De manera especial durante los últimos años de su vida, Adorno exploró la potencialidad del arte como
EL PODER EMANCIPADOR DE LA FEALDAD
52 Ibid., para 63. 53 Ibid., para 49. 54 Ibid., para 1.
55 See Alex Bellamy and Paul Williams, Understanding Peacekeeping, Second Edition, Polity Press,
2011; Siobhán Wills, Protecting Civilians, the obligations of peacekeepers, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009; Christine Gray, International law and the use of force, Third Edition, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008, pp. 254 – 249; Peter Danchin and Horst Fischer, (eds), United Nations reform and the new collective security, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010; Elizabeth G. Ferris, The Politics of Prevention: The Limits of Humanitarian Action, Washington DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2011; Thomas G Weiss, Humanitarian Intervention: War and Conflict in the Modern World, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007; William Durch, Victoria Holt, Caroline Earle and Moira Shanahan, The Brahimi Report and the Future of Peace Operations, Washington, DC: The Henry L. Stimson Center, December 2003.
defend any civilian person who is in need of protection’.56 Missions have also become
increasingly multi-dimensional. The Capstone Doctrine, published in 2008, for example, lists as a part of the ‘Core Business’ of UN peacekeeping the ‘[creation of] a secure and stable environment while strengthening the State’s ability to provide security, with full respect for the rule of law and human rights.’ 57 It states that:
Most multi-dimensional United Nations peacekeeping operations are now mandated by the Security Council to protect civilians under imminent threat of physical violence. The protection of civilians requires concerted and coordinated action among the military, police and civilian components of a United Nations
peacekeeping operation and must be mainstreamed into the planning and conduct of its core activities. United Nations humanitarian agencies and non-governmental organization (NGO) partners also undertake a broad range of activities in support of the protection of civilians. Close coordination with these actors is, therefore, essential.58
This reasonably describes what UN missions often do. However, it uses the same term ‘protection’ to include actions by the military and police where there is an ‘imminent threat of physical violence’ as well as a ‘broad’, but undefined, range of activities by UN humanitarian agencies and NGOs. The High Level Panel Report on Peace Operations of 2015 also urged UN missions to ‘harness or leverage’ the capabilities of humanitarian organizations to ‘support the creation of a protective environment.’59 Much of the current discourse on
56 United Nations Master List of Numbered ROE, Guidelines for the Development of ROE for
UNPKO, Provisional Sample ROE, Attachment 1 to FGS/0220.001, United Nations, April 2002, Rule 1.8. This authorises the use of force ‘up to, and including deadly force, to defend any civilian person who is in need of protection against a hostile act or hostile intent, when competent local authorities are not in a position to render immediate assistance’.
57 Capstone Doctrine 2008, p.24. 58 Ibid.
59 High Level Panel Report on Peace Operations of 2015, para 87. ‘Humanitarian organizations play
essential roles in protecting civilians. Where appropriate, timely coordination between missions with humanitarian actors is indispensable in pursuing unarmed strategies as these partners often work closely with communities, especially internally displaced persons. Many non-governmental
‘stabilization’ adopts a similar approach.60 As will be discussed below this can lead to
considerable confusion about who is to be protected, from what, by whom, to what extent and until when.
POC’s normative significance
Although the Security Council was aware of the significance of the POC tasks that it had inserted into UNAMSIL’s mandate, this does not seem to have been considered a significant separate task within the mission at the operational or tactical level.61 The first mission report
organizations, national and international, also ensure protection by their civilian presence and commitment to non-violent strategies for protection. Missions should make every effort to harness or leverage the non-violent practices and capabilities of local communities and non-governmental organizations to support the creation of a protective environment
60 There is a vast and growing literature on the latter concepts. See for example: Robert Muggah, (ed),
Stabilization operations, security and development: states of fragility, London and New York: Routledge, 2014; Oliver Ramsbotham, Hugh Miall, Tom Woodhouse, The Dilemmas of Statebuilding: Confronting the Contradictions of Post War Peace Operations, Abingdon: Routledge, 2009; Ronald Hatto, ‘From peacekeeping to peacebuilding: the evolution of the role of the United Nations in peace operations’, International Review of the Red Cross, Multinational operations and the law, Volume 95 Number 891/892 Autumn/Winter 2013, pp.495–515; Beth Cole and Emily Hsu , Guiding Principles for Stabilization and Reconstruction, Washington: United States Institute for Peace, 2009; OECD- DAC Supporting Statebuilding in Situations of Conflict and Fragility: Policy Guidance, DAC Guidelines and Reference Series, Paris: OECD, 2011; Craig Cohen, Measuring Progress in
Stabilization and Reconstruction, Washington DC: United States Institute of Peace, 2009; Michael W. Doyle and Nicholas Sambanis, Making War and Building Peace: United Nations Peace Operations, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2006; Michael Barnett, ‘Building a Republican Peace: Stabilizing States after War’, International Security, Spring 2006, Vol. 30, No. 4, pp.87-112; Alex J. Bellamy and Paul D. Williams, ‘Who’s Keeping the Peace? Regionalization and Contemporary Peace Operations, International Security, Spring 2005, Vol. 29, No. 4, pp.157-195; Philip Wilkinson, The Military Contribution to Peace Support Operations, Joint Warfare Publication (JWP) 3-50, Second Edition, Shrivenham: Ministry of Defence, 2004; Robert B. Oakley, Michael J. Dziedzic, Eliot M. Goldberg (eds), Policing The New World Disorder: Peace Operations And Public Security, Washington DC: National Defense University Press, 1998.
