By David Brazier
Peacekeeping and post-conflict peacebuilding are undergoing a shifting paradigm and focus in the international arena. While the international community, via the United Nations, has intervened in numerous and varied war-ravaged countries and regions of the world since its inception after World War II, keeping and then building the peace has been more complicated and protracted than originally envisaged. As former United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan lamented, half of those countries that emerge from war succumb back to violence within five years,1 emphasizing the depressing fact that it is easier to make the peace than it is to keep it. History has shown us that the transition from internal conflict to sustainable peace is a fraught one.
Paradoxically, the number of inter-state warfare and armed conflicts around the globe is in decline, while intra-state and internecine armed conflict is steadily rising,2 illustrating a growing trend that those countries and areas affected by post-conflict are prone to a propensity at relapsing back to pre-conflict. As a response to such a structural change and trend in global and regional security is the decision by the United Nations to reinforce and reinvigorate its peacebuilding capacity by recognizing its importance as the key to sustainable and tangible success.
Acknowledgement of this ”double-sided coin” of peacekeeping and post-conflict peacebuilding has been gradual and steady. Assisting national governments in strengthening their national justice and security institutions has traditionally been primarily for political considerations. The task of setting up a national and sovereign capability to provide internal capacity was not included in traditional peacekeeping operations. Since the 1990s, the main reason for post-conflict peacebuilding was restricted to economic and social reconstruction.
Then, in the last decade and in today’s peacekeeping nexus where operations are multidimensional, complex, and more robust in nature, it has become increasingly accepted and expected that, in order to have sustainability and longevity of a credible sovereign national power and the chance to build upon a peacekeeping contextual environment, both the state and its internal support and capacity institutions must feel that it is not only their socio-economic elements that must be effective and empowering, but also high levels of national ownership via good governance and a credible security sector. This is highlighted very well by the fact that Western governments and other beneficiaries have specifically targeted peacebuilding in their donations and respective foreign relations policy.
The inauspicious beginning of Peacebuilding
Post-war reconstruction dates back to the Marshall Plan for the reconstruction of Europe and the subsequent bolstering of a war-ravaged Japan. However, the term “peacebuilding” itself is a relatively new word, both in vocabulary and terminology which, in turn, has encompassed a new set of expectations and commensurate capacities to facilitate peacebuilding during the post-conflict stage. In 1992, United Nations Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali defined peacebuilding in his Agenda for Peace as “action to identify and support structures which tend to strengthen and solidify peace to avoid relapse into conflict”3 . Peacebuilding, therefore, became synonymous with post-conflict peacebuilding “becoming necessary only after preventive diplomacy had failed to avert armed hostilities, after peacemaking had established the framework of a negotiated settlement and after peacekeeping had monitored an agreed ceasefire and presumably facilitated the restoration of a threshold of order.”4
In August 2000, the Brahimi Panel5 interjected some intellectual rigour to this growing debate and made a profound comment that…“conflicts, more often than not, are preceded by a breakdown in the rule of law” and recognized the challenges for peacekeeping and defined the need for a “team approach to upholding the rule of law and respect for human rights, through judicial, penal, human rights and policing experts working together in a coordinated and collegial manner”…inclusive of … “an area in which peacebuilding makes a direct contribution to public security and law and order;” additionally seeing humanitarian demining as an …“essential complement” to effective peacebuilding6.
In 2001, the United Nations Security Council elaborated on this by defining peacebuilding as not just keeping previous protagonists at bay from returning to war but, for the first time, to examine and address the actual causes of conflict and even going further to encapsulate the development and promotion of democracy and development cooperation7. Hence and up until the current time, while the term “post-conflict peacebuilding”8 has remained somewhat vague and lacking the analysis and policy associated with other United Nations departments, this is only a reflection of the relatively short time that post-conflict peacebuilding has been around and its distinctiveness from other terms within the United Nations spectrum, being intrinsically linked to conflict prevention, conflict management, and post-conflict reconstruction.
The human approach in peacebuilding for security and governance
Following a Security Council resolution of the requirement for an intervention of a peacekeeping force, such an intervention should be seen as a short-term and expedient solution to a seemingly intractable problem. Normally commencing and manifesting in a humanitarian disaster, this is an absolutely critical period when any possible and practical opportunities for consolidating peace are at their highest but, at the same time, when the threat of a relapse into conflict is commensurately high. Unspeakable atrocities and human misery are central drivers to the desire to improve the general lot of the vulnerable peoples on the ground, and efforts to assist and support the afflicted must be aligned with adequate resources and expertise. Politically challenging and harder to establish is the task of what comes next to build upon the good work and effort of the peacekeepers, which has already gone into such a fragile environment--that of building national capacity and security.
