This is a long one, and it’s technical, just so that you know. This one is on what we in the United Nations call “peacekeeping”. We do much more, and if you continue to read future blog entries, you will see that. But we, United Nations Police, or UNPOL, we have our roots in peacekeeping, so a narrative of where we come from, in order to understand where we should go, it comes from here. You will, if you bear with me, see step by step the unfolding picture of the nexus of conflict prevention, conflict intervention, peacekeeping, peacebuilding, and why I believe there is an important role for our policing work in all of it, and what needs to be done to get better with it.

Which, by the way, is not what I say. We all say it, and our voices get heard more. So here you go. There are other versions of these articles, for an internal audience, with internal conclusions. This is the version for the external audience, based on what everyone can research for oneself. Conclusions are mostly general, so that I can say that here, without mixing up a private post and an official function which I hold.

After this one, I will publish a piece on what we call Special Political Missions. Then, in the following instalment, I will go beyond, leading to the larger question of why international policing needs to be considered an important element in the struggle of the World finding answers for our most pressing problems, stemming from crime, violent extremism, terror, and corruption, and their interrelation with maddening conflict, leading to people desperately wanting to escape from it, to the safe harbors of States who get overwhelmed by this migration, struggling for finding answers.

Meanwhile, I will also work on unrelated, or partly related blog articles.

General aspects of conflict and mandates for PKO

The development of peacekeeping operations is often broadly categorized into the early years, a post cold-war surge, and an ongoing and rapidly evolving contemporary, increasingly complex situation^⁠1. The role of international policing in UN peace operations has grown over time, in numbers, complexity, and forms of deployment. International policing in UN peace operations begins, but does not end with, peacekeeping operations, though peacekeeping forms the largest base, in terms of numbers of operations, and numbers of UN police (UNPOL) deployed.

Since 1948, the United Nations is looking back on sixty-nine peacekeeping operations (PKO), of which sixteen operations are currently ongoing^⁠2. Overall, until today the UN deployed PKO into forty-nine different countries, and twenty-three of these countries were subject to more than one PKO. The Security Council mandated thirty-nine of these sixty-nine operations to include police capacities. Twelve of the current sixteen operations include police components. In terms of duration of currently ongoing PKO, two were founded before 1950, one dates back to mid of the sixties, and two originate from the 70’s. Two ongoing operations stem from the time between 1990 and 1999. Ten currently ongoing peacekeeping operations are, therefore, less than fifteen years old.

The UN undertook a first peace operation in 1948, the United Nations Truce Supervision Organisation (UNTSO), pursuant to the Charter of the United Nations. Over many years to come, a gradual development of mandates of such operations would lead from the deployment of unarmed military observers towards the use of armed military peacekeepers, beginning with the United Nations Emergency Force (UNEF I) in 1956^⁠3. UN peacekeeping would see the first deployment of police peacekeepers, alongside military colleagues, in 1960 with the establishment of the United Nations Operation in the Congo (ONUC). However, the post cold-war decade can be seen as the decisive turning point from when on mandates of UN PKO grew more and more complex, towards what nowadays is known as “multidimensional mandates” of peacekeeping operations.

The Security Council mandated two PKO between 1948 and 1949, two PKO between 1950 and 1959, six PKO between 1960 and 1969, three PKO between 1970 and 1979, five PKO between 1980 and 1989, thirty-five PKO between 1990 and 1999, ten PKO between 2000 and 2009, and six PKO between 2010 and 2015. The surge within the nineties reflects the World’s struggle to find a new order after the end of the cold war.

