organized by the

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on September 21-22, 2000

in JGCB Berlin

The Japanese-German Center Berlin in co-operation with The Japan Institute of International Affairs (JIIA) Tokyo held a conference on "The United Nations in the 21st Century: Japanese, German and US Perspectives" on September 21 and 22, 2000 in the building of the Japanese-German Center Berlin in Saargemünder Strasse in Berlin-Zehlendorf.

To deal with this interesting topic, the conference organizers had invited high-ranking Japanese, German and US UN experts, former top politicians and diplomats of the three countries as well as former top UN officials together with renowned academic scholars: from Japan the former UN Under-Secretary-General Ambassador Yasushi Akashi, now Chairman of the Japan Center for Preventive Diplomacy (JCPD), the former UN-Ambassador Ambassador Hishashi Owada, now President of the Japan Institute of International Affairs (JIIA) and Dr. Takahiro Shinyo, Deputy Director-General of the European and Oceanian Affairs Bureau of the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs; from Germany Dr. Eberhard Brecht, Member of the Deutsche Bundestag and Chairman of its Subcommittee on the United Nations, the former UN Assistant Secretary-General Manfred Eisele, Ambassador Prof. Dr. Tono Eitel and Volker Klein, Secretary-General of the JGCB; from the United States Ambassador Princeton Lyman, former Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs, and Prof. Dr. Ruth Wedgwood, Yale professor in international law.

In their opening statements Dr. Klein and Amb. Owada underlined the high priority of intensifying the academic and political debate on the UN reform in general and on the role of the USA, Japan and Germany in particular. Referring to the tradition of the Japanese-German co-operation in the United Nations and to the ideal location of the Center in the middle of Europe and about equidistant from Japan and the USA, they accentuated the need for a conceptual clarification of reform ideas concerning the United Nations.

In the first session, chaired by Ambassador Professor Dr. Tono Eitel, Dr. Eberhard Brecht, Ambassador Owada and Ambassador Princeton Lyman delivered their papers on the topic "The Reform of the UN and its Organs".

Dr. Brecht focused his remarks on the reform of the UN Security Council (SC). He outlined the main lines of criticism brought forward against the SC in its present form: predominance of national egoism of the P5 – he referred as an example to China’s refusal to prolong the mandate for UNPREDEP -, the lack of transparency, i.e. the delayed and incomplete information of the other UN members outside the SC and the lack of representativeness, i.e. the under-representation of the Third World countries in the SC and the ensuing lack of legitimacy of the SC in the eyes of the countries of the South. Furthermore many troop-contributing countries complain about being not informed and heard before the SC completes the formulation of peacekeeping mandates.

Also the lack of early and effective preventive action of the SC is noted by many critical observers. They see Yugoslavia as a bad precedent for the role of UN in peacekeeping: The Kosovo events have weakened in their opinion the significance of international law in general and the UN charter in particular in peacekeeping and have damaged the reputation of the SC, which was considered as mere by-stander in the events, as the NATO states were the real protagonists in the conflict.

The SC reform has in Brecht’s view to transform the "slow steamer" SC into an "agile speed-boat": There is no alternative to an SC in peacemaking and peacekeeping, working on a global level besides the regional security organizations, which have to be guided and controlled by the SC.

Brecht outlined five basic models of SC reforms:

1. US concept up to now: the 15 present members plus 5 or 6 new members with permanent seats (Germany, Japan and 4 countries from the Third World), the new members are to get no veto right; this concept was modified recently by UN-Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, who indicated, that the USA would now also tolerate "slightly more than 21" members;
2. Razali concept: 15 plus 9 new members with permanent seats, but without veto;
3. Italian concept: 15 plus 24 medium powers which share 8-10 "semi-permanent" seats on a basis of limited rotation
4. "quasi-permanent" seats for the new members, i.e. the continuous re-election of non-permanent members
5. the enlargement of the SC only by further non-permanent members.

The most disputed issues concerning the SC reform are according to Dr. Brecht:

• the criteria for the selection of the potential new members from the Third World
• the opposition against the "upgrading" of Germany and Japan in the "coffee club"
• the resentment against the revision of the UN Charter.

