Neutrality, Impartiality and UN Peacekeeping at the Beginning of the 21st Century

Abstract

Assessments of UN peacekeeping in the 1990s have often partly blamed the inappropriate application of traditional principles - particularly neutrality and impartiality - for its more signal failures. Since 1998, Kofi Annan has led a process of conceptual reappraisal which appears to emphasize impartiality and drop neutrality. But analysis of statements by senior UN officials, interviews with members of the Secretariat, pronouncements in the Security Council and General Assembly, and in-house assessments of UN peacekeeping, reveal that a long-standing confusion about the meaning of the terms endures, so minimizing the real significance of this shift. By failing to break the link between impartiality and neutrality, the UN jeopardizes its ability to conduct 'grey area' operations.