http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0905-5369
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ABSTRACT
Impartiality is a core legitimating norm for United Nations peace operations. Yet beliefs about what that norm requires of UN personnel have shifted dramatically. In 2013, for example, the Security Council created an intervention brigade – composed of infantry battalions, special forces, and an artillery company – to ‘neutralize’ non-state armed groups in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). According to critics, these activities violate core peacekeeping norms, including impartiality. This criticism elicits a puzzling response from many UN officials. They downplay the novelty of new practices, insisting that they are still ‘impartial’. Where does this discursive pattern come from, and what does it tell us about the relationship between day-to-day practices and the norms that ostensibly guide UN peace operations? Drawing on evidence from the DRC, I argue that norms like impartiality may endure – and remain rhetorically powerful – without telling us much about how practices on the ground have evolved. Instead, insisting that new practices are impartial can be a way for UN personnel to stabilize a core part of their identity under conditions of normative ambiguity. It can also be a way of glossing over contestation and pre-empting concerns about partiality in UN peace operations.
Acknowledgements
I am grateful to Georgina Holmes, John Karlsrud, Lucile Maertens, Kseniya Oksamytna, and Emily Paddon Rhoads for helpful comments on earlier drafts of this article. The manuscript also benefited from feedback received at the 2017 European Workshops in International Studies in Cardiff, Wales. I would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their comments and all interviewees who assisted with this research.
Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
About the Author
Marion Laurence is a PhD candidate in the Department of Political Science at the University of Toronto. Her research looks at norm and practice change in United Nations peace operations.
ORCID
Marion Laurence http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0905-5369
Notes
1 Impartiality is usually identified as a core principle for peacekeeping, but peacekeepers are increasingly asked to perform a variety of tasks associated with peacebuilding and peace enforcement. I use the term ‘peace operations’ to encompass multidimensional missions that blur the boundaries between peacekeeping, peacebuilding, and other activities.
2 United Nations Security Council, Resolution 2098 S/RES/2098 (2013).
3 Swedish Ministry of Defence, The United Nations at War in the DRC? 27.
4 Confidential interviews with officials from the Department of Peacekeeping Operations, interviews conducted by the author, New York and by phone, 2014–2015.
5 Mitzen, “Ontological Security in World Politics.”
6 The dates for each mission are: MONUC (November 1999 – July 2010) and MONUSCO (July 2010 to present).
7 Katzenstein, Introduction, 5.
8 See articles by Holmes, “Situating Agency, Embodied Practices and Norm Implementation in Peacekeeping Training”; Maertens, and Rhoads, this section.
9 Barnett and Finnemore, Rules for the World, 23.
10 Barnett, Eyewitness to a Genocide, 175.
11 United Nations Department of Peacekeeping Operations, United Nations Peacekeeping Operations, 33.
12 March and Olsen, Rediscovering Institutions, 160.
13 Finnemore and Sikkink, “International Norm Dynamics and Political Change,” 895–8; Betts and Orchard, Introduction, 3–4.
14 Autesserre, Peaceland, 33, 37.
15 Adler and Pouliot, International Practices, 6.
16 Ibid.
17 Ibid., 7–8.
18 Pouliot, “The Logic of Practicality,” 257, 71; Adler and Bernstein, Knowledge in Power, 296–7.
19 Neumann, “Returning Practice to the Linguistic Turn,” 628.
20 Pouliot, “The Logic of Practicality,” 258.
21 Krook and True, “Rethinking the Life Cycles of International Norms,” 104.
22 Wiener, “Enacting Meaning-in-Use,” 179.
23 Autesserre, “Going Micro,” 493; Paris, “The Geopolitics of Peace Operations,” 501–2.
24 Weiss and Wilkinson, “Change and Continuity in Global Governance,” 400–1.
25 Paris, “The Geopolitics of Peace Operations,” 502.
26 The research presented here is part of a larger project on impartiality in peace operations, which involved interviews with 25 current and former UN peacekeepers. Participants included civilian and military personnel, and they ranged in seniority from privates to former heads of mission. Most of the interviews cited here were conducted by phone, Skype, and during research trips to New York in 2014 and 2015.
27 Barnett and Coleman, “Designing Police,” 598.
28 Weiss et al., “The ‘Third’ United Nations,” 127.
29 MacQueen, The United Nations, Peace Operations and the Cold War, 43.
30 Franck, The Structure of Impartiality, 308.
31 Adler and Pouliot, International Practices, 6.
32 United Nations Security Council, Report of the Secretary-General on the Implementation of Security Council Resolution 425 (1978) (New York: United Nations, 1978), 2.