New peacekeeping operations of the post cold-war era found themselves confronted with ongoing, or emerging intra-state conflict, the breaking of Nations, with assistance throughout and after the forming and recognition of a new State, or a continued presence in case of disputed situations. In some cases, in presence of ongoing PKO, conflict culminated in atrocities against civilian populations, and genocide: The United Nations Assistance Mission to Rwanda (UNAMIR) was deployed in 1993. It was meant to assist in the implementation of an accord aiming at ending a civil war. In 1994, the mission found itself confronted with a collapse of the peace agreement, and with a genocide leading to atrocities on an unimaginable scale: Within 100 days, an estimated 800.000 to 1.000.000 minority Tutsi and moderate Hutu were killed^⁠4. The United Nations Protection Force (UNPROFOR) was deployed in 1992 in Croatia and Bosnia & Hercegovina during the conflict that would ultimately lead to the breaking up of Yugoslavia. In July 1995, forces under the command of General Ratko Mladić killed more than 8.000 Bosniaks in and around the enclaves of Srebrenica and Žepa^⁠5. Both situations in Rwanda and Bosnia&Herzegovina were ruled as genocide. They confronted the United Nations with painful questions of how to protect civilians affected by conflict. The experience has profoundly impacted on the conscience of the United Nations. Twenty-five years of discussion are still ongoing and include political and aspects of international law^⁠6 and they impact policy decisions until then, including in actual situations^⁠7.

The continuation of the break-up of the former Yugoslavia through the Kosovo conflict in 1998 and the violence in Timor-Leste after the referendum in 1999 led to the deployment of peacekeeping operations including the Security Council mandating the UN to carry out transitional authority. Peacekeeping operations in Kosovo and in Timor-Leste were based on mandates with extensive executive powers, including a full executive policing authority vested into United Nations police peacekeepers. Whilst the following decade saw no repetition of such comprehensive powers vested into a peacekeeping operation, a partial renewed reoccurrence can be witnessed with the inclusion of so-called “Urgent Temporary Measures” into the mandate of MINUSCA in the Central African Republic, 2014.

More generally, the continuation of the development post cold-war led to the increasing use of peacekeeping operations to deal with restoring a State’s ability to maintain security and public order, building political and legal institutions in disrupted States, and promoting a culture of law, democracy, and social economic recovery. Consequently, peacekeeping operations now bring together international military, police, and civilian personnel, all of which are jointly engaging in ‘multidimensional peace operations^⁠8’. In an increasing number of cases, intra-state conflict continued to include atrocities against the civilian population on a very large scale, requiring from peacekeepers to both contribute to the protection of the civilian population to the best of their abilities, and to begin the arduous long-term task of assistance to restoration and development of legitimate and capable State authority. At times backlashes would occur under the eyes of the UN, such as, for example, in Kosovo in 2004, in Timor Leste in 2006, or in South Sudan at the end of 2013, leading to renewed or reinforced commitment including of police components.

Twelve out of sixteen PKO which were established between 2000 and 2015 can be characterized as multidimensional operations, including police components. In addition, two of the remaining four PKO include policing aspects: In September 2005 the Security Council, in consultation with the authorities of Chad and the CAR, authorized the deployment of a UN civilian and police operation, MINURCAT, and a European Union military force (EUFOR), in order to contribute to the protection of civilians^⁠9. With the Security Council mandating UNISFA^⁠10 to monitor and verify the redeployment of any Sudan Armed Forces, Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLM) or its successor from the Abyei area, provision was also made for the anticipated establishment of the Abyei Police Service, leading to a small deployment of UNPOL.

In relation to conflicts leading to a multidimensional engagement of UN peacekeeping, the case of the situation in Mali in 2013 stands out: The conflict situation in Mali included a clearly identifiable intra-state conflict including an armed confrontation including Tuareg rebels and a military coup, but also the activities of regional terrorist groups affiliated to Al Qaeda, attempting to destabilize, and ultimately to overthrow, legitimate governance in Northern Mali. Likewise, the situation in Mali can be identified as the first situation in which the United Nations now recognizes the influence of transnational organized crime affecting the implementation of the mandate of a peacekeeping operation, together with violent extremism, terrorism, and corruption.