Any realistic and long-lasting peace will need the consent of its population, and will stand the greatest chances of success when socio-economic and security governance issues are addressed. A government which is not credible or is weak or illegitimate, possibly characterized by human rights violations and a sense of injustice and impunity among its population, where social programmes for the rural community may be disproportionately under-funded and parochial, will adversely affect societal norms and what national and local government can tangibly deliver in the face of a legacy from a past conflict.
Peacebuilding is multi-dimensional and multi-layered and, at its very basic level, must address the concerns of both the state and its population in conjunction and parallel with the political and socio-economic aspects of reconstruction. In its simplest sense, how can any war-blighted country hope to move forward when it has former soldiers and combatants, regular and irregular, sometimes child soldiers, who are roaming unchecked in the countryside and cities; where large numbers of people have in their possession small arms and light weapons (SALW) and a culture of using its arsenal in order to survive; when police and army units are ineffectively led and unaccountable; when the intelligence apparatus is unchecked and abused; where anti-personnel landmines remain uncleared and their victims unassisted; where the basic norms of society have been denigrated over successive human rights violations and when perpetrators are not brought to justice, no reparations are awarded and the legal regime is not enforced.
In April 2010, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon stressed the need for a strong political commitment by post-conflict countries and their international partners, remarking that it was the key to ensuring lasting peace in the aftermath of war. “Peacebuilding is a complex and multifaceted undertaking. It requires significant amounts of human, financial and institutional resources.”9 Building upon a report in July 200910 the Secretary-General summarized some of the factors that are significant in ensuring successful peacebuilding efforts, such as responding early and robustly after the end of a major conflict, staying engaged over the long term, and tailoring efforts to the needs of each country. Indeed, at the 6,389th meeting of the Security Council, held on 23 September 2010, in connection with the Council’s consideration of the item entitled “Maintenance of international peace and security,” the President of the Security Council made the following statement on behalf of the Council, “The Security Council thus reaffirms that international peace and security now requires a more comprehensive and concerted approach. The Council also underlines the necessity to address the root causes of conflicts, taking into account that development, peace and security, and human rights are interlinked and mutually reinforcing.”11
Conclusion
Peacekeeping is evolving in its modus operandi and has undergone significant changes, both practically and theoretically, over the last sixty-plus years. Traditional peacekeeping operations have been overtaken, not supplanted but rather added to, by complex peacekeeping missions. Peacebuilding in a post-conflict arena has been an increasingly important element and interwoven series of viable security conditions which are fundamental to creating sustainable peace. With the demise of the likelihood of a super-power nuclear confrontation, international relations have witnessed the exponential growth in the deployment of peace-keepers in direct response to the breakdown of state and intra-state conflict. Security governance offers a crucial opportunity to link, phase, sequence, and optimize the various components of post-conflict peacebuilding. Taken collectively and holistically, integrated and long-term approaches in post-conflict interventions help to tailor solutions that are appropriate to this new context. Cooperation and confidence building in post-conflict societies facilitates ways to better understand and think at the local level and builds mutually reinforcing local and national ownership--recognizing this fact offers the crucial and unique mechanism to integrate different actors and approaches in the peacebuilding nexus. Ultimately, the early post-conflict phase is crucial, and full recognition of an integrated and long-term approach will be crucial in facilitating and achieving peacekeeping mandates which are more focused, integrated, and sustainable.
Notes
1 United Nations General Assembly, In Larger Freedom: towards development, security and human rights for all, Report of the Secretary-General, Addendum: Peacebuilding Commission, UN Doc: A/59/2005/Add.2 (23 May 2005), p1.
2Townhall Presentation, 19 February 2009, UN Headquarters, Annual Review of Global Peace Operations, Center on International Cooperation, New York University.
3United Nations General Assembly, An agenda for Peace; Preventive Diplomacy, Peacemaking and Peace-Keeping , Report of the Secretary General pursuant to the statement adopted by the Summit Meeting of the Security Council on 31 January 1992, un Doc.A/47/277-S/2411 (17 June 1992), para. 21.
4Cousens, E.M., ‘Introduction’, Cousens, E.M., Kumar, C. (eds.), Peacebuilding as Politics (Lynee Rienner:Boulder, 2001), pp. 1-20.
5United Nations, ‘Report of the Panel on United Nations Peace Operations,”A/55/305-S/2000/809, 21 August 2000, paras. 14, 39, 40 and 42.
6Ibid
7United Nations Security Council, Statement by the President of the Security Council, UN Doc. S/PRST/2001/5 20 February 2001).
8United Nations Security Council, Statement by the President of the Security Council, UN Doc. S/PRST/2005/20 (26 May 2005).
9Secretary-General, 16 April, 2010, report to Security Council.
10Security Council, Statement by the President of the Security Council, S/PRST/2009/23.
11Security Council, Statement by the President of the Security Council, S/PRST,2010/18, 23 September 2010.
