Canada & the UN >  Canada on the Security Council (1999-2000)

Canada and the Security Council: Options and Opportunities

Session II -- Co-ordination
Presentation: Mr. Hunter McGill, Director, International Humanitarian Assistance, CIDA

Given the sheer number of actors and organizations involved in international peace and security issues, attempts to improve the effectiveness of the Security Council and the peace support operations carried out in its name invariably involve efforts to improve co-ordination at a variety of levels. Speakers in this session highlighted a number of vital relationships where close co-ordination was of utmost importance, such as that between the Security Council and key UN agencies, between various components of the UN Secretariat, and between the Security Council and organizations outside the UN system, from regional organizations to national development agencies to humanitarian non-governmental organizations. Attention was also paid to the importance of developing within the Security Council a greater capacity for long-range co-ordination.

In his opening comments, Mr. McGill noted that the Rwandan crisis of 1994 represented a turning point in international crisis co-ordination. The absence of a coherent international response to the crisis highlighted the crucial importance of co-ordination in complex emergencies, and the aftermath of the Rwandan episode saw specific operational policy changes within and among humanitarian and development agencies. Many agencies created conflict management or peace-building units to facilitate greater internal co-ordination, while donors began to work collaboratively on such issues as curbing excessive military expenditures by developing countries and limiting international trade in small arms. At the same time, however, the Rwandan crisis also revealed the limits of humanitarian action and development co-operation in dealing with the causes of conflict and in creating the conditions for sustainable peace.

Mr. McGill also noted that while there have been a number of post-conflict peace-building successes in recent years, notably in Central America and Mozambique, these successes have largely been the result of bilateral rather than multilateral interventions. The effectiveness of multilateral action, he suggested, has been limited by procedural obstacles and a tendency to become mired in mandate discussions. Moreover, in the absence of sustained political will to deal with the root causes of crises, agencies at both the bilateral and multilateral levels have been pushed by public opinion or a sense of responsibility towards band-aid or stop-gap solutions. This trend points to a pressing need for co-ordination and co-operation at the political level, since in the absence of a broader political strategy, emergency humanitarian resources are often wasted.

These tendencies highlight the critical importance of leadership in co-ordination efforts. While suggesting that there is no automaticity of leadership, Mr. McGill did identify the UN Office of the Co-ordinator for Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) as playing a growing leadership role in the co-ordination of multilateral interventions, not least through attempts to assemble co-ordinated needs assessment packages and to identify roles for particular agencies in troubled regions. He also suggested that for countries such as Canada, playing a leadership role in co-ordination efforts need not be expensive. Using the example of a series of meetings hosted recently by Canada in support of the Arusha peace process in Burundi, he noted that the crucial factors were not funding but timing and extensive pre-meeting consultations. Such co-ordination efforts allow agencies to take advantage of timely opportunities, ensure that all relevant agencies are working from the same overall plan, and play an important confidence-building role in fragile political environments.

The discussion period touched on a number of aspects of multilateral co-ordination, beginning with the state of co-ordination within the United Nations system itself. A number of speakers touched on the role of OCHA and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in providing regular briefings to the Security Council. The views of the High Commissioner, for example, have had an impact on Security Council decisions on issues such as the current crisis in Kosovo. Others, however, suggested that the informal contacts between agencies such as UNHCR and the missions of individual member states may be even more important than formal briefings. In many cases, views of key UN bodies are channelled into Security Council discussions through individual country missions. At the same time, however, there was also a suggestion that co-ordination among different arms of the UN Secretariat could be significantly improved. Often, overlapping areas of responsibility can lead to "turf wars" between offices such as OCHA and the Department of Political Affairs, thereby undermining co-ordination efforts at higher levels. Similarly, one speaker warned that co-ordination on the ground within a particular peace support operation may operate according to a different logic than co-ordination at the level of the Security Council, and that great care must be exercised in ensuring that co-ordination efforts at the two levels do not conflict.

At the level of the Security Council itself, one speaker noted that the issue of co-ordination may be complicated by the fact that the Council is first and foremost a political body, with members generally seeing themselves as bound neither by precedent nor by international law. A key dilemma, he suggested, is how to nudge the Council in the direction of more law-like behaviour as a precursor to the creation of more formal co-ordination mechanisms.

The issue of long-range co-ordination was also identified as an area in which Canada could contribute to the effectiveness of the Security Council. Much more work could go into ensuring that the Security Council is kept appraised of situations in states which are no longer directly on the Security Council agenda. In failed missions such as Angola, for example, it was suggested that continued involvement on the part of the Security Council was critical not only to facilitate ongoing humanitarian relief efforts but to continue the search for permanent solutions to that conflict. Similarly, even in cases of relatively successful UN interventions, such as in Cambodia or Haiti, it was suggested that ongoing Security Council involvement could contribute significantly to the consolidation of peace, and that the Security Council should resist the temptation to withdraw after successful elections. This emphasis on long-range co-ordination echoed many of the comments made on the human security issue, which, as a number of speakers noted, requires a long-term approach.

While co-ordination within the UN system was identified as a key priority, the importance of co-ordination between the Security Council and regional security organizations was also highlighted. The past decade has seen an increase in peace support missions undertaken by regional organizations such as the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), and several speakers stressed the need to clarify the relationship between such organizations and the Security Council. Some speakers advanced the possibility of co-ordination through UN provision of diplomatic or logistical support for peacekeeping missions undertaken by regional organizations, or through co-deployment. Others suggested that the trend towards promoting regional leadership and regional peacekeeping initiatives must be tempered by the Security Council continuing to play an oversight role over such missions. One speaker noted that since regional organizations don’t expect the Security Council to simply rubber-stamp their actions, the Security Council should continue to exercise its legitimate authority vis-à-vis regional peacekeeping initiatives.

Other speakers highlighted the potentially important role of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in co-ordination on issues of international peace and security. Already, OCHA holds monthly meetings with humanitarian NGOs, which provide the NGO community with opportunities to indirectly affect Security Council deliberations. At the same time, current Council members are frequently represented at meetings organized by NGOs to discuss particular issues or specific regions. Such meetings allow sitting Council members to exchange information with organizations with a significant field presence in regions of conflict. Such opportunities for creative, informal consultations could be enhanced and expanded, possibly through more direct involvement by current Council chairs.

The issue of sanctions came up repeatedly, with several speakers noting that co-ordination often makes the difference between successful and unsuccessful sanctions. Despite the imposition of arms embargos on strife-ridden states such as Angola and Sierra Leone, for example, combatants in both conflicts remain well-supplied with weapons. This issue is of particular urgency given the high cost of ineffective sanctions, not only in terms of casualties and population displacement, but in terms of regional instability and increased dangers to humanitarian workers. It was suggested that Canada, as incoming chair of the Angola sanctions committee, could play a more active role in working with key states to ensure that sanctions are as effective as possible. Specifically, one speaker argued that effective sanctions were in most cases a question of political will, and raised the possibility of naming names of sanctions violators as a means of encouraging compliance. Admittedly, however, such a strategy raises both political dilemmas, in terms of the risks of alienating key players in any particular sanctions regime, and functional dilemmas, in terms of the UN’s capacity to gather evidence of violations. At the same time, it was also suggested that bringing more resources to bear on sanctions enforcement, either through inviting interested states to participate in sanctions assistance missions or in channelling resources directly to those states which possess the will to implement sanctions but not the means, could also enhance the effectiveness of sanctions regimes.