Can we talk about soldiers and peace in the context of the United Nations? American professor of international relations Stephen Walt discusses the limited and controversial role of these military personnel deployed in conflict resolution: “From there, it’s only a short step to seeing the Blue Helmets as mercenaries of peace, a step that some people do not hesitate to take.” In his work, Walt suggests that the United Nations is ineffective in resolving conflicts today and is an organization that is “dependent on and an instrument of the major powers.”
As the name suggests, “peacekeepers” is a paradoxical and ambivalent term. French anthropologist Didier Fassin addresses the fact that peacekeeping has even become a form of legitimate violence exercised in the name of a moral good under the auspices of the UN. Although peacekeeping operations are deployed to protect civilians and provide humanitarian aid, in his book “Human Reason,” Fassin criticizes the politicization and power relations involved in humanitarian actions. It is in this vein that Fassin criticizes the actions of peacekeepers, pointing to the humanitarian field as a means of masking deviance and power dynamics.
Sociologist Michaela Barnett, who studies peacekeepers and their behavior, puts forward the thesis that they are largely influenced by institutional culture, with a vision that is sometimes disconnected from the world and its realities on the ground during operations. Peacekeepers are a beneficial force in conflict zones in many ways. Although they provide necessary and positive assistance in many cases, they operate on behalf of an outdated and flawed system, which affects their actions and can lead to abuses during peacekeeping operations. According to Barnett, the UN is an ineffective organization, steeped in empirical logic and guided by Western powers. The organization is unable to navigate between other, more local approaches that are better suited to new forms of conflict. Similarly, peacekeepers are completely disconnected from the situation and the local and cultural traditions of the populations they protect. Does the fault lie with the peacekeepers or with a completely inadequate and flawed system?
The name “Peacekeeper” is a term chosen by the United Nations to refer to Blue Helmets, a UN military force sent to maintain, restore, or preserve peace in conflict zones. These soldiers, mandated under the auspices of the United Nations, are military personnel, civilians, or police officers, first deployed in 1948 in the Palestinian Mandate to monitor the Arab-Israeli truce. Peacekeepers come from diverse backgrounds and regions of the world, forming a multinational force. Their responsibilities vary depending on the mission and its duration. Currently, there are approximately 76,000 peacekeepers deployed in 11 missions around the world. Given the ineffectiveness of peacekeeping operations and the $5.5 billion allocated to them each year, would it not be more sensible to reinvest in areas of equal priority, such as localized humanitarian aid, proper long-term training for peacekeepers, and conflict prevention?
Peacekeeping operations have thus evolved from simply deploying peacekeepers to monitor a ceasefire to protecting civilians, disarming former combatants, defending human rights, promoting the rule of law, supporting free and fair elections, and combating landmines. Today, more than 4,200 peacekeepers have lost their lives in the service of peace. For example, in 2025, peacekeepers deployed to Lebanon as part of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) carry out tasks such as patrolling, reporting on various violations, assisting Lebanese forces, and supporting humanitarian aid in the country.
The United Nations, established on June 26, 1945, succeeded the League of Nations and marked a turning point in international relations, establishing a real center for debate between nations in order to avoid repeating past mistakes. The United Nations Charter was inspired by the Westphalian system of international relations, conceiving sovereign states as the main actors on the international stage and considering that war was essentially their responsibility. The Westphalian system is based on the existence of regular armies subject to the law and provides for conflicts to end with an armistice or ceasefire, paving the way for negotiations and the establishment of rules during the war (the Geneva Conventions on International Humanitarian Law). The UN Charter is deeply influenced by this. However, conflicts and issues have evolved considerably, and the UN plays an extremely weak role in these conflicts. It is powerless because the behavior of states continues to block the organization, rendering the charter unenforceable.
