I think that Canada should try to retain its peacekeeping role. In the past years, Canada has been putting a lot more money and resources into fighting the war in Afghanistan, while they could have been investing in peacekeeping missions (Shephard). Canada should decrease its involvement in violent missions and increase their involvement in peacekeeping missions. They have participated in both in the past (Dyck 207). However, recently, under the leadership of the Harper government, they have primarily been engaging in violent missions (Harper).
Peacekeepers are soldiers from different countries that are sent out by the UN to supervise opposing groups after a truce or ceasefire has been worked out. They act as a buffer between two sides and prevent shootings between the sides until an agreement is worked out by politicians. Peacekeepers must be neutral and if they favour one side over the other, they will not be trusted. Furthermore, Peacekeepers work to protect civilians, guard humanitarian agents, and oversee elections in politically turbulent regions.
It had a lot of terms to try to maintain world peace. Cold war tensions between the USSR and the USA prevented a permanent UN force from being created. As an alternative, the UN decided to send temporary military forces into the world regional hotspots to keep the peace. Military officials were sent to the Pakistan-India region of Kashmir. The same action was taken the following month along the Arab-Israeli borders in Palestine.
Unless someone/something is a dire threat to the country, peacekeeping was not obligation but an optional concern for Canada to take on. This was one of the reasons why Canada didn 't take the United Nations as seriously as it should have. Canada was always ready to contribute its all to the UN in the past but due to the lack of involvement Canada lowered on the rank.
The International criminal tribunal of Rwanda has made contributions to international justice and to establishing accountability for the suffering of many Rwandan people. Since many countries are unwilling to try their former national leaders for claimed violations of human rights or international humanitarian law, often formally or informally granting amnesty in hopes that ignoring past violence will promote reconciliation, victims have turned increasingly to other countries to press their cases. In conclusion, both the international community and the Rwandan government have placed in prosecutions as a means of fighting impunity and promoting the rule of law, and the ICTR has been attack by severe problems that have slowed its progress, The
Article 2(4) of the United Nations Charter states that, "all member states shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, nor in any manner inconsistent with the purposes of the United Nations” . It is therefore a unilateral agreement signed by member states against the use of force when dealing each other. World events however since the signing and ratification of the UN Charter have indicated that states who are signatories to the charter continue to use force against each other for various reasons. Some 25 years after the writing and ratification of the charter one cannot doubt that states have used force and sought to justify it through individual or collective self-defence claims, as well as humanitarian claims in furtherance of national agendas and to increase territory. This no doubt may have been what frustrated Franck into the stance that Article 2(4) was in its grave.
Chapter 2: Successes Whilst it is common cause that the UN has been plagued with failures in its attempts to fulfil its purpose, it cannot be said that the UN’s Peacekeeping efforts have been without success, as is demonstrated by the Nobel Peace Prize received in 1988 by the UN for its Peacekeeping efforts. Even its greatest detractors grudgingly admit that the organisation has been not only successful in some endeavours, but instrumental in both preventative and resolutionary functions as far as conflict is concerned, and despite differing opinions on how to determine whether a UN Peacekeeping operation can be considered successful, there are certain instances which both detractors and supporters of the organisation alike agree, to varying
Established in 1945 after the World War II, United Nations Security Council is the most powerful organ among the six organs in United Nations with the authorized power to issue legally binding resolutions. This council consists of 15 members, 5 Permanent Members – the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Russia and China – and 10 Non-Permanent Members voted by the UNGA for 2 years term. According to the charter, the responsibility of UNSC is to maintain international peace and security. It determines the threat to peace and act of aggressor; moreover, it investigates any disputes between the UN Member states. The United Nations Security Council also has the military force to prevent or stop the aggressor.
In the UNSC’s article 51, individual and collective self-defense can be authorized by the UNSC under the framework of collective security. However, genocide is never justifiable in the eyes of the UN. Perhaps the most distinguishing feature between war and genocide is the disproportionally ability of those involved to fight back. Within war there is a certain level of understanding that those engaging in the conflict will have an ability to engage in battle. However, historically in genocides the effected groups have had little to no ability to proportionately fight against their attackers.
Bayley’s article The Morphing of Peacekeeping: Competing Approaches to Public Safety, focused on how Peacekeeping missions seem to be headed towards using non-state actors to provide security more and national governments less. Bayley is very clear about the bottom line of why peace operations use non-state providers and that is people need to provide security. A peace operation cannot succeed where the civilians are not safe. Failed or failing states are unable to provide security in some cases. In other cases it's the state itself that is the cause of the conflict.
Humanitarian intervention is an emerging norm that was born out of a desire to prevent past horrors, such as the Rwanda genocide and Srebrenica massacre from reoccurring. The concept was further enumerated in the formation of the responsibility to protect doctrine (‘R2P’), which infers that countries have a duty to interfere with the sovereignty of others in order to protect human rights. Since their inception into international relations, both humanitarian intervention and R2P have struggled with disunity between its proponents and those who suggest it is merely being used by the West to strengthen their hegemonic power. There are many arguments as to contend that humanitarian is merely a disguised form of Western imperialism, such as: the
Therefore, humanitarian interventions grew stronger in post- Cold war world with the assumption of changing worldviews for better; however, most of the states were not aimed at humanitarian purposes but were protecting the interests of their country. Although, the humanitarian interventions are not only well known nowadays but, also, one of the most questionable views in the 21st century, which are becoming less acceptable in relation to foreign policy. However, in recent decades, the idea of humanitarian intervention has evolved significantly, moving from the controversial form of unilateral armed humanitarian operation to the universal principle of “responsibility to protect, RtoP” (Doyle, 2016, p.15). RtoP was accepted on UN summit in 2005 as a compromise solution to dealing with massive violations of human rights (Francioni, 2013, p. 6). Wherefore, RtoP is legitimating military interventions of powerful states in protecting citizens and of the weaker states (Doyle, p.15).
The international community is witnessing unprecedented levels of displaced people due to war and political instability. Current estimates from the UN Refugee Agency (2018) argue that ¬¬these numbers could be as high as 65.6 million displaced people. As members of the international community, each nation gets to determine their own response to this crisis. Beliefs and actions taken on this matter have been vastly different and are being demonstrated and crafted by a nation’s national news discourse. Some of the most vastly different actions and opinions on assisting refugees come from the nations of Germany and Hungary.
“We all say not war, we are all for justice and peace. But sometimes in order to maintain peace, armed action is necessary. But we hope it won’t be the case"-by Silvio Bersuconi. This quote was said by former Italian Prime Minister who spoke about war.
The consequence of wars, the political turmoil in countries or simply a country in debt; these all warrant a need for foreign aid. Although it may seem like the obvious act to do, is it really the right thing to do? It is firstly important to note what is the fundamental characteristic of foreign aid and what it entails, both for a country providing and the country receiving it. The aspect of aid can take many forms, ranging from goods and services or capital from foreign country to country in need. As situations in different countries continue to take new forms, aid can also be provided concerning military, economic means, etc.
