Japan’s Peacekeeping at a Crossroads

Front matter

sry, SPRINGER NATURE SDG: 16 u™ | Sustainable Development Goals Series Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions

Japan's Peacekeeping at a Crossroads

Taking a Robust Stance or Remaining Hesitant?

Preface

We, the three coauthors of this book, do not necessarily confine the scope of our research interest to Japan’s peacekeeping policy. Each of us has also worked in other issue areas, such as regional security in Asia, hybrid peacebuilding, and the security-development nexus. Nonetheless, it is also true that Japan’s efforts for international peace and security have always been at the core of our common academic interests.

In particular, two of us, namely Fujishige and Uesugi, have traced this topic for nearly three decades, since the time of Japan’s first military dispatch in the 1990s. We both belong to what one might call the “firstgeneration academics” in the study of Japan’s peacekeeping policy. We have a direct memory of the era when the overseas military dispatch was strictly prohibited and the national policy was drastically transformed to endorse it. Our firsthand experience of witnessing this paradigm shift has driven us to investigate Japan’s peacekeeping policy.

One of the main incentives behind this book is to transfer our memories and experiences as the “first generation” to the younger generations. For example, one of the coauthors of this book, Honda, belongs to the “second generation” that takes overseas military dispatch for granted. Moreover, in the future, the “third generation” will emerge: they will have no direct memory of a large-scale troop contribution to a UN mission, since such overseas military deployment en masse was terminated in 2017. It is the authors’ sincere desire to write down what we have observed and pass it on to the younger generation.

More essentially, we are also motivated to publish this book because Japan’s peacekeeping policy now stands at a crossroads. In its history of vii vill © PREFACE large-scale troop contributions from 1992 to 2017, Japan’s peacekeeping policy had sought a quantitative expansion of its contribution, but it is obvious that this method is already outdated since the withdrawal of the engineering force from South Sudan in 2017. Why has this change occurred? What will be the new course ahead of us? We are facing numerous questions as the historical course of a quarter of a century of military deployment to UN peacekeeping operations draws to a close and we consider the new era beyond the termination of large-scale troop contributions.

This book has given us a perfect opportunity to scrutinize these questions. One thing we can say for sure is that recent changes of course in Japan’s peacekeeping policy should be regarded within the global trend of international peacekeeping, although Japan still has its own national caveats. We would argue that this is not the mere revival of the old anti-militarism. Bearing this in mind, this book not only examines Japanese peacekeeping but also pays heed to the wider trend of international peacekeeping to offer a comparative point of view. In this regard, we hope and believe that this book will be useful not only for those who are interested in Japan’s foreign/security policy but also for readers with an interest in international peacekeeping issues.

Tokyo, Japan Hiromi Nagata Fujishige Tokyo, Japan Yuji Uesugi Nagoya, Japan Tomoaki Honda

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This book is deeply indebted to a variety of earnest and generous sources of support. First of all, special thanks should be given to the members of the International Peace Cooperation Study Group. This is a unique professional gathering of more than 200 Japanese peacekeeping experts with a wide range of backgrounds: officials from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Defense, and the Cabinet Office, military personnel, governmental and nongovernmental development aid workers, UN officials, think-tank members, businessmen, and, of course, academics, including ourselves. The group was initially launched in 2005 to discuss the Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT), which was an attempt at civil-military cooperation in the international support of Afghanistan after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Since then, the activities of the study group have continued for 17 years, while the focus of study has changed every few years. Likewise, the members change frequently. The line-up of administrative members has also changed from time to time. Among the three coauthors of this book, Uesugi is the only remaining founding member, while Fujishige joined in 2006 and Honda has attended since 2009.

It is an entirely voluntary group without any formal institution or funding, but this has allowed flexibility of this gathering. The lack of formality has contributed to the inclusion of professionals with different positions and backgrounds, especially encompassing both military and civilian members. The group has thus served not only for study purposes but also as an invaluable opportunity to develop the basis for civil-military cooperation in Japanese peacekeeping. The group holds meetings several times a year and some 20-30 professionals usually attend each time. Discussions xX ACKNOWLEDGMENTS and communications with the members have given us unmeasurable knowledge and deepened our understanding of the theories and practices of peacekeeping-related issues. We would never have been able to publish this book without the members’ sincere and serious involvement in the group.

So far, the group has examined topics such as civil-military cooperation in statebuilding, Security Sector Reform (SSR) in peacebuilding, and the “All Japan” approach (the Japanese version of civil-military cooperation), and has published the outcomes of these joint studies as four books in Japanese. Among them, the book titled Kokusai Heiwa Kyoryoku Nyumon [Introduction to International Peace Cooperation], which was published by the Minerva Shobo in Kyoto in 2018, has direct relevance to this book. The 2018 book was published as a textbook, especially for undergraduate students, but it contains rich and extensive substance, covering 10 chapters and 17 columns, contributed by 16 authors in total.

