China and Peacekeeping: Unfolding the Political and Legal Complexities of an Ambivalent Relationship

Intensifying its engagement with UN peacekeeping in the past decade, Beijing has, in particular, supported and participated in peace operations that were not fully compatible with the consensual, impartial, and non-coercive models of peacekeeping traditionally employed by the United Nations. 
China’s endorsement of offensive and intrusive missions is not inconsequential, given that it clashes with its professed adherence to rigid interpretations of the principles of sovereignty, non-intervention, and the non-use of force in international relations, MAURO BARELLI writes. 
“[T]o make sense of China’s involvement in unconventional peacekeeping operations one must examine the broader process of foreign policy recalibration that is redefining the interests and priorities of the country as a new great power,” BARELLI writes in the Asian Journal of International Law. 
Furthermore, by examining China’s ambivalent approach to the principles that have traditionally defined the legal framework of UN peacekeeping, his article, titled ‘China and Peacekeeping: Unfolding the Political and Legal Complexities of an Ambivalent Relationship’, highlights the opportunities and challenges that China will face as a provider of international security.
As a global economic power increasingly exposed to the risks and costs of conflicts around the world, the author states, China has naturally integrated into its foreign policy the question of instability in strategically important regions. In light of its non-confrontational nature, peacekeeping has been elected as an instrument capable of contributing to achieve the abovementioned objective without calling into question China’s continued adherence to a non-interventionist foreign policy. 
Direct engagement in peacekeeping operations further allows China to project the image of a country committed to human protection, while offering its military an opportunity to improve its combat readiness. However, the author states, these benefits come with a number of challenges revolving around China's interpretation and application of the classic principles of peacekeeping.
The first set of challenges derives from the aggressive nature of the peace operations recently supported by China. Missions such as those in the Democratic Republic of Congo (MINUSCO), Mali (MINUSMA), and South Sudan (UNMISS) are authorized to use offensive, as opposed to defensive, force. In addition, MINUSCO and MINUSMA are instructed to target specific “enemies” rather than remaining impartial. 
“Beijing can take comfort in the fact that peacekeepers are still deployed with the consent of the host state and are normally mandated to support the efforts of the latter in re-establishing peace and security,” BARELLI writes. Furthermore, the fact that offensive force has mainly been used to counter terrorist threats suits China’s ambition to become an important player in international efforts to combat terrorism, he adds. 
At the same time, an escalation in the use of force by non-impartial peacekeeping units, both in itself and in combination with the consequences attached to it, raises a number of issues for Beijing given its traditional foreign policy posture and professed commitment to a strict interpretation of the principle of non-use of force in international law. This is even more so, considering that several states and influential UN reports have warned against the type of offensive operations conducted by MONUSCO and MINUSMA. 
For these reasons, China has not formally endorsed the shift towards a more offensive form of peacekeeping, calling, instead, for the continued respect of the principles of impartiality and non-use of force except in self-defence. This has created a visible gap between its rhetoric and practice that will be difficult to bridge given the nature and dynamics of the competing forces at play, the author states.
A second challenge is represented by the practical difficulties that China is likely to encounter in defending a purely consensual model of peacekeeping. Peacekeeping forces can only be deployed with the consent of the host state, notably a requirement that, distinguishing peacekeeping from enforcement action, guarantees the alignment of the former with broader notions of sovereignty and non-intervention. 
In practice, however, China has not always applied the parameters of consent in a very rigid manner, having endorsed and even participated in missions established against the will of the host state and later deployed in the absence of genuine consent. 
“While engaging in not fully consensual operations may allow China to better defend its interests abroad in the face of host states’ reluctance to accept the offer of UN assistance, Beijing will have to constantly balance the benefits deriving from supporting intrusive operations with their potential effects on its commitment to rigid interpretations of the principles of sovereignty and non-intervention in international relations.”
Finally, the way in which China engages, as a permanent member of the Security Council, with modern peace operations will not only contribute to shape its identity as a great power increasingly engaged in conflict prevention and resolution, but can also have important implications for both the practice and doctrine of peacekeeping, BARELLI states.
In particular, China's continued support for offensive operations, especially when not qualified, could contribute to a process of legal validation of even more expansive interpretations of the principles of impartiality and non-use of force except in self-defence, while at a more practical level, and despite inevitable divergences of views and interests, its more active involvement in international peacekeeping efforts could provide the basis for a more fruitful collaboration with the other Permanent-Five in tackling contemporary global peace and security issues.

