Regional Organizations and Peacemaking

Challengers to the UN?

Peter Wallensteen, Anders Bjurner

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781317696698
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politik & Internationale Beziehungen
• Subtopic: Frieden & globale Entwicklung

This book analyses the new and difficult roles of regional organizations in peacemaking after the end of the Cold War and how they relate to the United Nations (UN).

Regional organizations have taken an increasingly prominent role in international efforts to deal with international security. The book highlights the complex interaction between the regional and sub-regional organizations, on the one hand, and their relations with the United Nations, on the other. Thus, the general issues of UN and its authority are scrutinized from legal, practical and geopolitical perspectives. Taking on a broad geographical focus on Africa, the Arab world and Europe, the book also provides an extensive range of case studies, with detailed analysis of particular situations, organizations and armed conflicts.

The authors scrutinise the heterogeneous relationship between the different organizations as well as the challenges to them: political resources, legal standing, financial assets, capabilities and organizational set up. Moreover, they investigate whether regional organizations, as compared to the UN, are better suited to deal with today's intra-state conflicts. The book also aims to dissect the evolution of these institutions historically – in relation to Chapter VIII of the UN Charter which mentions the resort to 'regional arrangements' for conflict management – as well as more generally in relation to the principles of international law and UN principles of peacemaking.

This book, written by a mixture of established scholars, diplomats and high-level policymakers, will be of great interest to students as well as practitioners in the field of peace and conflict studies, regional security, international organisations, conflict management and IR in general.

1

THE CHALLENGE OF REGIONAL ORGANIZATIONS

An introduction

Peter Wallensteen and Anders Bjurner

This book

There has been a remarkable rise of regional organizations in peace processes in the past twenty years, parallel to the increasing significance of the United Nations itself. Thus there are good reasons to discuss the relationship between these two types of bodies, both involved in the promotion of peace and security. The fundamental question is whether they are competing or complementing each other? Obviously there is a relationship, but is it likely to result in mutually beneficial cooperative relations – even a division of labour – or competition where regional bodies attempt to be the ones exclusively dealing with one part of the world, not allowing others a role? Are there even global ambitions in some regional organizations, which ultimately challenges the United Nations?

When discussing such issues it becomes important to understand the limits as well as strengths of regional organizations and to explore their varied relationship to the UN. By bringing together scholars as well as practitioners, we hope to throw some light on this problematique.

A central aspect in this book thus is the relationship between the United Nations and the regional organizations, here referred to as ROs. It is a connection that is important to the UN itself, of course, as acknowledged in reports from the Secretary-General (for instance, in 2006; see also Appendix III of this book). In particular, we focus on their ability to handle rising, ongoing or terminated armed conflicts. We are not the first do deal with this. Thakur’s work is an earlier example (2006). However, our focus is on concrete situations in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. This still requires analysis of more general issues for regional organizations. The appendices in this book provide information on UN policies on regional organizations as well as an inventory of the 29 + 2 such organizations that deal with matters of international peace and security. Thus, we hope to contribute to an intensified discussion on the relations between the UN, regional organizations and international management of armed conflicts and wars. Furthermore, we do this by concentrating on some particularly pertinent issues involving these regions. This is also the area of the world where the regional organizations have had the strongest say in acute armed conflicts and war.

All this gives rise to definitional issues, of course. The UN is easy to define, it has its statutes, the UN Charter, and that in turn has its specific Chapter VIII on Regional Arrangements (analysed in Chapter 3 of this book; the text of Chapter VIII is reproduced in Appendix I). The notion of a regional organization is more difficult to characterize and requires elaboration in this chapter. A discussion on regional organizations begs the question of what is a region and, hence, a regional organization? There are legal considerations, as developed in Chapter 3. But this book covers organizations that geographically draw their memberships and mandates from entire continents, or connect members across transcontinental divides as well as those that only work on sub-continental or sub-regional areas. As indicated, there are 31 that we deem particularly relevant. Still, one may question key concepts, such as ‘regional’ and ‘regions’. This is particularly significant in today’s world, which is more interconnected than ever in terms of media, information, transportation, travel, common concerns and shared security threats. The rise in the number of regional organizations as well as the reforming and expansion of previously existing ones suggests that global interconnections do not contradict other forms of interaction, cooperation and organization. ‘Regions’ are discussed in the following section.

