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#PK70 70 Years of Service and Sacrifice

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SERVICE AND SACRIFICE

UN Peacekeepers work in difficult and dangerous environments, risking their lives to protect some of the
world’s most vulnerable people.

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Ten years of peace in Liberia

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UN peacekeeping can achieve what others can’t but success is never guaranteed

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UN Peacekeeping helps countries navigate the difficult path from conflict to peace. We have unique
strengths, including legitimacy, burden sharing, and an ability to deploy troops and police from around
the world, integrating them with civilian peacekeepers to address a range of mandates set by the UN
Security Council and General Assembly.
PEACEKEEPING OPERATIONS

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The Importance of Women in Peace Processes

Dans la peau d'un Casque bleu en Rép. Dém. du Congo (360/VR)

Dans la peau d'un Casque bleu en Rép. Dém. du Congo (360/VR)

Under the Blue Helmet: Life as a UN Peacekeeper in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (VR)

Under the Blue Helmet: Life as a UN Peacekeeper in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (VR)

Action for Peacekeeping (A4P) - Renewing Our Shared Commitments

Action for Peacekeeping (A4P) - Renewing Our Shared Commitments

Destined to be free – life of a Central African boy

Destined to be free – life of a Central African boy

United Nations Police Woman of the Year - 2018

United Nations Police Woman of the Year - 2018

Fighting Ebola in DR Congo - UN News (8 November 2018)

Fighting Ebola in DR Congo - UN News (8 November 2018)

Female Police Peacekeepers - Critical Role in Helping Communities

Female Police Peacekeepers - Critical Role in Helping Communities

New home for scores of South Sudan's displaced

New home for scores of South Sudan's displaced

The Importance of Women in Peace Processes

The Importance of Women in Peace Processes

Dans la peau d'un Casque bleu en Rép. Dém. du Congo (360/VR)

Dans la peau d'un Casque bleu en Rép. Dém. du Congo (360/VR)

Under the Blue Helmet: Life as a UN Peacekeeper in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (VR)

Under the Blue Helmet: Life as a UN Peacekeeper in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (VR)

Action for Peacekeeping (A4P) - Renewing Our Shared Commitments

Action for Peacekeeping (A4P) - Renewing Our Shared Commitments

Destined to be free – life of a Central African boy

Destined to be free – life of a Central African boy

United Nations Police Woman of the Year - 2018

United Nations Police Woman of the Year - 2018

Fighting Ebola in DR Congo - UN News (8 November 2018)

Fighting Ebola in DR Congo - UN News (8 November 2018)

Female Police Peacekeepers - Critical Role in Helping Communities

Female Police Peacekeepers - Critical Role in Helping Communities

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WHAT IS PEACEKEEPING

Peacekeeping helmet and vestsUN Photo/Marie Frechon

United Nations Peacekeeping helps countries torn by conflict create conditions for lasting peace.

Peacekeeping has proven to be one of the most effective tools available to the UN to assist host
countries navigate the difficult path from conflict to peace.

Peacekeeping has unique strengths, including legitimacy, burden sharing, and an ability to deploy and
sustain troops and police from around the globe, integrating them with civilian peacekeepers to advance
multidimensional mandates.

UN peacekeepers provide security and the political and peacebuilding support to help countries make
the difficult, early transition from conflict to peace.

UN Peacekeeping is guided by three basic principles:

Consent of the parties;

Impartiality;

Non-use of force except in self-defence and defence of the mandate.

Peacekeeping is flexible and over the past two decades has been deployed in many configurations.
There are currently 14 UN peacekeeping operations deployed on four continents.

Today's multidimensional peacekeeping operations are called upon not only to maintain peace and
security, but also to facilitate the political process, protect civilians, assist in the disarmament,
demobilization and reintegration of former combatants; support the organization of elections, protect
and promote human rights and assist in restoring the rule of law.

Success is never guaranteed, because UN Peacekeeping almost by definition goes to the most physically
and politically difficult environments. However, we have built up a demonstrable record of success over
our 60 years of existence, including winning the Nobel Peace Prize.

Peacekeeping has always been highly dynamic and has evolved in the face of new challenges. Former
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon established a 17-member High-level Independent Panel on UN Peace
Operations to make a comprehensive assessment of the state of UN peace operations today, and the
emerging needs of the future.

Global partnership

UN peacekeeping is a unique global partnership. It brings together the General Assembly, the Security
Council, the Secretariat, troop and police contributors and the host governments in a combined effort to
maintain international peace and security. Its strength lies in the legitimacy of the UN Charter and in the
wide range of contributing countries that participate and provide precious resources.

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Peacekeeping Fact Sheet

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Peacekeeping wins Nobel Peace Prize

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UN Peacekeeping Operations: Principles and Guidelines - “Capstone Doctrine”

Surge in Uniformed UN Peacekeeping Personnel from 1991- Present

UN peacekeeping Background Note

UN PEACEKEEPERS: SERVICE AND SACRIFICE

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United Nations Peacekeeping Forces

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United Nations Peacekeeping Forces

History

The United Nations Peacekeeping Forces are employed by the World Organization to maintain or re-
establish peace in an area of armed conflict. The UN may engage in conflicts between states as well as in
struggles within states. The UN acts as an impartial third party in order to prepare the ground for a
settlement of the issues that have provoked armed conflict. If it proves impossible to achieve a peaceful
settlement, the presence of UN forces may contribute to reducing the level of conflict.