The United Nations no longer represents an international decision-making center but rather an international forum. The idea of creating peacekeepers emerged during the “proxy war” model, with the Korean War and in the 1990s in Kosovo, Iraq, and Afghanistan. These wars are forms of conflict waged with UN authorization through a military coalition. These examples therefore support the idea that we have already entered into a pattern of war in the name of the UN since the 1950s. However, it is clear that the system responsible for deploying these forces has certain structural flaws, which have both positive and negative consequences for the Blue Helmets and their conduct. The UN Charter does not provide for the creation of peacekeepers or their missions. Peacekeepers are therefore a form of intervention that exists solely through interpretation of Chapters VI and VII of the Charter. These two chapters of the UN Charter refer to the peaceful settlement of disputes and the restoration of peace, while also providing for the prevention of conflicts around the world.
Based on the text of Chapter II of the Charter, States would renounce the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any State, a rule of international law that has been violated very often by certain States to this day. The United Nations Charter refers to the possibility of military action against an aggressor in a conflict, but there is no mention of peacekeepers. Only Resolution 47/20 led to the creation of peacekeepers.
Since the creation of the United Nations in 1945, there have been 70 peacekeeping operations, including 18 during the Cold War period. However, since the 1990s, there has been a decline in the deployment of peacekeeping operations. This decline can be attributed to the failure of the UN system, with repeated vetoes, the practice of empty chairs within the UN Security Council, and the emergence of media coverage of scandals and abuses committed by peacekeepers.
Peacekeepers are a complex force to understand, deployed by vote of the United Nations Security Council, which defines an ad hoc mission name. Peacekeepers are a lightly armed force, mainly composed of infantry units, whose use of weapons is strictly limited to self-defense. They are generally perceived not as an offensive force, but as an interposition force, responsible for maintaining peace between parties in conflict. This posture often places them in situations where they must face adversaries with vastly superior military capabilities, creating an asymmetry of force on the ground.
Exposed to scenes of extreme violence without being able to intervene effectively, peacekeepers are frequently confronted with serious psychological trauma. Their vulnerability in the face of combat seems to make them veritable “human shields,” exposed on the front line without adequate means to defend themselves. To date, nearly 1,400 peacekeepers have been killed in the 11 peacekeeping missions currently underway. Under the UN mandate, peacekeepers also perform various tasks depending on the mission, whether it be peacekeeping to enforce a ceasefire, peacemaking to stop the fighting and restore order in the country, peace enforcement, or nation-building.
Becoming a peacekeeper is also a moral way to commit to a more sustainable world. In fact, the selection of nationalities that will make up the ranks of the Peacekeepers is based on voluntary participation, with each nation providing its own equipment. Despite this, certain trends emerge because the UN provides only a minimal allowance. Joining the ranks of the Peacekeepers is a strategic diplomatic way to represent one’s country on the international stage. Peacekeepers are mainly funded by taxpayers in rich countries, so there is a real structural inequality in the functioning of PKOs. It is the least developed countries that send the most men for reasons of solidarity, to improve combat techniques and equipment, or to reaffirm their reputation internationally. On the other hand, some powers seek to represent themselves within the peacekeeping forces, as can be seen with China, which, through its presence in the peacekeeping forces, seeks to forge partnerships and alliances and exert influence over its former colonies.
The overrepresentation of developing countries within the ranks of peacekeepers is explained by strategic needs in terms of defense as well as a willingness to participate and integrate into the international game of tomorrow. Professor Stephen Walt also argues that the members of the Blue Helmets are committed not to peace but rather to contribute to a work that the richest countries ensure in a financial manner. We still find here flaws in the current system which “aims to promote peace” and “conflict management”. The disparities present in the world are drastically reflected in the troops of the Peacekeepers. Committing to the blue helmets for the poorest states is a way of financing and training in new combat techniques by other nations.
The United Nations, which is supposed to represent all the Member States, are instrumentalized according to the needs of the most influential nations, which can create numerous imbalances in the organization itself. A nation is designated to command a peacekeeping mission, but the soldiers who make up the ranks of the Blue Helmets come from very diverse countries, often without direct link with the command force.