An additional criterion for inclusion in this volume is, of course, whether the organizations deal in one way or another with security. Even this definition is not easy to establish. More or less the same criterion has led to another list by Tavares (2010). This means we have to relate the regional organizations to the UN and also explain the management of armed conflicts and wars. We largely refer to this as ‘peacemaking’, but it will be further explained later in this chapter. Following this, the chapter brings out some of the more pertinent issues that are made salient from global and regional perspectives.

Delimiting regions

From the point of view of natural geography, geographical features would also be those that delimit regions from each other. This could mean water catchment basins, for instance. The principle of the watershed has been used for drawing boundaries, where the separation of Norway and Sweden forms a ‘natural’ border, and where one could say that the Baltic Sea region constitutes one such basin. In environmental terms, all the countries that have rivers floating into the Baltic Sea are thus connected through one of the most important resources for human existence, water.¹ Indeed, we can see in Appendix II that a number of regional organizations have emerged around such issues, notably the Mano River Union in Western Africa, the Great Lakes conference in Central Africa and Black Sea Cooperation in Europe. The Council of Baltic Sea States (CBSS) has not been included in our list, as it has little of a direct security agenda. There are also other geographical features that seem to contribute to a need for cooperation, notably island states that constitute the bulk of the membership of the Caribbean Community, CARICOM, as well as the Pacific Islands Forum, PIF, for the South Pacific. Even if there are some such common features, it does not seem to be the most common way in which regional organizations are formed, however. The security concerns may seldom arise from the management of water, lakes or islands. Indeed, the world’s oldest continuously operative international organization is the Rhine Commission, originally set up in 1804 but working in the same format since 1815. One might say that it works to defuse tension around one of Europe’s longest and most important rivers, and in that sense contributes to peace and security. However, this Commission would not directly deal with any armed conflicts among the member states. Furthermore, the world has more than 300 rivers, and only a small fraction of them do have such commissions. Normally river issues as well as shared lakes can be handled through other means than armed conflict.

Thus, we have to go to other features to find what may distinguish regions with and without regional organizations. More typically, one would look for shared cultural and political traits to see what constitutes a ‘region’. In his influential work, Bruce Russett in 1975 demonstrated with factor analysis that such attributes do not necessarily correspond directly to geographical proximity. Thus, a typical ‘African’ region of states would not only include countries in Africa but also other states, notably Haiti.² A typical ‘European’ state is not necessarily based in Europe: North America, Australia and New Zealand would largely conform to such notions.³ These examples suggest that colonialism certainly has affected what is ‘typical’, and indeed migration today is likely to blur the distinctions even further. Not surprisingly, then, several of the regional organizations dealing with peace and security do have their origins in the colonial empires of Britain, France and Portugal. In a way, they have been formed after an occupation that lasted long enough to also impose a language and a culture, although the centres were distant. Some other colonial empires have not resulted in such commonwealths, notably the Spanish, Dutch and Belgian ones, something worth pondering about. Some of the former Soviet republics are part of CSTO, but the commitment may not be that strong.

Still it is interesting to see that the struggle for independence has resulted in a wish to continue to cooperate with the former opponent. The conflicts that decolonization included seem at the same time to have brought countries and leaders together. This is an old experience; that conflict actually can turn into, or even be, a form of cooperation (Coser 1956). A most remarkable example is the OSCE bringing together all adversaries as well as the neutral countries in the Global North that were part of the Cold War divide. It follows, of course, in the footsteps of the seminal regional organization, the European Union, being founded on the need for closer cooperation between former enemies.

It would be more typical to expect that a shared enemy in a particular conflict would lead to an alliance, which gradually cements itself into an organization, where shared values are emphasized. A fair number of organizations have this history, notably NATO (against the Soviet Union, with democracy as shared value), The Council of Europe (against non-democracy, for democratic states), The League of Arab States (against Israel, but also expressing Pan-Arabism), the Non-Aligned movement (against colonial powers, for state sovereignty), ASEAN (against Vietnam during the Vietnam War, since then toying with formulation of ‘Asian values’), GCC (against Iran following the Iranian Revolution 1979; largely Sunnibased), SADC (growing out of the cooperation among the Front-Line States against Apartheid South Africa) and OAU (with an origin in anti-colonialism, building on Pan-Africanism and growing into AU). Even so, conditions can change, and former enemies join the previously antagonistic grouping, as happened with Vietnam and South Africa, respectively.

Finally, we can note that several organizations do have an economic development background, more than a geographical or conflictual origin. This is particularly true of several of the African organizations, notably ECOWAS, IGAD and SADC but certainly also ASEAN and several of the South American organizations. Particularly in Africa, however, these organizations have by necessity had to develop agendas for peace and security. This can be seen both in their participation in peacemaking and indirectly in solving (potential) disputes of conflicting economic interests. In a sense, the EU could be included in this group as well.