While being proud of the quality of the 2018 book, we soon became aware of the necessity to update it. The 2018 book was drafted mostly in 2017, which was the year when the Japanese peacekeeping contingent withdrew from South Sudan, and it therefore hardly mentioned the subsequent developments and considerations after the withdrawal. With this motivation in mind, we decided to fully rewrite the 2018 book into an English academic book to include the latest updates to events and to share the outcome beyond Japan. For this purpose, we limited the number of authors of the new book to three in order to complete the rewriting process in English as soon as possible. During this process, we referred to numerous new sources and materials and restructured the organization of the book. As a result, it has been remodeled entirely as a new book. In the meantime, the coauthors of this book have learned a lot from the 2018 book and this learning has laid the foundation for the new book. Hence, we would like to express our gratitude to the contributors to the 2018 book.

We also owe much to the following individuals for their sincere assistance with this book. First, Masahiro Kurosaki, associate professor of National Defense Academy of Japan, provided specialist legal knowledge to help us to ensure the accuracy of the legal discussion in this book. Second, we also would like to thank Masayasu Tsuzuki, research fellow in Security Study Unit of Institute of Future Initiatives at the University of Tokyo (the former deputy counsellor, national security secretariat, cabinet secretariat, the Government of Japan), for helping us to deepen our understanding of Japan’s legal system on peacekeeping. Third, Daiki Inoue,

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS xi who expects to receive his first degree from Hosei University (Tokyo) soon and to commence his postgraduate study from fall 2021 at Master in International Affairs program of Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva, has not only been primarily in charge of editing this book but also assisted our research. He also made all tables and figures inserted in this book. Fourth, Kazushige Kobayashi, from the Centre on Conflict, Development and Peacebuilding of the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva, helped us to translate the titles of Japanese books/articles into English. Fifth, three undergraduate students of Aoyama Gakuen University (Tokyo), namely Makishi Kamimura, Risako Otsuka, and Michiha Yamamoto, also kindly assisted with editing this book. Our gratitude is also extended to our editors, Anne-Kathrin Birchley-Brun, Ruby Panigrahi, and others at Palgrave Macmillan/Spring Nature. We are also very grateful to the two anonymous reviewers of the book proposal. Their candid comments gave us important indications as to how to restructure this book. Last but not least, we also offer special thanks to Ann Williams and Farrah Hawana for making the language of this book more readable.

This book has been written under the extraordinarily challenging circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has necessarily affected the authors’ ways of living and working, but we have negotiated this rocky road and reached the end, thanks to the various supports mentioned above. This reminds us of a famous aphorism, originating from Shakespeare’s well-known work: “AIl’s Well That Ends Well.”

This book was supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grant Number 19H01461.

July 2021 Hiromi Nagata Fujishige Tokyo and Nagoya Yuji Uesugi Tomoaki Honda

Praise for Japan’s Peacekeeping at a Crossroads

“This carefully researched book offers fascinating insights into three puzzles: why Japanese governments expanded their contributions to UN peacekeeping since the early 1990s; why Tokyo withdrew its military engineers from South Sudan in 2017; and what this means for future (limited) Japanese engagement in UN and other peace operations.”

—Stephen Baranyi, University of Ottawa, Canada

“This book is the most comprehensive review to date of Japan’s post-Cold War peacekeeping history. It explains how Japan’s postwar constitution, and the tensions between its domestic and international politics influenced its peacekeeping policy. It should be essential reading for everyone who wants to understand Japan’s contribution to UN peacekeeping.”

—Cedric de Coning, Norwegian Institute of International Affairs, Norway

“Japan’s Peacekeeping at a Crossroads is a timely examination of the trajectory of Japanese contributions in this area of global security. The volume analyses Japan’s changing international strategic and domestic motivations to engage in peacekeeping. It takes a fresh and critical approach and fills an important gap in the extant literature.”

—Christopher W. Hughes, University of Warwick, UK

Contents

Introduction: The Pursuit of “Integration” and “Robustness” in Japan’s Peacekeeping Policy

The Historical Background to Japan’s Peacekeeping Policy from the Early Postwar Era to the Establishment of the PKO Act 1945-1992

The Evolution of Japan’s Peacekeeping Policy 1992-2012 Recent Developments in Japan’s International Peace Cooperation Under the Second Abe Government 2012-2020

Index

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Hiromi Nagata Fujishige is an associate professor at the School of International Politics, Economics and Communications of Aoyama Gakuin University, Tokyo, Japan. Fujishige holds a PhD from School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London, on Japan’s security policy. She is an expert in Japan’s peacekeeping policy and has widely published in the field. Along with the other authors, she has presided “Japan Peacekeeping Study Group,” which consisted of more than 200 Japanese peacekeeping experts (e.g., diplomats and the other government officials, the military officers, the UN officials, NGO workers, and academics) for nearly 15 years. She is working on the comparative study of Japanese and Canadian peacekeeping policies.

