crisisbeheersing kan zich toeleggen op de ontwikkeling en de verdere uitwerking van de concrete doelstellingen die door de Europese Raad van Feira zijn vastgesteld, alsmede op de gebieden die verder gaan dan de reeds afgebakende prioritaire gebieden. Daartoe moeten in het comité deskundigen van de relevante nationale overheidsdiensten worden opgenomen, die onder meer gespecialiseerd advies verstrekken over politiële, justitiële en penitentiaire aspecten, civiel bestuur en humanitaire hulp, en tevens de schakel vormen tussen crisisbeheersing en ontwikkelingssamenwerking. De verdere werkzaamheden kunnen tevens gericht worden op het in kaart brengen van de nationale vermogens met het oog op het bereiken van de collectieve doelstellingen, met inachtneming van de nationale gebieden van expertise/specialisatie. De Commissie zal binnenkort een operationele inventaris indienen van de acties die de Unie reeds heeft geleid, alsmede voorstellen op het gebied van civiele bescherming.
AANHANGSEL 4. CONCRETE DOELSTELLINGEN INZAKE POLITIE A. CONCRETE DOELSTELLINGEN
49 Om de politievermogens te ontwikkelen hebben de lidstaten in het kader van de vrijwillige samenwerking ex artikel 12, vijfde streepje, van het Verdrag betreffende de Europese Unie, zich de volgende concrete doelstellingen gesteld, die voor 2003 bereikt moeten worden. De doelstellingen houden onderling verband, maar benadrukken de diverse aspecten van de politievermogens in de EU. In dit verband is de doelstelling snelle-inzetbaarheidsvermogen (2) omschreven als een onderdeel van de doelstelling algeheel EUvermogen (1). 1. ALGEHEEL EU-VERMOGEN De lidstaten van de EU, die de centrale rol van de politie bij internationale crisisbeheersingsoperaties erkennen en zich bewust zijn van de toenemende behoefte aan politiefunctionarissen voor dergelijke operaties, hebben zich ertoe verbonden hun vermogen om politiefunctionarissen toe te wijzen aan internationale politieoperaties waaraan zij vrijwillig deelnemen, te versterken. Met betrekking tot de bijdragen van de lidstaten zal rekening worden gehouden met hun eigen specifieke regelingen voor nationale politieopdrachten en met de aard van de politie-ervaring die zij kunnen leveren. Als einddoel zouden de lidstaten door een gefaseerde versterking van hun vermogens in staat moeten zijn om 5000 politiefunctionarissen te leveren voor internationale opdrachten in het kader van de conflictpreventie- en crisisbeheersingsoperaties en als respons op de specifieke behoeften in de verschillende stadia van deze operaties. Op dit ogenblik zetten de EU-staten ongeveer 3300 personen in. Daartoe dient vooraf een voldoende grote pool van politiefunctionarissen te worden geselecteerd en opgeleid voor alle gebieden van politiewerk die internationaal vereist zijn, met inachtneming van zowel de relatieve voordelen als de specifieke beperkingen van de nationale politie. Dit vergt wellicht versterking van de toerbeurtregelingen en voldoende financiële en logistieke middelen. De lidstaten zullen nationale ervaring uitwisselen om tot specifieke aanbevelingen te komen over verhoging van het aantal voor internationale opdrachten beschikbare functionarissen (onder meer onderzoeken of meer gebruik kan worden gemaakt van bijna of pas gepensioneerde functionarissen en politievermogen vrijmaken door in grotere mate deskundigen uit aanverwante sectoren in te zetten). In dit verband zal de nodige aandacht uitgaan naar de mogelijkheid om meer de nadruk te leggen op de opleiding van plaatselijke politie, aangezien dit ertoe kan bijdragen de omvang en de duur van internationale politieacties te reduceren. De doelstelling inzake algehele EU-politievermogens kan worden uitgebreid tot het verlenen van internationale bijstand aan het lokale gerechtelijk en penitentiair apparaat, waarvan een gebrekkig functioneren in bepaalde crisissituaties ernstig afbreuk kan doen aan de geloofwaardigheid en doeltreffendheid van een internationale politie. 