In his evaluation of the reform process Brecht stressed the following points:

• A speedy reform is urgently needed because of the far-reaching changes in the last decade (end of the Cold War and the bi-polar system, the problems of globalization).
• The reform process in the open-ended working groups can only be effective, if it is moved from the ordinary diplomatic level to the top level of head of states and heads of government.
• The US position towards UN reform is of decisive importance and the US will define its position not before 2001, i.e. after the presidential election.
• Germany has to get more involved in the UN reform process. The UN policy must win more acceptance in German politics, e.g. in overcoming the opposition against UN reform in the CDU, and in the German public.
• In order to win more support for their candidacies, Japan and Germany should establish effective consultation mechanisms with their neighbor countries.

Ambassador Owada focused his remarks on the interlinkage between the changes of the international system and the need for UN reform. He started by asking: Why is a UN reform necessary at all? The answer is, that the international system is now – after the end of the bipolar system of the Cold War – at a cross-roads. The gulf war with the increased role of the UN seemed to be an outcome of the transformation of the former bipolar system into a new one, the Cambodia peacekeeping mission with its complex and ambitious mandate which proved to be rather a success led many UN supporters to develop a mood of triumph about the new potential of the UN.

Now – in the year 2000 – the UN is in Owada’s opinion – in a mood of frustration, after the problematic peacekeeping missions in Somalia and Rwanda. What are the reasons for this change of mood, for the new problems of the UN?

Major changes of the international order have taken place, the nature of power has fundamentally changed: military power has lost its primary significance, in the time of global socio-economic interdependence and economic world crises the political power of states is to a large extent dependent on social, economic and environmental factors.

The alternative to rely on the US alone in a unipolar system after Russia has lost much of its world power status is for Owada not advisable as unipolar systems tend to be highly instable.

Owada recommends as desirable solution a system of some kind of world governance, short of a world government, replacing the national sovereign state system established in 1648 in the Westphalian Peace.

The growing number of SC resolutions in the last decade show – in Owada’s view – that the SC has accepted its increasing responsibility for world peace, in a world situation where peace and security have acquired more and more a social dimension: There is a growing number of poor people – ca. 2 billion people out of the 6 billions world population are considered to be poor, there is even a growing disparity of income between the rich and the poor, resulting in a growing social and political instability.

The UN reform in the field of peace and security has to take this change in the nature of peace into account, has to pay attention to the "failed" states, the growing number of states being unable to handle their own affairs due to enormous socioeconomic problems, resulting in political turmoil and gross violations of human rights.

The peacekeeping system of chapter 6 and 7 of the UN Charter was devised for genuine international conflicts in the form of defined acts of aggression against a UN member state which the community of UN states could then answer by economic or military sanctions in a system of collective security.

Today this system does not suffice anymore: In correspondence to the complex threats to peace an integrated peacekeeping approach is needed, comprising all dimensions of peace: the Cambodian peacekeeping mission is a typical example for this approach, which is today often needed: a combination of military presence with human rights protection, the reconstruction of civil administration, the repatriation of refugees and humanitarian assistance.

But nevertheless the SC should remain the centerpiece of peacekeeping, notwithstanding the fact that the role of the military dimension has decreased, it is needed still as a coordinating institution.

According to Owada the SC reform should be oriented at the following criteria: efficiency as well as legitimacy, i.e. the acceptance by the community of states, should be strengthened: a size of 24 is for Owada too large for reaching a consensus in time; for him the support of the SC by the whole international community is more important than mere SC resolutions resting on ambiguous consensus.

Owada underlined that often the second main task of the UN, the promotion of socio-economic development being a fundament for peace, had been either neglected or instrumentalised in the Cold War by the industrialized wealthy nations. Ideological concepts of development were used in this phase by the donor countries.

Now a new setting for the solution of development problems has been reached after the end of the Cold War. A non-discriminatory partnership of North and South should be realized. In Owada’s opinion development programs containing political, human rights or environmental conditionalities are wrong, as you cannot impose conditions on countries they are not willing to accept, you should use rather the means of persuasion.