BARELLI, M. (2022). China and Peacekeeping: Unfolding the Political and Legal Complexities of an Ambivalent Relationship. Asian Journal of International Law, 1-20. doi:10.1017/S2044251321000606

From ‘Peacekept’ to Peacekeeper: Seeking International Status by Narrating New Identities

NINA WILÉN examines how post-conflict states attempt to increase international status by transforming their identities from “peacekept” to “peacekeepers.” Writing in the upcoming issue of the Journal of Global Security Studies, the author  focuses on the discursive side of identity construction and increases understanding of how post-conflict troop contributing countries (PCTCC) seek status on the international arena not only by “doing” peacekeeping but also by “narrating” their roles and identities as peacekeepers. 
A comparative case study of two PCTCC, Burundi and Rwanda, is used to illustrate the argument in the article titled ‘From “Peacekept” to Peacekeeper: Seeking International Status by Narrating New Identities’. By analyzing official discourses from the two cases through a theoretical framework, which combines social identity theory with narrative approaches, it is first argued that PCTCC seek status and a new identity through peacekeeping contribution in part, to underline their sovereignty and safeguard their domestic affairs from outside interference. Second, to successfully seek status, the narratives need to show coherence and be co-constituted by other international actors. 
The analysis underlines post-conflict states’ agency in identity construction and peacekeeping as an international practice to acquire status and legitimacy in international relations.

‘Sisters in Peace’: Analyzing the Cooperation between the UN and the EU in Peace Mediation

With the proliferation of external actors such as states, international and regional organizations, NGOs, and individuals, contemporary international mediation has become increasingly crowded and complex.
Among international organizations, the United Nations has been one of the most frequent providers of international mediation since 1945. While the UN played important mediation roles in the immediate aftermath of the Cold War, its significance in mediation has been declining since the beginning of the 21st century.
At the same time, regional organizations have become increasingly engaged as peace mediators. Among them is the European Union. After initial failures to broker agreements in Yugoslavia’s conflicts in the 1990s, and a phase during which it consolidated its foreign and security policy, the EU has (re-)emerged as an important international provider of peace mediation, particularly in regions to the east and south of its area.
JULIAN BERGMANN examines UN-EU cooperation over peace mediation. He compares their conceptual approaches to peace mediation and the evolution of their institutional capacities, demonstrating that the EU has learned from the UN, while actively supporting the strengthening of UN mediation capacity. 
“The most important difference concerns the embeddedness of mediation in a broader foreign policy agenda in the case of the EU compared to the UN,” he writes in the journal International Negotiation. 
BERGMANN’s article, titled ‘“Sisters in Peace”: Analyzing the Cooperation between the United Nations and the European Union in Peace Mediation’, also examines models of EU-UN cooperation in mediation practice. 
Drawing on an overview of cases of UN–EU cooperation, the article develops a typology of the constellations through which the two organizations have engaged with and supported each other. A case study on the Geneva International Discussions on South Ossetia and Abkhazia investigates the effectiveness of this coordination. The findings point to a high degree of effectiveness, although this has not yet translated into tangible mediation outcomes.

Bergmann, J. (2021). “Sisters in Peace”: Analyzing the Cooperation between the United Nations and the European Union in Peace Mediation, International Negotiation (published online ahead of print 2021). doi: https://doi.org/10.1163/15718069-bja10041