2. SNELLE INZETBAARHEID De EU kan politie inzetten als antwoord op een verzoek van een internationale leidinggevende organisatie, in het bijzonder de Verenigde Naties of de OVSE, dan wel bij wijze van een autonome politieactie, eventueel als onderdeel van een ruimere, door de EU geleide crisisbeheersingsoperatie, wanneer het noodzakelijke EU-kader voor planning en logistiek gedefinieerd is. In het kader van de doelstelling van de algehele EU-vermogens verbinden de lidstaten zich ertoe dat zij binnen 30 dagen politie kunnen selecteren en inzetten voor de uitvoering van politieoperaties en -taken op het gebied van voorlichting, opleiding, toezicht en uitvoering: - om interne crises en conflicten te voorkomen of in te dammen (bv. MINUGUA in Guatemala); - in niet-gestabiliseerde omstandigheden, bijvoorbeeld onmiddellijk na een conflict, waarvoor de inzet van een solide eenheid is vereist die de orde en het gezag kan herstellen (bv. UNMIK/KFOR in Kosovo en UNTAET in Oost-Timor); - ter ondersteuning van de plaatselijke politie, om de fundamentele normen op het gebied van de mensenrechten te handhaven (bv. WEU/MAPE in Albanië, WEUPOL in Mostar en ONUSAL in El Salvador) en, op plaatsen waar de internationale politie een uitvoerende rol vervult, ervoor te zorgen dat de verantwoordelijkheid voor de ordehandhaving spoedig aan de plaatselijke politie kan worden overgedragen (bv. OVSE/KPSS in Kosovo). Blijkens de ervaring kunnen de zwaarste crisisbeheersingstaken vereisen dat binnen 30 dagen tot 1000 politieambtenaren uit de EUlidstaten worden ingezet. Op al deze algemene doeltaken zullen de bevoegde Raadsinstanties nader moeten ingaan. Gezien de specifieke eisen waaraan internationale politiemachten moeten voldoen bij het verrichten van uitvoerende taken in nietgestabiliseerde omstandigheden, met name gedurende de overgang van een oorspronkelijk militair gezag naar een civiel gezag, moet er bijzondere aandacht worden besteed aan het voorstel om solide, snel inzetbare, flexibele en interoperabele geïntegreerde politieeenheden van de Europese Unie op te zetten en aan de mogelijkheid van samenwerking van een kleiner aantal lidstaten om op dit specifieke gebied vermogens op te bouwen.
50 Om de doelstelling van de inzettermijn te bereiken zullen de lidstaten en de EU waar nodig zorgen voor verdere versterking van hun vermogen om de vereiste expertise ten dienste te stellen van een verkenningsteam onder leiding van de internationale leidinggevende organisatie en zullen zij te gelegener tijd EU-verkenningsteams van ervaren politiedeskundigen inzetten, die belast zijn met de risicobeoordeling, de omschrijving, de planning en de vaststelling van een door de EU geleide politieopdracht. In deze context zou de EU een bijdrage moeten kunnen leveren met de inschakeling van juridische deskundigen ter voorbereiding van de ondersteuning van het plaatselijke justitieel en penitentiair apparaat, alsmede deskundigen voor technische, logistieke en administratieve steun. De lidstaten zullen informatie en ervaring uitwisselen over de wijze waarop snel inzetbare politie-eenheden kunnen worden gevormd, onder meer door gebruikmaking van vooraf bepaalde politie-eenheden die actief deelnemen aan het nationale politiewerk, en toch op korte termijn beschikbaar zijn voor politieopdrachten. 