Purposes, Politicization and Pitfalls of Diplomatic Gift-giving to the United Nations

Viewed objectively, diplomatic gift-giving to the UN may appear to be non-reciprocal, in that the donor does not receive a tangible gift of equivalent value from the organisation. Yet it is clear that a significant majority of states have concluded that worthwhile benefits nonetheless accrue from this practice, writes LORAINE SIEVERS. 

Evidence of this is found in the statistic that more than 140 of the UN’s 193 Member States have given at least one gift. However, the fact that approximately 50 countries have not done so suggests that gift-giving to the UN is regarded by the diplomatic community as optional, and not essential to developing a respected profile at the organisation, SIEVERS writes in ‘Purposes, Politicisation and Pitfalls of Diplomatic Gift-giving to the United Nations’ published in the The Hague Journal of Diplomacy.

Within the broad range of cultural activities carried out by Member States, it is virtually impossible to isolate the impact of a particular gift. Nonetheless, decor and furnishings given to the UN may have a longer-lasting effect than an expensive reception or concert which, once over, may soon be forgotten. Norway’s donation of the Security Council Chamber, and its later renovation, have been sources of enduring prestige. These were highlighted as part of Norway’s campaign for a 2021-2022 seat on the Council, and in fact Norway’s campaign logo was the stylised heart of the chamber’s decorative fabric.

In some instances, gift-giving to the UN can be an equaliser. A small state may donate a relatively inexpensive handicraft which, because of its uniqueness and workmanship, may gain more positive attention than another state’s costlier gift. One fairly modest donation which is widely appreciated comes from the island of Palau (population 17,900). It is a 1.5-meter wooden eel which narrates a story through intricate carvings on both sides and has been deemed worthy of display in the high-traffic area outside the Trusteeship Council.

In other instances, gift-giving can accentuate inequalities. The Capital Master Plan renovations created opportunities for redecorating the Delegates Lounge, the Security Council Consultations Room and an adjacent area, but these projects fell well outside the reach of smaller states and rather were financed, respectively, by the Netherlands, the Russian Federation and Turkey.

Overall, it would be too narrow to conclude that states evaluate their own, and others’, gifts to the UN solely on the basis of direct national gain. Each gift to the organisation adds to the collective backdrop of the daily formal and informal conversations which take place there. As Michael Adlerstein, chief architect of the Capital Master Plan, has observed: ‘The delegates enjoy the collection. It is their art, and it is their house’.

Sievers, L. (2021). Purposes, Politicisation and Pitfalls of Diplomatic Gift-giving to the United Nations, The Hague Journal of Diplomacy, 16(1), 110-119. doi: https://doi.org/10.1163/1871191X-BJA10065

Recommendations to Advance the Action for Peacekeeping Agenda

This document offers a consolidated and prioritized list of key recommendations that have been formulated collectively by the CHALLENGES FORUM partnership and its international stakeholders to catalyse and support further action by Member States, the UN Secretariat, and Field Missions in their efforts to advance the UN’s Action for Peacekeeping (A4P) agenda and deliver more effective peace operations.

These recommendations align with the two strategic objectives that the Challenges Forum partnership has agreed to implement from 2019 to 2023. The first is focused on the effective implementation of the development and reform of UN peace operations and related regional partnerships. The second objective has a more specific focus on ensuring that the UN and regional partners have more effective mission leadership and strategic and operational management capacity.

These recommendations are intended to support the holistic implementation of A4P through mutually reinforcing recommendations, drawing on the commitments made in the Declaration of Shared Commitments by Member States, regional organizations and the UN Secretariat. 

Since these recommendations have emerged from discussions among the Challenges Forum over the last two years in parallel with the A4P agenda, some of them may already be partly implemented (for example, measures have been put in place to strengthen performance and training through the Light Coordination Mechanism, as well as the Comprehensive Performance Assessment System). 

The recommendations in this paper are intended to complement those already being implemented by the Secretariat and Member States as part of the A4P agenda. This list is categorized according to the eight thematic areas guiding the A4P agenda.