The increased significance of the development assistance in UN peacekeeping makes for Owada the reform of ECOSOC rather urgent, as well as the reform of the UN financing system, which can only be achieved after the debtors have paid their arrears. This is more a problem of political attitude towards the UN than a financial one.

For Ambassador Lyman the SC reform is absolutely necessary as the SC is the unique instrument of peacekeeping in the world: It is the only institution being entitled by international law to deploy international forces and to authorize the use of force. It is the only UN organ which can make decisions which are binding to all member states.

The SC is faced with serious problems: its credibility and authority are declining:

• The readiness to abide SC sanctions is declining (Iraq, Sierra Leone).
• The respect for and the protection of UN peacekeepers is declining (there is an increasing number of attacks on peacekeepers).
• The SC is considered to be biased, non-representative, there is a significant decrease of his reputation.

The US for their part see the SC nevertheless still as vital instrument of US foreign policy. One sign for this constructive attitude is for Lyman the fact that the US have cast only four vetoes in the last eight years.

The US-position on the reform of the SC can be summarized as follows: you should keep the balance between the P5 and the Third World countries: If too many countries of the latter group are admitted to the SC, the US would have to fear a strong Third World opposition in the SC and it would become very difficult to find majorities for P5-proposals. The SC would then become too large and too ineffective.

For the US the SC membership should reflect the power structure as well as the population figures in the world, but in a balanced way.

The US has changed its former position of accepting 21 as maximum figure for the SC, as this position was not internationally accepted. Now the US is of the opinion that also 24 would be acceptable.

The model discussed now in the US would comprise the 15 plus Germany and Japan, plus Canada and Italy taking turns, plus five Third World Countries on a rotating basis. The size of 24 would give the SC more legitimacy and authority while keeping its efficiency somehow.

Lyman regards a financial reform of the UN as absolutely necessary, for him states like India, Russia and China, being P5-members, must pay more, as well as other countries aspiring seats in the SC.

For Lyman such a reformed SC will be a different SC, where consensus will be more difficult to reach, but which will be more open to new problems. Unfortunately his position is at present not sufficiently shared by US foreign policy institutions and the public, so reform will take time, presumably up to ten years, but without reform the SC will lose its legitimacy.

Lyman complained the disconnect between UN and the member states, they should support the reform process and make it to a real political process, all countries, big powers, regional powers and the small ones should be included.

Lyman was critical of the debate of the development issues in the UN, he complained the poor quality of the debate, the ideological concepts, basing on no real experience. He criticized the doubling of debates in the main committees and the plenary of the General Assembly. For him a major debate of global issues should replace the routine full agenda of the General Assembly, making the GA more to a kind of world parliament.

For Lyman the US is at a terrible crossroads in the UN policy: on the one hand there is a general support for the UN in the public – as proved by many opinion polls -, on the other hand there is still a lot of opposition against the UN in US congress. For him this is due to a lack of leadership in US congress with respect to foreign affairs as well as in the government. Now Lyman sees some new movement in congress for a more constructive discussion of the issue.

In the course of the discussion the three panelists dealt mainly with the UN policy of their countries: Answering a question concerning the outlook for the UN policy of the US after the presidential election, he stated that a Republic president would have a better basis for co-operation in Congress. But regardless of the election results the main problem at present is for him still the lack of leadership in the foreign policy of the US. The UN has to become a top issue in politics. The most important change in the UN policy of the US is the insight that the solutions of the reform issue have to include India and Italy. The readiness of the US to accept India as a possible permanent member of the SC has developed in recent times, as the US realized that India plays an important role in South-East-Asia and is willing to co-operate with the US. Lyman underlined that the US will not concede any veto to the potential new members of the SC.

Owada for his part maintained that the significance of the SC veto is often over-estimated. The P5 cannot use their veto power without restrictions as they have to take into account the political costs in terms of getting the votes of the other SC members in cases where they want to bring their own resolutions through the SC. The president of the SC as well as the no-permanent members of the SC play an important role in dealing with potential vetoes announced by a P5-member during the political debate.

