http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0080-1815
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ABSTRACT
Is the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) capable and willing to hold accountable the forces which it authorizes? Although it is an often-voiced recommendation that the UNSC should step up its accountability efforts, such as by installing more strict reporting requirements to avoid mission creep, evaluations of the effectiveness thereof remain largely absent. This article suggests that a combination of process-tracing methods with insights from principal–agent theorization allows for systematically evaluating the UNSC’s efforts and capacity to hold accountable non-UN-led forces which it authorizes with a forceful mandate. Such an approach makes it possible to evaluate the causal relevance of particular accountability mechanisms, including reporting requirements, for avoiding mission creep. This is illustrated by an analysis of the NATO-led intervention in Libya of 2011. It is shown how a process-tracing assessment can lead to conclusions about the ineffectiveness of reporting requirements when a permanent member is involved in mandate implementation. The article concludes by calling for more systematic research into the importance of the implementer’s identity for explaining UNSC accountability efforts towards non-UN-led forces.
Acknowledgements
The author would like to thank Prof. Dr Bart Kerremans for his pertinent comments and the Center on International Cooperation at New York University for facilitating data gathering. The author would also like to thank the three reviewers for their helpful suggestions.
Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
About the Author
Yf Reykers is a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at the Leuven International and European Studies (LINES) Institute at KU Leuven, where he also obtained his PhD. He is a former visiting scholar at the Center on International Cooperation (CIC) at New York University and at the Department of Political Science at Aarhus University. His research focuses on multinational military operations, with particular attention for questions of institutional choice and accountability.
ORCID
Yf Reykers http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0080-1815
Notes
1 Hurd, “Legitimacy, Power, and the Symbolic Life,” 35.
2 Matray, “Truman’s Plan for Victory.”
3 Lobel and Ratner, “Bypassing the Security Council.”
4 UN peace operations, to the contrary, mostly operate under control of the Department of Peacekeeping Operations, whereby the UN Secretariat is involved in monitoring mandate compliance.
5 High-Level Independent Panel on United Nations Peace Operations, 28.
6 Given the absence of command and control from the UN Secretariat, accountability problems are even more pressing for these operations.
7 Patriota, “Statement at the Occasion of the Informal Interactive Dialogue.”
8 Stuenkel and Tourinho, “Regulating Intervention,” 391. See also Stuenkel, “Responsibility while Protecting.”
9 Keohane, “The Concept of Accountability,” 1138.
10 Ku, “Transparency, Accountability, and Responsibility,” 5.
11 Lobel and Ratner, “Bypassing the Security Council.”
12 E.g. De Wet, “Regional Organisations and Arrangements”; Lobel and Ratner, “Bypassing the Security Council.”
13 Notable in that regard are Adler-Nissen and Pouliot, “Power in Practice”; Mikulaschek, “The Power of the Weak”; Ralph and Gifkins, “The Purpose of United Nations Security Council Practice”; and Schia, “Horsehoe and Catwalk.” Earlier, Barnett provided an insider account of the diplomatic practice behind the UN’s initial ‘indifference’ towards the Rwanda genocide. Barnett, “The UN Security Council, Indifference, and Genocide in Rwanda.” Yet, these approaches are different from the process-tracing approach suggested in this article.
14 Pollack, “Learning from the Americanists (Again),” 202.
15 Reykers and Beach, “Process Tracing as a Tool to Analyse Discretion,” 256.
16 E.g. Beach and Pedersen “Selecting Appropriate Cases”; Bennett, “Process-Tracing: A Bayesian Perspective.”
17 Bennett, “The Mother of All Isms”; Hedström and Ylikoski, “Causal Mechanisms in the Social Sciences.”
18 Beach and Pedersen, Process-Tracing Methods, 29.
19 Ibid., 30.
20 Pollitt, The Essential Public Manager, 83.
21 Lindberg, “Mapping Accountability,” 208.
22 Bovens, “Two Concepts of Accountability.”
23 Hawkins et al., Delegation and Agency in International Organizations.
24 Cf. Articles 24 and 54 of the Charter of the United Nations.
25 Moe, “The New Economics of Organization,” 757.
26 Reykers, “Constructive Ambiguity or Stringent Monitoring?”
27 Williamson, The Economic Institutions of Capitalism.
28 Epstein and O’Halloran, Delegating Powers; Pollack, “Delegation, Agency, and Agenda Setting”; and Waterman and Meier, “Principal-Agent Models.”
