As the global response to conflict is fragmenting, and both new and old actors enter the fray of mediation, conflict resolution, and peacekeeping, questions emerge regarding synergy, overlap and competition. How should different actors involved in conflict resolution cooperate? How well do the approaches of various international efforts fit together? What happens if their goals and values do not overlap?
These questions are particularly acute when interveners come from vastly different organizational and cultural backgrounds, for example when both the USA and China are offering themselves up as mediators. But, as I show in my recently published book Assisting International Justice, they are relevant even for interveners coming from the same liberal international paradigm, such as the UN’s peace operations and the International Criminal Court (ICC).
In this blog, I argue that the way in which these two actors cooperate can help both scholars and policymakers better understand how multi-actor interventions can be highly successful but also generate tensions because of differing priorities and values. It underscores the need to look at the unintended consequences of this cooperation, and tells us something about broader trends in international conflict management.
Most large UN peace operations have anti-impunity mandates
To start, it is important to know that the ICC is highly dependent on others for almost all aspects of its functioning. Its principal partners are its states parties. However, these have proven to be fair-weather friends, which is why the Court has tried to find alternative partners in its fight against impunity. This has led them to the UN’s peace operations, which are frequently active in the same areas as the ICC.
All large UN missions active in the past decade (with the exception of the one in Darfur) have had the mandate to aid the fight against impunity for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. They do so by monitoring and investigating human rights violations and supporting national and international justice efforts (see, for example, the most recent mandate of MINUSCA - the UN peacekeeping mission in the Central African Republic).
Such mandates are supposed to help address what is frequently identified as a root cause of conflict, namely the persistent impunity for human rights violators. They are also a manifestation of the support for the anti-impunity norm among many UN officials and member states, which holds that there should be no impunity for perpetrators of atrocity crimes, regardless of their rank or position.
Cooperation with the ICC potentially undermines key peacekeeping norms
While there are therefore strong reasons to support cooperation between UN peace operations and the ICC, it also risks undermining core principles of UN peacekeeping. First, while peacekeepers are supposed to be impartial, open support to war crimes prosecutions will likely lead to accusations of partiality by the actors under investigation. While such accusations may not always hold water—impartiality is not the same as neutrality, after all—they will obtain more solid footing when criminal justice is one-sided. Indeed, the ICC has often been accused of pursuing partial prosecutions, and this has had consequences for the perceived impartiality of the UN peace operations supporting them. Second, peacekeepers are supposed to operate with the consent of the parties, which may be undermined by open support to ICC prosecutions. Finally, assisting in executing arrest warrants for the ICC will often require substantial and proactive uses of force. While such arrest operations have not happened frequently, those that we know of have been very controversial.
In addition, some fear that war crimes prosecutions undermine one of the core tasks of peace operations: bringing stability and supporting a political process that leads to peace. In concrete terms, this dilemma has sometimes translated into a perceived choice between supporting the prosecution of a state official or armed group leader with blood on his hands, and entering into peace negotiations with this same war criminal to bring an end to deadly conflict.
For example, in 2009, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), the International Criminal Court asked the UN mission (MONUC, from 2010 onwards MONUSCO), to assist in the arrest of Bosco Ntaganda. This same individual, however, became a key actor in a rapprochement between the DRC and Rwanda, which interveners hoped would bring a halt to deadly fighting in the country’s east, leaving the UN extremely hesitant to undermine the prospects for peace by arresting Bosco.
Peacekeepers have delivered inconsistent support
In other words, cooperating with the ICC introduces several problems and dilemmas for UN peace operations. In my book, I investigate how UN peace operations deal with such dilemmas, with a particular focus on the DRC. On the basis of over 130 interviews with key decision-makers and analysis of UN and ICC archives, I show that UN peacekeepers have provided logistical assistance and security to Court investigators, shared large amounts of information, and have even been involved in the arrest of Court suspects.
Even if it has thus delivered substantial support, it has also at many times refused to fully assist the Court when it needed it the most. There have been instances in which the UN argued it could not support the ICC because it did not have the mandate to do so, or because the risks to its troops would be too high. In interviews, they also admitted that they were concerned that the ICC would undermine stability, that it was difficult to balance prosecutions with their impartiality, or that assistance would undermine their relations with the host state.
The relevance of host state consent but also individual agency
I show that the variation in this support can best be explained by looking at a combination of mandates, international support, and the expected impacts on stability and the relations with the government. But it also becomes clear that it mattered who were occupying leadership positions in UN peace operations. In other words, agency of UN staff mattered. Individuals who were more tolerant of risk, allocated equal importance to peace and justice, and felt that the ICC would efficiently deliver on its mandate to fight impunity were more willing to assist than others.
These findings have broader relevance for international conflict management. First, they testify to the role of host states in shaping the international interventions in their territories, as well as the interactions between them. At various points, the need for host state consent acted as a key obstacle to UN-ICC cooperation. Part of this problem was caused by the simple fact of life that UN peace operations require host state consent to function effectively. But part of it was also due to leadership style, with some mission leaders more inclined to defer to the host state’s wishes than others.
Second, they show the importance of individual agency in shaping collaboration between different international interveners. Individuals differ in how they respond to the risks that are attached to cooperation, but the relationships between organizational representatives can also have a key effect on the shape that this cooperation takes. These factors are key to understand whether and how different international interveners cooperate.
UN-ICC cooperation may have unintended consequences
The cooperation between the UN and the ICC also has a number of important unintended consequences. Let me highlight one structural and one operational effect.
On a structural level, I argue that UN–ICC cooperation reinforces problematic trends in international conflict management practices, which are characterized by more emphasis on state-centric peacekeeping, less attention to human rights and more skepticism of the anti-impunity agenda. Within this approach, the ICC and the UN are both at risk of being instrumentalized for the purposes of domestic political competition which may strengthen an exclusive and authoritarian order. Indeed, by linking assistance explicitly to the consent of the host state, peace operations risk becoming willing collaborators in efforts by domestic elites to instrumentalize the ICC as a so-called ‘international legal lasso’ to neutralize domestic opposition.
On the operational level, it is important to highlight that, despite the UN’s ability to manage most of the negative consequences, there is an inevitable dilemma at the heart of the relationship. When push comes to shove, the priorities of the UN and the ICC are different and do not always go together. The UN is interested in keeping the peace while remaining impartial, maintaining consent from as many conflict parties as possible, and using limited force. The ICC is interested in pursuing accountability for atrocity crimes. These sometimes go together, but sometimes they also do not. Repeating mantras like ‘no peace without justice’ cannot paper over these fundamental differences.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the relationship between the UN and the ICC shows the problems that can emerge when a multiplicity of international interveners engage in conflict zones, even if they come from the same liberal international framework. The differing values and goals introduce fundamental and unavoidable dilemmas, while the compromises adopted to address these cause unintended consequences of themselves.
About the author
Tom Buitelaar is an Assistant Professor in War, Peace and Justice at Leiden University. He studies the role of international conflict interventions in world politics. He is particularly interested in the micro-dynamics of these interventions, the role of individual agency, and how they are guided by international norms. Tom holds a PhD from the European University Institute. He tweets @Buitelaartom.
This think-piece is based on the author’s recent book Assisting International Justice. Cooperation Between UN Peace Operations and the International Criminal Court in the Democratic Republic of Congo (Oxford University Press, 2024).