With regard to Japan’s UN policy Owada underlined Japan’s readiness to make higher financial contributions to the UN system. There are no constitutional restrictions for Japan to take over more responsibility in peacekeeping or to become a permanent member of the SC. Japan’s candidacy is supported also by the other Asian UN member states.

In reaction to questions Brecht confirmed the fact that the Federal German parliament and government are not willing to offer higher financial contributions to the UN as they cannot find a majority for this policy at present. He complained that the UN reform issue has lost much of its public attention in the last years.

Several contributions in the discussion dealt with the chance to improve the balance of power between SC and GA either by making use again of the Uniting-for-Peace-Resolution which enables the GA to make non-binding but influential recommendations concerning peace and security issues in case of apparent SC inaction or by realizing Michael Reisman’s suggestion to establish a GA consultative committee of some thirty members with the task to be informed and heard in time when SC decisions are at stake. The panelists did not estimate the chances for these alternatives in times of SC inaction to be very high.

Reacting to Lyman’s statement in his lecture that the SC reform might take ten years several speakers argued that a higher reform speed was needed. Ambassador Akashi warned that the historic window of opportunity might be soon closed and that the complex global problems make a quick reform indispensable.

A number of speakers from Third World countries questioned the criteria for the reform models for the SC, criticizing the prevailing predominance of the North in all reform concepts and advocating the use of population figures as important criterion as compared with economic and military power.

There was a controversial discussion as to whether UN sanctions are effective in the long run and whether the potential negative effects on the majority of the population in the country concerned might not be larger than the potential political benefit.

In the second session chaired by Ambassador Hisashi Owada, Ambassador Prof. Dr. Tono Eitel, Dr. Takahiro Shinyo, Deputy Director-General of the European and Oceanian Affairs Bureau of the Japan Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and Professor Ruth Wedgwood presented their papers on "The Legitimacy of Intervention under the UN System".

In his introductory remarks Prof. Eitel dealt with the definitions of legality and legitimacy, legality being a primary juridical term and legitimacy being a secondary one. The main criterion for legitimacy is the attitude of the public towards a measure and not the legal basis: thus a measure which is considered to be "legitimate" might be illegal, i.e. not supported by the law, but somehow "right" according to ethical consideration, while "legal" could mean that something is legally right, but considered to be ethically and politically wrong. In Kosovo the NATO intervention was illegal according to the rules of international law as the UN SC as the only institution entitled to authorize the use of force had not authorized any intervention of member states, but it was considered to be right in terms of the protection of the human rights of the people in the Kosovo threatened by ethnic genocide.

The UN charter leaves it to the SC whether it decides in cases of breaches of world peace for an intervention or not. In its decisions the SC is faced always with the relationship between legality and legitimacy: If for example gross violations of human rights occur, it appears legitimate to decide for an intervention, but if this it not clearly supported by international law, the important function of international law to structure the relationship between the states and to make decisions and measure foreseeable and reliable is weakened.

The decision about UN interventions has to be discussed very thoroughly as the intervention is the most forceful form of interference in state affairs, the highest step on a ladder following after intercession, retortion and reprisal. The use of sanctions is already a form of intervention besides the threat or the use of military force.

The classical peacekeeping, i.e. the deployment of military observer groups or mission contingents at truce lines or state borders with permission of the host country, constitutes no intervention, while the entering of troops without permission is a form of intervention.

This type of intervention is legal according to international law when it constitutes an act of collective self-defense of a state group or when it is authorized by an SC decision. This type of intervention is not problematic if there is a case of aggression of one state against the other like in the Iraq-Kuweit war. Here Kuwait was entitled to form a coalition for the purpose of self-defense.

The problems lie in the case of interference in domestic affairs of a state, e.g. in a case of massive and gross violations of human rights and expulsion of ethnic groups. When the UN charter was made in 1945, the domestic affairs were defined according to Article 2,7 of the charter to be "domaine reservée" of the state, a UN intervention was not allowed in this area.