3. VERHOGEN VAN DE NORMEN VOOR INTERNATIONALE POLITIEOPDRACHTEN De lidstaten en de EU kunnen als katalysator fungeren voor het verhogen van de normen voor internationale politieoperaties, ook in het kader van en via de Verenigde Naties en de OVSE. Daarom zullen de EU en de lidstaten beginnen met de omschrijving van een EU-concept voor internationale politieoperaties. Dit werk zal worden verricht in nauwe samenwerking met de VN/DKPO, op de grondslag van bestaande VN-richtlijnen en zonder doublures met de VN-werkzaamheden op basis van de politie-ervaring van de lidstaten en de EU. Uit de eerste besprekingen over dit onderwerp is gebleken dat het nodig is onder andere: 1) de categorieën politieambtenaren en deskundigen te bepalen die het meest geschikt zijn voor de diverse politietaken, waaronder de inzetprioriteiten, op basis van scenario's of illustratieve profielen van de rol van de politie in het gehele kader in de diverse fasen van crisispreventie èn crisisbeheersingsoperaties, met inachtneming van de noodzaak van interventieflexibiliteit; 2) bij te dragen aan de ontwikkeling van een algemeen concept van uitvoerend politieoptreden, met name ten aanzien van de interactie tussen militaire strijdkrachten en politie-eenheden in post-conflictsituaties, wanneer beide parallel worden ingezet; 3) bij te dragen aan de verduidelijking van de kaderregelgeving waarin internationale politieopdrachten plaatsvinden; 4) bij te dragen aan de vaststelling van duidelijke internationale mandaten voor politieopdrachten. De ontwikkeling van een EU-concept zou de opstelling van EU-richtsnoeren en normen voor internationaal politieoptreden, waaronder operationele instructies, vergemakkelijken en zou ook bijdragen tot een verdere verfijning van de categorieën politieambtenaren en deskundigen in de databanken van de lidstaten en van de Unie. Tevens zullen de lidstaten en de EU in het kader van de samenwerking in justitiële en binnenlandse aangelegenheden, met inachtneming van de vereisten van de verschillende types politieopdrachten, zich verder inspannen om te komen tot genormaliseerde selectiecriteria en programma's voor basisopleiding die berusten op en compatibel zijn met de normen van de VN, de OVSE en de Raad van Europa, zodat politiefunctionarissen die door EU-lidstaten voor internationale opdrachten worden uitgezonden, aan die hoge normen voldoen en de pool van vooraf bepaalde en opgeleide politiefunctionarissen ruim genoeg is om de voornoemde doelstellingen inzake vermogen en inzetbaarheid te halen. Bij die werkzaamheden zal rekening worden gehouden met het seminar dat hierover op 29-31 mei 2000 in Lissabon gehouden is, alsmede met eerdere werkzaamheden op het gebied van politieopleiding voor vredeshandhavingsoperaties in het kader van de Europese Unie; voorts zal daarin tot uiting komen welke centrale rol de Unie en de lidstaten vervullen om de regels voor internationaal politieoptreden te helpen verbeteren. B. UITVOERING De specifieke concrete doelstellingen weerspiegelen de politieke wil en het engagement van de lidstaten. De doelstellingen zullen in de bevoegde Raadsinstanties verder worden uitgewerkt. Er zal een methode worden ontwikkeld om deze gefaseerde doelstellingen via vrijwillige bijdragen te bereiken. Het relatieve voordeel dat de nationale politie bijvoorbeeld rekening houdt met de nationale shiftregeling en de mogelijke inzet van gepensioneerden, kunnen door elke lidstaat worden bepaald, met een regelmatige voortgangsevaluatie. Dit werk zal worden uitgevoerd in nauwe samenwerking met politiedeskundigen. … De Europese Raad van Helsinki heeft bepaald dat de Unie haar bijdrage aan internationale organisaties, in het bijzonder aan de VN en de OVSE, moet trachten te vergroten en haar vermogen voor autonome acties moet bevorderen. Daartoe zal de EU nauw samenwerken met het VN-Department of Peace Keeping Operations (VN/DPKO), met de OVSE, met name de REACT Task Force, alsmede met de Raad van Europa en met de contactpunten van de lidstaten, om ervoor te zorgen dat de inspanningen van de EU en die van deze organisaties met elkaar in overeenstemming zijn en elkaar versterken, doublures worden vermeden en de informatieuitwisseling inzake nieuwe politieopdrachten wordt vergemakkelijkt. Bovendien zal een gedetailleerde studie worden verricht naar de haalbaarheid en de implicaties van de planning, de start en het leiden van autonome EU-opdrachten.