Challenges Forum Consolidated Recommendations to Advance the Action for Peacekeeping (A4P) Agenda

Beyond the Veto: Roles in UN Security Council Decision-Making

The formal rules governing the UN Security Council offer little insight into how negotiations are conducted on a day-to-day basis. While it is generally assumed that permanent members dominate negotiations, JESS GIFKINS investigates avenues for influence for elected members and the UN Secretariat. 

Institutional power is used to show how permanent members adopt dominant positions in negotiations extending far beyond their Charter-given privileges, he writes in the journal Global Governance: A Review of Multilateralism and International Organizations. 

Dominance of permanent members is moderated, however, by the legitimacy that support from elected members brings to a resolution. Similarly, the UN Secretariat can use its legitimated authority to influence decisions. 

In his article, ‘Beyond the Veto: Roles in UN Security Council Decision-Making’, GIFKINS argues that informal practices are key in understanding how power and influence are allocated in the Council and it forms a building block for future analyses of Security Council practices. This argument also has implications for the perennial reform debates and the prospects for informal reform.

Gifkins, J. (2021). Beyond the Veto, Global Governance: A Review of Multilateralism and International Organizations, 27(1), 1-24. doi: https://doi.org/10.1163/19426720-02701003

Climatizing the UN Security Council

Since 2007, the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) has debated the security implications of climate change on several occasions. In this article, LUCILE MAERTENS addresses these debates by exploring two interrelated questions: What drives the continuous efforts to place climate change on the UNSC’s agenda and to what extent do the UNSC’s debates illustrate an ongoing process of climatization? 

To answer these, the article draws on the concept of climatization, which captures the process through which domains of international politics are framed through a climate lens and transformed as a result of this translation. 

It suggests that climate change has become a dominant framing and an inescapable topic of international relations and that the UNSC debates follow a logic of expansion of climate politics by securing a steady climate agenda, attributing responsibility to the Council in the climate crisis, involving climate actors and advocating for climate-oriented policies to maintain international security.

Maertens, L. Climatizing the UN Security Council. Int Polit (2021). 

https://doi.org/10.1057/s41311-021-00281-9

Mapping Pacific Contributions to UN Peacekeeping

There’s a long and proud history of peacekeeping in the Pacific. Countries in the region have hosted missions, and contributed to them, to support their neighbours, resolve conflicts and maintain a more secure and peaceful region. They have also sent personnel abroad to contribute to global efforts to maintain international peace and security. Yet, this is an area that’s less explored and understood, write LISA SHARLAND and GENEVIEVE FEELY for the Australian Strategic Policy Institute. 

The Pacific is frequently viewed as a beneficiary of peacekeeping rather than as a substantive contributor. In this report, we attempt to address that gap, drawing on interviews and discussions with government officials and returned peacekeepers in seven case-study countries (Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Timor-Leste and Vanuatu). We offer recommendations for Pacific countries, as well as the Australian Government, about opportunities for further partnerships to support the engagement of countries in the region in UN peacekeeping.

Over the past 40 years, countries in the Pacific region have deployed hundreds of military and police personnel to serve in peacekeeping missions around the globe and to support peacebuilding efforts within the region. For most, that has mostly involved deploying individual police and military officers; Fiji is the only country in the region to deploy sizeable troop contingents to missions. Several factors have motivated those deployments, including support for conflict-affected countries, contributing to the rules-based order and maintaining national pride, as well as gaining the benefits of operational experience and financial incentives. For countries such as Timor-Leste and Solomon Islands, which have previously hosted peacekeeping missions, there’s a strong desire to support conflict-affected countries, drawing on their own experiences of hosting peacekeeping missions.

There is interest among Pacific countries in initiating, resuming and continuing engagement in UN peacekeeping. Indeed, the focus on human security and collective action in response to security concerns underpinning the Boe Declaration aligns with contemporary peacekeeping endeavours. However, there are many barriers and challenges to the ongoing deployment of personnel to peacekeeping missions, ranging from limited domestic resources, through to poor access to information and a lack of strategic approach to peacekeeping. While women are represented in some countries’ deployments from the region, they haven’t deployed in others.

