https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3172-3901
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ABSTRACT
United Nations police (UNPOL) have become increasingly important to operational effectiveness of peace operations. For some time, their contribution to re-establishing the rule of law in conflict-affected states has been seen as a cornerstone for building sustainable peace and enabling mission exit strategies. In a departure from traditional peacekeeping and post-conflict assistance, recent years have seen UN peace operations directed to stabilise countries and protect civilians in the context of on-going violent conflict. As a result, UNPOL have had to undertake a range of expanded tasks, exacerbating long-standing challenges and producing new impediments to their operational effectiveness. At the same time, a ‘pragmatic turn’ is generating increased interest in more police-centric concepts of peacekeeping as a possible alternative to today’s expensive and military-focused peace operations. Drawing on extensive fieldwork in multiple peace operations and at UN headquarters, this article examines the changing roles of UNPOL in a new breed of UN peace operations, identifies the major associated challenges and proposes a series of recommendations for overcoming them. It argues that if police are to respond to unfolding challenges while becoming more central to peacekeeping outcomes, then significant reforms and further research into their impacts will be required.
Acknowledgement
The author is grateful to the two anonymous reviewers and the editors for their helpful suggestions that certainly improved this manuscript. He is also grateful to all those interviewed during this research, Adam Day for comments on earlier drafts and Shannon Zimmerman for her research assistance.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes on contributor
Charles T. Hunt is Vice-Chancellor's Senior Research Fellow at the Social & Global Studies Centre at RMIT University, Melbourne, and honorary Senior Research Fellow at the Asia Pacific Centre for the Responsibility to Protect. His research is focused on UN peace operations and peacebuilding in conflict-affected states. Dr Hunt has worked with the Australian government assessing their role in peace operations and performed consultancy roles with the United Nations and a number of international humanitarian NGOs. His recent books and articles include: UN Peace Operations and International Policing (Routledge, 2015); Exploring Peace Formation (Routledge, 2018); “All necessary means to what ends? The unintended consequences of the ‘robust turn’ in UN peace operations”, International Peacekeeping 24, no. 1 (2017) and (with Bellamy, A.) “Twenty-first Century UN peace operations”, International Affairs 91, no.6 (2015): 1277–1298.
ORCID
Charles T. Hunt http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3172-3901
Notes
1 Note peace operations is the generally accepted umbrella term that includes a range of mission types, including peacekeeping as well special political missions (SPMs). Reflecting this, the UN replaced its Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO) with a Department of Peace Operations (DPO) in January 2019.
2 From 2539 in 1999 to over 10,500 in 2018. NB: The number of UNPOL deployed reached a high water-mark in 2010 when over 17,000 UNPOL were authorised by the Security Council.
3 Ten UN peacekeeping operations and four Special Political Missions (accurate at September 2018).
4 UNPOL constitute on average 12% of total uniformed personnel deployed across the UN’s peace operations.
5 A parallel literature looking at police reform and development by actors beyond the UN also emerged at this time.
6 In other words, 9224 of approximately 10,500 as at 31 January 2019.
7 Author interviews with UN officials—New York, September 2019.
8 Until recently, Australia was at the forefront of international policing with significant contributions to UN missions (for example, Timor-Leste and Cyprus) and other efforts including the police-led Regional Assistance Missions in the Solomon Islands (RAMSI) and bilateral programmes across the Pacific (Hughes, Hunt, and Curth-Bibb Citation2013). This was institutionalised through the creation of an International Deployment Group within the Australian Federal Police (Bellamy Citation2009) and investment in developing policy and supporting research on best practices. During its 2013–2014 term as an elected member of the UN Security Council Australia used its presidency to chair and marshal through the first ever UNSC resolution on UN policing. It has admittedly retreated from this leadership role somewhat in recent years.