Geographic deployment of PKO

The Security Council mandated UN Peacekeeping Operations for situations in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, Central&South America, Europe, and the Middle East. Whilst there are little noteworthy patterns for the time between 1948 and 1989, and the overall numbers of peacekeeping operations per decade remained comparatively low, the development for the post cold-war period, leading into contemporary development, is significant: Since the last decade of the 20th century, until today, the vast majority of PKO has been mandated in Africa^⁠11. The breakup of the the former Yugoslavia in the nineties is the main responsible factor for an exceptional number of PKO mandated in Europe^⁠12 during the last decade of the 20th century. Aside of Africa, only Asia and the Caribbean saw three new PKO between 2000 and 2009. Since 2010, until today, the Security Council has exclusively established PKO in Africa^⁠13. Nine out of sixteen currently ongoing PKO operate in Africa. Three ongoing PKO operating in the Middle East belong to the group of the most long lasting PKO^⁠14. Two ongoing PKO in Europe are older than 15 years^⁠15. Likewise, the only existing active PKO in Asia looks back at 67 years of existence^⁠16. All current newer development, except one PKO in the Caribbean^⁠17, relates to Africa. The ongoing nine PKO in Africa are between two and 25 years of age.

Peacekeeping operations and United Nations Police

The evolution of conflict situations the Security Council had to grapple with, and the gradual development of mandates through which peace operations were mandated to address them, had a direct impact on the deployment of police officers into UN peace operations. Historical data from the early decades is sparse, compared to the period between 2000 and 2015, but the numbers of police officers deployed into peacekeeping operations between 1960 and the end of the Cold War were very low. Peacekeepers were military staff, either unarmed observers, or lightly armed soldiers. For very specific reasons, sometimes police officers were added. Until mid 1992, the overall numbers on average amounted to less than hundred^⁠18.

Available data from 1992 onwards begins with almost 3.700 police officers deployed, peaking 1993 around 4.500, and showing variations between 1.500 and 3.500 police officers until the end of that decade: The time between 1989 and 1999 can be identified as the first phase of an increased use of policing capacities within the handling of post-conflict situations by the United Nations, beginning with a large police contingent in UNTAG, for the situation in Namibia, in 1989. Within the following decade, the Security Council mandated twenty-one new PKO (roughly two-third of all new PKO during that time) to also deploy police contingents, then known as Civilian Police, going by the acronym CivPol. Counting UNTAG from 1989 as well, these PKO were deployed into States struggling with conflict, and into various phases and regional areas of the disintegrating former Yugoslavia, from where new States and the still unsolved status question of Kosovo emerged. Counting the latter as one geographic area with the same underlying conflict, therefore these twenty-one PKO addressed conflicts in thirteen States/disintegrating States. Six affected States are located in Africa, including UNTAG in Namibia with the first ever very considerable police deployment^⁠19. The last decade of the outgoing 20th century witnessed a three years authorized deployment of up to 3.500 police in Cambodia, whilst this decade saw the beginning of the considerable sequence of PKO addressing instability in Haiti, the disintegrating Yugoslavia, and East Timor, today known as Timor Leste. It were these big-hitters where tasks of restoration of State authority, including transitional UN governments, required large police contingents.

Therefore, the steep rise to almost 8000 police officers from mid 2000 on stems from PKO with large scale deployments of police into the situations in  Bosnia&Herzegovina, Kosovo, and Timor Leste. The transition from United Nations peacekeeping to European Union crisis management in Bosnia&Herzegovina in 2002 and the downsizing of UNPOL contingents in Kosovo and Timor Leste after building up domestic policing capacity led to a decrease to around 4000 police officers in PKO around mid 2003. At this low-point, the numerical majority of UNPOL in PKO was deployed to Kosovo.

From 2004 on, numbers are rising steadily until end of 2008, at which time the UNPOL deployment into Kosovo becomes residual. Responsible for this increase is a fundamental shift towards UNPOL deployments into situations in Africa: The emerging deployments to Chad, Cote d’Ivoire, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Liberia, and Sudan (through two separate PKO, UNMIS and UNAMID) add to renewed commitments to Timor Leste after unrest in 2006, and a continued deployment to Haiti. The decrease in overall deployment of UNPOL to PKO between late 2008 and early 2009 is solely attributable to the hand-over of policing activities from UNMIK in Kosovo to the European Union, as was the case as well at the end of 2002 with the hand-over of such activities in Bosnia&Herzegovina.