Yuji Uesugi is Professor of Conflict Resolution and Peacebuilding at the School of International Liberal Studies and the Graduate School of International Culture and Communication Studies, Waseda University, Tokyo, Japan. Uesugi holds a PhD in Conflict Resolution from the University of Kent at Canterbury. His fields of expertise and research interest include hybrid peacebuilding in Asia, UN peace operations, security sector reform, and regional security in the Asia-Pacific.

Tomoaki Honda is an associate professor at the Faculty of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Chukyo University, Nagoya, Japan. Honda holds a PhD in Media and Governance from Keio University, Kanagawa, Japan. He spexvii xviii ABOUT THE AUTHORS cializes in Japan’s foreign policymaking process, specifically international peace cooperation policy. His book (in Japanese) titled Seeking for Peacebuilding: The Challenges and Outcomes of Japan’s Peacekeeping (published in 2018) earned the Award of Excellent Book from Japan Association for International Security.

ABBREVIATIONS

3-D Diplomacy, Development and Defense

AAR Japan Association for Aid and Relief

ARCSS Agreement on the Resolution of the Conflict in South Sudan ASDF Air Self-Defense Force

ASEAN Association of Southeast Asian Nations

CAR Central African Republic

COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019

CPA Comprehensive Peace Agreement

DDR Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration DPJ Democratic Party of Japan

DRC Democratic Republic of Congo

DSP Democratic Socialist Party

DSRSG Deputy Special Representative of the Secretary-General FPU Formed Police Unit

FRETILIN Revolutionary Front for an Independent East Timor GoJ Government of Japan

GPOI Global Peace Operations Initiative

GSDF Ground Self-Defense Forces

HIPPO High-Level Independent Panel on Peace Operations HRF Haiti Relief Fund

IDPs internally displaced people

IGAD Intergovernmental Authority on Development

IOM International Organization for Migration

IMT International Monitoring Team

INTERFET International Force East Timor

IHRC Interim Haiti Reconstruction Committee

IPC International Peace Cooperation

Xix xx ABBREVIATIONS

IPCH ISAF JCP JDR JEG JICA JRCS JSP KFOR LDP MFO MIF MILF MINUSMA

MINUSTAH MoD MoFA MSDF NATO NDPG NGOs NPR

NSC

NSS

ODA ONUC ONUMOZ PCRS

PKF

PKO

PoC

PWJ R-ARCSS

RESPECT

ROEs RPFs RSCE SDF SDP

International Peace Cooperation Headquarters International Security Assistance Force

Japan Communist Party

Japan Disaster Relief

Japan Engineering Groups

Japan International Cooperation Agency Japanese Red Cross Society

Japan Socialist Party

Kosovo Force

Liberal Democratic Party

Multinational Force and Observers Multinational Interim Force

Moro Islamic Liberation Front

United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali

United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti Ministry of Defense

Ministry of Foreign Affairs

Maritime Self-Defense Force

North Atlantic Treaty Organization

National Defense Program Guidelines Non-Governmental Organizations

National Police Reserve

National Security Council

National Security Secretariat

Official Development Assistance

United Nations Operation in the Congo United Nations Mission in Mozambique Peacekeeping Capability Readiness System Peacekeeping Forces

Peacekeeping Operations

Protection of Civilians

Peace Winds Japan

Revitalized Agreement on the Resolution of the Conflict in South Sudan

Recovery, Employment and Stability Programme for Ex-combatants and Communities in Timor-Leste Rules of Engagement

Regional Protection Forces

United Nations Regional Service Centre Entebbe Self-Defense Forces

Social Democratic Party

SPLA SPLA-IO SPLM SRSG

SSR

TTP

UN UNAMET UNAMIL UNAVEM II UNDES UNDOF UNDOS UNDP UNDPKO UNDPO UNHCR UNIFIL UNOSOM II UNMIK UNMIS UNMISS UNMISET UNMIT UNOGIL UNOTIL UNPKOs UNSCR UNSC UNSG UNTAC UNTAET US

WEP

ABBREVIATIONS

Sudan People’s Liberation Army

Sudan People’s Liberation Army-in-Opposition

Sudan People’s Liberation Movement

Special Representative of the Secretary-General

Security Sector Reform

Triangular Partnership Programme

United Nations

United Nations Mission in East Timor

United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone

United Nations Angola Verification Mission IT

United Nations Department of Field Support

United Nations Disengagement Observer Force

United Nations Department of Operational Support United Nations Development Programme