33 Rhoads, Taking Sides in Peacekeeping, 51.
34 Acharya, “How Ideas Spread,” 244.
35 There were exceptions, including the United Nations Operation in the Congo (ONUC), but overall there was a relatively high degree of consistency.
36 Confidential interview with a Western diplomat, interview by the author, New York, December 2014.
37 Axworthy, “Human Security and Global Governance,” 20.
38 International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty, The Responsibility to Protect, xi.
39 United Nations Secretary-General, ‘Human Rights Up Front’ Initiative. See Rhoads (this section) for a detailed analysis of the Human Rights Up Front campaign.
40 Panel on United Nations Peace Operations, Report of the Panel on United Nations Peace Operations x.
41 United Nations Department of Peacekeeping Operations, United Nations Peacekeeping Operations, 27.
42 High-Level Independent Panel on UN Peace Operations, Uniting Our Strengths for Peace, ix.
43 Welsh, “Norm Contestation and the Responsibility to Protect,” 367–8, 94.
44 Paris, At War’s End, 22.
45 Boutros-Ghali, An Agenda for Peace.
46 United Nations Department of Peacekeeping Operations, United Nations Peacekeeping Operations, 18–19.
47 Paris, At War’s End, 5–6.
48 Ibid., 4–6, 187–205; United Nations Department of Peacekeeping Operations, United Nations Peacekeeping Operations, 27–8.
49 de Coning et al., Towards a United Nations stabilization doctrine - stabilization as an emerging UN practice, 5.
50 Andersen, “The HIPPO in the Room,” 10; de Coning, Is stabilization the new normal? Implications of stabilization mandates for the use of force in UN peacekeeping operations, 87–8; Gorur, Defining the Boundaries of UN Stabilization Missions, 9.
51 de Coning et al., Towards a United Nations stabilization doctrine - stabilization as an emerging UN practice, 299; de Coning, Is stabilization the new normal? Implications of stabilization mandates for the use of force in UN peacekeeping operations, 90.
52 Autesserre, Peaceland, 143–7.
53 Hunt, “All necessary means to what ends? the unintended consequences of the ‘robust turn’ in UN peace operations,” 123.
54 Rhoads, Taking Sides in Peacekeeping, 65–6. See also Rhoads, this section.
55 Ibid., 92–3, 155.
56 United Nations Department of Peacekeeping Operations, United Nations Peacekeeping Operations, 14–15, 37.
57 Confidential interview with a DPKO official, interview by the author, New York, December 2014.
58 Wiener, “Contested Meanings of Norms,” 6.
59 See, for example, Doss, United Nations Organization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUC), 666; Peter, “Between Doctrine and Practice”; Tull, “The Limits and Unintended Consequences of UN Peace Enforcement.”
60 Interview with a New York-based peacekeeping expert, interview by the author, New York, November 2015.
61 Rhoads, Taking Sides in Peacekeeping, 48.
62 Judgments about competence depend on who does the judging. My primary focus is on standards used by mission personnel and staff within DPKO – on the background knowledge embodied by their practices. I contrast these standards with judgments reached by member states and other stakeholders.
63 Barnett and Finnemore, Rules for the World, 141; Autesserre, Peaceland, 216–19.
64 Adler and Pouliot, International Practices, 18.
65 United Nations Security Council, Resolution 1279 S/RES/1279 (1999).
66 United Nations Security Council, Resolution 1291 S/RES/1291 (2000).
67 Rhoads, Taking Sides in Peacekeeping, 128.
68 Baldo and Bouckaert, War Crimes in Kisangani, 2, 23–4.
69 Holt and Berkman, The Impossible Mandate? Military Preparedness, the Responsibility to Protect and Modern Peace Operations, 155–9.
70 Doss, United Nations Organization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUC), 661–2.
71 United Nations Security Council, Resolution 1493 S/RES/1493 (2003).
72 Rhoads, Taking Sides in Peacekeeping, 133–4.
73 Cammaert, Learning to Use Force on the Hoof in Peacekeeping, 2.
74 Tull, “Peacekeeping in the Democratic Republic of Congo,” 217.
75 Doss, United Nations Organization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUC), 661–2.
76 United Nations Security Council, Second special report of the Secretary-General on the United Nations Organization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, 18–22.