Mission (Im)possible? UN Military Peacekeeping Operations in Civil Wars

Under what conditions can UN military peacekeeping operations (PKOs) succeed in contexts of civil war? 
DARYA PUSHKINA, MARKUS B. SIEWERT and STEFAN WOLFF raise this critical question amid the prevalence and cost of civil wars and the high, yet not always fulfilled, expectations of very costly military PKOs as responses to them by the international community. 
“[T]he academic and policy debates on this question are as long-standing as they are unresolved. Our article contributes to existing scholarship in several ways,” the authors state in their research article published in the European Journal of International Relations. 
First, adopting a nuanced and multi-dimensional definition of success that considers violence, displacement, and contagion as its three essential components, they have identified 19 cases of full or partial successes, and 13 full or partial failures, covering all 32 UN military PKOs deployed to civil war settings. 
Second, they develop an original dataset and analytical framework that identifies a wide range of plausible factors related to the dynamics of both the intervention and the underlying conflict it is meant to address. 
Third, applying qualitative comparative analysis to their dataset of these 32 military PKOs, their key finding is that what matters most and consistently across all of these missions is the presence or absence of domestic consent to, and cooperation with, deployed PKOs.
“We found that domestic consent to and cooperation with a military PKO turns out as the single most important factor in both its absence and presence,” the authors state in the article, titled ‘Mission (im)possible? UN military peacekeeping operations in civil wars’. 
The absence of external belligerent support is part of all pathways to PKO success. “Both findings are confirmed in our robustness tests, which underscores the high internal validity of their findings. 
“We are thus confident that we have generated important new hypotheses about PKOs in general that can be further tested in future research on PKOs, including outside the UN context. While this may suggest limited external validity, we note that our findings concern an important and large subset of UN PKOs (32 of all 71 PKOs to date and 6 out of 12 of current PKOs).”
Thus, from a policy perspective, PUSHKINA, SIEWERT and WOLFF state, military PKOs should not be implemented in the absence of (prior) domestic consent and cooperation or in the presence of external belligerent support. 
“As we know from other research, the drivers behind UN Security Council decisions on the deployment of military PKOs do not factor in these issues that we found to be crucial for their ultimate success. This raises the question whether and how such consent can be obtained and sustained, and whether and how belligerents can be cut off from external support.” 
Answering this question would be one important avenue for further research, which also connects with existing studies that emphasize the importance of organizational learning for PKO success.
“Combining insights from micro-level studies and our own and other research into macro-level factors could be used to guide more in-depth case studies to establish the causal mechanisms that link the factors that we have identified to the outcomes we observe,” the authors state. 
For example, process tracing in a smaller number of cases could be used to reconstruct how the core ingredients of success and failure that we have identified work, and whether a causal logic of sequencing exists, for example, deriving from the absence or presence of a major power lead that creates subsequent path dependencies.

Pushkina, D., Siewert, M. B., & Wolff, S. (2021). Mission (im)possible? UN military peacekeeping operations in civil wars. European Journal of International Relations. https://doi.org/10.1177/13540661211046602

Financing the UN Development System: Time to Meet the Moment

With the COVID-19 pandemic having reversed development gains across the world, Member States and United Nations entities have a mutual responsibility to demonstrate proactive and transformational leadership in ensuring an adequate multilateral response, while also looking ahead to strengthen global and regional risk reduction.
“Such leadership is about investing in more integrated approaches and in global public goods that go beyond what individual states or agencies can achieve,” states the seventh edition of the report Financing the United Nations Development System.
The Funding Compact, welcomed by both Member States and the UN in 2019, offers a potential framework for changing funding patterns. If utilized to its full potential and empowered by leadership, it can deliver the quality of funding – predictable, flexible and accountable – that enables UN country teams to scale up integrated programming and policy support across mandates, thereby accelerating progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals, according to the report.
Pooled funds, in particular, can catalyze integrated programming by establishing transformative criteria for joint planning and effective funds allocation based on priority needs and comparative advantages. To improve the quality of funding channeled through the UN development system, Member States and UN entities are encouraged to deepen strategic funding dialogues at global and country levels.
“In preparing for such dialogues at this critical juncture for multilateralism, we hope that the seventh edition of the Financing the United Nations Development System report can help enlighten decision-making for a stronger UN,” the authors state. The report, subtitled ‘Time to Meet the Moment’, not only offers a comprehensive and accessible overview of the current state of UN funding, but provides a marketplace of ideas from thought leaders across Member States, UN entities and research institutions.
For all stakeholders, it is time to ‘meet the moment’ through smart investments and financing for sustainable development, prevention and emergency preparedness, while at the same time managing the COVID-19 pandemic. On top of this, the larger challenge calls for investments addressing climate resilience; the deep inequalities and injustices laid bare by the pandemic; and – through investing in prevention, peacebuilding and sustaining peace – the root causes of conflict.
The seventh edition of the report arrives at a moment when the UN system is facing unprecedented challenges. Climate change, the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, increasing inequality, and armed conflicts are placing inimitable demands on the multilateral system. For the international community, then, it is “Time to Meet the Moment” through quality financing of multilateral approaches to development. Only then can a shared aim of promoting prevention, mitigation, resilience building and emergency preparedness be met.
Mobilizing the quality, unearmarked multilateral finance needed to address these challenges calls for clarity and transparency. Towards this end, the financial data explored in Part One of this report aims to demystify the complex funding dynamics of the UN development system and how they feed into financing flows for the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
Building on this, in Parts Two and Three the report presents a comprehensive selection of contributions from experts – including UN professionals (present and former), and representatives of think tanks and Member States – reflecting on the emerging trends, risks and opportunities apparent in multilateral financing. In doing so, the report provides a point of departure for forward-looking conversations both on how the UN system ought to be funded and how it could leverage this finance towards meeting global needs and goods, all the while building forward better from the COVID-19 pandemic.
The annual report is the result of a longstanding partnership between the Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation and the United Nations Multi-Partner Trust Fund Office.