Today the situation has fundamentally changed, international law as well as the political actors in foreign policy affairs of the state have accepted that this "domaine reservée" is not valid anymore in cases of gross human rights violations: the first time this concept was practised was the Apartheid system in South Africa and Rhodesia: other important examples are Haiti and the Kosovo.

For Prof. Eitel the SC has somehow "amended" Art. 2,7 of the charter in establishing the international practice and that gross violations of human rights have become a matter of international concern. An intervention in such a case has become "legitimate".

Eitel underlined the importance of sanctions as the lesser form of intervention. It constitutes an important tool of pacifying work in an acute conflict as long as the addressee of the sanctions has not obeyed the decision of the SC.

But there are cases of long-lasting sanctions where in the course of the time the legitimacy of sanctions may get lost: Eitel considers the Iraq sanctions to be after ten years now inefficient, as sanctions should be no punishment, but only a means of coercing compliance to SC decisions. The majority of the Iraq population is suffering extremely under the effect of the sanctions while they have no influence on the policy of the government, the effects of the sanctions are out of proportion in relation to the aspired goal of the sanctions – these sanctions have to be considered as "illegitimate" or even "illegal".

Another problematic aspect of UN interventions is the conspicuous absence of SC decisions for interventions in some cases of aggressive genocidal actions of regimes or ethnic groups (e.g. Pol-Pot-regime in Cambodia, the Balkans, Rwanda). Here the unwillingness of the SC members to intervene can be considered as "illegitimate". The inability of the SC to decree actions and the lack of willingness of member states to offer troop contingents for peace missions in such cases result in a severe loss of credibility of the SC and the UN in general.

In such cases many people see the alternative in interventions by other actors than the UN, as it was the case in the NATO intervention in Kosovo. While regarding the action as "legitimate" in terms of the massive human rights violations and the genocidal aggressions, Eitel remains nevertheless critical of the NATO policy of claiming autonomy of UN decisions in intervening in general. NATO thus disregards the UN monopoly of the use of force and accepts considerable "collateral effects" of its interventions as far as the civilian population is concerned, as can be see in the Kosovo intervention and the bombing of Iran and the Sudan. Eitel quoted SG Annan who sees a "dangerous path to anarchy" in interventions without SC mandate. He recommended to return to clear mandates of the SC for humanitarian interventions.

In his paper Dr. Shinyo examined the criteria when interventions being forbidden as a rule by the UN charter with the exception of self-defense or decisions taken by the SC in reaction to threatening or completed aggressions are considered to be "legitimate", i.e. politically justifiable, referring to the examples of humanitarian interventions in the recent past. For Shinyo the legitimacy of UN actions is of high importance, as the credibility and acceptance of UN policy in the member countries is at stake.

There are quite a few cases where UN interventions are not accepted in all member countries as "legitimate". This lack of acceptance has a lot to do with the representation of states in the SC as the body deciding about the interventions.

In order to overcome these legitimacy problems Dr. Shinyo recommends two measures:

1. The enlargement of the SC membership
2. The development of clear criteria for justifiable interventions:

• humanitarian interventions as the last resort, there should be an urgent need for comprehensive prevention;
• only in cases when no practicable alternative to save lives is at hand;
• the measures must be proportionate to the goals;
• the intervention measures must be taken collectively.

All UN resolutions on interventions should fit to these criteria, i.e. contain clear and defined mandates. This would make the interventions not only more "legitimate", but even more "legal".

The criteria should be applied to all countries, not only to industrial countries. Interventions should clearly be cases of emergency relief operations, an exception, not the general rule in international politics.

As much important as the orientation at clear criteria for SC decisions on interventions is the effective implementation of peacekeeping missions decided by the SC. SC decisions which are not implemented in time and to a satisfactory degree reduce the credibility of the UN collective security system. Thus an effective and rapid deployment of peacekeeping forces is needed. The proposed measures of the Brahimi report therefore should soon be put into practice.

