UN Peace Keeping

Although not aforementioned in the United Nations Charter the phenomenon that is peacekeeping has quickly spread, emerging out of the Cold War, and slowly but surely become a principal tool for the United Nations (UN) to continue its primary goal in the maintaining of peace and security universally. Often referred to as the “The Blue Helmets” UN peacekeepers have been deployed all over the globe to intervene in some of the worst conflicts on the planet under the authority of Chapter VI and Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter, once described as the “Chapter 6 ½ initiative” by Dag Hammerskjold (Rana, 1994: 2). Article 53 of the United Nations Charter emphasises the right of the UN through its organs; the Security Council and General Assembly, to mediate in such conflict (Article 52). Since 1948, UN peacekeepers have undertaken 67 field missions, which among many other things, has enabled the peoples of many countries to participate in free and fair elections; and disarmed more than 400,000 ex-combatants in the past decade alone. Thus many countries look to the UN for a legitimate peacekeeping operation, due to the multilateral nature of the UN process.
As the most representative inter-governmental organization in the world today, the United Nations' role in global affairs is irreplaceable by any other international or regional organizations. In matters relating to peace and security, the United Nations is the principal international body and [their] collective security is the most predominant, and primarily the concern of this organisation (Wallensteen, 2007: 220). It’s dominance in such affairs is second to none, and whilst the only other comparable institution would be the European Union’s Council of Ministers, it doesn’t enjoy a large enough mandate on foreign affairs and defence issues to be an equivalent (Wallensteen, 2007: 222). Central to the work of the United Nations is peacebuilding in Post-conflict states, however, as we will come to see, the