Climate Change and Peace Operations

What can UN peace operations, designed primarily to supervise cease-fires and rebuild states after civil wars, do to protect the environment and combat the effects of climate change?

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"Facilitating climate change to be more in the purview of the Security Council constitutes only a first step to involve peace operations further in environmental concerns," contends PAUL DIEHL, in an essay for the Oxford Research Group.
"The development of an independent capacity for data collection, modelling, and early warning systems provides the infrastructure to make proper and timely decisions for peace operation authorisation once climate change is on the agenda.
"If other UN agencies and NGOs bring climate change mitigation and adaptation programs to peacebuilding in post-conflict environments, this opens up the opportunities for coordination with peace operations, without expecting the latter to carry out functions for which they are not well-suited.
"Such coordination requires advance planning among different actors, but such networks are already present in peacebuilding operations and therefore these mechanisms offer the best prospects for UN peacekeeping to enhance its footprint in climate change responses."

Shrinking Spaces of Humanitarian Protection

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Since the beginning of the Syrian civil war, Jordan, Lebanon, and Turkey have admitted hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees and provided them with temporary protection. “Often, the Islamic umma was invoked to justify this ‘open-door policy,” writes CHRISTIANE FRÖHLICH in a paper for the German Institute of Global and Area Studies. 

The swift success of similar uprisings in Egypt, Tunisia, and Yemen can doubtlessly be considered a decisive factor for the three governments’ willingness to initially tolerate the inflow of Syrians, she adds in the GIGA Focus titled ‘Shrinking Spaces of Humanitarian Protection’.

However, the spaces of humanitarian protection provided by each of the three states began to shrink from 2014 onwards, when it became clear that the Syrian war was not going to be over any time soon, that the refugees were more likely to stay than to return, and that the international community was unwilling to share the burden – as was illustrated by both the severe underfunding of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and a strong focus on immigration deterrence.

Internal dynamics – the escalation of the Kurdish issue and an attempted coup in Turkey, progressing political fragmentation in Lebanon, economic troubles in Jordan – also contributed to a decrease in support for hospitality towards Syrians, she states.

Clearly, the policies all three states started out with provided fast and relatively non-bureaucratic refuge for Syrians fleeing the civil war, while excluding them from the special protection that comes with the official refugee status – de facto freezing them in legal limbo. “All three states have experienced the shocking disinterest of the international community in the Syrian crisis, which became most apparent in the enduring and severe underfunding of aid efforts in the region,” FRÖHLICH states.

Turkey, as a rising economy, has been able to provide quite a bit more protection than Jordan or Lebanon have, but could still use these efforts for its own political advantage, she adds.

With the civil war raging on much longer than expected, both hosting states and Syrians hoping for a return home have adjusted to the increasingly protracted situation. Syrians who could afford it attempted to find refuge in Europe, with thousands dying on the perilous journey. Jordan, Lebanon, and Turkey almost completely reversed their initial policies in late 2014/early 2015, meanwhile, after years of receiving and caring for Syrian refugees. All three states began to emulate the long-standing migration-deterrence policies of the Global North, with border closings, migrant criminalizations, and deportations becoming regular practices. In consequence, the spaces of humanitarian protection available to Syrians shrank markedly in all three states.

“Even though this development is another instance of shrinking spaces of civilian agency, with refugees becoming mere pawns in national, regional, and international politics,” FRÖHLICH writes, “it is also one that has not been sufficiently reflected in the debates on this issue.”

An important point to consider for actors trying to solve the Syrian refugee issue is how efforts to ‘reconstruct’ the Syrian state will impact their situation both in the very states in which actors from the Global North are advocating they should stay, and as potential returnees. As the spaces of protection for refugees continue to shrink both within the region and beyond, return is increasingly presented as the most viable option for Syrians. “At the same time, it is entirely unclear how they will fare if reconstruction is happening in cooperation with the very actors that drove them out of the country in the first place,” FRÖHLICH states.