The UN Peacekeeping Forces may only be employed when both parties to a conflict accept their
presence. Accordingly, they may also be used by the warring parties to avoid having a conflict escalate
and, in the event, also to have a struggle called off.

The Peacekeeping Forces are subordinate to the leadership of the United Nations. They are normally
deployed as a consequence of a Security Council decision. However, on occasion, the initiative has been
taken by the General Assembly. Operational control belongs to the Secretary-General and his
secretariat.

We distinguish between two kinds of peacekeeping operations – unarmed observer groups and lightly-
armed military forces. The latter are only allowed to employ their weapons for self-defence. Altogether,
14 UN operations have been carried out. They are evenly divided between observer groups and military
forces. The observer groups are concerned with gathering information for the UN about actual
conditions prevailing in an area, e.g., as to whether both parties adhere to an armistice agreement. The
military forces are entrusted with more extended tasks, such as keeping the parties to a conflict apart
and maintaining order in an area.

UN interventions have been in particular demand in the Middle East, both as regards observer groups
and military forces. The UN first took on the task of sending observers to monitor the armistice between
Israel and the Arab states in 1948. Observer group activity was resumed after the wars of 1956, 1967,
and 1973. After the 1956 war, the first armed UN force was established to create a buffer between
Israeli and Egyptian forces in the Sinai. Ten nations contributed soldiers. Another force was established
after the war between Egypt and Israel in 1967 to monitor the armistice agreement between the parties.
This took place during a period of extremely high tension both locally and between the great powers. In
1974, a smaller UN force was set up on the Golan Heights to maintain the boundary line between Syrian
and Israeli forces. The most extensive UN operation in the Middle East is represented by the formation
of UNIFIL, subsequent upon the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1978. Its tasks included watching over the
Israeli withdrawal, maintaining conditions of peace and security, and helping the Lebanese government
re-establish its authority. Such tasks have taxed the capabilities of UNIFIL to the utmost, but the UN
forces have made an important contribution by reducing the level of conflict in the area. However, this
achievement has not come without significant cost. UN casualities now amount to more than 200.

The UN played an important role during the struggles that erupted when the Belgian colony of the
Congo achieved independence in 1960. As anarchy and chaos reigned in the area, a UN force numbering
almost 20,000 was set up to help the Congolese government maintain peace and order. It ended up
being, above all, engaged in bringing a raging civil war to an end and preventing the province of Katanga
from seceding. It was while carrying out the UN mission in the Congo that Secretary-General Dag
Hammarskjold was killed in an air crash.

Among other important tasks may be mentioned monitoring the border between India and Pakistan,
and maintaining the peacekeeping force that was established on Cyprus on account of the civil war that
broke out between the Greek and Turkish populations of the island. The UN force has succeeded in
creating a buffer zone between the two ethnic groups.

The UN has, in these and other areas, played a significant role in reducing the level of conflict even
though the fundamental causes of the struggles frequently remain.

From Les Prix Nobel. The Nobel Prizes 1988, Editor Tore Frängsmyr, [Nobel Foundation], Stockholm,
1989

Selected Bibliography

Daniel, Donald C. F. and Bradd C. Hayes, eds. Beyond Traditional Peacekeeping. New York: St. Martin’s
Press, 1995. (Excellent essays on past, present and future of peacekeeping, with case studies and helpful
appendices.)

Diehl, Paul F. International Peacekeeping. Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994. (History
and analysis from the period of the League of Nations, with an epilogue on Somalia, Bosnia and
Cambodia.)

Fetherston, A. B. Towards a Theory of United Nations Peacekeepers. New York: St. Martin’s, 1995.
(Includes history to 1993 and case studies.)

Harbottle, Michael. The Impartial Soldier. London: Oxford University Press, 1970. (The first of his many
publications on the peacekeepers.)

Heininger, Janet E. Peacekeeping in Transition: The United Nations in Cambodia, 1991-1993. New York:
Twentieth Century Fund Press, 1994. (A key example of peacekeeping combined with peace-building.)

Hirsch, John L. and Robert B. Oakley. Somalia and Operation Restore Hope: Reflections on Peacekeeping
and Peacemaking. Herndon, Virginia: U.S. Institute of Peace Press, 1995. (A detailed study, covering both
achievements and mistakes.)

International Peacekeeping. 1994- . (Invaluable newsletter reporting and analysing developments with
emphasis on legal and policy issues.)

Urquhart, Brian. A Life in Peace and War. New York: W. W. Norton, 1971. (Valuable memoirs by former
UN peacekeeping administrator and biographer of Ralph Bunche and Dag Hammarskjöld, with whom he
worked closely.)
From Nobel Lectures, Peace 1981-1990, Editor-in-Charge Tore Frängsmyr, Editor Irwin Abrams, World
Scientific Publishing Co., Singapore, 1997

This text was first published in the book series Les Prix Nobel. It was later edited and republished in
Nobel Lectures. To cite this document, always state the source as shown above.

Copyright © The Nobel Foundation 1988

To cite this section

MLA style: United Nations Peacekeeping Forces – History. NobelPrize.org. Nobel Media AB 2019. Mon.
14 Jan 2019. <https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/1988/un/history/>

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