Reforming the United Nations Security Council: An Assessment of the ‘Group of Four’ Proposal

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ADRIAN KANTILAL SHAH, considering the major proposals to reform the structure of the United Nations Security Council, concludes that the one put forward by the Group of Four (Japan, India, Brazil and Germany) is the most ideal. In addition to giving permanent seats to the aforementioned four countries, the proposal envisages two permanent seats for African states. Four additional nonpermanent seats would be created, one each for Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe and Latin America.
While providing member states that have made substantial contributions in maintaining international peace and security an opportunity to continue doing so on a permanent basis, SHAH contends, the Group of Four proposal achieves the main goal of structural reform: making the Security Council more representative of today’s world.
In other words, apart from providing better representation to regions that have historically been underrepresented in the world’s top decision-making body, the proposal adds permanent seat holders. “This is important because it acts as a buffer to the power and control which is currently exercised by the Permanent Five Member States,” SHAH states. This element sets it apart from the Uniting for Consensus proposal, which focuses specifically on creating new non-permanent seats which, in effect, maintains the current 'class-system' within the Security Council.
While it can be argued that the Group of Four proposal, too, maintains the same ‘class-system’ by adding permanent members, SHAH writes, it must be viewed against its transformative potential through its recognition of Member-States that have grown economically as well as militarily as well as the need for better representation to regions such as Africa, Asia and Latin America in a proportionate manner.
Of the other dimensions of reform, he states, the Security Council in recent years has made progress in re-assessing and amending its working methods, thereby working toward building greater accountability and transparency. The question of the veto is more complicated. Here, too, there is growing recognition that exercise of the veto should be restricted in order to permit the Security Council to carry out its work more effectively.

International Support of the G5 Sahel Joint Force: A Fragile Military Response

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The Sahel Joint Force (JF-G5S) initiative represents a broader tendency of seeking ‘African solutions to African problems’ on a continent where Western states are reluctant to deploy troops due to domestic political and budgetary constraints, writes SIGNE MARIE COLD-RAVNKILDE in a new policy brief for the Danish Institute for International Studies. However, the force is still far from operational, and it is questionable what the force can actually achieve given the circumstances on the ground.
"France has been the most active European member-state in the Sahel in terms of military engagement. Yet after four years of deploying 4,000 soldiers to its counterinsurgency operation, Barkhane, French resources are overstretched, and new partners are needed to complement their fight against terrorism in the Sahara," she writes.
"[T]apping into a broader discussion of the UN’s suitability in asymmetrical warfare, the direct counterinsurgency mandate of JF-G5S was a much-requested add-on to the UN stabilisation mission in Mali (MINUSMA) and Operation Barkhane. Since the deployment of more than 13,000 of MINUSMA’s troops in 2013, of which about 35% originate from the G5 states, regional actors have expressed concerns that the UN has not done enough to counter terrorism. As jihadist violence has grown steadily in Mali’s cross-border regions outside the scope of MINUSMA’s mandate, the incentives of neighbouring states to engage in counterinsurgency operations have increased.
Teething problems risk becoming permanent financial, institutional and legitimacy deficits of the force, COLD-RAVNKILDE writes. "For the JF-G5S to become operational, its international partners must increase sustained financial and logistical support while ensuring that accountability mechanisms and human rights frameworks are adequately developed and implemented. However, even if operational, the JF-G5S alone cannot solve the root causes of long-standing security challenges deeply embedded in historical conflict dynamics and aggravated local grievances. This would require the G5 states and their partners prioritise human security and targeted development activities in remote and neglected cross-border regions."

