BEYOND BLUE HELMETS: Promoting Weapons and Ammunition Management in Non-UN Peace Operations

More than 25 organizations apart from the United Nations have deployed more than 100 peace operations to date. These non-UN organizations face the same challenges as the UN in securing their contingent-owned equipment (COE) and the lethal materiel they recover. Non-UN peace operations may even be more vulnerable to these challenges than UN operations, according to a new report.
Thousands of small arms and light weapons as well as millions of rounds of ammunition have been lost in recent years as a result of attacks on fixed sites, patrols, and convoy movements, according to the report, ‘Beyond Blue Helmets: Promoting Weapons and Ammunition Management in Non-UN Peace Operations’. Forced abandonment of COE, burglary, theft, corruption, as well as poor discipline and practices also contribute to diversion of materiel.
The report, published by Small Arms Survey last month, focuses on defining key terms, identifying the actors undertaking non-UN peacekeeping operations, and analyzing the challenges they face as well as the control measures that exist to mitigate the risks and reduce the loss of arms and ammunition.
Written by ERIC G. BERMAN, ‘Beyond Blue Helmets’ also highlights efforts some of these actors are presently undertaking to develop more effective checks and balances to enhance weapons and ammunition management practices in peace operations and suggests additional measures that could be undertaken towards these ends.
“Some regional organizations have undertaken to create or implement existing controls to reduce the chances of such diversion,” according to the report. Given overlapping memberships, some regional organizations (such as the Lake Chad Basin Commission) can benefit from the commitments their member states have made as part of other arms control frameworks (such as the Economic Community of West African States Convention).
“This assumes an attention to detail and a congruency among organizations and arms control frameworks that currently do not exist but may be changing,” BERMAN states. “The UN can benefit from commitments its member states have made as part of regional frameworks that are more stringent than the UN’s requirements.”