REGIONAL COOPERATION AND INCREASING THE PEACEKEEPING CAPACITY OF THE U.N.: Role of the OAS

In the post Cold War world, regional organizations have started to emerge as important actors in their own right in the areas of peacekeeping and peace building. This can be attributed to a number of reasons. First of all, to the extent that the United Nations is experiencing increasing difficulty in responding to the dramatic increase in activities related to the maintenance of international peace and security, regional organizations are being called upon to shoulder a greater share of the burden. This is totally in accordance with Chapter VIII of the United Nations Charter which spells out the role of regional organizations in this area. The U.N. Secretary General has sought to promote this responsibility and has met on two occasions, on 18 August 1994 and 15 February 1996, with regional organizations cooperating in the fields of peacekeeping and peace building.

Secondly, as the U.N. Secretary General pointed out in his opening statement at the Second Meeting between United Nations and Regional Organizations, "Globalization is bringing to the fore a host of new actors on the international scene, regional organizations among them".

A third contributing factor is the increasing recognition within the regional organizations themselves of the need to rise to new challenges and to adapt to new needs. The working Paper of the OAS General Secretariat of April 1995 entitled "A New Vision of the OAS" which was presented to the Permanent Council by Dr. Cesar Gaviria, OAS Secretary General, is an eloquent illustration of this new reality.

A fourth and critical factor is the change in the nature of what could be called second-generation peacekeeping missions, themselves a response to the changed nature of conflicts today which tend to be more often intra-state than inter-state. These missions which for example are established to observe elections, to monitor respect for human rights, or which are multi-functional, tend to be less military and more civilian and political oriented. As such they offer greater scope to regional organizations such as the OAS which do not have the capacity, or which cannot attain the political consensus required, to undertake peacekeeping missions that place the emphasis on military-type operations.

In this context it is interesting to note that the word peacekeeping is not really part of the vocabulary of the OAS. This notwithstanding, some of the principal responsibilities of the OAS - the defense, promotion and consolidation of democracy - are critical elements of peacekeeping and peace building. This is amply illustrated in a recent statement of Dr Cesar Gaviria: "In support of democracy, the organization should play an increasingly comprehensive and ambitious role in three directions. First, the OAS should play a direct role in seeking resolution of conflicts that threaten democracy in the hemisphere. Second, the OAS should be able to anticipate and dismantle pressures that eventually could undermine democratic institutions. Such threats do not appear overnight, political and diplomatic actions should be taken, early on, to resolve them. Third, member states have requested that the OAS strengthen democratic institutions and processes through technical assistance to legislatures, municipalities, electoral bodies, regional political fora, and national human rights bodies".⁽¹⁾

The implementation of this ambitious agenda in support of democracy has been facilitated by the reinforcement of the OAS Charter and the adoption of enabling mechanisms. The 1985 Protocol of Cartagena de Indias incorporated into the OAS Charter the key principle that representative democracy is indispensable for the stability, peace and development of the region. It also stipulated that the promotion and consolidation of representative diplomacy were essential purposes of the OAS. This principle was subsequently enshrined in the Santiago Declaration wherein member states pledged to adopt "efficacious, timely and expeditious procedures to ensure the promotion and defense of democracy".⁽²⁾ This pledge was rendered operational by the adoption of Resolution 1080 which provides for an emergency meeting of OAS foreign ministers within ten days to decide on collective action in the event of "any sudden or irregular interruption of the democratic institutional process" in a member state.⁽³⁾

In 1992, the 16th Special Session of the General Assembly agreed to the inclusion of a new article in the OAS Charter (Article 9) giving the General Assembly the power to suspend a government that overthrows a democratic regime. This Protocol of Washington will take effect when ratified by two-thirds of the member states.

The 1993 Declaration of Managua sets out the goals that member states should seek to attain as part of their commitment to democracy. It also stressed that the OAS must "prevent and anticipate the very causes of the problems that work against democratic rule".⁽⁴⁾

Taken altogether, the Charter as well as the above amendments, declarations and enabling mechanisms constitute a body of doctrine for democratic governance. It is this legal and conceptual base which has guided the activities of the Organization in the areas of peacekeeping and peace building within the hemisphere - for e.g. implementing demobilization programmes and supporting peace agreements in Nicaragua and Suriname; defending democracy and respect for human rights in Haiti; and observing electoral processes. The OAS has, consequently, been able to develop over time its own capabilities, structures, modalities and decision-making processes in the area of peacekeeping and peace building.

