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The UN at Bay, 1990-2011 » Obstacles to Success and the UN's Agencies, 1990-2011

What you'll learn this session

Study time: 30 minutes

Edexcel spec: Paper 2 Section B, Breadth study B5, Key topic 5

The obstacles that limited UN success after 1990: the veto, money, troops, weak mandates and the rule against interfering inside states
How the specialised agencies kept working in the 1990s and 2000s
How to draw together the League and the UN, 1919-c2011, using the option's five themes

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Obstacles to success

The last four lessons showed successes (Mozambique) and failures (Somalia, Bosnia). Why did the UN so often fall short? Five obstacles come up again and again.

✋ The veto

Any one of the Permanent Five could block action. The Cold War deadlock eased after 1990, but disagreements returned. In 1999 Russia would not agree to force over Kosovo, and in 2003 France said it would veto a second resolution on Iraq.

💰 Money

Members pay for the UN, and the USA paid the biggest share. Some members paid late or held back payments, called arrears, in the 1990s. Missions then ran short of funds and equipment.

👮 Troops

The UN still had no army. Every peacekeeper was lent by a member state, which could refuse to send troops or pull them out. By about 2010 there were around 100,000 peacekeepers, but each mission had to be built from scratch by asking members.

📝 Weak mandates

The Council often gave missions orders that were unclear or too cautious for the danger. UNPROFOR in Bosnia could use force only in self-defence. In 2000 a UN panel led by Lakhdar Brahimi said missions needed clear mandates and enough resources to carry them out.

Key terms:

Domestic jurisdiction: matters inside a country's own borders, which the Charter (Article 2) says the UN should not interfere in.
Arrears: money a member owes the UN because it has not paid its share on time.

The rule against interfering inside states

The Charter said the UN could not intervene in matters essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of a state. The only exception was when the Security Council decided there was a threat to peace and ordered enforcement action. Most wars after 1990 were civil wars, fought inside a country, such as Somalia, Bosnia and Sudan. Governments could argue that these were their own business, and peacekeepers usually needed a government's consent to enter.

This slowly began to change. In Darfur, UN troops arrived in 2008 only after years of delay and agreement from the Sudanese government. In 2005 world leaders at the UN agreed that each state had a responsibility to protect its people, and that other countries could act if it failed. In March 2011 the Council passed Resolution 1973, which allowed force to protect civilians in Libya. Russia and China did not vote against it, but they abstained.

The agencies keep working

While the Council argued, the specialised agencies carried on, mostly out of the headlines.

WHO helped to lead the drive against polio, which began in 1988. Cases fell by more than 99 per cent in the following decades.
UNHCR led the UN's relief work in Bosnia, including the Sarajevo airlift of food and medicine, which lasted from 1992 to 1996.
UNICEF worked to put into practice the Convention on the Rights of the Child, adopted by the General Assembly in November 1989.
FAO held the World Food Summit in Rome in 1996, where countries promised to halve the number of hungry people by 2015.

In 2000 the UN also agreed the Millennium Development Goals, eight targets on poverty, health and education to be met by 2015. The agencies faced fewer vetoes because they did not use force and worked on problems that nearly every government wanted solved.

Drawing it together, 1919-c2011

Use the option's five themes to judge change and continuity.

Organisation and decision making: the League needed unanimity in the Council, the UN gave the P5 a veto. Both could be blocked by Great Powers.
Policing conflict: the League had no army and used sanctions. The UN created peacekeeping, but still had no army.
Specialised agencies: the most successful part of both bodies, and the UN's agencies grew bigger than the League's.
Strengths and weaknesses: both worked best when members agreed, and both struggled when a Great Power did not.
Great Power involvement: Britain and France led the League but put their own interests first. The USA and USSR shaped the UN, then after 1991 the USA mattered most.

Common mistakes

Writing "the UN failed" with no detail. Say which obstacle, in which case.
Saying the UN had its own army. It relied on members' troops.
Treating the agencies as a side issue. They were the UN's steadiest success.

Exam-style question

How far did the UN's ability to keep the peace change in the years 1945-2011? [16 marks]

You may use the following in your answer:

the Korean War (1950-53)
Bosnia (1992-95)

You must also use information of your own.

Model answer

The UN's ability to keep the peace changed in some ways between 1945 and 2011, but it stayed limited in important ways, so the change was real but only partial.

One change was in what the UN could do. In the Korean War the Council could act in 1950 only because the USSR was boycotting it, and the force that fought was led by the USA. After the Cold War the Council agreed far more often, and in 1990-91 it backed force to free Kuwait. The UN also took on new jobs: in Namibia in 1989 and Mozambique in 1992-94 it helped to run elections and bring home soldiers, much more than early observer missions.

Yet much stayed the same. The UN still had no army, so in Korea and the Gulf it relied on coalitions led by the USA, and in Bosnia it relied on national contingents with limited orders. UNPROFOR could use force only in self-defence, as the Congo force had been told in 1960, so it could not protect the safe area at Srebrenica in 1995. The veto also still mattered. In 1999 Russia would not agree to force in Kosovo, and in 2003 France threatened a veto over Iraq. Money and troops also stayed a problem, because members paid late and could refuse to send soldiers.

A third factor was consent. Namibia and Mozambique succeeded because the sides had already agreed to peace, while Somalia in 1993 and Bosnia failed where they had not. In Sudan, UN troops reached Darfur in 2008 only with the government's agreement. This was a key limit in 1945 and still was in 2011, though by 2005 leaders had accepted a responsibility to protect people, which slowly weakened the rule against interfering inside states.

Judged by whether the UN could act and succeed without Great Power agreement, the change was partial. The end of the Cold War removed much of the deadlock and widened the UN's tasks, but success still depended on Great Power agreement and on the parties wanting peace, exactly as in 1950. The UN was more active in 2011, but not much more powerful.

What lifts it to the top level: it covers several aspects over the whole period, uses facts beyond the bullets, weighs change against continuity, and reaches a judgement based on a stated test.

Exam tip

For "how far did X change", write about the early years, the later years and what stayed the same, then judge the change against a test you name.

Recap

Five obstacles: the veto, money, reliance on members for troops, weak mandates and the rule against interfering inside states.
The agencies kept working: polio, relief in Bosnia, children's rights and food summits.
Across 1919-c2011, both bodies depended on the Great Powers and on members' agreement.

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