Use of Force in Humanitarian Crises: Addressing the Limitations of UN Security Council Authorization

"While the use of force without explicit UN authorization may be perceived as pushing the limits of international law," PAUL R. WILLIAMS and SOPHIE PEARLMAN argue, "a framework helps to ensure that use of force will fit under R2P." The authors propose the following criteria:
(1) a prima facie case must be established that atrocity crimes are occurring or are about to occur;
(2) peaceful options have been exhausted;
(3) the Security Council is unable to act in a timely and appropriate manner;
(4) any military force used must be limited to low-intensity options designed to protect populations and must be carried out in such a way as to limit collateral damage;
(5) the use of low-intensity military force must be authorized by a legitimate authority, which could include the UN General Assembly, regional organizations, or international coalitions;
(6) the intervention must come at the request of credible opposition groups that represent victims of atrocity crimes and shall be done collectively by members of the
international community; and
(7) the use of force should be followed up with or integrated into a larger strategy and policy for addressing the humanitarian crisis.
"[Such a framework] would allow for interventions to protect civilians in situations where the Security Council is gridlocked but a rogue state is actively harming or plans to harm its people and would codify a customary international legal norm for humanitarian intervention. Moreover, this framework would provide opportunities for justifying the use of force along the lines of international law and for the U.S. to cite international law as a legal justification for its actions."

The Russian Federation’s Involvement in Peace Missions After the Dissolution of the USSR

Until the 1970s, the USSR’s involvement in peacekeeping missions under the UN was moderate, mainly due to the confrontation with the United States, MICHAŁ ROMAŃCZUK writes. Only after the break-up of the Soviet Union, the Russian Federation began to develop moderate international cooperation as part of the UN peacekeeping force during the Balkan crisis in 1991–1992. Later, after completing the mission in the Balkans at the beginning of the 21st century, the involvement of the Russian Federation in such missions began to decrease.
By sending so-called peace missions to post-Soviet areas, ROMAŃCZUK states, the Russian Federation strives to implement its own foreign policy priorities. “To this end, it uses instruments such as supporting politically and militarily regimes and states that support the Russian authorities. The aim of engaging the Russian peacekeeping forces in the post-Soviet area is to strive to maintain a dominant position in this area, which illustrates Russia’s actions interfering in the internal affairs of the countries located there.”
Although they are called peace forces of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), these contingents in fact mostly consist of Russian soldiers. “Often their actions go beyond the legal framework and favor one of the parties to the conflict.” In addition, the Russian Federation does not allow the introduction of branches under international auspices, fearing that it will not have control over them. Such actions are not conducive to the stabilization of crisis situations. The Russian Federation has often fueled conflicts between the warring parties in pursuit of their own vested interests, and participation in peace-keeping operations in post-Soviet countries was also seen as a way to gain political influence over this area.

United Nations Peacekeeping Operations: Causes for Failure and Continuing Relevance

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Decades after the deployment of the first peacekeeping operation (PKO)—United Nations Truce Supervision Organization (UNTSO)—in 1948, the United Nations cannot boast of too many successes, writes A.K. BARDALAI. The continued relevance of UN PKOs has thus come under criticism.
In order to determine whether UN PKOs are still relevant, it is necessary to obtain a clear understanding of the reasons/factors for their success and failure, and thereafter assess their performance, he asserts in an article titled "United Nations Peacekeeping Operations: Causes for Failure and Continuing Relevance" in the Journal of Defence Studies.
Based on his personal experience of peacekeeping and prior research, BARDALAI seeks to highlight a few factors that have an overriding influence on the outcome of a PKO. He also attempts to provide a perspective on the relevance of the PKO in context of the challenges they face regarding planning, deployment and execution of such operations.
"The situation surrounding the conflict and circumstances leading to the peace agreement, availability of the consent of the disputants, support of the international community, the decision-making process, and relevance of the principles of peacekeeping are the most common causes impacting the outcome of the peace process," BARDALAI writes. "Furthermore, factors like the support of the UN Security Council, intensity of the debate therein, and funding for the operation also affect the peace process. However, unless there is coherence between the mandate, strategies, plans, programme initiatives, structures, processes and networks, a PKO cannot be a success."
Despite many studies undertaken to find ways to meet these challenges, BARDALAI asserts, nothing much has changed from Rwanda in 1994 to South Sudan in 2016. "This is because there is a huge gap between what is professed conceptually and how it is interpreted during its implementation. The way the basic principles of peacekeeping are interpreted is the biggest challenge impacting all PKOs and, most importantly, those nations who contribute with their peacekeepers in large numbers."
BARDALAI maintains that the subject of success and failures will remain an enigma because, first, defining success itself is a problem. Second, while there are common causes for success and failure, these vary from conflict to conflict.
Given the challenges and the slow progress in peacekeeping reform, the relevance of the PKOs will have to be examined in the context of availability of an alternate mechanism to restore normalcy in the conflict zone. In the absence of any other, better, substitute, he asserts, "it is reasonable to believe that UN PKOs are going to stay as one of the main alternatives for restoring peace in conflict zones."

