Efficiency versus Sovereignty: Delegation to the UN Secretariat in Peacekeeping

Abstract

This article analyses why the UN's members delegate resources to the UN Secretariat in the sensitive field of peacekeeping. It argues that the Secretariat can carry out planning and implementation functions more efficiently, but that the states remain wary of potential sovereignty loss. Through a mixed methods approach, this article provides evidence for such a functional logic of delegation, but shows that it only applies from the late-1990s on. The change in approach of states towards delegation can be explained by feedback from the dramatic failures of peacekeeping in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Rwanda and Somalia.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The author would like to acknowledge Raymond Montizaan, Arjan Schakel, Hans Schmeets, Sophie Vanhoonacker and anonymous referees. The article was originally submitted when the author worked at Maastricht University in the Netherlands.

Notes

This figure is for the professional and higher grades only.

This article is concerned with delegation by states to the UN Secretariat. Extensive delegation also takes place to peacekeeping missions in the field, which is beyond the scope of this article.

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Tallberg (see n.4 above), p.25.

Ibid., p.37.

UN DPKO and DFS, ‘United Nations Peacekeeping Operations: Principles and Guidelines’, New York: UN DPKO and DFS, Jan. 2008, p.49; European Union, ‘EU Concept for Military Planning at the Political and Strategic Level’, 10687/08, Brussels: European Union, 2008, para.6–7.

Hawkins et al. (see n.4 above).

Kenneth Abbott and Duncan Snidal, ‘Why States Act through Formal International Organizations’, Journal of Conflict Resolution, Vol.42, No.1, 1998, pp.3–32. Peacekeeping scenarios are, of course, never completely neutral, but the Secretariat has to take the preferences of all states into account.

Samuel Huntington, The Soldier and the State: The Theory and Politics of Civil-Military Relations, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1957.

Anthony Rice, ‘Command and Control: The Essence of Coalition Warfare’, Parameters, Vol.27, No.1, 1997, pp.152–67.

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Bradley and Kelley (see n.4 above); Oona Hathway, ‘International Delegation and Domestic Sovereignty’, Law and Contemporary Problems, Vol.71, No.1, 2008, pp.115–50; David Lake and Matthew McCubbins, ‘The Logic of Delegation to International Organizations’, in Hawkins et al. (see n.4 above), p.343.

David Epstein and Sharyn O'Halloran, ‘Sovereignty and Delegation in International Organizations’, Law and Contemporary Problems, Vol.71, No.1, 2008, p.82.

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Hawkins et al. (see n.4 above).

Lake and McCubbins (see n.13 above).

One can also study the number of deployed troops as a dependent variable. This is, however, a different research question (see n.4 above).

Data from 19 individual months from the periods 1990–92 and 1999–2001 are missing.

Data for 1990–92 have been estimated on the basis of UN Secretary-General, ‘Comprehensive Review of the Whole Question of Peace-keeping Operations in all their Aspects’, UN doc., A/46/169, 10 May 1991; and William Durch (ed.), The Evolution of UN Peacekeeping: Case Studies and Comparative Analysis, Washington DC: Henry L. Stimson Center, 1993. These reports include permanent staff members and officials paid through the Support Account for Peacekeeping.

The recruitment delay supports such causality. The section on process-tracing provides further evidence for causality.

Robert McClure and Morton Orlov, ‘Is the UN Peacekeeping Role in Eclipse?’, Parameters, Vol.29, No.3, 1999, pp.96–105. See further section on process-tracing.

Since these are not resources formally delegated to the Secretariat, they have been excluded in the analysis. Moreover, there is no precise data on gratis personnel per year to integrate them into the analysis.

New York University Center on International Cooperation, ‘Building on Brahimi: Peacekeeping in an Era of Strategic Uncertainty’, New York: New York University Center on International Cooperation, Apr. 2009, p.42.

Thant Myint-U and Amy Scott, ‘The UN Secretariat: A Brief History’, New York: International Peace Academy, 2007.

The UN members are conceptualized as a collective principal (Nielson and Tierney (see n.4 above)) regardless of whether it is the General Assembly, Security Council or Special Committee on Peacekeeping Operations. Only when these bodies reach agreement, can functions and resources be delegated to the Secretariat. If states cannot agree, because they are divided on the question of sovereignty, for example, they will not be able to delegate. Outcomes therefore often resemble the lowest common denominator among states.

UN Secretary-General, ‘An Agenda for Peace: Preventive Diplomacy, Peacemaking and Peace-keeping’, UN Doc., A/47/277-S/24111, 17 Jun. 1992, para.14–15.

UN Special Committee on Peace-keeping Operations, ‘Comprehensive Review of the Whole Question of Peace-keeping Operations in all their Aspects’, UN doc., A/46/254, 18 Jun. 1991, para.55.

UN, ‘Note by the President of the Security Council’, UN doc., S/23500, 31 Jan. 1992, pp.2–4.