61 For the UN’s distinction between Strategic, Operational and Tactical levels, see Authority,
Command and Control in United Nations Peacekeeping Operations, United Nations Department of Peacekeeping Operations Department of Field Support Ref. 2008.4, Policy February 2008. The management of a peacekeeping operation at UN Headquarters level in New York is considered to be the strategic level. The Security Council provides the legal authority, high-level direction and political guidance for all UN peacekeeping operations, which is then vested in the Secretary-General and delegated to the Under Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations (USG DPKO). The field-based management of a peacekeeping operation is considered to be the operational level and includes: the Head of Mission, Head of Police and Military components, Deputy Special Representative(s) of the Secretary-General (DSRSG); and Director of Mission Support/Chief of Mission Support (DMS/CMS). The management of military, police and civilian operations below the level of Mission Headquarters and the supervision of individual personnel is considered to be at the tactical level and is exercised by Brigade, Regional, Sector Commanders for the military and the management of the mission’s regional/sector/field offices by the civilian heads of offices.
to the Security Council, in December 1999, contained no references to POC, although it did have separate sections on the security situation, DDR, human rights and humanitarian issues.62 The language of the reports suggests that it was assumed that the protection of
civilians would be accomplished through the success of the mission’s overall objectives. A report in March 2001, for example, stated that:
The main objectives of UNAMSIL in Sierra Leone remain to assist the efforts of the Government of Sierra Leone to extend its authority, restore law and order and stabilize the situation progressively throughout the entire country, and to assist in the promotion of a political process which should lead to a renewed disarmament, demobilization and reintegration programme and the holding, in due course, of free and fair elections.63
The notion that the best means of protecting civilians is to bring an end to the conflict in which they are suffering and so the success of the mission’s overall political objectives should take priority over specific mandated tasks remains a strong.64 The reports of the
Special Committee for Peacekeeping Operations (C34) to the UN General Assembly continue to stress the importance of missions supporting ‘comprehensive peace processes’ while abiding strictly to the ‘core principles’ of peacekeeping: host state consent, impartiality and minimum use of force.65 These principles are also restated in the High Level Panel Report on
62 First Report of the Secretary General on the United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone, S/1999/1223,
6 December 1999.
63 Ninth report of the Secretary General on the United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone, S/2001/228,
14 March 2001, paras 57-8.
64 See, for example, the High Level Panel Report on Peace Operations of 2015, Executive Summary
and para 37. ‘First, politics must drive the design and implementation of peace operations. Lasting peace is achieved not through military and technical engagements, but through political solutions. Political solutions should always guide the design and deployment of UN peace operations. When the momentum behind peace falters, the United Nations, and particularly Member States, must help to mobilize renewed political efforts to keep peace processes on track.’ [emphasis in original]
65 See, for example, Report of the Special Committee on Peacekeeping Operations 2012 substantive
session (New York, 21 February-16 March and 11 September 2012), UN Doc. A/66/19, paras 21 and 24-7.
Peace Operations of 2015, the Capstone Doctrine and other recent policy documents.66
References to POC have gradually entered into the reports of the C34 as a mandated task since 2009, although with very little discussion of the direct physical protection that peacekeeping soldiers can provide.67
The cautious wording of the original UNAMSIL mandate has been repeated many times since and mission staff members sometimes emphasize the caveats and limitations contained in the original resolution.68 Nevertheless, the Security Council is becoming increasingly
detailed in spelling out the POC tasks of UN peacekeeping missions, drawing on their field experiences.