This heterogeneity leads to many difficulties: the peacekeepers do not share the same military cultures, do not have an equivalent armament, and do not all speak the same language. These inequalities make coordination on the ground particularly complex, and can even lead to abuses or even exactions committed by certain contingents. Thus, the structural inequalities between units and the diversity of soldiers’ commitment motivations constitute major flaws in the operational efficiency and coherence of the actions carried out, sometimes generating abuses, excesses and abuses against the populations help to illustrate these disparities found within the troops. The UN today offers ambiguity between its reputation and its actions, which underpins the degradation of the image of the UN, leading to a loss of trust on the part of local populations while impacting the effectiveness of missions and the legitimacy of current PMOs.
As we have mentioned previously, structural and contextual factors promote abuses. In addition, there is a lack of sanctions mechanisms concerning peacekeepers due to weak supervision on the ground, non-binding international law and media framing directed towards a predominantly westernized international organization.
Between 2004 and 2006, the Blue Helmets were deployed in the Democratic Republic of the Congo as part of MONUC. Peacekeepers from Pakistan, Tunisia, South Africa and Morocco are facing a complex security situation in the face of armed groups that are raging against the population. This mission is deployed with the aim of supervising the political process in transition and thus protecting civilians.
However, during the MONUC mission, peacekeepers are accused of rape of minors, sexual exploitation in exchange for basic needs and protection. Which contributes to exacerbating tensions between civilians and peacekeepers, leading to anti-UN protests and the use of disproportionate violence by peacekeepers, resulting in the death of civilians. The United Nations attempted to rectify this situation by deploying a national investigator to identify victims and perpetrators of crimes in order to repatriate them. The spokesperson for the UN Secretary-General stated that “Due to the very serious nature of the allegations and the serious shortcomings observed in the exercise of command and control, the UN decided to immediately repatriate the nine contingent members and a senior army officer and requested the replacement of the other two senior army officers.”
As part of the deployment of peacekeepers in Haiti in 2007 (MINUSTAH) and in the Central African Republic (MINUSCA) in 2014, they were accused of committing sexual abuse against minor civilians. In 2011, the Uruguayan peacekeepers in Haiti were filmed during the crime. Yet, even if some soldiers were repatriated, very few were tried in their country of origin. Since then, many international NGOs, such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch or the Child Rights International Network, have investigated these abuses and tried to bring the cases before the International Criminal Court. Lewis Mudge, a researcher with Human Rights Watch, insists all the more on the fact that no responsibility is established, thus criticizing an inadequate UN system. However, due to the non-binding nature of international law and dependence on national legal systems, prosecutions are rarely successful.
In 2006 during the MINUL mission in Liberia, the United Nations also recognized that some peacekeepers had resorted to prostitution involving minors in exchange for food or money, which also motivated the UN to create a reporting mechanism and awareness campaigns on deviances and other crimes among troops in the field. Peacekeepers are often involved in humanitarian aid and in direct contact with civilians, especially children, which makes the abuses all the more serious and highlights the deep hypocrisy of an entire system by committing such violence contrary to the code of conduct for peacekeepers.
The media help to reveal what one is trying to conceal behind the irreproachable image that the UN seeks to project through its Peacekeepers. It remains necessary not to take a generalized approach in the face of the disinformation that continues to increase in international society, because today we often talk about “information warfare”. They also reported scandals involving French peacekeepers. Social networks serve as a rotating platform to sometimes highlight information concealed in the past. As can be observed, social networks and the media have favored the mediatization of the abuses committed by military troops including French, under the aegis of the UN during the conflict in Bosnia in 1995 and in Rwanda in 1994. During these conflicts, peacekeepers are accused of passivity in the face of mass massacres and genocides, going so far as to be accused of war crimes. Peacekeepers are also sometimes accused of using disproportionate force while violating certain human rights on local populations. Here the media is of paramount importance in order to raise awareness and collect evidence.