From early 2009 on until summer 2012, UNPOL sees an increase in actual deployed officers from less than 10.000 to 14.500, more or less uninterrupted. The continued commitment to Timor Leste and a significant increase in Haiti in the aftermath of the terrible earthquake in January 2010 add to more or less continuous deployments to Cote d’Ivoire, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Liberia. The UN took, together with the AU, responsibility for peacekeeping in Darfur, Sudan, by establishing the so-called hybrid mission UNAMID, jointly led by the UN and the AU. Taking over from a previous AU peace operation AMIS, which included considerable police capacities, UNAMID became the PKO with the largest police component ever so far, peaking beyond 5.500 police. With the emergence of the new country South Sudan in 2011, separating from Sudan, a commitment to UNMIS was seamlessly followed up through the establishment of two new PKO, UNMISS in South-Sudan and UNISFA for the demilitarized area of Abyei.

At the end of 2012, the termination of peacekeeping in Timor Leste and adjustments in Haiti were the main reason for a small decrease in deployed numbers. Since 2013, the deployment numbers are on the rise again, currently culminating in 14.000 police officers towards the end of 2015. Despite adjustments in ongoing PKO, due to progress, but also significant political pressure to redistribute, rather than requesting for the deployment of more police, this increase is attributable to the emergence of a civil war in South Sudan in December 2013,  and the establishment of new PKO in Mali (2013) and the Central African Republic (2014).

 

Major external factors affecting UN peacekeeping, and especially the deployment of UNPOL

The UN categorizes development of peacekeeping into the early years, a post cold-war surge, and an ongoing and rapidly evolving contemporary^⁠21, increasingly complex situation^⁠22. As shown above, the period after the end of the cold war has led to major developments for, and within, PKO between 1989 and 1999 which include the visible immediate consequences that began with the fall of the Berlin Wall. Towards the end of the past millennium, and at the dawn of the new millennium, three developments influencing policing in peacekeeping and peace operations at large stand out. They are formative, both affecting contemporary conflict and the International Communities’ response to it. In sum these developments are: (1) The emergence of the European Union’s Crisis Management within it’s Common Foreign and Security Policy CFSP; (2) The impact of the post 9/11 situation; (3) The emergence of peace support operations of the African Union.

(a) The emergence of the European Union’s Crisis Management

The Cologne European Council June 1999 included a declaration on strengthening the EU’s ability to act externally, paving the way into the Union’s Common Policy on  Security and Defence^⁠23 CSDP. The members of the European Council declared that they want to develop “an effective EU-led crisis management”. This is the beginning of setting the European Security and Defence Policy ESDP into motion, a part of the larger CSDP. It quickly led to the establishment of capacities and capabilities for aspects of civilian crisis management, including policing. Subsequently, the European Union established its first ever crisis management operation under this policy, the European Union Police Mission in Bosnia&Hercegovina EUPM. EUPM followed seamlessly on to UNMIBH, re-hatting United Nations police. EUPM lasted from end 2002 to mid 2012. A deployment of international police into peace operations, therefore, began in Bosnia&Hercegovina immediately after the Dayton Peace Agreement and lasted for seventeen years. Likewise, a few years later the European Union began its preparation to take over from UNMIK in Kosovo. In 2008, the EU civilian crisis management mission EUJUST LEX followed on to the work of UNMIK within the field of security and the rule of law, leading to a continuation of the deployment of international police officers in significant numbers, lasting until today. In the case of Kosovo therefore, an ongoing line of sixteen years of deployment of international police into a peace operation has been formed. This fits into the picture as can be seen in UN PKO and will later be demonstrated as week in the case of the African Union: The contemporary duration of intense deployment of policing capacity through peace operations bridges at least a decade, and more. The deployment of police capacity itself, however, frequently witnesses a mix of different peace operations, involving various actors aside the UN.

