UN Challenges in Peacekeeping

UN peacekeepers 1989 vs 1994

11,000 to 75,000

Peacekeeping missions after Cold War

20 launched in the first 3.5 years

Agenda for Peace

June 1992; declared "the time of absolute and exclusive sovereignty…has passed"

Responsibility to Protect established

Paragraphs 138/139, UN World Summit 2005

UN self-defence authority

Article 51 of the UN Charter

Somalia lives lost to famine and war (1991)

Estimated 300,000

Operation Provide Comfort

From 6 April 1991; protected Iraqi Kurds from Saddam Hussein

Haiti earthquake response

January 2010, 7.0 magnitude; UNHCR and WFP provided 2,000 military personnel and 1,500 police

US troops in Desert Storm (Gulf War)

650,000

US no-fly-zone sorties over Iraq

8,000 every year

Operation Allied Force

March 1999; US bombing of Yugoslavia without UN approval

War on Terror declared

October 2001 by George W. Bush

Bush West Point speech

June 2002; US must "confront the worst threats before they emerge"

Operation Iraqi Freedom

March 2003 invasion of Iraq

First International Criminal Tribunal (Yugoslavia)

May 1993; first indictment November 1994

Slobodan Milosevic indictment

May 1999, for actions against Albanians in Kosovo

US vetoes on Israel-Palestine resolutions

14 times since the end of the Cold War

China-Russia joint vetoes

6 of Russia's 11 vetoes since the end of the Cold War (e.g. Myanmar human rights resolution)

China veto activity

13 of 16 vetoes since 1997