United Nations Peace Operations: Evolution, Challenges And New Dynamics

Over the past 70 years, UN peace operations have tended to vary in size, mandate, duration, and rules of engagement (or use of force), as well as in number and variation of the actors involved. The format of each operation depends not only on the circumstances in which it is moved but, above all, on how international society understands this context.
For those who analyze peace operations as an international instrument for conflict management and resolution, write VANESSA BRAGA MATIJASCIC and CAMILA DE MACEDO BRAGA, it is necessary first to understand the conception of the nature and causes of violent conflict that underlies the design of operations. “By understanding the problem, identifying the associated threats and risks, we can then analyze the proposal that engenders and mobilizes the operational new framework of a peace operation,” they write in a working paper titled ‘United Nations Peace Operations: Evolution, challenges, and new dynamics’, published by the University of Sao Paulo’s International Relations Research Center.
Given the three phases of evolution – the emergence of (traditional) POs during the Cold War, their transformation into more complex operations in the 1990s (multidimensional operations), and their consolidation into a format proposed as ‘peace support’ – it is possible to understand that the development of operations occurred from ad hoc responses to particular problems encountered in the field and was not accompanied, simultaneously, by their normative and institutional development. “Nevertheless, the last decades have provided a fruitful space for reviewing, standardizing, and institutionalizing peace operation practices.”
Although the fundamental principles that underpinned the development of POs from the outset involved impartiality, neutrality, and minimal use of force, the authors state, their adherence to these principles often depended on the varying levels of political will of the actors involved, as well as how they understand and position themselves in conflict. These two elements will be decisive for the design and implementation, success or failure, of a peace process.
While the Millennium Development Goals reflected a growing demand for peacebuilding actions, and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development determines the need to make it sustainable in the long term by emphasizing conflict prevention and peacebuilding mechanisms, peace operations emerge as windows of opportunity for this agenda to materialize. Understanding the role of POs in the post-Cold War global governance system is today an essential task for those engaged in international security studies and particular peace studies.
Peace is inherent in human life, yet how we understand it and seek to put it into practice are continually debated and revisited by various academic and decision-makers. The historical development process of POs is marked by several experiences with unintended consequences and results different from what was planned or expected. Notwithstanding, the immediate effects of humanitarian protection and support for populations directly affected by humanitarian conflicts and disasters cannot be relativized. Equally, there is no manner to deny its mechanisms to facilitate a peace process by promoting a space for building trust between parties. Thus, the PO mechanism is not invalidated in situations of extreme human suffering.
At the same time, the contradictions pointed out remained essential challenges to the success of peace operations currently in the field or in the future, in particular concerning mechanisms capable of ensuring effective local dominance over the peacebuilding process. It is observed that local actors cannot always fail to agree with the international peacebuilding agenda to be implemented, producing a local adaptation of international standards that is not always sustainable.