The European Union development from 1999 until today includes a large variety of missions of different types many of which, at least on the civilian side, have led to smaller and more specialized deployment of police contingents or police missions, with specialized mandates reflecting the interest of the EU abroad. Aside of the two above cases of taking over responsibility from UNPOL, these past and ongoing missions do in significant numbers deploy into the same theaters of operation in which UNPOL is contributing to the task of  protecting civilians, and building host State capacity. In one case, a small specialized EU police contingent was directly given to the African Union Mission AMIS, assisting the African Union Mission in Sudan in policing aspects in Darfur, before the UN/AU hybrid operation UNAMID took over from AMIS at the beginning of 2008. In all cases where parallel engagements including policing happens, synchronization on operational, strategic, and policy level on headquarters and field level have a direct impact on successful implementation of either mandate^⁠24. Deployment figures of EU policing are not as readily available as they are for the UN.

(b) The impact of the post 9/11 situation

Following the terror attack of September 11, 2001, global change affected peacekeeping operations. Related to effects on the UN’s ability to deploy UNPOL into UN peacekeeping, and the overall activities of UN Member States and Regional Organizations to utilizing national police assets within their own conduct of peace operations, two country situations stand out: Iraq and Afghanistan.

Coalitions of States, all of them UN Member States, and many of them Member States of the EU and of NATO, contributed significant police contingents into multilateral or bilateral efforts of crisis stabilization and post-crisis development of domestic capacities. The financial, staff, and development aid efforts for both country situations are huge. Detailed overviews do, unfortunately, not exist. However, it is fair to establish the hypothesis that UN Member States including those which form today’s EU, as well as the United States of America and Canada continued to uphold a significant contribution of police to overseas operations throughout the following decade. These operations include multilateral coalitions beginning with military campaigns which later broadened into multilateral peace support operations, NATO peace support operations, and EU crisis management operations. Multilateral coalitions used a large diversity of conceptual approaches how to utilize police capacities. However, the necessary police capacities were not added to the contribution into UN PKO. Rather, a realignment of limited resources to shifting national priorities led to a decrease of their contribution to UN PKO.

(c) The emergence of peace support operations of the African Union

With the establishment of the African Union AU in 2001 and its launch in 2002, UN Member States in Africa formed a continental political body including the intent to promote peace and security in Africa. It led to the AU conducting own peace support operations PSO, including the utilization of police capacities and capabilities. Amongst other operations, and relevant for this analysis only, the AU has conducted a PSO in Sudan, Darfur Region (AMIS), in Mali (AFISMA), the Central African Republic (MISCA), and is conducting a PSO in Somalia (AMISOM), all of which include police. Currently, the AU is preparing for the deployment of a peace support operation to Burundi (MAPROBU). All AU PSO have included police components, and all have been followed on by UN peacekeeping operations: AMIS has handed over its operations in Sudan’s Darfur region to a UN peacekeeping operation jointly conducted by UN and AU, the first and, so far, only hybrid mission. AFISMA in Mali was succeeded by MINUSMA, and MISCA in the Central African Republic was succeeded by MINUSCA. All these cases have led to the re-hatting of military and police contingents. De facto all these contingents were far away from any UN minimum standard, in terms of training, equipment, command and control, and the relationship between field operations and strategic headquarters. Politicial needs and the dire situation of civilians horribly affected by violence and terror simply dictated a pragmatic approach, leading to extraordinary challenges, including within the police contingents, by the UN, regional organisations such as the EU, and bilateral commitments, in order to bring these contingents up to minimum standards. The operational challenges of the hybrid mission in Darfur add. Instruments formed by political and security mechanisms of the AU co-exist with mechanisms of the UN, and the EU, in the same countries, posing another set of challenges to effective assistance. From a peacekeeping perspective, two country situations stand out at this moment: Somalia and Burundi: (1) The AU PSO AMISOM in Somalia is the largest AU operation on the continent, including a fighting force combatting the terror of Al Shabab, and including a relatively small police contingent with operational and capacity building tasks. The UN on the other side is engaging in Somalia with the Special Political Mission UNSOM, including a small but capable rule of law and security element, including UNPOL. Recently, the collaboration between police in UNSOM and AMISOM has been systematically strengthened, following a UN initiative. This included specialized deployment of the UN Police Division’s Standing Police Capacity SPC. A joint political benchmarking process regularly revisits the question whether the AU mission could, and should, be followed on by a UN PKO. (2) In December 2015, the UN Security Council authorized the AU to deploy a prevention force into the deteriorating situation in Burundi. This deployment has not happened yet and is, at the time of this writing, being met by strong political resistance from Burundi itself. Taking this into account, the UN has been requested to carry out contingency planning for worst-case scenarios, including own operational deployments. Aside of the already complicated process of support for AU PSO and hand-over from these operations, this presents the UN, including police planning and operations, with new scenarios including for forceful preventative entry.