Thus, the regional organizations we deal with do not have one common or simple origin or even one and the same understanding of what a ‘region’ is (Bailes and Cottey 2006). This means that a number of them have overlapping memberships, and they may even exhibit contradictory missions and actions. We can also note, as will be elaborated elsewhere in this volume, that there are ‘regions’ which do not have ‘regional’ organizations, although they may be, by the inhabitants, understood as regions and certainly have security challenges that would warrant such organizations: the Balkans (now gradually drawn into EU), Caucasus (torn in different directions resulting in a most uncertain future), the Middle East (no organization that covers Israel, Iran, Turkey or non-Arab speakers, notably Kurds), North Africa (also of concern to EU) and East Asia (with several of the world’s most dynamic economies and a host of unsolved disputes). In many of these cases there are considerable cultural similarities among the populations, but also many vivid memories of recent or historical atrocities and conflicts.

It is also appropriate to note that ‘organization’ here is taken in a somewhat informal way. Some of the 29 + 2 organizations listed in Appendix II do have very formalized structures based on treaties that have been ratified by member states and, thus, also, have their own secretariats, regular funding mechanisms and a stable membership. Others, however, may appear loser, depend on particular member states for funding and secretariat functions and thus have a weaker standing in the regular international legal frameworks. They may, nevertheless, be important in particular conflicts and thus qualify. In fact, some of them may be in a phase of rapid transition towards formalization.

Relation to the UN

For the United Nations, these regional organizations constitute an important challenge; they have to be dealt with in ways that respect their particular origin. For states in a region it provides a choice: whether to bring an issue to the UN or to a regional organization (as elaborated in Chapter 2). However, some of the regional organizations act within the UN itself, having an impact on the decisions of the General Assembly as well as the Security Council. In the Assembly, the Group of 77 incorporates the states that are members of NAM. The sheer size of this group makes it very powerful and, in many ways, ensures that the North–South conflict is strong in the conscience of UN decision makers. The European Union operates in this forum as well, and is able to connect to a host of other countries making it into a large constellation of powerful countries. At times it has taken a mediating role between the USA with its closest allies on one side and G-77 on the other. Some of these tensions are activated in particular issues, notably Palestine, providing dilemmas also for EU. The relations between a regionally dominated General Assembly and a globally oriented Security Council may indicate future challenges, as elaborated in Chapter 5.

When the UN Security Council as well as the Secretary-General act in a particular conflict, they are likely to be informed of the views of the relevant regional organizations also through the UN membership. In that regard, regional bodies can affect the UN, although this has seldom been studied. Certainly, it can be discussed if the same is true the other way around: to what extent does the UN impact on the policies of the regional organizations? These are interactions that have been given little attention in public debates or in academic writings.

It is important to recall that the UN Charter fathers (and some few mothers) had different views as to the extent regional organizations (or ‘arrangements’) should have a place in contributing to international peace and security. This included the role in the text of the Charter itself. There were historical, legal and not least political reasons for these different views. Chapter VIII of the Charter is often seen as a compromise between ‘globalists’ and ‘regionalists’ (Chapter 3 in this volume). However, it is worthwhile noting that regional representatives were largely absent in those deliberations. Also, we should recall that there were very few delegates from the Third World involved in the making of the Charter. The tiny number of regional organizations, of course, was part of it, as were the fact that colonialism still remained intact, if shaken, at the end of the Second World War. This is a point – and challenge – not infrequently mentioned by leaders, lawyers and historians from what we today label the Global South.

The concept of peacemaking

This book is concerned with the activities regional organizations undertake in dealing with particular conflicts. In that sense we are concerned with conflict management in a broad sense, going from crisis to post-crisis measures. To some, also authors in this volume, peacemaking comes close to peace enforcement – that is, the use of force to accomplish changes in a particular direction favoured by the regional organizations (or the UN, for that matter). To most,...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Epigraph
• Contents
• List of contributors
• Foreword
• Preface
• List of abbreviations
• 1 The challenge of regional organizations: an introduction
• Part I The global level
• Part II Regional challenges in Europe
• Part III Empowering organizations in Africa
• Part IV Arab organizations and the Arab Spring
• Part V Conclusions
• Appendix I: Charter of the United Nations – Chapter VIII: Regional arrangements
• Appendix II: Regional organizations for peace and security – an overview
• Appendix III: UN and regional arrangements since 1990 – doctrine, developments, current thinking
• Index