How Africa and China May Shape UN Peacekeeping Beyond the Liberal International Order

A flagship activity of the liberal international order (LIO) in the post-Cold War era, characterized by globalization, liberal norms and western leadership, UN peacekeeping today finds itself at a crossroads.

While Western states’ diminished support for LIO UN peacekeeping has left it increasingly open to challenge, significant changes are only likely if a strong group of states coalesces around an alternative model of UN peacekeeping, according to  KATHARINA P. COLEMAN and BRIAN L. JOB.

Writing in the journal International Affairs, they highlight African actors and China as well positioned to play pivotal roles in such a coalition. African states, who host the preponderance of UN missions and furnish almost half of the UN’s uniformed peacekeepers, support globalized UN peacekeeping, show relatively weak support for the most liberal peacebuilding principles and assert the need for African-led solutions to continental crises.

China’s influence reflects its P5 status, financial and personnel contributions to UN peacekeeping and engagement with regional actors, notably in Africa. Aspiring to global leadership and a ‘new world order’, China endorses globalized UN peacekeeping but proposes a non-liberal (and non-western led) notion of ‘developmental peace’ to guide it.

“Chinese and African strategic goals are not identical, but there are important complementarities in their respective positions,” the authors state in their article titled ‘How Africa and China may shape UN peacekeeping beyond the liberal international order’.

China challenges liberal democratic peacebuilding, which has few committed champions in Africa. African actors embrace robust protection, stabilization and counterterrorism activities, which China is willing to support within a ‘developmental peace’ framework, as long as state sovereignty is respected—priorities many African actors share.

China and African actors share common interests in curtailing western dominance over UN peacekeeping decisions. African actors seek greater influence in peacekeeping decisions regarding Africa; China supports greater regional ownership as part of its own vision of an international order characterized by greater Chinese leadership within and beyond the UN.

The compatibility of Chinese and African objectives presages a significant challenge to LIO UN peacekeeping, especially given that other UN actors have also supported elements of their proposed reforms, including greater regional consultation (endorsed by the UN Secretariat) and a shift to stabilization (whose supporters include some western states).

Whether a post-LIO version of UN peacekeeping emerges will nonetheless depend on the coherence and skill of both the actors advocating it and those seeking instead to reconsolidate LIO UN peacekeeping. Strikingly, however, the globalization of UN peacekeeping is not at stake: China and African actors endorse globalized UN peace operations as essential complements to regional peacekeeping.

“The challenge they pose is thus not one of deglobalization, but one that contests the nature and leadership of globalized institutions.”

Katharina P Coleman, Brian L Job, How Africa and China may shape UN peacekeeping beyond the liberal international order, International Affairs, Volume 97, Issue 5, September 2021, Pages 1451–1468, https://doi.org/10.1093/ia/iiab113

