NYU Report Warns that UN Peacekeeping Is Under ‘Acute and Worsening Strain’

By James Devitt

International policy-makers and commentators have welcomed a new report by NYU’s Center on International Cooperation (CIC) that warns that United Nations peacekeeping is under “acute and worsening strain.” Published in February, the Annual Review of Global Peace Operations 2006, the first in a new series, has attracted attention at a time of heated debate over whether the UN should deploy a force of 14,000 or more troops to Darfur.

Review reveals that the UN’s global military deployments have grown by nearly 500 percent since 1999. But it shows that the organization has recently found it hard to get the forces it needs. The Economist quoted volume editor Ian Johnstone’s warning that a Darfur mission might take UN peacekeeping “past the point of overstretch.” Johnstone is an associate professor at Tufts University’s Fletcher School and a visiting scholar at CIC.

CIC co-director Bruce Jones reinforced the point in an op-ed for the Los Angeles Times, arguing that while the UN’s 18 operations are “saving lives and allowing people emerging from war to choose their political futures,” especially in Africa, it is “no longer viable to set the UN more goals without giving it more means.”

The Review comes after a year in which UN peacekeepers have been heavily criticized for sexual abuse and corruption. In releasing the report, which was supported by the UN’s own Peacekeeping Best Practices Section, Jones argued that it can promote effective scrutiny of such issues: “Open analysis breeds accountability and better performance.”

With coverage of over 40 UN and non-UN peace operations, and nearly 200 pages of data, the Review is the most comprehensive source on them now available. Professor Stephen Stedman of Stanford University’s Center for International Security and Cooperation welcomed it as “an essential resource for understanding peacekeeping’s contribution to international security.”

Worldwide, commentators have highlighted the Review’s lessons for their governments. In a statement to mark the report’s launch, Norwegian minister Espen Barth Eide argued that it showed that his country must continue to back the UN. In Kenya, The East African newspaper used the report to compare different African nations’ contribution to the UN.

Richard Gowan, a member of the Review team, observes that, “the diversity of responses to our findings is particularly satisfying. CIC is very fortunate to be able to observe the UN at close quarters in New York, but we also want to reach out to global public opinion.”

The team is already planning next year’s edition of the Review.

“We’ve made a good start, but we can do a lot more in 2007,” Gowan says. “With the world watching the Darfur situation closely, we’re going to be analyzing very, very controversial issues.”