Trabalho

Introduction: Thinking Anew about Peace Operations
A L E X J . B E L L A M Y a n d PA U L W I L L I A M S

In his address to the UN General Assembly in September 1999, Kofi Annan insisted that ‘state sovereignty . . . is being redefined by the forces of globalisation and international cooperation. These developments demand of us a willingness to think anew about how the United Nations responds to the political, human rights and humanitarian crises affecting so much of the world’.1 International responses to these challenges have varied. The Canadian government, for example, has spoken at length about ‘human security’ and supported an international commission to develop a more reconciliatory approach to the relationship between sovereignty and human rights.2 In Britain, the then Foreign Secretary, Robin Cook, proposed a set of criteria to guide future humanitarian interventions.3 The Secretary-General himself commissioned the so-called Brahimi Report. This was to conduct a thorough investigation of past and current peace operations, question the conceptual assumptions behind them and suggest how the UN Secretariat and its decision-making bodies might improve their responses to political and human rights crises. The Brahimi Report was officially launched at the UN’s Millennium Summit in September 2000. Far from challenging first principles, however, the Report focused upon how the UN Secretariat’s staff working on peacekeeping might better manage personnel in the field to produce more effective results.4 To promote better management of peace operations the Report made four major recommendations:
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The military component of a peace operation should be robust enough to defend itself effectively and protect civilians under its care. There should be greater consultation between the Security Council and troop contributing countries. The Security Council should not authorize a mission until it has the means to accomplish its goals. The planning and