29 Hawkins et al., Delegation and Agency in International Organizations, 8.
30 Allen and Yuen, “The Politics of Peacekeeping”; Reykers and Smeets, “Losing Control.”
31 Allen and Yuen, “The Politics of Peacekeeping.”
32 Ibid., 624.
33 Hawkins et al., Delegation and Agency in International Organizations.
34 Lobel and Ratner, “Bypassing the Security Council.”
35 E.g. Bradley and Kelley, “The Concept of Delegation”; Da Conceição-Heldt, “Do Agents ‘Run Amok’?”
36 Hawkins et al., Delegation and Agency in International Organizations, 8.
37 Ibid., 8.
38 Tallberg, “Delegation to Supranational Institutions.”
39 Pollack, “Delegation, Agency, and Agenda Setting,” 108.
40 Hawkins et al., Delegation and Agency in International Organizations, 30.
41 Hawkins and Jacoby, “How Agents Matter,” 210.
42 Nielson and Tierney, “Delegation to International Organizations,” 245.
43 E.g. Kerremans, “Pro-Active Policy Entrepreneur or Risk Minimizer.”
44 Lobel and Ratner, “Bypassing the Security Council,” 139.
45 Pollack, “Delegation, Agency, and Agenda Setting.”
46 Nielson and Tierney, “Delegation to International Organizations,” 249.
47 Hawkins and Jacoby, “How Agents Matter,” 212.
48 Kaplan, “NATO and the UN: A Peculiar Relationship.”
49 E.g. Security Council Report, “May 2011 Monthly Forecast”; Reuters, “‘BRICS’ to Reject Use of Force in Middle East.”
50 Although strongly linked, this article does not look into the question why Russia and China did not veto Resolution 1973, neither does it explore whether the NATO-led coalition violated its mandate;. For insights in the logics behind the Russian abstention, see e.g. Reykers and Smeets, “Losing Control.”
51 UNSC Resolution 1973 delegated to members states and/or regional organizations, which implies that every UN member operating in Libya can be perceived as a member of the agent.
52 Although this statement seems to reflect otherwise, Resolution 1973 clearly specified the goals that needed to be attained and hence was not at all a blank cheque to use force.
53 E.g. Howorth, “‘Opération Harmattan’ in Libya”; Lindström and Zetterlund, “Setting the Stage for the Military Intervention in Libya.”
54 Becker and Shane, “The Libya Gamble.”
55 Erlanger, “Sarkozy Puts France at Vanguard of West’s War Effort”; O’Brien and Sinclair, The Libyan War.
56 Reuters, “‘BRICS’ to Reject use of Force in Middle East.”
57 Interviews with EU officials involved in reporting on ongoing EU operations also indicated that ‘the information we give to the UNSC is very strategically chosen to be limited, very vague’ (Interview #21).
58 NATO, “Statement on Libya.”
59 Moulson and Lee, “NATO Struggles to Resolve Dispute over Libya Fight.”
60 See Security Council Report, “May 2011 Monthly Forecast.”
61 Security Council Report, “August 2011 Monthly Forecast.”
62 Chivvis, Topplinq Qaddafi, 126.
63 Fahim and Mazzetti, “Allies Defending Actions in Libya After Airstrikes.” Russia for instance, voiced ‘serious doubts about coalition members’ statement that the strikes in Libya do not have the goal of physically annihilating Mr. Qaddafi and members of his family’.
64 Chivvis, Topplinq Qaddafi, 126.
65 Reuters, “Russia, China Urge Adherence to Libya Resolutions.”
66 Security Council Report, “August 2011 Monthly Forecast.”
67 Decision-making within the Obama administration on arming the rebels has been meticulously described in Becker and Shane’s, “The Libya Gamble.”
68 Security Council Report, “May 2011 Monthly Forecast.”
69 An additional example thereof is the presence of special forces on the ground. An involved high-level military official of one of the key coalition parties noted: ‘There were a number of national players operating in Libya. Also special forces of NATO countries. That was not known at the time, and they were not really acting under the UNSC mandate’ (Interview #36). This is largely in line with evidence provided in Chivvis, Topplinq Qaddafi, and Mohlin, Cloak and Dagger in Libya.