The system of collective security suffers nowadays more than in former times from the changes effected by the end of the Cold War and is exposed to the North-South dimension of security: Often the national interest of potential intervening states from the north are not at stake, so they are not willing to intervene. They only intervene in selected cases and than with high-tech weapons. Thus we find often a "benign neglect" of the great powers, i.e. inaction in the view of massive human right violations in Africa.

In order to reduce the need for direct interventions, a culture of prevention should be encouraged in the UN, in particular preventive diplomacy, preventive deployment of peace- keeping forces combined with an active role of the SG on the basis of article 99 of the charter.

Shinyo advocates the use of the implied powers of the GA in case of apparent inaction of the SC in the face of massive human right violations (on the grounds of the Uniting-for-peace-resolution).

Professor Wedgwood discussed in detail the conflict-prone relationship between the principle of states sovereignty and the protection of human rights in international law. The UN have been in the opinion of Professor Wedgwood rather "innovatively legal" in developing "soft" procedures below the level of charter revisions, allowing the SC to authorize interventions in cases of massive human rights violations. Professor Wedgwood does not share Prof. Eitel’s and Dr. Shinyo’s criticism concerning the NATO intervention in Kosovo, i.e. concerning the absence of a UN mandate for the intervention. She considers it to be a pragmatic solution for a difficult situation: a solution which is "legal enough" while it is clearly legitimate.

She is critical of too detailed mandates of the SC which leave no room for situational interpretation. She recommends to use a "constructive ambiguity" in the formulation of the mandates, a quality which in her opinion the main challenge of SG Kofi Annan in his relationship to the SC, in particular to the US.

The discussion of the three papers focussed on the problem of double standards used by the SC: The SC cannot deal with all problems of aggression, but their selection of cases for intervention is not accepted by the majority of states. The P5 seem to prefer conflicts where their own conflicts are involved and leave out many other reasons of the world; they also leave out problems where the P5 themselves might get into a quarrel.

As many speakers conceded the selectivity of the SC is unavoidable, but nevertheless interventions without mandate should remain a rare exception.

Even a veto of a world power must not necessarily prevent an SC decision: The reaction of the world community is important in such a case, it might possibly alter the attitude of the P5 member.

The speakers discussed whether humanitarian interventions without UN mandate are legal or illegal, the majority of speakers claimed that it is illegal but that a UN mandate can heal to some extent its illegality later on. Some speakers discussed the role of the ICJ and the ICC in deciding about the rules for the action of the SC in the case of intervention. Somewhere afraid of possible collisions between the SC and the courts and recommended to avoid to bring the cases to court.

Ambassador Akashi warned to rely too much on regional approaches in peace keeping, why he underlined the need for more c-operation between the UN and the regions. One should nit count too much on regional solidarity as neighbor states might have exterior motives ; in peace keeping it has been a good practice for a long time not to have neighbor states as troop contributing countries because of this problem.

Manfred Eisele argued that in the case of Rwanda the SC should have acted but the problem is that such decisions presuppose sufficient political will resting on public awareness created by the mass media (the so called "CNN factor").

In the third session, chaired by professor Wedgwood, Manfred Eisele and Yasushi Akashi dealt with the role of the SC in the peace-building and peacekeeping operations

Eisele outlined typical problems of the present UN peacekeeping system in his paper:

• Insufficient information of the peacekeeping troops by the Special Representative and the force commander
• insufficient equipment, especially communications
• lack of timely action, the UN was aware of all the conflicts in the last few years but didn’t act quickly enough; it is not a problem of a missing early warning system, but of rapid reaction.

In Eisele’s opinion there is a reluctance among the P5 in particular to actually take the decision to intervene. Most explicitly the US Presidential Decision Directive 25 of 1994 describes a "zero risk" as a prerequisite for any US-participation in an international engagement.

But whenever their own national interests are at stake, the same nations tend not to hesitate with their decision to take appropriate national action. A few examples of such national actions of one or more of the P5 are Grenada, Panama, Haiti, Iraq-Kuwait, Somalia, Rwanda: the French "Opération Turquoise" and the US operation "Restore Hope", Chechnya, Kosovo and the British action in Sierra Leone.