To overcome some of those challenges and barriers, Pacific countries could seek to engage more strategically and sustainably with UN peacekeeping by putting in place institutional measures and processes to support engagement. That might include options such as identifying opportunities for deployments and influencing reforms; supporting professional development and leadership opportunities; elevating the training profile of the region; advancing women, peace and security; enhancing regional security cooperation; supporting peacekeepers on operations and on return; and sharing the Pacific’s experiences and lessons. Some of the challenges will require working with partners in the region to support training, enablers, and deployments.

There are many different countries engaged in providing support in the region to facilitate UN peacekeeping engagement, as well as broader security cooperation. Australia has a history of working with partners in the region to support peacekeeping engagement, including deployments as part of missions in Bougainville, Timor-Leste, and Solomon Islands. This has been complemented by the ongoing work of the Defence Cooperation Program, and the Australian Federal Police’s Pacific Development Program. However, there is scope to provide more support.

The ‘Pacific Step-up’ offers an opportunity to build on work that has already taken place with countries in the region to support their peacekeeping engagement. Australia should continue to work with Pacific counterparts to identify areas where they are interested in support, whether it be in the form of technical assistance to develop whole-of-government strategies on peacekeeping, facilitating engagement with UN headquarters and regional peacekeeping institutions, undertaking an audit of training and capability gaps, identifying the barriers to women’s participation, or facilitating regional discussions on engagement in UN peacekeeping. There would be considerable benefits if these activities were undertaken in a coordinated manner with New Zealand. Work underway to facilitate a Memorandum of Understanding with Fiji on peacekeeping, and to support the development of the Blackrock Peacekeeping and Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief Camp, will offer opportunities for further cooperation. Mechanisms such as the annual Joint Heads of Pacific Security leaders’ meetings could offer a valuable platform to exchange lessons and identify areas for further civil-military cooperation in this regard. Importantly, this support needs to be guided by the requirements and objectives of the countries in the region. Any initiatives will need to listen carefully to the needs of countries in the Pacific and recognise potential limits.

Engaging in dialogue around UN peacekeeping can also offer an opportunity for preliminary conversations about what the region can do to talk about peace in a Pacific way. With concerns about potential crises in the region in the future, dialogue and cooperation offer an opportunity to plan and facilitate responses when there are threats to regional security. Cooperation to support the development of skills and further professionalise civil-military approaches as part of preparation for UN peacekeeping missions, will have longer-term benefits for the region in the event of a crisis, whether or not the UN is involved.

Mapping Pacific contributions to UN peacekeeping

Peace Operations Are What States Make of Them: Why Future Evolution is More Likely Than Extinction

“Peace operations are a highly resilient international institution for managing armed conflict. Their resilience derives from what constructivists in International Relations theory call collective intentionality and the malleable constitutive rules that define and structure such missions,” write KATHARINA P. COLEMAN and PAUL D. WILLIAMS in the journal Contemporary Security Policy.

“Despite a range of current constraints, challenges, and crises, peace operations are unlikely to become extinct unless a critical mass of states consistently withdraw material support for them and explicitly denigrate the concept of peace operations itself. 

“We see little evidence that both these things are likely to occur. However, the constitutive rules guiding peace operations are likely to continue to evolve due to ideational and material changes. While the proliferation of actors and mission types makes precise predictions impossible, we expect an evolution both in how various actors define their own peace operations and how these actors relate to each other.”

Katharina P. Coleman & Paul D. Williams (2021) Peace operations are what states make of them: Why future evolution is more likely than extinction, Contemporary Security Policy, DOI: 10.1080/13523260.2021.1882802

Onward to the Sustainable Development Agenda 2030: Will COVID-19 Leave Many Behind?

Onward to the Sustainable Development Agenda 2030: Will COVID-19 leave many behind? | ORF: This paper analyses the impact of the pandemic on the SDGs at a global level and highlights India’s experience. 

The multiple ramifications of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the lockdowns imposed by countries as a response, are being felt in sectors ranging from agriculture to healthcare, SOUMYA BHOWMICK writes for New Delhi-based OBSERVER RESEARCH FOUNDATION. 

The global community must now hurdle massive obstacles to achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). To correctly assess the impact of the pandemic on global sustainability-driven concerns, it is important to understand not only the inter-linkages between the SDGs, but their trade-offs as well. 