The first Secretary General’s report on POC in 1999 included a recommendation that ‘regional or international military forces’ must be ‘prepared to take effective measures to
66 High Level Panel Report 2015, paras 121-5; Capstone Document 2008, p.31. See also The New
Horizon Initiative, Progress Report No. 2, New York: Department of Peacekeeping Operations and Department of Field Support, December 2011; Early Peace building Strategy, New York: Department of Peacekeeping Operations and Department of Field Support, June 2011; and Draft Operational Concept on the Protection of Civilians in United Nations Peacekeeping Operations, New York: Department of Peacekeeping Operations–Department of Field Support, 2010.
67 Report of the Special Committee on Peacekeeping Operations 2012 substantive session (New York,
21 February-16 March and 11 September 2012), UN Doc. A/66/19, paras; 191-205; Report of the Special Committee on Peacekeeping Operations 2011 substantive session (New York, 22 February-18 March and 9 May 2011) UN Doc. A/65/19, paras 172-83; Adopted by UN General Assembly
Resolution 65/310; Report of the Special Committee on Peacekeeping Operations 2010 substantive session (New York, (22 February-19 March 2010), UN Doc. A/64/19, paras 145-51, Adopted by UN General Assembly Resolution 64/266; Report of the Special Committee on Peacekeeping Operations 2009 substantive session (New York, 23 February-20 March 2009)), UN Doc. A/63/19, paras 127-8, Adopted by UN General Assembly Resolution 63/280. POC was not mentioned at all in the Report of the Special Committee on Peacekeeping Operations 2008 substantive session (New York, 10 March-4 April and 3 July 2008), UN Doc. A/62/19.
68 Interview in November 2013 with Séverine Autesserre, a former aid worker and author of The
trouble with the Congo: local violence and the failure of international peacebuilding, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010, which is based on hundreds of interviews carried out in the DRC between 2004 and 2007. She notes that some mission staff stress that the mandate’s use of the word ‘may’ indicates that the Chapter VII authorization is discretionary. The phrase ‘to ensure the security and freedom of movement of its personnel and, within its capabilities and areas of deployment, to afford protection to civilians under imminent threat of physical violence’ is also sometimes interpreted sequentially. The mission will first ensure its own security and freedom of movement, then that of international humanitarian aid workers and only after that will it consider protecting local people. These views also reflect the author’s own observations of some UN staff in missions with POC mandates.
protect civilians. Such measures could include compelling disarmament of the combatants or armed elements’.69 It also recommended that the Security Council:
Establish, as a measure of last resort, temporary security zones and safe corridors for the protection of civilians and the delivery of assistance . . . subject to a clear
understanding that such arrangements require the availability, prior to their establishment, of sufficient and credible force to guarantee the safety of civilian populations making use of them, and ensure the demilitarization of these zones and the availability of a safe-exit option.70
The two subsequent reports on POC, published in 2001 and 2002, however, failed even to mention the role of internationally-mandated forces in protecting civilians against violence.71
They instead emphasised the primary responsibility of governments to protect their own people, with the role of the UN limited to advocating that these fulfil their responsibilities.72
The only ‘direct protection’ tasks envisaged for missions were coordinating and facilitating the delivery of humanitarian aid and negotiating access to vulnerable populations.73 An Aide
Memoire, published in December 2003, followed much the same approach.74
The Secretary General’s report, published in 2004, more assertively stated that ‘the stronger protection focus in peacekeeping mandates has been complemented by swifter deployments of peacekeeping troops when needed to avert an immediate crisis of protection and to restore
69 Report of the Secretary-General to the Security Council on the Protection of Civilians in Armed
Conflict, S/1999/957, 8 September 1999, para 35.
70 Ibid., para 39.
71 Report of the Secretary-General on the protection of civilians in armed conflict, S/2001/331, 30
March 2001; and Report of the Secretary-General on the protection of civilians in armed conflict, S/2002/1300, 26 November 2002.
72 For example, Report of the Secretary-General on the protection of civilians in armed conflict,
S/2001/331, 30 March 2001, paras 9-13 contained a list of ‘measures to enhance protection’, which were: Prosecutions of violations of international criminal law, Denial of amnesty for serious crimes, Impact of criminal justice, Importance of national jurisdictions and Truth and Reconciliations efforts.
73 Ibid., paras 14-25.
74 Annex to Statement of the President of the Security Council, Protection of civilians in armed conflict,
order’, making specific to the UN mission to the DRC.75 UN peacekeeping forces were said
to be ‘holding local militias in check and maintaining the peace in a precarious situation’.76
The 2005 report noted that UN peacekeepers ‘can provide the necessary security environment to prevent displacement and facilitate an early return’ and ‘may also be the only means of ensuring that the civilian character of camps for displaced populations is maintained by preventing the infiltration of armed elements and combatants.’77
The 2007 report again referred to the UN’s DRC mission (MONUC) as illustrating the ‘critical role that peacekeepers can play in protecting civilians, through a concept of
operations that prioritizes the provision of security by a deterrent military presence and direct involvement to prevent and end violations of human rights and humanitarian law’.78 When
the Security Council revised MONUC’s mandate the same year, it stated that ‘the protection of civilians must be given a priority in decisions about the use of available capacity and resources’.79 The Council also established an Informal Expert Group on the Protection of
Civilians, in the same year to consider a wide range of protection issues, based on briefings by relevant UN agencies and departments.80
75 Report of the Secretary-General on the protection of civilians in armed conflict, S/2004/431, 28 May
2004, para 9.