The impact of these factors on UNPOL in PKO

Complex political, policy, and operational cooperation between UN, AU, and EU with relevance to UNPOL will be discussed later. In terms of impact on peacekeeping, and policing deployment into PKO, the deployment of UNPOL into PKO underwent a fundamental change: In addition to the Security Council continuing, and increasing, to focus PKO on conflict in Africa, the composition of major Police Contributing Countries to UN PKO in these operations dramatically changed: (1) The decrease in overall deployment of UNPOL into PKO to a low point end of 2003 includes a first downsizing in Timor Leste, but also a re-hatting of UNPOL into police in EU crisis management in Bosnia&Herzegovina. (2) The decrease of contribution of EU Member States, but also the USA, beyond the end of UN peacekeeping is further rooted in steady downsizing and, finally, the same transfer of responsibility to the EU in Kosovo, 2008. (3) The commitment to bi- and multilateral engagements in Iraq and Afghanistan consumed police capacities, financial, and development commitment on the side of States who added this to their much larger costly military engagement. As a result, the contribution from these PCC to UNPOL went down to a minimum in numbers. As the overall deployment of UNPOL nearly doubled since 2000, the share of these PCC has become marginal. Despite some discussion as to whether the ending engagement in Afghanistan could lead to a renewed commitment to UN PKO, this trend has not stopped. (4) A similar trend is visible for PCC from Central& South America, however for none of the reasons above. (5) Subsequently, today’s majority of UNPOL come from PCC in the Middle East (with Jordan being the only major PCC in this group), Asia, and Africa. (6) A trend is visible with a reduced contribution from Asian PCC. Partly this might be a consequence of national policy decisions, including, but not only, contemporary struggle with violent extremism and terror at home. Equally, the promotion of the value of African ownership in Africa plays a role. Finally, the increased demand of francophone capacities in Africa affects the Asian supply side. (7) Many of the reasons above logically contribute to the fact that PCC from Africa continue to increase their share, beyond the fact that they constitute today’s majority. African PCC were a minority in 2000, with main contributors coming from Europe, North America, and Asia. African PCC are the only constituency with uninterrupted growth in terms of UNPOL deployment since 2003. With a growing role of AU peace support operations, and no end in sight for the trend of ever more PKO on the African continent, this poses a prime challenge to the UN system, requiring consolidated efforts of All. The support to policing in PSO, through assistance to the AU headquarters, and to AU missions on the ground, but also the interrelationship between AU and UN missions will increase, and needs to: UN and AU draw policing capacities from the same Police Contributing Countries PCC in Africa, who are limited in their capacities and capabilities, whilst there is no alternative to policing contribution within peace operations on either side.

Chapter conclusions:

Opposed to UN figures as used earlier, the accuracy of data provided publicly by other organizations and especially in relation to bilateral and multilateral coalition engagement is much less, partly not in existence at all. The relevance of the development of own crisis management capacities of the EU and the AU will become clear in other chapters as well, but already at this point the diversity of engagement, different policies, different training and equipment approaches, and the constraints stemming from the fact that all three organizations and bi- and multilateral operations request contributions from domestic police organizations all around the World, becomes clear. Beyond, the question of impact of engagement depends on cooperation, coordination, and use of synergies of a multiplicity of engaged actors. Significant difficulties here, and their impact on UN police in PKO, will be addressed later. Taking the average duration of post-crisis assistance into account, and the risks stemming from relapse into conflict in case of less successful assistance, pressing needs to engage better with costly resources meant for domestic purposes become very clear. This requires adequate capacity and capabilities in Headquarters, and in Missions.