This paper analyses the impact of the pandemic on the SDGs at a global level and highlights India’s experience. It outlines the economic fallout of the pandemic across various sectors while underlining the cross-linkages between those sectors and the SDGs. The paper argues that such an understanding can guide the formulation of development policy resolutions.

Soumya Bhowmick, “Onward to the Sustainable Development Agenda 2030: Will COVID-19 leave many behind?” ORF Occasional Paper No. 301, February 2021, Observer Research Foundation.

The US and China at the UN: Global Diplomacy

The US and China at the UN: Global Diplomacy: Insights from Jeffrey Feltman.

MERCY KUO in conversation with Jeffrey Feltman, John C. Whitehead Visiting Fellow in International Diplomacy in the Foreign Policy program at the Brookings Institution and former undersecretary for political affairs at the United Nations in New York.

‘Leave No One Behind’ – Five Years Into Agenda 2030: Guidelines for Turning the Concept Into Action

‘Leave no one behind’ – five years into Agenda 2030: guidelines for turning the concept into action: This report discusses the interpretation of the ’leave no one behind’ principle to date, and how to advance the agenda.

The Covid-19 pandemic has stalled global progress on many of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), including ending extreme poverty by 2030. Inequality is rising and hard-won gains in poverty reduction are being reversed, in rich and poor countries alike. The pandemic has also shone new light on long-standing barriers to progress in reducing inequalities – notably the concentration of persisting deprivations in groups who share certain identities (e.g. age, race or ethnicity, having a disability), places of residence (e.g. remote areas) and/or experiences (e.g. forced migration).

The ‘leave no one behind’ (LNOB) agenda rose to prominence as the Millennium Development Goal era closed. It was increasingly recognised that concentrating policy on outcomes defined by national averages concealed  disparities affecting the poorest groups. The LNOB focus seeks to redress this failure by making progress for these poorest groups central to the realisation of the SDGs. countries pledged through Agenda 2030 ‘that no one will be left behind ... we wish to see the Goals and targets met for all nations and peoples and for all segments of society. And we will endeavor to reach the furthest behind first’.

This report discusses the interpretation of the principle to date, and how to advance the agenda. It is accompanied by an executive summary and an annex containing technical details and context to the main report.

Financing Peacebuilding: The Role of Private-Sector Actors

Financing Peacebuilding: The Role of Private-Sector Actors: What is the role of the private sector in financing peacebuilding? This paper proposes a taxonomy of private-sector actors and principles.

In some circles, it has become customary to think of peacebuilding as a task that should be funded by international organisations such as the United Nations. The costs of peacebuilding activities should then be borne by UN Member States or other multilateral organisations, perhaps acting in unison. In this scenario, the roles or contributions of private-sector actors may seem unclear, or even irrelevant.

And yet, the emerging reality of new funding models for peacebuilding activities suggests that the private sector can and does in fact play a significant role in peacebuilding and sustaining peace. Within the business community, philanthropic concepts such as corporate social responsibility, while complex and somewhat difficult to define, present further evidence that the strict separation between the private and public sectors is no longer valid.

How then do businesses operating in international contexts interact with the UN and other multilateral actors? Can we speak of an emerging ecosystem of private-sector actors and activities that plays a role in sustaining peace? What are the social, diplomatic, and economic implications of private-sector involvement for local communities and relations between states, and inter-state conflict in particular?

This paper provides preliminary answers to these questions, and proposes a taxonomy of private-sector actors and principles. Its main focus is on the international (that is, multinational) private sector and its role in funding peacebuilding initiatives. It argues that, despite the business case for peace, guidance on standards and best practices is still required in order to ensure that private actors contribute positively to peace, rather than merely avoiding conflict or causing harm.

Unpacking How Peacekeeping Affects Violence – What the Data Can Tell Us

Read LISA HULTMAN’S captivating on ZIF TECHPOPS post on how data can help peacekeeping missions better understand how to prioritize, how to make the best use of their resources and justify the allocation of funds and resources. Linking data on peacekeeping deployments and capacities with data on the occurrence of violence irrespective of UN troop presence, it is possible to unpack practical questions on the effectiveness of peacekeeping deployments, especially their impact on conflict dynamics, and even improve general forecasting and prediction.

Unpacking how peacekeeping affects violence – what the data can tell us | ZIF Berlin