Home     UNEPS     Preventing War     Who We Are     Newsletter     UN     Meetings     Take Action!     Contact

    
       
 

A UNEPS ‘White Paper’ Launched in Washington, DC

 A UN Emergency Peace Service: One Step Towards Effective Genocide Prevention
Hosted by the Partnership for Effective Peacekeeping and Citizens for Global Solutions

On May 27 th 2008, Citizens for Global Solutions and Global Action to Prevent War led a panel discussion focused on increasing the effectiveness of UN and regional genocide prevention efforts. Hosted by the Partnership for Effective Peacekeeping (PEP), the purpose of the event was to introduce and discuss a White Paper produced by Citizens for Global Solutions entitled, “A UN Emergency Peace Service: One Step Towards Effective Genocide Prevention.”

The panel was led by Don Kraus (CEO of Citizens for Global Solutions) and included Robert Zuber of GAPW and Mark Malan of the Peacebuilding Unit of Refugees International. The event chair was Kevin Bacon (Director of Refugees International).

Don Kraus presented the White Paper that he and his CGS colleagues (in cooperation with GAPW) prepared for the Albright/Cohen Genocide Prevention Task Force. Don’s Power Point presentation focused on current problems in peacekeeping missions that impact the speed of deployment as well as training, accountability and capacity issues. He pointed out that “over the past 15 years, the UN has taken on average, 46 days to begin the deployment of peacekeepers and 13 months to fully staff missions…” He also highlighted the collaborative development of a UN Emergency Peace Service (UNEPS) as both a tool to fill this deployment gap and as a complementary, integrated service to assist the UN and regional organizations in achieving effective genocide prevention. Don noted the growing support for UNEPS from governments, UN officials and civil society organizations worldwide.

Mark Malan emphasized that the notion of standing capacity is enshrined within the UN Charter and has been promoted by many individuals and organization. It is now a case of ‘marketing’ the idea effectively, coupling the military and civilian components of UNEPS in such a way to help ensure that this new tool is seen as complementary and ‘non-threatening’ to Member States as possible.

Robert Zuber highlighted additional components of the UNEPS proposal including its strong gender focus, its robust non-military components, and the extent to which UNEPS seeks to integrate the security concerns of the ‘global south.’ He also noted that the proposal is still a ‘work-in-progress’ and must remain flexible and responsive. Robert outlined the current burdens on DPKO and the need for tools such as UNEPS to improve the viability and credibility of peacekeeping operations.

Ken Bacon questioned how sufficient political will for the UNEPS proposal can be generated and how the ‘global south’ should best be engaged in the process of refining and promoting the proposal.


UNEPS Workshop in South Africa

The UNEPS meeting/workshop with partners from South Africa, Cameroon and Mozambique was conducted at the University of Pretoria (at the Centre for International Political Studies). Students, academics, NGO leaders and representatives of UN agencies gathered for a vigorous discussion of the merits and challenges of a UNEPS in African contexts.


Panel: Christian Tanyi, Hussein Solomon, Robert Zuber and Alejandro Soto Romero

The point was made strongly by the panelists – Hussein Solomon (who hosted the event), Alejandro Soto Romero, Christian Tanyi and Robert Zuber – that UNEPS is being designed and promoted as a service-integrated, complementary capacity that would work alongside existing UN and regional peacekeeping operations.

This discussion underscored two important mandates for UNEPS. First, that the non-military components of UNEPS, including police, health and development assistance, must receive the same levels of strategic attention as the military components. And second, that a UNEPS must continue to seek a complementary ‘fit’ both with the constellation of existing regional and UN peacekeeping operations and with the articulated security needs and concerns of nations in the ‘global south’ that would most likely be the recipients of any future UNEPS deployment.
Click here for to read the full conference report

Global Action to Prevent War; Workshop on the
Eradication of Armed Conflict
Brisbane, Australia
February 8-10th 2008
For three days (and a fourth day of strategic planning) a group consisting of core GAPW/UNEPS affiliates and regional experts from Australia, New Zealand, Timor Leste and the Philippines came together to discuss key Global Action programs and initiatives. Conference participants through papers/presentations and discussions focused on three areas of concern towards achieving a world without war.

1. The need for robust conventional weapons reductions and an arms trade treaty
2. The need for nuclear disarmament undertaken alongside commitments to non-proliferation
3. The need for a standing, individually-recruited, rapid-deployment peacekeeping service that can reduce the costs and operational burdens of UN and regional operations that arrive on the scene too late to stop massive violence in its formative stages.
Click here for to read the full conference report

 

    675 Third Avenue, Suite 315. New York, NY 10017. Telephone: (212) 818-1815. Fax (212) 818-1857. coordinator@globalactionpw.org