1999 E-mail Exchange with Sir Brian Urquhart: Institute of International Studies, UC Berkeley

E-mail Exchange with Sir Brian Urquhart and students from Marin Academy High School, UC Berkeley's Model UN Program, and Boalt School of Law: March 1999 with Harry Kreisler

Peacekeeping

What specific types of reform are needed to keep the UN as the world's premier international peacekeeping body in the 21st century?

Sarah Lamoree, Model UN Program, UC Berkeley

Keeping the UN as the premiere peacekeeping body is not so much a question of reform as a question of political will. It is only six years ago that Madeline Albright was the high priestess of "assertive multilateralism" and was instrumental in pitch-forking the UN into all sorts of operations without giving it either the authority or the resources to act effectively. Bosnia is a classic case in point. Now the fashion is not to give the UN peacekeeping functions but to use NATO, the threat of bombing, etc. Though NATO's public relations, not to mention its budget, are infinitely superior to the UN's, I am not at all sure that in the end this is going to work any better. The problems remain the same and are equally intractable. I hope, therefore, that governments will take a serious look at reinstating the UN as the world's major peacekeeping body and will also take a look at their own responsibilities -- for example, a serious effort at consensus in the Security Council on important matters.

Do you think that the UN should have a standing army so as to better serve its peacekeeping functions?

Sarah Lamoree, Model UN Program, UC Berkeley

I believe that a standing rapid deployment force is essential to the effectiveness and credibility of the UN's future role. The UN must be able to intervene immediately and effectively before situations get completely out of hand. There are endless objections to this idea but one good reason for it, namely, that it is essential. Unfortunately, at the moment there are major ideological objections in Washington and elsewhere, mostly to do with outmoded notions of national sovereignty. It is interesting that in 1992, President Clinton's election program included a UN rapid deployment force and in 1993 President Ronald Reagan, after his retirement, made an impassioned plea for an international peacekeeping force at Oxford. It is a pity that for the moment the tide is going in the opposite direction.

As the world sees more and more civil wars and state dissolution, the model of UN peacekeeping is becoming incompatible with the needs of the conflicts it seeks to resolve. To what extent do you believe that regional organizations, such as the OAU, NATO, ASEAN, and the OAS will play and should play a role in creating and keeping the peace rather than the UN?

Brad Herman, Model UN Program, UC Berkeley

I think it was a mistake in the early 1990s to assume that civil wars and collapsed states could be dealt with by the peacekeeping model. Peacekeeping was designed to deal with conflicts and power vacuums between states and was not suitable for the far more complex task of dealing with civil wars. So far, however, the UN's member governments have been unwilling to build new instruments more suited to this task. It was always assumed that the UN would not deal with regional problems which regional organizations could deal with themselves. Regional organizations, including even NATO, have shown themselves quite limited in their capacity to deal with civil wars and internal violence. In fact, they usually face exactly the same problems the UN faces. What needs to be done now is to develop a much closer and more effective relationship between the world organization and regional organizations and actually provide both of them with the resources and the authority needed to deal with the current wave of civil and internal wars. However, before this can be done there will have to be some kind of general agreement as to what the practical obligations of the international community actually are in such situations.

You once said: "impartiality is the principle of the weak, of a weak organization." Before coming to Berkeley, I did some work in commercial mediation where much is made of the clear need to avoid favoring either party to a dispute. However, I found this possible only by maintaining a set of principles, which was somehow broader in scope than the particular dispute, and picturing myself as its defender. Notwithstanding the sticky problem of determining this set of principles, does this approach to mediating disputes have any resonance for you in your work?

Julian Biggs, Boalt School of Law, UC Berkeley

After some forty years of experience, I am very skeptical of theories of mediation. I do think, however, that a mediator must have a principled idea of what can be achieved, and also of what cannot be accepted. The mediator must also be motivated by a determination to avoid the victimization of either party, especially the weaker one.