In some of these cases, the UN followed the initiative of one or more of the P5 and got a mandate from the SC to take over from such a national activity. Such was the case for example in Haiti and to some extent in Somalia. The major difference between operations decided upon nationally by one of the P5 members and those mandated directly by the SC is usually in the amount of resources made available for such actions.

UN peacekeeping suffers much under the fact that everyone quickly remembers the failed missions but is slow to remember the positive examples: Namibia, Cambodia, El Salvador, Mozambique, Guatemala, East Slavonia, Haiti, Liberia, Tajikistan, Macedonia. The UN have learned their lessons from the failed missions like Somalia: You have to go in strong as peacekeepers with a clear mandate and the means to execute it convincingly, i.e. well trained soldiers and civil policemen, reliable communications, functioning logistics and heavily armed vehicles, i.e. "robust" peacekeeping.

Furthermore the traditional model of UN peacekeeping, lightly armed soldiers, operating in a permissive environment with the consent and co-operation of responsible parties, has been replaced by a more complex variety of tasks for such missions with a more robust and assertive type of peacekeeping.

To be successful , peacekeeping missions need clear Rules of Engagement, derived from the SC mandate including the right to use force and a clear delegation of this right to the force commander. Eisele quoted in this context the Brahimi report demanding clear mandates for peacekeepers to respond to violence against civilians and to breaches of peace agreements.

For Eisele the success of peacekeeping missions depends to a large extent on the common sense of the P5: if they do not grant enough troops the success of the mission is in danger.

In addition the Brahimi report therefore demands that the SC should not pass resolutions authorising large peacekeeping missions until UN members states have pledged the necessary troops and resources to deploy them successfully.

Eisele underlined that the system of stand-by agreements has improved the UN peacekeeping system in reducing the time for preparation through information in advance. More than 80 governments have provided detailed information on "Stand-by-Forces", i.e. units or individual military or civilian police personnel, which they want to make available in case the UN requires such support. Most ongoing UN peacekeeping missions were planned along the data-base of such "Stand-by Forces Agreements". In this way today a regular mission can be put into effect in sixty days , in very urgent cases even within thirty days.

Eisele argued that a veto of a P5 member need not necessarily prevent a peacekeeping mission. In the case of the Guatemala mission China threatened to veto the UN-resolution. Only when all Latin American states on their part threatened to take the case to the GA under the Uniting-for-peace-resolution, did China agree not to use their veto. On the other hand Eisele quoted the negative example of China blocking the extension of the successful UNPREDEP mission in Macedonia in February 1999 by their veto and the example of the Russian Federation, hindering the other SC members in autumn 1999 to announce decisive actions in the SC resolutions 1199 and 1203, dealing with the crisis in Kosovo, by threatening to use its veto.

In Eisele’s view the SC has contributed much to strengthen the rule of law in international relations, in particular by the establishment of the International Criminal Courts for the Former Republic of Yugoslavia and for the Genocide in Rwanda. They have demonstrated the SC’s will to introduce the rule of law as an indispensable element into the area of peacebuilding and peacekeeping. The International Criminal Court may offer an additional valuable instrument for the global rule of human rights and the rights of minorities and provide the means to prevent another repetition of the crime of genocide.

Eisele does not consider soldiers to be the best means for intervention in internal crises, he even considers foreign soldiers to be least suited to bring peace into war-torn societies, but they are up to now in most cases the only ones ready and equipped for such actions. In general the world has to deploy more civilian peacekeeping elements (civil police, administrative personnel, lawyers, engineers etc.). Peacekeeping must furthermore be closely linked to development co-operation and political diplomacy.

For Akashi peacekeeping is a major innovation of the UN, an experiment which started with the creation of UNTSO in 1948, deploying small units of military observers monitoring truce lines. In 1956 the concept of peacekeeping was enlarged to the use of organized troops in the Suez. This classical form of peacekeeping relied on the consent of the host state, the impartiality of the UN troops and the minimal use of force.