77 Reliefweb, William Swing Urges Congolese Media.
78 United Nations Organization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, MONUC Mandate.
79 The actual composition of militias and non-state armed groups was complex – groups like the FDLR include both Congolese fighters and foreign nationals. Ibid., United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, The Foreign Armed Groups.
80 Cammaert, Learning to Use Force on the Hoof in Peacekeeping, 3.
81 UN News Centre, DR Congo.
82 Confidential interview with a Western military officer who served with MONUC, interview by the author, by phone, September 2015.
83 Doss, “United Nations Organization Mission,” 668.
84 For a more detailed discussion of how communities of practice define, act out, and redefine competence, see Maertens (this section) and Wenger, Communities of Practice and Social Learning Systems.
85 United Nations Security Council, Resolution 1925 S/RES/1925 (2010).
86 United Nations Security Council, Resolution 2053 S/RES/2053 (2012).
87 Confidential interview with a staff person from a Western NGO who worked in the DRC, interview by the author, Freetown, Sierra Leone, November 2013.
88 Plett, UN Under Fire over Fall of Goma in DR Congo.
89 United Nations Security Council, Resolution 2098 S/RES/2098 (2013).
90 Swedish Ministry of Defence, The United Nations at War in the DRC? 12, 26–7.
91 Resolution 2098 explicitly names and condemns seven armed groups: M23, the FDLR, the ADF, the APCLS, the Lord’s Resistance Army, the National Force of Liberation (FNL), and various Mai Mai groups. United Nations Security Council, Resolution 2098 S/RES/2098 (2013).
92 Rhoads, Taking Sides in Peacekeeping, 154–6.
93 Swedish Ministry of Defence, The United Nations at War in the DRC? 27.
94 Blazquez, UN Peacekeeping Missions.
95 Confidential interview with a DPKO official, interview by the author, New York, December 2014.
96 United Nations Security Council, Resolution 2098 S/RES/2098 (2013).
97 Content analysis of all resolutions passed between April 1999 and March 2013 was conducted using NVivo 11.4.1 for Mac.
98 Andersen, “The HIPPO in the Room,” 6, 18.
99 Ibid., 18–19.
100 Rhoads, Taking Sides in Peacekeeping, 96–7, 155–6.
101 McGreal, What’s the Point of Peacekeepers When They Don’t Keep the Peace?
102 Confidential interview with a Western diplomat, interview by the author, New York, December 2014.
103 Karlsrud, “The UN at War.”
104 Swedish Ministry of Defence, The United Nations at War in the DRC?
105 Hunt, “All necessary means to what ends? the unintended consequences of the ‘robust turn’ in UN peace operations,” 111.
106 Confidential interview with a DPKO official, interview by the author, New York, December 2014.
107 Guéhenno, Peacekeepers Shouldn’t Always be Peaceful.
108 Peter, “Between Doctrine and Practice,” 352, 59.
109 Andersen, “The HIPPO in the Room,” 16.
110 Confidential interview with a Western diplomat, interview by the author, New York, December 2014.
111 Mitzen, “Ontological Security in World Politics,” 342.
112 Ibid., 342–4.
113 In interviews conducted as part of a larger project I found, like Autesserre, that impartiality was central to peacekeepers’ training and their sense of themselves as ‘professionals’ representing the UN. Autesserre, Peaceland, 237. Confidential interviews with UN peacekeepers, interviews by the author, Freetown, Abidjan, and New York, 2013–2015.
114 Interview with a New York-based peacekeeping expert, interview by the author, New York, November 2015.
115 Cruz et al., Improving Security of United Nations Peacekeepers, 18.
116 Confidential interview with a DPKO official, interview by the author, New York, December 2014.
117 Interview with a New York-based peacekeeping expert, interview by the author, New York, November 2015.
118 Cruz et al., Improving Security of United Nations Peacekeepers, 5.
119 Rhoads, Taking Sides in Peacekeeping, 95–6.
120 It is closer to Lipson’s description of organized hypocrisy in UN peace operations. Lipson, “Peacekeeping: Organized Hypocrisy?”
121 Hopf, “Change in International Practices,” 3.
122 Acharya, “How Ideas Spread,” 244.
123 Wiener, “Enacting Meaning-in-Use,” 184.
124 Andersen’s observations about how different parts of the UN system are ‘pushing back’ against the militarization of UN peace operations provide a useful starting point. Andersen, “The HIPPO in the Room,” 18–19.
125 United Nations Security Council, Resolution 2098 S/RES/2098 (2013).
126 Rhoads, Taking Sides in Peacekeeping, 65–6, 92–3.