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DISCOURS DE S. E.M. HUBERT VEDRINE, MINISTRE DES AFFAIRES ETRANGERES DE LA REPUBLIQUE FRANÇAISE, PRESIDENT DU CONSEIL DE L'UNION EUROPEENNE, 55ÈME SESSION DE L'ASSEMBLEE GENERALE DES NATIONS UNIES, New York, mardi 12 septembre 2000 … L'Union européenne, l'ONU et le maintien de la paix. … La préservation de la paix, le renforcement de la sécurité internationale et la défense des droits de l'homme sont au coeur des principes qui fondent la politique étrangère de l'Union européenne. Aux portes-mêmes de l'Europe, des crises récentes nous ont convaincus que nous ne pouvions rester inactifs quand ces principes fondamentaux sont violés. A cet égard, (Union européenne approuve la priorité donnée au maintien de la paix lors des rencontres de la semaine écoulée. Sur ce sujet, le rapport de M. Brahimi constitue une analyse approfondie. I1 fait des recommandations utiles en matière de mandats des opérations de paix, de planification opérationnelle à New York et de déploiement. Il offre une occasion unique de renforcer la capacité des Nations Unies pour les opérations de paix. L'Union européenne participera activement à l'examen de ces recommandations. L'Union européenne a décidé de se doter des moyens d'être un acteur politique majeur et de jouer pleinement son rôle sur la scène. internationale. A cette fin, en un laps de temps très court, elle a pris des mesures décisives. De nouveaux organes, politiques et militaires, de décision et d'action, ont été mis en place : un comité politique et de sécurité, un comité militaire, un état major, un centre de situation, un comité pour les aspects civils. Ces organes permettront à l'Union européenne d'intervenir de manière rapide et crédible dans la gestion des crises internationales. L'Union européenne a parallèlement annoncé sa détermination à disposer d'ici 2003 d'une force de 60 000 hommes, pour des missions internationales couvrant l'ensemble des opérations de prévention des conflits et de gestion des crises, avec l'appui aérien et naval nécessaire. Cette force pourra être déployée sur un théâtre de crise dans un délai de 60 jours et pour une période d'au moins un an. Cette détermination trouvera une première traduction concrète dès cet automne avec la réunion d'une conférence d'engagement de capacités, où chacun des Etats membres annoncera sa contribution à l'entreprise commune. L'Union s'est en outre fixé des objectifs à la fois ambitieux et réalistes pour le développement de capacités collectives. A ces moyens militaires, elle joindra également des moyens d'intervention civils, notamment un contingent de policiers dont la contribution à une opération de maintien de la paix est très précieuse. A cet égard, les Etats membres se sont fixé pour objectif, à l'échéance 2003, la capacité de fournir jusqu'à 5000 policiers, 1000 pouvant être déployés dans un délai de 30 jours. L'Union européenne, qui agissait déjà à travers des programmes économiques et humanitaires considérables, disposera ainsi de toute la gamme des moyens pour la gestion d'une crise. Cette action s'inscrit naturellement dans le plein respect des principes de la Charte des Nations unies. Il est plus que jamais indispensable d'établir des liens de travail avec l'ONU. Afin de lancer cette coopération, la troika de l'Union européenne va s'entretenir pour la première fois sur ce thème avec le Secrétaire général des Nations unies. Au nom de l'Union européenne, j'invite M. Kofi Annan à se rendre à Bruxelles pour une séance de travail avec les instances de l'Union. …
PERSBERICHTEN (EU-VN) PRESS CONFERENCE BY EUROPEAN UNION, 13 september 2000 The European Union should no longer be seen as merely a group of countries with a large financial capacity, but as a protagonist in the areas of foreign policy, diplomacy, defence policy and particularly all aspects of international peacekeeping operations, correspondents were told … this afternoon [by] Hubert Védrine, Minister for Foreign Affairs of France speaking on behalf of the European Union. … in light of the “novel” development of enhancing its own defence capability, the European Union should also be seen as an emerging partner in global peacekeeping operations. … Mr. Védrine said that, earlier today, the Union had held a firstever ministerial meeting with the Secretary-General, Kofi Annan. One of the main topics at that meeting had been increasing European Union cooperation with the United Nations over peacekeeping. A correspondent asked Mr. Védrine to further explain how the European Union would become more involved in United Nations peacekeeping operations. For example, if one or several European countries participated in the start-up mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea, would it be a European mission, or a United Nations operation with European components? In the past, Mr. Védrine said, Union member States had not been able to agree on an overall defence policy, but consensus had now been reached. The Union would now start building a force that would comprise 60,000 troops by 2003. While this was a process that would evolve over the next few years, he said, "the message is that it's time to get used to the European Union having a role to play". He added, however, that increased involvement in peacekeeping operations would not lead to a reduction in the European Union's other commitments to the international community. Accompanying Mr. Védrine at the briefing were … Javier Solana, High Representative for Common, Foreign and Security Policy for the European Union, and Chris Patton, Commissioner for External Relations … On the issue of peacekeeping, Mr. Solana said that enhancing the Union's involvement would indeed take time. It would require all the member States acting, and making decisions, together. And while not all those States would be involved in specific peacekeeping operations, perhaps by 2003 they would be able to act jointly under the European Union banner. … Secretary-General to meet with EU officials during three-nation visit to Europe, UN press release, 26 september 2000
