The United Nations peacekeeping operations : Evolving efforts to maintain international peace and security

The six decade-old peacekeeping operations by the United Nations have been under remarkable changes in response to the transformations in world order after the World War II. During the Cold War era, peacekeepers were expected to play a limited role, such as observing the ceasefires or separation of forces arrangement in order to maintain international peace and security. They were deployed unarmed or lightly armed under UN command when a ceasefire was in place and the parties to the conflict had given their consent.

At the end of the Cold War, a surge in intra-state conflicts, which derived from religious or ethnic confrontation, claimed increased demand for complex and multidimensional peacekeeping operations. However, with the failure in the operations such as massacres in Rwanda and Srebrenica, reforms of peacekeeping operations came up for discussion regarding mandates and resources of the operation.

Current peacekeeping operations are multidimensional ones conducted by police officers, military and civilian staff of a number of countries, in particular assisting nation-building processes in the African countries torn by civil wars. At present, 54 thousand personnels are deployed in Africa with the mandates of providing emergency relief, supporting the local organization of elections and shoring up the judiciary, civil administration and public utilities in the post-conflict society.

The current status and the future direction of Korea's participation in UN peacekeeping operations

Since the Republic of Korea joined the UN in1991, it has dispatched a total of about 920 troops to UN's peacekeeping operations including a 250-member engineering battalion to Somalia in 1993, UNOSOM II in Somalia, UNAVEM II in Angola, UNTAET in East Timor, UNFICYP in Cyprus, MINURSO in Western Sahara, and ONUB in Burundi.

Right now, 38 Koreans are dispatched to UNMOGIP in India/Pakistan, UNOMIG in Georgia, UNMIL in Liberia, UNAMA in Afghanistan, UNMIS in Sudan, UNMIT in East Timor and UNMIN in Nepal.  350 infantry troops were sent to UNIFIL (Lebanon) in July last year, so a total of 401 troops are dispatched to a total of 8 peacekeeping missions, which is the 37th largest number of troops dispatched to peacekeeping operations among the UN Member States.

The ROK's participation in PKO mainly consists of assistants and administrative forces such as military engineers, medical assistants and military observers.  There were two cases in which the ROK dispatched infantry troops: East Timor (99-03) and UNIFIL('07-present).

However, the role of PKO in the global security environment continues to grow in the 21st century and each country has taken active policies on participating in PKO accordingly.  Therefore, the ROK Government will actively participate in PKO by further promoting the national understanding on the importance and meaning of making contributions to PKO and rationalizing procedures for dispatching troops including the procedure of getting a prior consent by the National Assembly.

It is one of the top priorities of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade to actively participate in and make contributions to UN's PKO, based on the awareness that the ROK must make contributions to the international community befitting its national power in order to secure its status and influence in the international community.