This content serves as an introductory primer on the United Nations, focusing on its foundational purpose of preventing war and its evolution, particularly concerning peacekeeping operations, with a Canadian perspective.
Okay, this is lesson 5B or 5.2
on the United Nations. An introduction,
a primer,
basic information to know about
peacekeeping as a Canadian. Things that
you need to know in order to understand
how to become a diplomat.
Okay. So, I'm going to erase my picture
because I need all the space that I can
for words and it takes me a long time to
readjust all the words, save everything
again, and so on. So, here we're talking
about the UN charter and its preamble to
save succeeding generations from the
scourge of war. This is the basic
principle that highlights the
organization's commitment to preventing
future conflicts and promoting lasting
peace. So, the United Nations was not
put together for defense or liberty or
to encourage, I don't know, lower
tariffs. The United Nations was founded
to save future generations from the
horror of warfare. And I'm getting mad
because we're talking about horror in
Ukraine, horror in Gaza Strip, horror in
Israel, horror in in Somalia, all around
the world.
Anyway, I tried to get a UN ambassador
and if I'm looking a little frazzled,
it's because I really was hoping to get
this person and I failed. I'm going to
really try to get Bob Ray. Let's keep
Anyway, uh I want to say very much very
important is people who can deal with
exact wording succeed at the UN. They
they can listen to the nuance. They
understand the languages. They focus on
the exact wording and the exact meaning.
They tend to argue about small changes
of wording and changes. That's really
important to them and would be far more
important than you would ever expect.
For example, in the business world or
anywhere else at universities and so on.
So keep that in mind. Let's go on to the
next slide.
Ray Aerson, she's actually from Euron
College. She learned to write at Euron.
Congratulations. Okay, moving on.
Talking about the blue helmets of the
peacekeepers, the white tanks, and the
current UN ambassador, Bob Ray, uh, who
was an NDPRE, but is now the, uh,
appointed by the Liberal government to
be the ambassador. You can see him
there. And there's another picture of
him in front of the UN flag. So the UN
flag is blue and the main conflict
provisions are in chapters six and seven
of the UN ch uh charter.
Let's talk about chapter six which
encourages member states to resolve
their disputes by different methods and
these might be negotiation, mediation,
they might be arbitration.
Think of these as different ways to
resolve conflict and they have their
other peaceful means. So these are
approaches that are valid and they are
representative of peaceful dispute
resolution, not threats and war.
Chapter 7 of the UN charter is is is key
to the UN's collective security
function. The UN is a collective
security organization. It's not a
collective defense organization. So
under chapter 7 of the charter, the UN
Security Council can call on member
states to implement measures that do not
involve the use of force, such as a
ceasefire. Um measures often take the
form of sanctions, and Demian Plaov will
talk to us about these sanctions against
Russia and many other countries that
he's involved in imposing. Uh that's
another guest speaker that we have that
I'm excited about coming to talk about
embargos, restrictions on financial
interactions and restriction on access
to overseas assets which has been done.
Okay. Article 4 can be invoked. This is
the article of the UN charter that
permits the security council to actually
authorize the use of force including
armed peacekeepers if non-military
measures prove inadequate. How can those
actions take place by air, sea, or land
such as demonstrations, blockades, and
other operations that are carried out by
UN member states to maintain or restore
international peace and security? Peace
and security.
What does invoked mean?
Uh, invoked means to site or appeal to
something as an authority. So I put a
picture here of Antonio Guterres, the
current section Chan, and here he is
invoking. Uh so they're considered to to
to be trying to they're in authority and
they're trying to make an argument.
Here's some uh diplomats arguing about
the wording for invoking. They're
arguing. I mean, that's what it is at
the UN. You can see them with these
pieces of paper arguing. It's quite cool.
cool.
Here's UN Secretary General Antonio
Gutire. He invoked uh article 99 which
has hardly ever been invoked before. Um
indeed according to the UN spokesperson
um it has not been used for decades.
Gutteras reiterated his appeal for a
humanitarian uh ceasefire in the Gaza
Strip under article 99 of the UN charter
uh in order and this was urgent because
the he argued the civilian population
must be spared from greater harm. Well,
The Department of Peacekeeping
operations could have been invoked and
brought into the Gaza Strip or it could
uh be invoked in uh any kind of
conflict. Nepal uh we'll talk more about
the different UN peacekeeping operations
currently, but DPKO is where Ambassador
Peggy Mason has worked for many years.
She's very very familiar with it. and uh
she's going to talk to us about
different peacekeeping operations. Right
now there's 11 of them led by DPKO.
They always say DPKO and this is notable
given that peacekeeping was never
actually explicitly mentioned in the UN
charter. Yet it's the cornerstone. It's
extremely important to the UN's efforts
to maintain international and peace and security.
security.