UN Special Committee on Peace-keeping Operations, ‘Comprehensive Review of the Whole Question of Peace-keeping Operations in all their Aspects’, UN doc., A/47/253, 4 June 1992, para.23, 67, 69.

UN Secretary-General (see n.30 above), para.50, 52.

Thorsten Benner, Stephan Mergenthaler and Philipp Rotmann, The New World of UN Peace Operations: Learning to Build Peace?, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011; Myint U and Scott (see n.28 above).

Stanley Meisler, Kofi Annan: A Man of Peace in a World of War, Hoboken, NJ: Wiley, 2007, p.67.

Benner et al. (see n.35 above).

McClure and Orlov (see n.25 above).

Ibid.

Silke Weinlich, ‘(Re)generating Peacekeeping Authority: The Brahimi Process’, Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding, DOI: 10.1080/17502977.2012.655625.

Lakhdar Brahimi, ‘Report of the Panel on United Nations Peace Operations’, UN doc., A/55/305-S/2000/809, 21 Aug. 2000.

UN Secretary-General, ‘The Fall of Srebrenica’, UN doc., A/54/549, 15 Nov. 1999; Ingvar Carlsson, Sung-Joo Han and Rufus Kupolati, ‘Report of the Independent Inquiry into the Actions of the United Nations during the 1994 Genocide in Rwanda’, UN doc., S/1999/1257, 16 Dec. 1999.

Jean-Marie Guéhenno, ‘On the Challenges and Achievements of Reforming UN Peace Operations’, International Peacekeeping, Vol.9, No.2, 2002, pp.69–80.

Brahimi (see n.41 above), p.i.

Weinlich (see n.40 above).

Brahimi (see n.41 above), p.xiii.

Ibid., table 4.1, para.172–3, 183, 197.

William Durch, Victoria Holt, Caroline Earle and Moira Shanahan, ‘The Brahimi Report and the Future of UN Peace Operations’, Washington DC: Henry L. Stimson Center, 2003, table 4; UN Secretary-General, ‘Resource Requirements for the Implementation of the Report of the Panel on United Nations Peace Operations’, UN doc., A/55/507/Add.1, 27 Oct. 2000; UN ACABQ, ‘Implementation of the Report of the Panel on United Nations Peace Operations’, UN doc., A/55/676, 8 Dec. 2000.

Brahimi (see n.41 above), para.176.

Ibid., para.197.

Ibid., para.68, 70.

Durch et al. (see n.48 above).

Ibid.

UN Secretary-General, ‘Implementation of the Recommendations of the Special Committee on Peacekeeping Operations’, UN doc., A/60/640, 29 Dec. 2005, para.2, 5, 18.

UN Secretary-General, ‘Implementation of the Recommendations of the Special Committee on Peacekeeping Operations’, UN doc., A/61/668, 13 Feb. 2007, para.6–16.

Ibid., para.11, 20–38.

Richard Gowan, ‘Floating Down the River of History: Ban Ki-moon and Peacekeeping, 2007–2011’, Global Governance, Vol.17, No.4, 2011, pp.399–416. Gowan notes that this was Ban Ki-moon trying to establish his authority over DPKO, where his reforms were deeply unpopular.

UN Secretary-General (see n.55 above), para.13, 55.

UN Secretary-General, ‘Comprehensive Report on Strengthening the Capacity of the United Nations to Manage and Sustain Peace Operations’, UN doc., A/61/858, 13 April 2007, para.16, Add.1, p.3.

Ibid., para.20.

UN Secretary-General, ‘Report on the Comprehensive Analysis of the Office of Military Affairs in the Department of Peacekeeping Operations’, UN doc., A/62/752, 17 March 2008.

UN Secretary-General, ‘Strengthening the Capacity of the United Nations to Manage and Sustain Peacekeeping Operations’, UN doc., A/63/702, 3 Feb. 2009.

Ronald Hatto, ‘UN Command and Control Capabilities: Lessons from UNIFIL's Strategic Military Cell’, International Peacekeeping, Vol.16, No.2, 2009, pp.186–98; Alexander Mattelaer, ‘Europe Rediscovers Peacekeeping? Political and Military Logics in the 2006 UNIFIL Enhancement’, Egmont Paper 34, Brussels: Egmont Institute, 2009.

Alexander Wendt, ‘Driving with the Rearview Mirror: On the Rational Science of Institutional Design’, International Organization, Vol.55, No.4, 2001, pp.1019–49.

John Mearsheimer, ‘The False Promise of International Institutions’, International Security, Vol.19, No.3, 1994/95, pp.5–49.

Pierson, Politics in Time (see n.17 above); Wendt (see n.64 above).

Michael Lipson, ‘Peacekeeping: Organized Hypocrisy?’, European Journal of International Relations, Vol.13, No.1, 2007, pp.5–34; Lipson, ‘Peacekeeping Reform: Managing Change in an Organized Anarchy’, Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding, DOI: 10.1080/17502977.2012.655626; Julian Junk, ‘Function Follows Form: The Organizational Design of Peace Operations’, Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding, DOI: 10.1080/17502977.2012.655627.

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