From Peacekeeping to Stabilisation: Interorganisational Co-operation, Challenges and the Law

ABSTRACT

Global complexity and limitations in the United Nation's legal framework necessitates collaboration with regional organisations, creating tension between the legal frameworks guiding peacekeeping, the use of force, and intervention practices within the increasing complexity of peace enforcement and stabilisation missions with a Protection of Civilians mandate. With the UNs lack of impetus in clarifying stabilisation as a concept, the use of force required for stabilisation cannot be justified, necessitating the use of regional organisations' more flexible legal frameworks. The continued complexity of contemporary peace and security requires a reassessment of peacekeeping doctrine that, if left unaddressed, risk condemnation for illegal ‘peacekeeping'.

KEYWORDS:

• International organisations
• international law
• peace enforcement
• protection of civilians
• stabilisation

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes on contributor

Dr Michelle Nel, BLC, LLB (Pret) and LLM, LLD (Unisa), is Vice Dean of Social Impact and Personnel and a senior lecturer in Criminal and Military law and the Law of Armed Conflict at the Faculty of Military Science, Stellenbosch University. She joined the Defence Legal Services Division in 1996 as a prosecutor and was appointed as a lecturer in the Department of Mercantile and Public Law (Mil) of the Faculty of Military Science in 2002. She was admitted as advocate to the High Court in the Cape of Good Hope in 2005 and completed her Doctor of Laws in 2012. She also serves as part-time researcher in SIGLA’s maritime governance hub. Her areas of research include good governance, International Law, Military Law and Maritime Security. Her work has been published in South Africa and internationally.

Notes

1 Gray (2000) identifies the use of force as including economic coercion, the scope of the right to use self-defence, the right to use force in self-determination and the use of force in intervention in civil wars. For the purpose of this discussion the use of force is limited to the use of violence or force in the context of civil wars of conflict.

2 Case Concerning Military and Paramilitary Activities in and against Nicaragua ICJ Reports (1986) 14.

3 Article 52 of the UN Charter. This must be read with Article 53 that requires UNSC authorisation for legal regional operations.

4 See in this regard the Policy Framework for the Establishment of the African Standby Force and the Military Staff Committee (ASF-MSC) which identifies these scenarios (Nel and Brits 2017). Humanitarian intervention is permissible in terms of Articles 4(h) and 4(j) of the AU Constitutive Act. For a detailed discussion on the legal challenges created see Nel and Brits (2017).

5 After the 2004 stabilisation mission in Haiti, the UN authorised such missions in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in 2010, Mali in 2013 and the Central African Republic (CAR) in 2014.

6 Article 16 of the PSC Protocol.

7 The 2009 MoU is an agreement between the AU and the Arab Maghreb Union (UNA), the Community of Sahel-Saharan States (CEN-SAD), the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), the East African Community (EAC), the Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS), the Economic Community of Western African States (ECOWAS), the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD), the Southern African Development Community (SADC), The East African Standby Brigade Coordination Mechanism (EASBRICOM) and the North Africa Regional Capability (NARC) which are not managed by the RECs.

8 The OAU was established on 25 May 1963 with the primary mandate of eliminating colonialism from Africa. As such, the OAU was not regarded as a ‘collective security organisation’ and its Charter had an extremely limited approach in this regard (Nel and Brits 2017, 20). The OAU was replaced by the AU on 9 July 2002.

9 See in this context the UN Security Council Resolution 2033 of 2012.

10 Stabilisation can be defined as the ‘use of military means to stabilize a country’ (Bellamy and Hunt 2015, 1282).