Fröhlich, Christiane (2018), Shrinking Spaces of Humanitarian ­Protection, GIGA Focus Middle East, 06, December, urn:nbn:de:0168-ssoar-61075-9

Competing Internationalisms: US, UK, and the Formation of the UN Information Organization during World War II

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Accepted wisdom rightly emphasizes the dominant role of the United States in the formation of the United Nations, writes GILES SCOTT-SMITH, but this needs to be seen in the context of a transition from British to American views on world organization.
By tracing the development of the UN Information Office (UNIO) through the lens of competing British and American internationalisms, the significance of this bureau in terms of the evolution of Anglo-American relations and their respective ideas of world order becomes clear, he writes in the International Journal for History, Culture and Modernity.
The first step towards what would become the UNIO was taken in September 1940 with the creation of the Inter-Allied Information Committee and its Information Center (IAIC) in New York in September 1940. It was created due to a combination of national emergency (the fall of France) and bureaucratic rivalry (between Foreign Office and Ministry of Information). From 1941, when the MI created a London office, there was a New York/London duality in information provision that continued up to 1944.
Partly this was due to constitutional limitations in the US and bureaucratic rivalries in Britain, but it also expressed the British desire to keep hold of this vital arm of public diplomacy in an era when British global influence was obviously going to decline. The MI’s aim to promote British interests gradually gave way to a multilateral IAIC-UNIO apparatus where Britain would hopefully be supported by the Dominions, but the United States, actively building the post-war order through the new UN organizations, was determined to secure its dominant position.
UNIO, dating from 1942, holds the distinction of being both the first international agency of the embryonic UN network and the first to hold the United Nations label. Run from 1942 to 1945 from two offices in New York and London, these two were merged at the end of World War II to form the UN Information Organization, and subsequently transformed into the Department of Public Information run from UN headquarters in New York.
“The UNIO story therefore illustrates in detail how differing Anglo-American internationalist viewpoints competed over the control of wartime information provision, and how this should be seen as another important stage in the transition of global power from London to Washington during the mid-twentieth century,” GILES SCOTT-SMITH stresses.

Evaluating the Conflict-Reducing Effect of UN Peacekeeping Operations

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While several studies have established the beneficial effects of peacekeeping operations (PKOs), by looking at individual effect pathways (intensity, duration, recurrence, diffusion) in isolation, they underestimate the peacekeeping impact of PKOs.
Writing in The Journal of Politics, HÅVARD HEGRE, LISA HULTMAN and HÅVARD MOKLEIV NYGÅRD propose a novel method of evaluating the combined impact across all pathways based on a statistical model of the efficacy of UN PKOs in preventing the onset, escalation, continuation, and recurrence of internal armed conflict. The authors run a set of simulations based on the statistical estimates to assess the impact of alternative UN policies for the 2001-13 period.
If the UN had invested US$200 billion in PKOs with strong mandates, major armed conflict would have been reduced by up to two-thirds relative to a scenario without PKOs and 150,000 lives would have been saved over the 13-year period compared to a no-PKO scenario, they write. “UN peacekeeping is clearly a cost-effective way of increasing global security.”
In their paper, “Evaluating the Conflict-Reducing Effect of UN Peacekeeping Operations”, HEGRE, HULTMAN and NYGÅRD have evaluated a number of potential UN PKO scenarios and their prospects in reducing conflict.
“The UN’s new peacebuilding agenda, spearheaded by Secretary-General António Guterres, puts the focus squarely on managing the outbreak, escalation, continuation, and recurrence of conflict. We have shown that PKOs are an efficient tool for managing these pathways.”
By simulating different scenarios, the authors have estimated the effect on the future incidence of conflict of different types of missions and of varying the money spent on PKOs. “The results show that PKOs have a clear conflict-reducing effect.”
The effect of PKOs is largely limited to preventing major armed conflicts. However, there is a discernible indirect effect since the reduction of conflict intensity also tends to increase the chances of peace in following years, the authors stress. There are also some interesting regional differences. PKOs have the strongest effect in three regions that have been particularly afflicted by conflict: West Asia and North Africa; East, Central, and Southern Africa; South and Central Asia.
These findings have clear policy implications, HEGRE, HULTMAN and NYGÅRD state, adding that they illustrate the effect of different PKO policies. “We also estimate the cost of those different policies. In one of the most extensive scenarios— in which major armed conflicts receive a PKO with an annual budget of US$800 million— the total UN peacekeeping budget is estimated to approximately double. However, in this scenario, the risk of major armed conflict is reduced by two-thirds relative to a scenario without any PKO.”
This indicates that a large UN peacekeeping budget is money well spent. Moreover, the total PKO budget would increase for about 10 years and then start decreasing again as a result of a reduced number of conflicts in the world.
In another scenario, which specifies that major conflicts get a PKO with a transformational mandate in the first year, the risk of conflict is reduced by two-thirds in 2013 compared to a scenario without any PKO.
“If the UN is serious about maintaining international peace and security, it is important to consider the impact of different policies regarding mandates and budgets, as well as the reaction time from a conflict outbreak to the deployment of a mission.”
The authors say that the methodology they use opens up new interesting questions and possible extensions to the research presented. “One pertinent question is whether the quality of PKOs may not be equally important for its efficiency as the mandate and the budget.” Troop-contributing countries have varying levels of military training, and a large number of countries contributing troops to a single mission may introduce coordination problems.
Another relevant issue is the impact of regional security actors. “In this paper, we have evaluated the effect of UN PKOs, but the UN is not the only actor doing peacekeeping. For example, the African Union and NATO have been involved in several conflict and post-conflict situations.”
Therefore, the authors stress, it would be interesting to assess whether these actors differ in their peacekeeping efficacy and subsequently simulate a future scenario that takes into account the involvement of regional actors in peacekeeping. “The simulation procedure used here offers a useful tool for evaluating the practical relevance of theoretical insights as well as assessing the impact of different policies.”