Cooperation between the regional organization and the United Nations should not be a one-way street as was pointed out in 1993 by the Secretary General of the OAS, Baena Soares, before the United Nations Special Committee for the Strengthening of the Organization: "There is a tendency in the United Nations to see cooperation in a unilateral way, or in terms of what the regional organizations can bring to the U.N., and less in the opposite direction". In his "Supplement to An Agenda for Peace", the UN Secretary General admits that regional organizations have "much to contribute".⁽⁵⁾ He also identifies at least five forms that this cooperation can take: consultation, diplomatic support, operational support, co-deployment and joint operations.⁽⁶⁾

The case of Haiti following the coup d'état of September 1991 is an excellent illustration of the various forms that cooperation can take between a regional organization and the United nations to resolve conflict and build peace. When the initially strong reaction to the 1991 and its diplomatic efforts had proved ineffective in restoring the constitutional government, the OAS sought the assistance of the United Nations. A Special Envoy who represented both organizations was designated to spearhead the combined diplomatic thrust which was supported by a group of Friends. A joint OAS/UN human rights observation mission headed by the OAS was deployed in the field in February 1993 to reinforce the small group of observers fielded by the OAS in September 1992. The U.N. contributed most of the operational and administrative support for the joint mission though the substantive observation responsibilities were equally shared. Mechanisms for consultation, formal and informal, were put in place to facilitate coordination - a joint working group which met periodically and which drafted a Memorandum of Understanding, the joint designation of the Head of Mission and of his deputy. This cooperation between the organizations was visible again when it was agreed that the OAS would assume the responsibility for monitoring the 1995 elections in Haiti and the United Nations would provide technical assistance.

It is self-evident that the United Nations is in a position to mobilize greater political, human, financial and logistical resources than any "regional organization". This was clearly reflected in Haiti. More significantly, the United Nations has at its disposal two instruments which are not at the moment available to the OAS - the credible threat of the use of force and the recourse to collective military action. In the final analysis it was this capability which proved decisive in restoring the constitutional government, though ultimately it was the United States, acting under the authorization of the United Nations Security Council, which made the difference.⁽⁷⁾

As concerns collective security, the OAS has no mandate for the use of force which historically has been a sensitive issue for member states. Consequently, primacy of the U.N. in situations requiring coercive means is recognized. In a "New Vision of the OAS", the Secretary General indicates that " the General Assembly of the Organization, like the Permanent Council and the Committee on Hemispheric Security, in full cooperation with the Inter-American Defense Board and College, has been working hard to review, study and analyze the future of the Hemisphere's collective security system and its institutions and treaties".⁽⁸⁾ It is hoped that this work will contribute to "the conceptual framework for the legal and political definition of the future of inter-American cooperation and collective action instruments in security and defense matters".⁽⁹⁾

Perhaps the best response to the question of how best regional states and their organization, the OAS, can contribute to the strengthening of the peace keeping role of the UN is that member states should seek to reinforce the peace-building capacity of the OAS. This could be done by improving "the quality and efficiency of the staff, the effectiveness of procedures and organization, and the ability to innovate and respond to current problems and needs".⁽¹⁰⁾ OAS member states which have acquired considerable experience in peacekeeping and peace building operations under the U.N. flag are in a position to contribute usefully to such an exercise. In this way the OAS would be better able to carry out its mandate as well as to assume the responsibilities and role devolved to regional organizations in the maintenance of peace and security under Chapter VIII of the United Nations Charter.

Peacekeeping is not the preserve of the United Nations. It is also the prerogative of regional organizations. As we have seen, the OAS over the past few years has been able to gain valuable experience in this domain. In addition regional organizations have certain comparative advantages such as a more intimate knowledge of the political situation and greater flexibility of response to crisis situations and to conflict. These are assets on which the OAS can build, with the help of its member states, to more fully assume its peacekeeping and peace building responsibilities. The more effectively it does so, the greater the political space it affords the United Nations to deal with threats to peace and security which are less amenable to regional efforts and remedies. This is all the more critical at a moment when a severe and protracted financial crisis is curtailing the peace building capacity of the United Nations.

24 April 1996

1. / Speech of the Secretary General of the OAS, Dr. Cesar Gaviria, Regional Conference on "The Role of the Armed Forces in the Protection of Human Rights" sponsored by the United States Southern Command and the Inter-American Institute of Human Rights, Miami, 6 February 1966, p.7.

2. / The Santiago Commitment to Democracy and the Renewal of the Inter-American System, adopted at the third plenary session, 4 June 1991.

3. / AG/RES.1080 (XXI - 0/91), adopted at the fifth plenary session, 5 June 1991.

4. / Declaration of Managua for the Promotion of Democracy and Development, adopted at the fourth plenary session, 8 June 1993.

5. / An Agenda for Peace, Position Paper of the Secretary-General on the occasion of the Fiftieth Anniversary of the United Nations, A 50/60 - S/1995/1, 3 January 1996, p.31.

6. / Ibid.

7. / United Nations Security Council Resolution 940, 31 July 1995.

8. / A New Vision of the OAS, Working Paper of the General Secretariat for the Permanent Council, p. 23.

9. / Ibid., p. 24

10. / Michael Shifter, the OAS Nears 50: Democratization Scenarios, P. 20 (paper presented at a conference on Peacemaking and Democratization in the Hemisphere: Multilateral Approaches, The North-South Center, University of Miami, 11-13 April, 1996).