UN Establishes New World Peacekeeping Commission

The United Nations General Assembly has voted on Tuesday to create a new body to facilitate peace-building throughout the world. The vote approved a new peace-building commission that will concentrate its efforts on halting renewed warfare through reconstruction and other initiatives once fighting stops.

|PIC1|The UN Assembly President, Jan Eliasson testified the vote as “historic”, as he said that it was the UN’s “best chance to reverse the trend, which in recent years, has seen around half the countries end their fighting only to lapse back into conflict within five years.”

The news means that the latest commission to be set up by the UN is one of only a very few UN reforms that were recommended by the UN Summit in September that have been adopted by the 191-member General Assembly.

U.S. Ambassador John Bolton addressed the assembly saying, “Progress on the (commission) reminds us of the urgency of broader institutional reform regarding the U.N. budget. We have a collective interest in ensuring that reforms required to reduce costs and waste across the board are successful.”

Joining in the support for the new commission, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan also called the commission “historic”, as the UN system lacked a dedicated body to maintain peace in unstable countries once UN troops departed.

|AD|Annan told the Assembly, “This resulted in a fractured peace-building operations, with no single forum for all the relevant actors to come together, share information and develop a common strategy. Too often, a fragile peace has been allowed to crumble into renewed conflict.”

The UN Secretary General explained that the new commission would focus on the reconstruction and building of institutions, in addition to improving communication and harmonise within and beyond the UN system. This, he hoped, would develop a predictable funding for long-term rebuilding efforts.

The new group will include 31 members, with seven coming from the Security Council, including the five permanent members: the United States, Britain, France, Russia and China.

Seven more come from the Economic and Social Council, and five others from the top financial contributors to the UN budget. Seven are from the General Assembly and another five will come from the main countries contributing peacekeepers.

The World Bank and the International Money Fund have also been included as observers to the new commission.

Many countries, however, have commented that the UN Security Council have too much power within the commission. But British Ambassador Emyr Jones Parry defended the role of the council, and was backed by US Ambassador John Bolton.