A decade of UNIFIL (United Nations Interim Forces in Lebanon)- A critical approach to the effectiveness and appropriateness of UN-peacekeeping based on the example of UNIFIL

Seminar paper from the year 2004 in the subject Politics - International Politics - Topic: International Organisations, grade: A = 1, International University in Germany Bruchsal (Department of Sciences and Liberal Arts), language: English, abstract: This paper discusses the role of UN peacekeeping missions at the case of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) by looking into its first ten years of operation. The author comes to the conclusion that UNIFIL failed to achieve what it was established for, but at the same time points out that inefficient or even ineffective UN peacekeeping missions do nothing to undermine the general idea and justifiability of peacekeeping as a measure for inter-state or infra-state conflict resolution. Since its formation in 1945, the United Nations Organization has engaged in numerous peacekeeping missions around the world, the first of which was installed in 1956 to resolve the Suez-crisis. Some of those missions have been concluded in rather short periods of time. Others, as will become apparent throughout this text, have not been concluded successfully even after decades. This text will critically discuss on the role and effectiveness of UN peacekeeping missions by taking a closer look at the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) which was formed and consequently put into action in 1978 - but has proved to be unable to fulfill its mandate until today. By analyzing the case of UNIFIL the author will illustrate some of the major problems which impair such peacekeeping missions from being concluded successfully, and eventually cause them to last for decades. For this purpose, the first part of this text will be dedicated to what constitutes an UN peacekeeping mission. In the second part of this text the author will briefly provide background information on UNIFIL and major events that took place between 1978 and 1988 - a period by itself considered long enough by the author to make a qualified judgment about UNIFIL's effectiveness since it was actually supposed to serve as ' 'an interim measure until the Government of Lebanon assumes its full responsibilities in southern Lebanon' ' (Thakur, 1987, p. 40). [...]