The Evolution of UN Peacekeeping(2): Reforming DPKO TIMO PELZ& VOLKER LEHMANN November 2007 Summary The current increase in UN peacekeeping operations has strained the institutional capacities of the UN Secretariat. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s reform, which adds to the Department of Peacekeeping Operation a new Department of Field Support, is only the last in a series of changes of the UN peacekeeping architecture aiming to balance unity of command and division of labor. Origins of UN Peacekeeping Structure Initially the concept of peacekeeping operations was not part of the UN Charta. The institutional capacity within the UN Secretariat grew only in reaction to the necessity for UN involvement in maintaining peace. This was in part an evolutionary process and in part a consequence of a number of individuals who held key positions in crucial times. The institutional starting point of the UN’s structure for undertaking peacekeeping operations(PKOs) is the Military Staff Committee(MSC). Article 47 of the Charter stipulates that the MSC advises the Security Council(SC) on all questions related to the military requirements for maintaining international peace and security. Yet by 1948, when the UN established its first PKOs 1 , the Cold War confrontation among the permanent five members of the SC rendered the MSC defunct. Its responsibilities were displaced onto other organs of the UN, which were forced to undertake peacekeeping with insufficient structural or budgetary resources on an ad hoc basis. As for the secretariat, in 1953 the incoming Secretary­General Dag Hammarskjöld appointed two“Under­Secretaries-General(USGs) without portfolio”, who were relabeled“USG for Special Political Affairs” in 1 These two missions, both of which still exist today, were the United Nations Truce Supervision Agency(UNTSO) in Israel/Palestine, established in 1948 and the United Nations Military Observer Group in India and Pakistan(UNMOGIP), established in 1949. 1961. One post was first held by Ralph Bunche, and after his death in 1971 by Brian Urquhart. Urquhart oversaw the UN’s operations in the Middle East, which comprised almost all of the UN’s PKOs, and the office’s tasks included both field operations and mediation. When Urquhart was succeeded by Marrack Goulding in 1985, the office soon began to lose control over the increasingly disparate components of the peacekeeping business. At the end of the Cold War the nature of peacekeeping changed that required a break with the traditional way of peacekeeping. Whereas between 1948 and 1988 about half of all PKOs were deployed to internal armed conflicts, since 1998 this figure has risen to 90 percent. At the same time the UN also had to adjust to the ever­increasing demand for peacekeeping. 2 When Boutros Boutros-Ghali took office as Secretary-General in 1992, one of his first decisions therefore was to rationalize peacekeeping by separating the political from the operational business. As a result, all political offices were bundled in a new branch, the Department of Political Affairs(DPA), whereas the old Office for Special Political Affairs was turned into a new Department of Peacekeeping Operations(DPKO). Headed by Marrack Goulding as the first USG for Peacekeeping(with Kofi Annan as his deputy), DPKO was further subdivided into two organizational areas: An Office of Operations, which dealt with the conduct of missions all over the world, and included regional divisions as well as a situation center in New York; and an Office of Mission Support, to help divisions with administration and logistics. Aside from these two main offices, DPKO featured a military and a police division as well as an integrated training service. 2 See Pelz and Lehmann:“The Evolution of UN Peacekeeping(1): Hybrid Missions”. FESNY Fact Sheet, November 2007.