53 … During his visit to France, Mr. Annan will meet in Strasbourg with officials from the European Union, and then travel to Paris for talks with Foreign Minister Hubert Védrine, the current President of the European Union (EU). "The purpose of these talks will be to follow up on a request made during the Millennium Summit -- by Mr. Védrine to the Secretary-General -- to explore ways to strengthen the EU's relationship with the United Nations," the spokesman said. "This would include the possible creation of a formal coordination mechanism between the two." During meetings at the headquarters of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in Brussels on 5 October, the Secretary-General's discussions will most likely focus on Kosovo, where a UN peace mission operates in tandem with a NATO contingent, Mr. Eckhard said. …
Secretary-General calls for strengthened ties between UN and European Union, UN press release, 4 October 2000. After a series of meetings with European leaders, Secretary-General Kofi Annan today expressed hope that countries of the region will strengthen their support for development, peacekeeping and other areas of concern to the United Nations. … In the area of peace and security, Mr. Annan said, "With their experience in joint military exercise and stand-by capacities, European countries could help other regions, especially Africa, to strengthen their capacity for peacekeeping." He added that while the European Union was going to develop its own procedures and standards for peacekeeping, "it is important that its troops should be able to work with developing countries in the field." In Brussels, Secretary-General discusses peacekeeping with European officials, UN press release, 5 October 2000 United Nations peacekeeping and UN cooperation with NATO topped the agenda of Secretary-General Kofi Annan's high-level meetings today in Brussels. Mr. Annan met with … , European Union High Representative for Common Foreign and Security Policy Javier Solana, NATO Secretary-General George Robertson and ... In his meetings with Mr. Solana, the Secretary-General discussed the proposed European Rapid Reaction Force and how it could support UN peacekeeping operations. Peacekeeping was also the focus of Mr. Annan's meeting with Lord Robertson. The UN Secretary-General told reporters afterwards that the two had addressed "how we can strengthen peacekeeping to ensure not only from the military aspect but also on the civilian side that we get people on the ground as quickly as possible." Mr. Annan also stressed the need to launch operations soon after a conflict has erupted, "or indeed preferably prevent the conflict and get there early enough either to nip the problem in the bud or to contain it." For his part, the NATO Secretary-General underscored the growing areas of mutual interest shared by the UN and NATO. "Our two organizations are both evolving to adapt to an ever-changing world and in doing so we are finding that we have increasingly common concerns and common goals as well, so it is no surprise that we are working so closely and so well together," he said during a joint press conference with Mr. Annan. During a meeting at the Atlantic Council later in the day, where Mr. Annan took questions from its members, discussions focussed on NATO's role side by side with the UN in the former Yugoslavia, as well as the recent Report of the Panel on UN Peace Operations. … UN, SECRETARY GENERAL’S OFFICE, DAILY PRESS BRIEFING, 5 OCTOBER 2000 … The Secretary-General is in Brussels today, where he's had meetings with a number of high-level officials, including … the European Union High Representative for Common Foreign and Security Policy, Javier Solana, the NATO Secretary-General, Lord Robertson, … With Javier Solana, the Secretary-General discussed the proposed European Rapid Reaction Force and how it could support UN peacekeeping operations. After his meeting with Lord Robertson, the Secretary-General met with the Atlantic Council and took questions from its members. These discussions focused on NATO's role side by side with the United Nations in the former Yugoslavia, as well as on the Brahimi Panel report on UN peacekeeping. … … Question: What is the next step regarding the collaboration between the European Union and the United Nations? Mr.Annan welcomed yesterday the idea to forge a closer relationship between the two -- what is the next step? Answer: The Secretary-General yesterday, I think it was, did suggest that the Council of [the] Europe[an Union] establish a liaison office with the United Nations and all along during the several weeks they have been talking about establishing some kind of formal mechanism to improve coordination. So I think that might be the next step. I am sure that our peacekeeping department will continue the contacts concerning the plan for a 50,000-60,000 member European Rapid Reaction Unit, which they have said, could be put to use in United Nations peacekeeping operations. That would be an important asset, but, of course, the coordination for that would take a lot of work. Probably those are the two things we would be working on most directly. Question: Do you have any idea where the office would be? Answer: That was not clear, I kind of assumed it would be here in New York, but we better check with them to see what they are thinking of.