76 Ibid.
77 Report of the Secretary-General on the protection of civilians in armed conflict, S/2005/740, 28
November 2005, para 23.
78 Report of the Secretary-General on the protection of civilians in armed conflict, S/2007/643, 28
October 2007, para 14.
79 Security Council Resolution 1794 of 21 December 2007, para 5.
80 For further details see UN OCHA Home Page, Thematic Areas: Protection,
http://www.unocha.org/what-we-do/policy/thematic-areas/protection, accessed 5 August 2015. See, also, Security Council Report, Cross-Cutting Report, Protection of Civilians in Armed Conflict, May 2015, pp.2 and 4. The group was established in response to a recommendation in the Secretary- General’s 2007 report on the Protection of Civilians. It is Chaired by the United Kingdom and serviced by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). It includes experts from Security Council Members with inputs from relevant UN Secretariat departments, agencies, Humanitarian Coordinators, and non-governmental organizations. It met 10 times in 2012, 11 times in 2013 and 9 times in 2014. Since 2013 representatives from other UN entities have also been invited to address these meetings.
The following year POC was made MONUC’s highest priority.81 The resolution also
removed the reference to ‘without prejudice to the responsibility to the government’ and mandated MONUC to: ‘Ensure the protection of civilians, including humanitarian personnel, under imminent threat of physical violence, in particular violence emanating from any of the parties engaged in the conflict’.82 [emphasis added] In 2009 the Security Council stressed,
for all missions, that ‘mandated protection activities must be given priority in decisions about the use of available capacity and resources, including information and intelligence resources, in the implementation of mandates’ and recognized, that POC ‘requires a coordinated response from all relevant mission components’.83
In 2011 the Security Council mandated the UN mission to Côte d’Ivoire to ‘prevent the use of heavy weapons against the civilian population’84 In 2013 the Security Council created a
Force Intervention Brigade to conduct ‘targeted offensive operations’ against rebel groups which threatened civilians.85 In 2014 the word ‘imminent’ was removed from the
formulation in the DRC mission’s mandate.86 Guidance produced by the DPKO and OCHA
in 2010 and 2011 stated that while the protection of civilians is primarily the responsibility of the host government and the mission is deployed to assist and build the capacity of the government in the fulfilment of this responsibility:
in cases where the government is unable or unwilling to fulfil its responsibility, Security Council mandates give missions the authority to act independently to protect
81 Security Council Resolution 1856 of 22 December 2008, para 2: ‘Requests MONUC to attach the
highest priority to addressing the crisis in the Kivus, in particular the protection of civilians, and to concentrate progressively during the coming year its action in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.’
82 Ibid., para 3 (a).
83 Security Council Resolution 1894 of 11 November 2009, para 19. 84 Security Council Resolution 1975 of 30 March 2011, para 6. 85 Security Council Resolution 2098, 28 March 2013, para 12(b). 86 Security Council Resolution 2147, of 28 March 2014, para 4 (a) (i)
civilians [meaning that] missions are authorized to use force against any party, including elements of government forces.87 [emphasis added]
The Secretary General’s report on POC in 2009 hailed ‘ten years of normative progress’88 and
stated that it had ‘increasingly permeated the country-specific deliberations and decisions of the Council’, which had resulted in ‘concrete proposals and decisions’ to improve the protection of victims of conflicts.89 While a decade previously ‘members of the Security
Council questioned whether situations of internal armed conflict constituted a threat to international peace and security’, this was now ‘firmly recognized’ by all.90 The report
identified five core challenges: enhancing compliance with international law; enhancing compliance by non-state armed groups; enhancing protection through more effective and better resourced peacekeeping missions; enhancing humanitarian access; and enhancing accountability for violations.91 It also warned, however, that POC ‘remains largely undefined
as both a military task and as a mission-wide task. Each mission interprets its protection mandate as best it can in its specific context.’92 There was a need for a ‘broader policy
framework that includes clear direction as to possible courses of action, including in situations where the armed forces of the host State are themselves perpetrating violations against civilians, as well as indicative tasks and the necessary capabilities for their implementation.’93
87 UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Framework for Drafting Comprehensive