Looking back at this development, the diversity of engagement will continue, and, at least from a UN perspective, likely increase. This issue will come back when analyzing the development of UNPOL engagement in Special Political Missions of the UN Department of Political Affairs, and in relation to the Global Focal Point GFP, and is relevant for the cooperation with other actors contributing to contemporary challenges, such as the impact of violent extremism, terror, and transnational crime, and corruption.

A harmonization of policy, strategy, and operational engagement of policing in peace operations is essential for long term impact on conflict situations. The UN Strategic Guidance Framework for international policing, it’s further development, and broad international acceptance, within and beyond the UN is key for this.

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¹ See, for example, http://www.un.org/en/peacekeeping/operations/history.shtml

Last access Dec 10, 2015

² United Nations, list of peacekeeping operations,

Click to access operationslist.pdf

Last access Dec 08, 2015

³ Peacekeeping Operations – The Early Years; http://www.un.org/en/peacekeeping/operations/early.shtml;

Last access Dec 07, 2015

⁴ For detailed reading: Lt.Gen (ret.) Roméo Dallaire, Shake Hands with the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda, Random House Canada, 2003, ISBN 978-0-679-31171-3

⁵ For detailed reading: Hasan Nuhanovic; Under The UN Flag: The International Community and the Srebrenica Genocide, DES 2007, ISBN: 978-9958-728-87-7

⁶ For detailed reading on the “Responsibility to Protect”: Gareth Evans; The Responsibility to Protect: Ending Mass Atrocity Crimes Once and for All, Washington DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2008, ISBN-13: 978-0815703341

⁷ For example: Decisions undertaken by the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) after the breaking out of a civil war, Dec 15, 2013, or discussions leading to the establishment of the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilisation Mission in the Central African Republic (MINUSCA), as a consequence of a resumption of violence by the mainly Muslim Séléka and the subsequent taking up arms by the mainly Christian anti-Balaka. Likewise, the inability of the Security Council to come to resolutions on cases such as the current one in Syria can be directly connected to a fundamental political dispute between Member States of the United Nations on whether a Responsibility to Protect (R2P) supersedes a principle of international law, territorial or Westphalian sovereignty.

⁸ Bruce Oswald, Helen Durham, Adrian Bates, Documents on the Law of UN Peace Operations, Oxford University Press New York, 2010, ISBN 978-0-19-957126-0, pg 3

⁹ http://www.un.org/en/peacekeeping/missions/past/minurcat/background.shtml

¹⁰ http://www.un.org/en/peacekeeping/missions/unisfa/mandate.shtml

¹¹ Fifteen between 1990 and 1999, seven between 2000 and 2009, and six since 2010 until today.

¹² Nine PKO between 1990 and 1999

¹³ Six new PKO

¹⁴ 67, 42 and 38 years of duration

¹⁵ UNFICYP in Cyprus: 52 years; UNMIK in Kosovo: 17 years.

¹⁶ UNMOGIP in India and Pakistan

¹⁷ MINUSTAH in Haiti, twelve years

¹⁸ Scattered data can be found under http://www.un.org/en/peacekeeping/resources/statistics/contributors_archive.shtml. Figures are documented from the end of 1990 on.

¹⁹ 1.500 police officers

²⁰ Data publicly available on the UN Website. The author compiled all data for the purpose of this visualization. The data reflects the real deployments, on a monthly registration basis. Small deployments are not visible, but included.

²¹ For example: http://www.un.org/en/peacekeeping/operations/history.shtml

²² See, for example, http://www.un.org/en/peacekeeping/operations/history.shtml

Last access Dec 10, 2015

²³ http://www.europarl.europa.eu/summits/kol2_en.htm, and more specifically http://www.europarl.europa.eu/summits/kol2_en.htm#an3

²⁴ For an actual overview about all peace operations, including UN, EU, and AU, the Center for International Peace Operations (ZIF) offers a highly visualized overview on a World map: http://www.zif-berlin.org/fileadmin/uploads/analyse/dokumente/veroeffentlichungen/ZIF_World_Map_Peace_Operations.pdf

²⁵ Download link: http://www.zif-berlin.org/fileadmin/uploads/analyse/dokumente/veroeffentlichungen/ZIF_World_Map_Peace_Operations.pdf