This is a very useful site, the United
Nations peacekeeping or what is
peacekeeping for learning about UN
peacekeeping? And it changes very
frequently. For example, last year's
course notes say that there were are uh
12 peacekeeping operations. Now there's
11. And if you select 12 on the quiz,
well then it's wrong. And so it's very
important to listen to the lectures and
update your notes. Don't rely on notes
from previous years.
I have talked for years about UNF1 and
that's because uh it's a very famous
crisis uh involving the Hungarian crisis
and the Suez crisis and Dr. Dorne will
explain it in a bit more detail, I'm
hoping, but that was the first United
Nations emergency force called UNF1. And
that was the first time that
peacekeeping forces were used. Canada
actually uh uh contributed forces to UNF1.
Canada contributed forces because of uh
at he wasn't prime minister yet, but uh
Lester B. Pearson was a diplomat who
provided a draft resolution and
presented it to the general assembly for
approval and that was he wrote it and
that move was pivotal in the development
of modern peacekeeping efforts. Canada
eventually got actually the Nobel Peace
Prize in 1958 for proposing a UN
peacekeeping force. So there's uh uh
Pearson uh with the Nobel Peace Prize
back in 1958 be well before he became
prime minister.
What about traditional first generation
peacekeeping? We we don't use this
nomclature so much anymore but uh
perhaps uh Peggy will say first, second,
third, fourth generation peacekeeping.
Uh let's talk about what that is.
Traditional peacekeeping.
traditional uh first generation
peacekeeping was uh impartial. So both
sides were supposed to be uh neutral or
all sides were supposed to remain
neutral. Um now peacekeepers can be
fighting for the state or against
rebels. They may not be neutral but then
back then they were supposed to be
neutral. Back then they were supposed to
be lightly armed. That meant that they
were not armed with uh guns or tanks.
They were supposed to be actually
minimal. Um, and in the end, some
peacekeepers got hacked to death in
along the North Korean demilitarized
zone. I saw that that area myself. Um,
because they were not def able to defend
themselves. It also used to require all
parties approval. Uh, for example, in
Cyprus, all the parties, Turkey and
Greece were supposed to be in agreement
for the peacekeeping force. And it's
supposed to be non-territorial in that
it's supposed to avoid seizing
territory, but now it can. So
peacekeeping has definitely evolved from
And what is the second generation? The
second generation beginning in the
1990s, this is kind of the height of
peacekeeping in the world. 1990s 95,
third generation here. Um basically they
expanded it to include enforcement which
some people will say is robust
peacekeeping and some people will call
modern peacekeeping where it's much more
uh robust much more um violent. And then
third generation is more complex and
focuses on peace building. A lot of
people don't use third generation very
properly. And then fourth generation is
when you're trying to build a state.
you're trying like Afghanistan and
you're trying to build in all sorts of
electoral activities and voting. Uh
you're having regional organizations
involved and so on. So most peacekeeping
now is fourth generation.
But let's go back to second generation.
So second generation modern
peacekeeping. Here you can see that they
are armed. They may not be neutral. They
are deployed between states or within
states. uh they can operate without
consent if no central government agrees
to it like in Afghanistan there was no
central government u uh for a while they
can use force and then they can be
deployed doing electoral monitoring or
humanitarian relief Dr. Dorne has a
great deal of experience uh on electoral
support, humanitarian operations in um
uh I can't quite remember what if it was
Nepal. I can't quite remember where. Oh,
East Teour. He was involved in the
election in in East Teour.
He might tell you about that because it
was extremely disturbing. Uh he was on
CBC radio when he was in East Teour and
watched people being burned alive in a
church. I'm not sure that we'll talk
about that. But let's talk about Unimir.
Unimir Unimir which some people say was
a total failure uh because it pre it
failed to prevent the genocide in
Rwanda. So was it a failure?
The genocide in in Rwanda. Um okay. So
following the creation of a well here's
Romeo Delair who was the general in
charge of the peacekeeping operation who
happened to be a Canadian general Romeo
Delair and he appealed to the UN for
peacekeeping troops for for anything for
any kind of crew uh help um in the
operation. And so how many did he get if
this was a multiple choice question?
Zero. We got absolutely zero. No
countries committed to try to prevent
the genocide in Rwanda. Zero. No
countries. I say that with great
emphasis because at that time it was
just a terrible, terrible situation.
Terrible. In October 1993, 6 months
after he's still calling for troops,
Unimir deployed 550 troops. So how many
troops did the UN deploy in Rwanda in
the end? 550 people. That's it. You'd
think that there would have the world
would have come to their aid and had
would have deployed as many as in
Afghanistan that tens of thousands but
no only 550 people.
