EU peace missions and its cooperation with the United Nations
Introduction
The European Union is known as one of the best examples of conflict prevention that exist. The union itself arose to avoid a new war between European countries, and for more than 50 years it has fulfilled its main objective. But not only that, it has also been endowed over a series of civil instruments that have allowed him to play a great role in the area of development cooperation and conflict prevention.
Evolution in conflict prevention and crisis management missions
Between the end of the 90s and early 2000s is when an evolution can be seen in the prevention of conflicts of the European Union; The European Security Strategy (EES) is a key document where the will of the union is presented to solve conflicts beyond its borders. This document determines the five main threats to face; These are terrorism, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, failed states, organized crime and regional conflicts, in which the use of force would not lead us to a solution of the same. Because the world where we live is not of military unilateralism but of economic and social cooperation. And this is where the European Union is located.
The European Union has been developing, within its European Security and Defense Policy (PESD), the so -called crisis management missions. Although these types of missions are very poorly developed, in practice, these missions are increasingly displayed. Only in 2005 nine missions and two more were deployed during 2006.
International Legal Regime of Peace Missions
As for the international legal regime of these peace maintenance operations, this can be reclined in two large normative circles. On the one hand, the internal, the study of the genesis and evolution of the PCSD, within the framework of the PESC, legal regulation set in writing from the Treaty of the European Union (TUE) of 1992. At present, this normative circle is developed within Title V of the TUE, general provisions related to the external action of the Union and specific provisions related to common foreign policy and security. The external regulatory circle is the content in the United Nations Chart accommodating the regional agreements related to the maintenance of international peace and security.
Communication of 2001
In 1999, the European Council of Colonia approved as one of the main foundations or centers of the PESCC action, with the aim of contributing to international peace and security, conflict prevention and international crisis management in accession with the Principles of the United Nations Charter.
The practice of the missions carried out by the EU also shows how operations have been provided with effective instruments to contribute regionally to the objective of the maintenance of international peace, both to prevent the emergence of a crisis (conflict prevention), and for Restore peace and rebuild public institutions after an armed conflict (crisis management).
Throughout these years of development of the PESC, the European Commission has tried to rigorously specify an action of action for this conflict prevention. In this sense, the fundamental reference was its 2001 communication. Document in which the Commission Liga The Conflict Prevention Activity with the objective of impulse of peace in EU Foreign Relations Policy; It also determines a variety of short and long term instruments for this purpose. The instruments cited by the Commission are:
- the policy of cooperation to development and foreign aid;
- Commercial economic and policy cooperation;
- humanitarian aid;
- social and environmental policies;
- diplomatic instruments, such as political dialogue and mediation (exercised by the reue);
- the economic and other sanctions and, finally;
- The new PESD instruments, referring to EU’s peace missions, including the collection of information to provide for potential conflict situations and monitoring of international agreements.
Uneasiness on the optimal legal basis for the creation and development of missions.
Well, (as with conflict prevention), in the international context the concept of crisis management has a diverse significance. This expression usually appears used to refer to the presence of a serious situation in which armed forces intervene. In a more generic way, the word crisis is associated with the existence of a conflict, understood as a national or international situation in which there is a threat or a violation of fundamental values and interests has occurred.
Crisis management through European Missions of Peace has led, therefore, the deployment of civil, police and military units, with special intensity as of 2003. And according to the practice collected, it is possible to confirm that the EU together with the UN, is the only international organization that has tried and sought to treat in a global and coherent way all aspects of the crises on which it operated. This extension of its functions has created a certain restlessness on the optimal legal basis for the creation and development of the missions.
As Cardona Llorens explains in his recent study on the United Nations Relations in the frame PCSD, has sought to voluntarily differentiate itself from NU operations. The EU has pursued: “… create its own peace maintenance system, separate and autonomous from that of the United Nations, which, although they do not abandon it to its fate, it does seem to consider that it must be an instrument parallel to its own, to which the EU must support but not necessarily participate in it ".
The current art. 43.1 TUE has protected the broad character of the EU peace maintenance missions, preserving its functionality both in conflict prevention and in crisis management, and setting its competence nucleus in the environment of the current PCSD. The literal of this provision: “The missions contemplated in section 1 of article 42, in which the Union may resort to civil and military media, will cover joint actions in disarmament, humanitarian and rescue missions, the missions of Advice and assistance on military issues, conflict prevention and peace -maintenance missions, the missions in which combat forces for crisis management intervene, including the missions of restoration of peace and stabilization operations at the term of conflicts. All these missions can contribute to the fight against terrorism, among other things through the support given to third countries to combat it in their territory."