To UN or Not to UN: The Question of Nordic UN Peacekeeping

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As the Cold War came to an end UN peacekeeping underwent a radical change. Its remit transformed from one of maintaining ceasefires to include multi-dimensional engagements in states emerging from war through a range of measures, including the deployment of soldiers, but also the organisation of elections and building of democratic institutions.
"For the Nordic countries, the UN of the 1990s represented a natural and attractive framework for supporting peace operations globally", according to a new policy brief by the DANISH INSTITUTE OF INTERNATIONAL STUDIES (DIIS). Indeed, it appeared an ideal avenue for the outward promotion of values related to the Nordic welfare state model, which was considered a legitimate and worthwhile foreign policy objective in the early 1990s.
All the Nordic countries sharply reduced their contributions to UN peacekeeping operations after 1995, as events in Srebrenica in particular, but also the genocide in Rwanda in 1994, highlighted two major trends in peacekeeping. First, they demonstrated how quickly the UN had taken on a wide-ranging role in post-Cold War international conflict management, with a dramatic expansion in the number of missions and peacekeepers. Second, they showed the limitations of deploying lightly-armed peacekeepers in war zones who were only allowed to use force in self-defence. They proved unable to prevent mass killings in Srebrenica, and even had difficulty protecting themselves.
"Lack of robustness of UN peacekeeping in the 1990s drove the armed forces of the Nordic states away from the organisation," the DIIS stresses. "Ironically, the present expanded will of the UN to use force in peacekeeping operations contradicts what was the attraction of the UN framework immediately after the Cold War, namely its peaceful, neutral and non-violent approach to international conflicts. There is a strong sense among the Nordic states that the UN is not up to the task in Mali, and their hesitation has been reinforced, not eased, by engaging in the mission.
"However, as the only truly global organisation, it may also be the best option when it comes to solving matters of global peace and security. Making symbolic contributions is insufficient. This means that the Nordics must step up their UN game if they want to ensure its continued relevance."

The Dragon in Turtle Bay: The Impact of China’s Rise in the UN on the United States and Global Governance

China’s role in the United Nations is steadily rising at a time the United States is seeking burden-sharing and rethinking its multilateral leadership role. In this article, MARK P. LAGON and THERESA LOU highlight that China’s increasing role in three critical areas — (1) UN peacekeeping; (2) the work of the UN on human rights, particularly in the Human Rights Council; and (3) the governance of the digital realm and Internet freedom — has significant implications for U.S. interests and broader global governance efforts.
Although China’s transformation into a responsible stakeholder in various areas of the UN’s work could be promising, Beijing’s attempts to alter existing liberal norms bear close examination, they write. "As China boldly promotes its alternative vision for global governance, the United States needs to work with fellow market democracies to reaffirm and rededicate themselves to the liberal international order. Such collective action is a matter of interest, not altruism."
Those seeking a larger Chinese role in the UN might best be careful what they wish for, the authors contend. Despite the emergence of populism and some skepticism of multilateral arrangements in their domestic politics, the United States and like-minded nations have an interest in reinforcing liberal norms in these three areas of global governance and beyond.