United Nations Interventionism 1991-2004 (review)

Analysis of the theory and conduct of peace support operations is now a relevant part of military-oriented publishing. United Nations Interventionism 1991-2004is a new, interesting contribution and is part of a broader program of the Center of International Studies of the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Mats Berdal and Spyros Economides are the editors. They share relevant professional experience, including their recent work at the International Institute for Strategic Studies. They gathered scholars, diplomats and experts, with the aim of examining UN action in a more extended historical perspective than in a similar book, to which they contributed and which first appeared in 1996 as The New Interventionism, 1991-1994: United Nations Experience in Cambodia, Former Yugoslavia and Somalia, edited by James Mayall.

Now, the authors give a view of broader UN activities after the Cold War, which inhibited UN action prior to the fall of the Berlin Wall. The old book is now republished and re-edited, including five new chapters on UN-led (or UN authorized) missions in Rwanda, Haiti, East Timor, Kosovo and Sierra Leone.

The chapters refer to regions and states where the United Nations carried out its major interventions with different scenarios, varying size, and changing legal and operational frameworks, especially where the UN was charged to manage what the doctrine calls "limited trusteeship"; (and what the book defines as "quasi-protectorate" status) and its implications for societies deeply divided by intercomunal violence (like Cambodia, Kosovo and East Timor). The inclusion of new chapters, all referring to continuing operations, excluding Rwanda, gives the reader a comprehensive view and analysis of how the international community has faced crisis, and provides the reader with an organic view of the issue, due to the very stimulating richness of detail. Quite rightly the authors show some concern at the way important and far reaching decisions are made.

The authors describe well the limits of the Security Council guidance to Missions through Resolutions and Presidential Statements which are almost always the product of compromise between conflicting national interests and historical baggage in the Council. Together with the case-by-case analysis, the whole work assesses properly the wider impact of 'new interventionism' on the international order and the study of international relations after the Cold War. It also outlines the most important theoretical and political features of the international system, which have increased the numbers of UN interventions around the world. A reading of United Nations Interventionism 1991-2004also gives an in-depth view of the UN policy and decision-making architecture and its interaction with other international organizations like OAU/AU, NATO, ECOWAS, OSCE and the so-called "coalitions of the willing" (Somalia with UNITAF and East Timor with INTERFET).

The bibliography is remarkable. It gathers the sources on the different contributions, and provides readers with a valuable and comprehensive data base on the issue of the peace-related operations. The bibliography, as it should, includes a large number of somewhat dry UN official documents, proving that they are an important source of knowledge of reference and analysis, and if studied carefully allow students to identify points of weakness in the conceptualization and action of the international organization. The book at £32.99 is not cheap, but should prove an excellent tool for students and researchers in international relations and international organizations.