From the perspective of the letter, the relevant thing is to decree in what way these missions are regulated by their provisions. The action of any regional agreement or agency in matters related to the maintenance of international peace and security is regulated in Chapter VIII of the Charter. According to its art. 52, the letter is not opposed to: "The existence of regional agreements or bodies whose purpose is to understand in matters related to international peace and security maintenance and susceptible regional action".
This understood in the sense that these regional agreements must be compatible with the purposes and principles of the United Nations. If the EU is a regional agreement or agency related to the maintenance of international peace and security, Chapter VIII of the Charter, (and other provisions), serves to establish the limits that the letter fixes to its activities in this area, (without prejudice to the responsibility that art.24 recognize the UN Security Council).
In the case of the EU, the parade. 2, letter c) of the new art. 21 tue declares that its objectives in this frame Helsinki and the objectives of the Paris Charter, including those related to external borders ”.
The EU: Agreement or Agency of Chapter VIII of the Charter and the Declaration on the Improvement of Cooperation with the NU
Since the early 90s of the twentieth century, the UN and its member states have accepted the EU as an organization suitable for supporting a management of the different international crises in case of necessity. At the opening of the session number 55 of the AG in New York, on September 12, 2000, the EU fun president, and French Foreign Minister Hubert Védrine, declared before the Assembly, in relation to the WPOs , that the EU was beneficial as reinforcement for the ability of the NU in such operations. But Cardona Llorens has contributed a critical vision of the current EU intervention through its peace missions. According to him, her activity would be isolated from the basic or initial essence of chapter VIII of the letter concerning the regional agreements or organizations, which would affect the maintenance of peace that represent the NU. Thus, the EU would be acting as: “(…) a world power that wants the United Nations to work to resolve the crises in which it does not have a direct interest and that is willing to act directly, autonomously and without the command and control of The United Nations, when you have that direct interest "
My vision is not so negative. And neither is that of the UN, which has continued to accredit one after another these regional wedge missions. With few exceptions, EU’s peace missions have always sought a close link to the superior purposes or purposes required by the Security Council in the same context.
This posture has been prosecuted by the Tjue. Its jurisprudence has evaluated in recent pronouncements that the obligations of the Charter link to the community and not only to the Member States, by virtue of its own constitutive treaty, since it meets the obligation of the states to comply with its international obligations alien to the EU, and the compatibility iuris et de iure is assumed specifically.
The declaration on the improvement of cooperation between the United Nations and the regional agreements or agencies in the maintenance of international peace and security (1994) also contains an explicit allusion to the possibility that regional organizations can carry out operational actions in the international peace and security maintenance sphere. The appointment to this cooperation of regional organizations in the decrease of the heavy ballast that meant for the UN these missions was expressed in the following terms: “It is encouraged to the regional agreements or organizations to which they consider, in their spheres of competence, the possibility to establish and train groups of military and civil observers, missions of determination of the facts and contingents of peace maintenance forces to use them, according to, in coordination with the United Nations, and, if necessary, under the authority of the Letter or with your authorization, in accordance with the letter ".
The alternative presented by the declaration indicated the possibility that these regional peace missions would be carried out "in coordination with the United Nations", "under the authority of the letter", or "with its authorization", carrying all this many legal issues of background.
conclusion
Thus, EU’s peace missions, as had previously happened with the United Nations OMPs, can be considered:
- A mere auxiliary mechanism for the solution of differences, without coercive character, when they are based on the valid consent of the receiving state;
- A coercive measure, in need of the authorization prescribed by the art. 53 of the Charter, for cases in which there is no sufficient consent of the authorities of the territory where it must be deployed.
In my opinion, the EU must be in circumstances of looking for their own security interests. A clarification to the expectations of world partners that we are able to respond to crises quickly and effectively is to enhance the purpose of collaborating in defense matters. And this theory also responds to the expectations of most EU citizens, who crave more security, balance and solidity. The defense is little more than one of the pieces of this armor that holds the EU., But it is an element that has been neglected in recent times and is transcendental to conserve and preserve the existing interests of Europe.
Thus, the EU and its member states have implemented a succession of new measures and instruments to increase the strength and effectiveness of its actions such as “new command structures for military training missions, or policies aimed at reinforcing the civil dimension of The common security and defense policy (PCSD) ". Collaboration and cooperation are two fundamental aspects of the EU program and although the EU must accept the strategic responsibility of acting alone when necessary must also do so with its partners when possible; That is why the Union is promoting cooperation with other international partners such as NATO or NU.
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