Since the end of the cold war multiple peacekeeping operations became usual, comprising military and civilian elements. Thus today the UN searches in a very complex environment for a new form of peacekeeping, which is well described in the Brahimi report, a peacekeeping which is able to intervene in complex conflicts of failed states and massive human rights violations. As the Brahimi report argues, this type of peacekeeping requires soldiers who are better trained, commanded and equipped.

In Akashi’s opinion the Brahimi report contains three crucial paradoxes:

1. He recommends that the principles of classical peacekeeping, i.e. concent of local party, impartiality and minimal use of force, should be capped. Yet conscent can be manipulated. Impartiality cannot be maintained if one party clearly violates the UN charter.
2. Peacekeepers who see violent acts should be authorized to stop the violence with the necessary equipment according to the Brahimi report. But if peacekeeping becomes too robust the UN force ceases to be impartial.
3. Peacekeeping missions need implementable mandates says the Brahimi report but can the SC provides them? Because of the many different interests there will be always horse-trading and compromising resulting in ambiguous resolutions.

The millenium summit has in Akashi’s opinion brought some new hope for peacekeeping reforms. The SC declaration drew logical consequences out of the experiences of Rwanda and Srebenica and express the determination to strengthen peacekeeping by clearly defined mandates and properly equipped personnel.

Akashi outlined the importance of a constructive political accompaniment of ongoing peacekeeping missions. He quoted the example of UNTAC in Cambodia led by him, where he ensured the political support of the P5 and the other important UN members by consulting continuously the ambassadors of the so-called "Core Group", i.e. of the P5 and five other important states which had together developed the Cambodian mission concept. In this way he guaranteed a close cooperation of the DPKO in the Secretariat with the SC.

Mass media reports play also a very important role in peacekeeping missions: They can in some cases lead to premature unprepared interventions after the press and TV have reported about a crisis, or they can lead to premature withdrawals when the media described problems in peacekeeping in an exaggerated and one-sided way. Akashi mentioned in this context the visit of SG Boutros-Ghali in Cambodia, where the SG was very astonished to see a rather smooth preparation of the elections after he had read in the international press reports describing a very difficult situation with severe attacks from the Khmer Rouge. The media had exaggerated the situation considerably.

Akashi made clear that the complex mandates of today can contain often conflicting goals: The "robust" defense of safe areas might at the same time in danger peacekeepers in other areas to be taken hostage as answer to the "robust" peacekeeping in the safe area.

The complex mandate can even result in more difficulties if the troop contingents follow different military concepts: Scandinavians for example prefer to be lightly armed and to approach the borderlines, while US troops are highly armed and keep a great distance to the borderlines, because they follow an enemy concept while the former follow a mediation concept.

The post conflict peace-building is for Akashi an important part of peacekeeping. The civilian forces are of high importance. In future the UN has to make sure that they can deploy enough administrators, can finance highly visible community projects and effectively take care of the demobilization and reintegration of soldiers in the civil society.

The integration of peace making, peacekeeping and peace building make the necessary that the UN makes the necessary structural changes. Up to now the different units get the instructions from different UN departments (e.g. DPA, DPKO, UNDP, UNHCHR, UNHCR) this separation is artificial and should be abolished. Akashi stressed the fact that Japan still has to abolish remaining restrictions concerning peacekeeping in its constitution; Despite of this he considers Japan being already qualified for a permanent seat in the SC because of its strong commitment to development assistance and non military peacekeeping elements.

Ambassador Owada asked Ambassador Lyman whether the US attitude to peacekeeping as it was outlined in the Presidential Decision Directive 25 of 1994, arguing for a restrictive and more unilateral attitude of the US towards UN peacekeeping, had been changed recently. Lyman stated that since Kosovo the US position had in fact changed. The US is now more ready again to get involved in peacekeeping, but the actual UN policy depends very much on the question whether the State department can get support in the congress.

The role of the stand-by-arrangements was discussed by some speakers. Eisele underlined that the system works rather well, there are even waiting-lists for participation in peacekeeping missions. For Eisele the problems lie in the lack of qualified civilian personnel and in the still insufficient financial funds. Eisele considers the participation of industrial countries still be necessary because of their better training and equipment but he hopes that this dependency can be reduced by training programs.