Strengthening Regional Approaches to Peace Operations
STRENGTHENING REGIONAL APPROACHES TO PEACE OPERATIONS
Senior Associate: Waheguru Pal Singh Sidhu Program Assistant: Cyrus Samii
Program summary Building on the success of International Peace Academy (IPA)’s project on The UN, NATO, and Other Regional Actors in the 21st Century, this project on Strengthening Regional Approaches to Peace Operations has had three primary objectives: 1) to examine how European and Transatlantic security institutions can enhance their capacities to respond to intra-state crises and peacebuilding needs in regions of concern beyond the immediate periphery of Europe; 2) to study how the capabilities of the Euro-Atlantic security organizations (the EU, UN, and OSCE) can be coordinated with those of the UN and local actors in conducting robust peace operations in these regions of concern; and 3) to explore ways in which the UN, in cooperation with the Euro-Atlantic organizations and other regional actors, can help to build capacities to maintain peace in these areas of concern.
These issues are, of course, highlighted by recent events and operations in areas as diverse as Afghanistan, Macedonia, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Iraq and Israel and Palestine. The experiences of the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan and the EU’s Operation Artemis in the DRC suggest that further consideration is needed on the prospects for ‘out-of-area operations’, the role of the UN in mandating and linking up with such operations, and the possibilities for these organizations to contribute to long term local capacities to maintain peace. In addition, these events and operations demonstrate how future peace operations are likely to be shaped by the complex developments in the relations between the US, European states, Euro-Atlantic security organizations, and the UN. These developments, and their effects on peace operations capacities serving areas outside the Euro-Atlantic area, need to be better understood.
As part of the project, IPA convened a conference on “The United Nations and the European Security Organizations: Evolving Approaches to Crisis Management”, held on November 14, 2003. The primary aims of the Conference were 1) to examine recent developments and the out-of-area role of the EU, NATO and the OSCE and their related interactions with the UN, 2) to explore how these organizations can work with local actors in regions of concern in building crisis-management and peace-operations capabilities, and 3) to present specific suggestions for cooperative adaptation among the UN, the EU, NATO, the OSCE and other regional actors to ensure effective and efficient response to security concerns in regions beyond the immediate periphery of Europe.
Conference report, “The UN and Euro-Atlantic Organizations: Evolving Approaches to Peace Operations Beyond Europe,” Cyrus Samii, with Harold Rodriguez, International Peace Academy Conference Report, February 2004.