Power and Diplomacy in the UN Security Council: The Influence of Elected Members

There is well-known claim that due to the dominant position of the veto-wielding five permanent (P5) in the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), the ten members elected to two-year terms (E10) are left with little space to be influential in that body. 
However, VAHID NICK PAY AND PRZEMYSŁAW POSTOLSKI argue that, in fact, there could be powerful channels for the E10 to exercise significant influence.
Writing in The International Spectator, the authors present the cases of Poland’s 2018-2019 and South Africa’s 2019-2020 terms as elected members UNSC to challenge the claim that due to a prevailing democratic, legitimacy or efficiency deficit(s) in the structure and/or working methods of the Council, there is no significant space for the E10 members to be influential.
“By examining these two representative cases, the E10’s capacity to exert such influence can indeed be detected on multiple levels, which highlights the numerous channels and practices available to the elected members to act as veritable norm entrepreneurs at this most prominent institution of global governance,” they write in the research article ‘Power and Diplomacy in the United Nations Security Council: The Influence of Elected Members’.
Regarding the dynamics of legitimacy, these case studies demonstrate that the position of elected members can be strengthened by building various coalitions with other members to extend their ability to influence the Council’s decision-making. In the cases of Poland and South Africa, the coalitions built with P5 and other E10 members paved the way for important accomplishments, such as the adoption of resolutions 2475 and 2493.
As far as diplomatic capacities are concerned, the example of South Africa appears to provide an interesting alternative for arrangements of resources for medium and small powers through keeping a considerable number of decision-making functions back in the capital, PAY and POSTOLSKI state. 
“Despite obvious procedural challenges, this seems to have provided significant advantages such as reduced costs, resource-sharing with other government sectors and, most importantly, opportunities for involving a broader number of actors, in particular the civil society.” Such potential for change in the working methods may contribute to strengthening the overall position of the E10 in the Council.
The study has also confirmed that even though the agency of an elected member, primarily manifested through its effectively deployed resources and diplomatic capacities, is important in determining its influence in the Council, no less important are conditions extending beyond the Council member’s direct control, the authors note. 
“In this light, Poland’s and South African’s voices were at times significantly amplified by the presence of other supportive members in the Council and other favorable conditions.”
In the case of South Africa, its concomitant presidency of the Council and of the African Union and numerous proactive diplomatic initiatives combined with unexpected support from other E10 members acted as enabling factors to simultaneously promote geopolitical questions of national interest and build and strengthen consensus in the Council. 
Therefore, when serving in the Council, one must factor in such elements as timing, political context and the composition of the Council in a given term. All these conditions can be either favorable or detrimental to the overall performance of an elected member.
Furthermore, the authors stress, the E10’s influence can be exercised through formal and informal mechanisms in the Council’s decision-making. In this vein, both cases clearly demonstrate that UNSC presidencies, Arria-formula meetings and high-level political engagement were especially useful, as highlighted for the aforementioned resolutions 2493 and 2475.
To be sure, the resolutions tabled by Poland and South Africa were hardly controversial as these were themes that most countries could agree upon. It must be borne in mind, however, that due to the political polarization of the Council highlighted above, even the P5 are increasingly incapable of reaching a consensus on difficult questions, as evidenced by the official Council data on the number of consensus resolutions. “This, in turn, could open up significant perspectives for influence for the elected members.”
Taking everything into account, it becomes evident that, despite the prevailing position of the P5, the elected members can play an important and sometimes even crucial role in the Council’s decision-making. 
One interesting conclusion from the above cases could be an appreciation of the fact that the E10’s capacity for playing such a fundamental role in the Council has been underpinned by their less pronounced national and geopolitical interests at the Council compared to the P5. 
This undoubtedly puts the E10 in a more flexible negotiating position, capable of going beyond ‘red lines’ and even acting as power brokers in the Council. This important attribute, which could be regarded as a foundational element of multilateralism, might be even more sorely needed in an increasingly polarized Council faced with the realities of a systemic shift towards a multipolar world. 
Accordingly, it could be argued that the presence of the E10 in the Council not only underpins its dynamics of legitimacy but also safeguards its very foundations of multilateralism, reposing on elements of devolution of power, pooling of sovereignty and compromise. 
In addition, the emerging trends towards the reform of the Council’s working methods and the inclusion of wider global actors and the civil society in debates have the potential to turn the E10 into veritable norm entrepreneurs of the Council’s developing working methods that could lead to future structural reforms. 
“Such drives to informal reforms appear to be even more crucial as the debates over the nature, the viability or even the desirability of structural reforms of the Council proves to be far from over for the foreseeable future.” 

Vahid Nick Pay and Przemysław Postolski (2021) Power and Diplomacy in the United Nations Security Council: The Influence of Elected Members, The International Spectator, DOI: 10.1080/03932729.2021.1966192