The intentional response to these crimes remains limited and does not hold perpetrators accountable. Moreover, it remains a legal impossibility for the UN to judge the Peacekeepers correlated with diplomatic pressure and a form of national protection for peacekeepers. After the media coverage of numerous abuses committed by peacekeepers during their mandate under the auspices of the UN, a monitoring mechanism “Conduct and discipline Units” is created to monitor the behavior of these latter on the ground. Marion Mompontet, a researcher in international law, also explains that peacekeepers and the UN more generally, hold international immunities complicating the fact of taking files to the International Criminal Court.
Policies of “zero tolerance” and new ethical guidelines are gradually being implemented in parallel with numerous awareness campaigns and a strengthening of contingent training. Civil society and the media are of paramount importance in denouncing abuses, the BBC or The Guardian offer testimonies and exclusive investigations on these abuses. The UN system is deficient in its implementation and the peacekeepers who carry out missions under a UN mandate then represent the weaknesses and inequalities of an entire system in its practice. Moreover, they are sent to the field towards death in front of stakes that exceed them. It remains necessary to understand that these crimes are not widespread among peacekeepers’ troops and that the perpetrators of these crimes also contribute to tarnishing the image of courageous and committed peacekeepers for civilians and peace. Peacekeepers who commit themselves to the service of peace are also human beings, exposed to stress and trauma. This commitment, sometimes at the cost of their mental health, is motivated by an honourable ideal: to protect civilians and contribute to a lasting improvement of the situation in fragile regions of the world and through solidarity between nations, cultures and traditions.
In the majority of cases, actual convictions by national judicial systems offer no liability. Peacekeepers committing crimes during their mandate are sometimes simply repatriated or see their mandate revoked by the United Nations. The UN system as it stands currently does not offer any direct criminal sanctions. In order to prevent these situations, the United Nations has stepped up investigations, implemented awareness campaigns among peacekeepers, and set up anonymous reporting mechanisms for victims. However, this remains insufficient, the crimes committed in the past and those to come remain unpunished.
A reform and modernization of the United Nations system could pave the way for genuine accountability for deviant behaviors within peacekeepers. This would also involve a revision of the Charter of the United Nations and its implementing procedures, in order to face the emerging issues while taking into account old issues now highlighted by an independent media that operates in no other interest than its own.
Laurie F;
Bibliography:
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FASSIN Didier, La raison humanitaire, A moral history of the present time, Hautes Études, Gallimard, le Seuil, 2015
MELVERN Linda, Complicité de Génocide, Comment le monde a trahi le Rwanda, Homme et Société, Karthala, 2012
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BERTRAND Maurice, DOMINI Antonio, L’ONU, Collection Repères, La Découverte, 2015
GRANGE Maryline, Les Opérations du maintien de la paix, incarnation et outil du multilatéralisme,insécurité collective : la crise du multilatéralisme, questions internationales, La documentation française, n°105, 2021
HATTO Ronald, Le Conseil de Sécurité et les Opérations du maintien de la Paix, Organisations internationales. Droit et politiques de la gouvernance mondiale, Revue québécoise de droit international, 2021, P.57-69
TARDY Thierry, Gestion de crise, maintien et consolidation de la paix, Crisis, De Boek Supérieur, 2009
MOMPONTET Marion, La responsabilité civile de l’Organisation des Nations Unies, effectivité et efficacité des mécanismes de réparation offerts pour les personnes privées, le cas des exactions sexuelles commises par les casques bleus, Revue québécoise de droit international, 2017
Sitography:
Exploitation et abus sexuels par les Casques bleus de l’ONU — CRIN
RDC : l’ONU décide de rapatrier les Casques bleus accusés de fautes graves | ONU Info
ONU : Mettre fin aux abus sexuels commis par des Casques bleus | Human Rights Watch
Huit casques bleus déployés en République démocratique du Congo arrêtés pour exploitation sexuelle
Des casques bleus accusés d’abus sexuels contre des femmes vulnérables en Haïti