Now Romeo Delair says that he could have
prevented Rwanda's genocide with just
5,000 troops if if the United Nations
had said that. And he was quite
traumatized by that. uh he has what's
called post-traumatic stress disorder,
PTSD. And this is a mental health
disorder due to having uh witnessed the
genocide and and literally thousands of
people being killed, driving through uh
streets of of tortured and killed
people. Um
I put a picture here of Thinker's Lodge,
which is in Nova Scotia, which is run by
the International Pugwash Movement and
the Canadian government. And I was at a
conference with Romeo Delair seated
right there and I'm an early riser. I
was up at about 5:00 in the morning and
he came out and was talking to me right
there and he said he can't couldn't
sleep. He often that just the images of
all the uh slaughtered people uh kept
him awake.
Okay. So Canada uh decided uh to put
together a proposal for a rapid reaction
capability for the UN. And this was a
proposal that was presented by the
government of Canada to the United
Nations, but the United States opposed
it and and behind the scenes um pushed
countries to vote against it. I was very
intimately involved in in the writing of
this in Montabelloo and that was due to
my work on the peacekeeping training
center. But um also the report is still
I think interesting but you don't have
to look at it.
I've worked on a whole bunch of
different proposals to do with
peacekeeping and I I was making a list
here um since 1991 and even a few weeks
ago I wrote an article for the Glob and
Mail on um 2024 peacekeeping force could
be the innovation the Canada US border
needs which the Glob and Mail published.
Uh so I've worked on a UN UNEP's
emergency force the responsibility RT
R2P and so on. So, when I talk to Peggy,
um, we do tend to use the language of
peacekeeping a bit, and this primer
gives you some of those words ahead of a
time. I'm not expecting you to be an
expert on peacekeeping, but I want you
to to be enthusiastic about something
like that.
Okay? What would you contribute? Let's
say you were a country or you're acting
on behalf of a delegation. Um, you can
look at the CIA world factbook and it
will give you the uh numbers of military
personnel and the kind of equipment that
your country has. Let's say you're
representing Chad or you or something
like that. Um, so let's say if you're a
country, pretend you're a country, I
don't know what country you want to be,
India, Jamaica, Trinidad, Tobago.
take a look at the CIA World Factbook
and then ask yourself what forces and
capabilities you might be willing to
make to available to the UN on short
notice. I'm very curious what you think,
but of course with a multiple choice
exam and with so many students and and
really no help um to mark zero um and
also I'm not supposed to ask you to
write anything. I I can't get your
opinions. I don't know like on behalf of
Haiti what would you offer? don't have
much um for the UN peacekeeping force.
Who's in charge of that now? Uh John
Manza, Dr. John Manza who came to our
class is in charge of the Canada United
States France force to help Haiti. Haiti
has no resources. Uh so what would we
contribute? What would the UN you know
what could you give? Um instead of uh
just just think about what you would
give on behalf of a country even like Canada.
Canada.
Okay, I think that's it. Um, oh, I I
decide to ask chat and this what's my
lesson here, chat? Let's say if we had a
multiplechoice question and you could
answer it. Well, what would chat? Of
course, it's very general um it's very
agreeable and it's it doesn't really um
tell us anything here. But that's the
other problem with multiplechoice um and
chat is chat will give these sorts of answers.
answers.
Okay, so that wasn't the end of my
lecture because now I remember I had
this very important picture of the UN um
constantly undergoing restoration. And
here um I think that it is very
important to state that if we didn't
have the UN, we'd have to invent it. And
people always say that Bob Ray and
others that the United Nations, sure
there are a lot of problems. There's
lack of funding. Uh there's division.
The charter is has no uh police force.
But the UN is a place for different
countries and ideologies to talk. We
can't expect a lot of action. They just
don't have their resources. They don't
have the armed personnel. But it is a
place to talk a lot. And so here, this
is I took this photo standing uh talking
to Guy Roberts who'd come from NATO. Uh
and I was there because of the United
Nations. And so we were chatting here
talking. And I took the picture because
then he saw Rebecca coming toward him uh
at full speed because she saw because
he's from the United States, he's in
favor of deterrence and she's from the
United Kingdom and she's was oh um in in
favor of nuclear abolition and he
actually started he grabbed me by the
elbow and we he started dragging me
running in the opposite direction away
from Rebecca. And I always remember that
because I was wearing high heels. I've
learned since then not to wear high
heels at the UN because you want to talk
a lot and it's all talk, no walk
according to Trump. But I think it's
still a valuable place. It's a talk shop
for the world, a global cafeteria. It's
sort of a form of a global comments.
Thank you for listening. I I hope my
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