Statement by Mr. Petr Iliichev, Chargé d'Affaires, at the Security Council on the peacekeeping operations
We are grateful for the convening of today’s meeting and thank Secretary-General António Guterres for sharing his assessment of the situation with respect to United Nations peacekeeping with us.
Peacekeeping is a key instrument in the arsenal of United Nations measures designed to support international peace and security, resolve conflicts and provide support for State-building at the initial post-crisis stage. The increasingly complex character of problems that are spawned by modern crises, the growth in the number and the geographical scope of conflict situations, the rapid political changes, the presence of specific factors that lead to conflict, including terrorism, crime, drug trafficking and other transboundary challenges and threats — all of these point to the need for a transformation of United Nations peacekeeping and raise the issue of the need to enhance its effectiveness.
However, in these difficult conditions, what has not changed is the essence of peacekeeping, namely, that there is no alternative to conflict resolution. It is precisely this priority that the Secretary-General established, and the High-Level Independent Panel on Peace Operations reached the same conclusion previously. It is not by chance that during today’s meeting the organizers of the debate suggested that we focus on the need to enhance the effectiveness of peacekeeping with an emphasis on the political aspects of the peacekeeping missions’ actions in the field.
We have to agree that the mandates of some missions have been slow to adapt to new realities on the ground. There is no doubt that there are questions about the effectiveness of the work of the Secretariat on planning the life cycle of missions or the cooperation of missions with the authorities of the host country. It is important to streamline the process of developing an exit strategy and ensuring a smooth transition to the post-conflict rebuilding stage, which would make it possible not only to optimize expenditures but also enhance the effectiveness of peacekeeping operations and their impact.
Furthermore, we believe that it is unacceptable to use the practice of having the Secretariat provide requests with estimates for separate components of peacekeeping operations without sufficient justification for them. Recently, we have also seen the broad artificial expansion of the mandates of peacekeeping operations through the addition of non-core tasks. We have often spoken about the harm of this practice, which significantly reduces the effectiveness of missions.
Let us look at the example of the broadly interpreted tasks of protecting civilians, monitoring human rights, including gender issues, and preventing sexual violence. Those functions are often entrusted to the civilian staff of missions. Deploying and maintaining such personnel is rather expensive. For example, with regard to the Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, almost nearly every one of its components has an expert on outreach to society. There are approximately 30 such experts. Is that really necessary or economically justified?
We are convinced that we should not burden peacekeeping operations with difficultly achieved tasks of a socially humanitarian character. Such factors are not a threat to international peace and security, and come under the purview of other specialized United Nations bodies. It is important to have a carefully balanced approach to dealing with human rights issues in peacekeeping. We do not question the importance of promoting and protecting human rights, but we believe that delegating to United Nations peacekeeping operations human rights functions that fall outside of their field of expertise reduces the effectiveness of achieving their primary goal, which is separating and reconciling the conflicting sides and ultimately saving lives.
It is the successful resolution of a conflict that is the key precondition to improving human rights situations and developing democratic institutions in a specific country, rather than the converse. Excessive attention given to human rights issues often leads to a distorted understanding of the causes of crises and of new challenges and threats, as well as the erroneous interpretation of peacekeeping mission mandates, the lack of their effectiveness and, on occasion, the resultant hostility from host and troop-contributing countries.
There has been an increasing number of proposals to give peacekeeping missions multi-component mandates, including peacebuilding tasks, above all promoting security sector reform, disarmament, demobilization and reintegration and support for the restoration of lawenforcement bodies and the rule of law in general. We believe that such tasks should be specifically targeted to the specific causes of conflicts, thereby ensuring that conflicts do not reignite. Peacekeeping personnel cannot be used as a substitute for national authorities or embedded into domestic political situations.
We believe that reducing financing for certain peacekeeping operations should go hand-in-hand with modifying their mandates, in particular with regard to reducing their parallel non-core tasks that only dilute peacekeeping efforts to address the root causes of conflict. Unquestionably, no matter how the transformation of peacekeeping unfolds, the critical guidelines will be the provisions of the Charter of the United Nations and the basic principles of United Nations peacekeeping — the consent of the host country, impartiality and the non-use of force except for self-defence or in order to implement the mandate of the Security Council. Lately, those lements are unfortunately increasingly being considered by some countries almost as an obstacle to implementing missions’ mandates. We have heard ideas expressed about the need for their flexible interpretation depending on conditions on the ground. We reiterate, once again, that that is unacceptable. We believe that it is precisely those elements that guarantee the effectiveness of peacekeeping operations. Every new or emerging area of peacekeeping should strictly adhere to those principles.
We also believe that it is important to warn about attempts to artificially politicize the activity of peacekeepers. We are seriously concerned about the attempts to flexibly interpret the norms of international humanitarian law, in particular as pertaining to the protection of civilians in conditions of armed conflict. Under no circumstances should Blue Helmets become party to a conflict or join those parties. That is precisely what would happen if the Security Council adopted certain proposals made by Member States entertaining the possible use of force by peacekeepers against host States.
Any action allegedly guided by the need to protect the civilian population is unacceptable if it is actually intended to achieve narrow express geopolitical aims, especially if such an action is against the legitimate authorities of sovereign States. As has been illustrated by past experience, that leads to more civilian victims. We do not support the view that has often been expressed that the protection of civilians is the goal in itself of peacekeeping operations in general. I would like to recall once again that the need to protect civilians is a consequence of conflict and not the cause of a conflict. Effectively ensuring the security of civilians can be achieved only by dealing with the root causes of conflict. Supporting and protecting civilians can be only a temporary measure so as to provide time to find a political and diplomatic solution.
Moreover, we are concerned about certain questions in the concept paper (S/2017/287, annex) with regard to the possibility of missions carrying out their work without the strategic consent of the host country. We believe that that is inappropriate as it runs contrary to one of the basic inviolable principles of peacekeeping, which cannot be revised. At the same time, the success of United Nations peacekeeping operations depends directly on building constructive and mutually respectful relations with the host country and other national actors. That kind of cooperation must not be imposed or artificial. It must be based on the natural wish of the host country to cooperate, and that is a direct consequence of strengthening trust in the work of the mission and its components.
We should not forget that Governments bear the main responsibility for ensuring the security of their people, including security against terrorist attacks. They also bear the main responsibility for establishing the political process, ensuring development and dealing with the root causes of conflict. The international community should provide support to local and regional efforts, but it should provide substitutes for them.
It is difficult not to agree that the current challenges and threats that have changed the character of conflicts require a corresponding adaptability from the Organization. Competent and thorough political and mediation efforts should be a priority in peacekeeping activities. The history of conflicts in various regions of the world has shown that such efforts help address the root causes of conflicts rather than merely treat their symptoms. Otherwise, crises will resurface after a brief pause. United Nations peacekeeping missions and the Blue Helmets should be deployed in places in which they can effectively help while remaining neutral actors and, at the same time, not undertaking functions that fall outside their field of expertise. In order to enhance the effectiveness of peacekeepers in fulfilling their mandates, we should not consider various generic initiatives but, rather, set realistic and clear goals for Blue Helmets and focus on the specific causes and the core problems that are related to every conflict.