Håvard Hegre, Lisa Hultman, and Håvard Mokleiv Nygård, “Evaluating the Conflict-Reducing Effect of UN Peacekeeping Operations,” The Journal of Politics 81, no. 1 (January 2019): 215-232.
https://doi.org/10.1086/700203

The New Silk Road and its Potential for Sustainable Development

How open digital participation could make BRI a role model for sustainable businesses and markets

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As China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is projected to invest a US$1 trillion budget across Asia, Africa and Europe, Beijing aspires to contribute also to the global agenda of sustainable development.
PETER SEELE, CHRISTOPH D. JIA and DIRK HELBING argue that only open digital participation of all citizens, corporations and governments and the collective intelligence, collaborative innovation and co-creation will make BRI a global role model for sustainability.
“[I]t is the civil society, i.e. the people who work and live, consume and pay taxes to their governments, who should be able to contribute to and co-create the new, sustainable world of the gigantic Silk Road project,” the authors write in a commentary for the Asian Journal of Sustainability and Social Responsibility. “This would add also to social sustainability and social justice, identified as a key driver of the BRI, which is thus far underrepresented.”
The overall mandate of the United Nations should, therefore, be revisited in favor of a digital and more open, participatory perspective, the authors stress, adding: In today’s unsustainable world, we need resilient systems and organization. Resilience is increased by diversity, decentralization, and subsidiarity. Sustainability is improved by more awareness and opportunities to create feedbacks incentivizing a circular and sharing economy.
“All in all, to accomplish the transformation to a resilient and sustainable world, more participatory opportunities are needed.”
To turn the new Silk Road into a great economic, social, and environmental success story for all involved, in a highly networked, globalized, complex world with limited resources, the key ingredients for success are the following 10Cs: co-thinking, co-working, co-learning, co-creation, combinatorial innovation, co-ownership, co-ordination, co-operation, co-evolution, and collective intelligence.
By linking BRI with digital infrastructures and corporate data management systems, a coordinated but distributed effort may be achieved with positive effects on social responsibility and sustainability for supply chains, data management, corporate reporting and regulatory issues.
“Even if the (normative) claims of decentralized participatory digital platforms are politically opportune and feasible,” the authors contend, “it remains an open question whether or not political will and international consensus emerges that would make the New Silk Road contribute to all three dimensions of sustainability (economic, environmental, and social). Currently, the lack of social responsibility and sustainability of this planet’s management implies a risk of dangerous cascading effects and conflicts, which are a threat to all countries. This needs to be changed.”

A European Security Council: Added Value for the European Union’s Foreign and Security Policy?

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Would the creation of a European Security Council (ESC) add value for the European Union's Foreign and Security Policy? MARKUS KAIM and RONJA KEMPIN explore the issue in their article for the German Institute for International and Security Affairs.
The German proposal to create such a body has so far remained vague, and little has been set out in detail. Such a project is controversial among EU members, the authors contend. "The German idea can only be successfully implemented if EU member states’ gain in capacity for decision-making and action compensates for their loss of sovereignty in foreign and security policy," KAIM and KEMPIN write.
However, in view of the rather unenthusiastic attitude towards integration by many member states, it is obvious that any ESC project should not be conceived as a quantum leap in integration policy, they stress.
"At best, the German proposal can therefore aim to establish a foreign and security policy leadership group." If this group was removed from the EU framework, it would additionally be possible to benefit from the contributions and skills of the UK or Norway, for ex­am­ple. Nevertheless, such an approach risks weakening the Common Foreign and Security Policy/Common Security and Defense Policy.
For this reason, the authors contend, the German Government should consider whether its plan to extend majority voting in EU foreign policy is not in fact better suited to increasing the EU’s capacity to make decisions than establishing an ESC.