9 Author interviews with UNPOL officials—New York (2017), Mali (2017) DRC (2018), South Sudan (2018), CAR (2019).
10 Author interviews with UN police division officials—New York, USA, April 2017.
11 Author interviews with UNPOL officials—New York (2017), Mali (2017) DRC (2018), South Sudan (2018), CAR (2019).
12 Author interview with UN police division senior leadership—New York, USA, April 2017.
13 Author interviews with MINUSCA JTFB officials—Bangui, CAR, August 2019.
14 UNPOL Sector Commander presentation, on file with author.
15 Author interviews with UNMISS UNPOL officials—Malakal, South Sudan, December 2018.
16 Author interviews with MINUSMA UNPOL officials—Bamako, Mali, April 2017.
17 Also, as former SRSG in UNMISS has argued: ‘The security sector is the lynchpin in these countries, not only for the protection of civilians, but also for peace itself’ (Johnson Citation2019, 149).
18 Note the data in this study did not include the UN mission in South Sudan where UNPOL have a key role in responding to POC incidents. Its inclusion would certainly have increased this percentage average.
19 Less than 50% of resolutions mandating these operations reference organised crime and even less mandate UN operations to tackle criminal groups spoilers directly.
21 Author interview with MINUSMA UNPOL SOC official—Bamako, Mali, April 2017.
22 Author interview with MINUSCA and MONUSCO UNPOL officials—Bangui, CAR (August 2019) and Goma, DRC (May 2018).
23 Author interview with MONUSCO official—Goma, DRC, May 2018.
24 Author interviews with UN senior leadership—Kinshasa, DRC, June 2018 and Bamako, Mali, August 2019.
25 Author interviews with UN police division officials—New York, USA, April 2017.
26 Author interviews with UN police division officials—New York, USA, April 2017.
27 Author interviews with UN senior leadership—Bamako, Mali (April 2017), Kinshasa, DRC (June 2018) and Bangui, CAR (August 2019).
28 Author interviews with heads of substantive civilian sections, including human rights and civil affairs—Bamako, Mali (April 2017), Kinshasa, DRC (June 2018), Juba, South Sudan (December 2018) and Bangui, CAR (August 2019).
29 Akin to French gendarmerie and similar formations in major PCCs on the Indian sub-continent and across Francophone Africa, FPUs are company-sized (∼140) ‘constabulary forces’ with military capabilities as well as police authority (Perito Citation2004, 46).
30 Author interviews with local community groups—South Sudan, Mali and CAR.
31 Author interviews with UNPOL officials in MINUSMA, MONUSCO, UNMISS and MINUSCA—Bamako, Mali (April 2017), Goma, DRC (May 2018), Juba, South Sudan (December 2018) and Bangui, CAR (August 2019).
32 Author interviews with MINUSMA, MONUSCO, UNMISS and MINUSCA officials—Bamako, Mali (April 2017), Goma, DRC (May 2018), Juba, South Sudan (December 2018) and Bangui, CAR (August 2019).
33 For instance, 46 Ghanaian UNPOL officers from the FPU stationed at the Wau PoC site were repatriated after involvement in sexual abuse scandal in February 2018, see: Reuters (Citation2018).
34 Australia is a notable exception to this. See note 8 above.
35 Full list of SGF documents available here: https://police.un.org/en/list-of-policy-documents.
36 Author interviews with UNPOL officials in MINUSMA, MONUSCO, UNMISS and MINUSCA– Bamako, Mali (April 2017), Goma, DRC (May 2018), Juba, South Sudan (December 2018) and Bangui, CAR (August 2019).
37 Author interviews with local community groups—DRC, South Sudan, Mali and CAR.
38 Note other commentators (for example, Alex Bellamy and David Chandler) question the extent to which liberal peacebuilding was ever the global theology it is sometimes made out to be, arguing that even the biggest UN peacebuilding missions were never really in the business of liberal statebuilding on a scale equivalent to stabilisation missions in Afghanistan or Iraq, for example.
39 Author interviews with UN police division officials—New York, USA, August 2019.
40 Author interviews with UN police division officials and Ambassadors of Permanent members of the Security Council—New York, USA, August 2019.
41 Independent Strategic Review of MONUSCO, 2019, on file with author.
42 Author interviews with UN officials—New York, September 2019.
43 Author interviews with Ambassadors of Permanent members of the Security Council—New York, USA, August 2019.
44 Author interviews with UN officials—New York, September 2019.
45 Note despite having the mandated authority, it is also rare that military peacekeepers confront host government forces. The possibility, nevertheless, remains and it would not with a police peace force.