United Nations Department of Peacekeeping Operations United Nations Department of Peace Operations United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon

United Nations Operation in Somalia II

United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo United Nations Mission in the Sudan

United Nations Mission in the Republic of South Sudan United Nations Mission of Support in East Timor United Nations Integrated Mission in Timor-Leste United Nations Observation Group in Lebanon

United Nations Office in East Timor

United Nations Peacekeeping Operations

United Nations Security Council Resolution

United Nations Security Council

United Nations Secretary-General

United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor United States

World Food Programme xxi

LIST OF FIGURES

Fig. 3.1 Classification of the narrow and broader versions of IPC 43 Fig. 3.2 Public opinion poll on the SDF’s activities 53 xxiii

List OF TABLES

Table 3.1 The narrow version of IPC

Table 3.2 The broader version of IPC

Table 4.1 Three types of UNPKO for the application of the new five principles

40 43

XXV

Chapter 1

Introduction: The Pursuit of “Integration” and “Robustness” in Japan’s Peacekeeping Policy l1 THe Gaps BEHIND THE DISCONTINUITY IN JAPAN’S PEACEKEEPING POLICY

This book explores Japan’s peacekeeping policy, with particular focus on its military contribution to United Nations Peacekeeping Operations (UNPKOs). It examines the evolution of Japan’s peacekeeping contributions from the early postwar period until the early 2020s. It was nearly three decades ago that the Act on Cooperation with United Nations Peacekeeping Operations and Other Operations or the Peacekeeping Operations (PKO) Act was enacted. The law enabled the Government of Japan (GoJ) to contribute personnel from the Self-Defense Forces (SDF), Japan’s national armed forces, to the UNPKOs. The SDF consists of three forces: the Ground Self-Defense Force (GSDF), which is equivalent to an army; the Maritime Self-Defense Force (MSDF), equivalent to a navy; and the Air Self-Defense Force (ASDF), which is an air force. In this book, frequent reference will be made to the Japan Engineering Groups (JEG)— that is, the military engineering corps in the GSDF.

Although Japan has advocated United Nations (UN)-centrism as one of the three pillars of its postwar diplomacy (MoFA, 1958; Kuriyama, 2016, pp. 21-23),! it was initially very reluctant to deploy its personnel, especially SDF members, to a UNPKO (Shoji, 2015; Kato, 2020; Fujishige, 2017). Despite obtaining UN membership in 1956, Japan had never contributed troops to any UNPKOs until 1992, when the PKO Act

© The Author(s) 2022 1 H. N. Fujishige et al., Japan’s Peacekeeping at a Crossroads, was established. The new legislation allowed the GoJ to make its first personnel contribution, including the SDF contingent, to the United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC) from 1992 to 1993. Japan has since deployed troops to various places within the UN framework, including Mozambique, the Golan Heights (Syria), East Timor (Timor- Leste), Haiti, and South Sudan (Cabinet Office, n.d.-a). However, since the withdrawal of some 300 engineering troops from the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) in May 2017, Japan has not contributed any new SDF contingents to a UNPKO in recent years, aside from a small number of staff officers remaining in South Sudan (Cabinet Office, 2015, n.d.-a). Why has Japan discontinued its quarter-century history (1992-2017) of military contribution to UNPKOs around the globe? Is there any possibility that it will be resumed?

To respond to these questions, we will pay special heed to understanding Japan’s motivation to catch up with the trends of “integration” and “robustness” in the UNPKOs. At the outset, Japanese peacekeepers embarked on the new enterprise as cautious novices, heavily preoccupied with satisfying national legal caveats. Through firsthand field experience, however, they gradually realized that there were gaps between their domestic legal requirements and the on-the-ground reality of UNPKOs. Following its involvement with the UNTAC, Japan’s peacekeeping policy was primarily concerned with reducing these gaps, with the objective of catching up to the “global” standard of behaviors in UNPKOs. Underneath Japanese policy lies a basic assumption that more personnel (military) contribution is necessarily more desirable (The IPC Panel, 2002). Bearing this in mind, Japan keenly sought to catch up with the early 1990s international trend to expand the latitude for “more active” military contribution.

While Japan was chasing these trends in recent decades, the quality and purposes of UNPKOs changed dramatically and quickly. A Japanese international law scholar noted, “There has emerged a diremption between the assumed model of participation in the UNPKO under the Japanese statutes and a new vision for peacekeeping, which has been sought by the UN after the Cold War” (Sakai, 2016, p. 21). This transformation made it very difficult for the GoJ to continue to follow the trend of UNPKOs, which have been increasingly deployed in dangerous places and more frequently accompanied by the use of force. Presumably, this trend led to the termination of Japan’s troop contribution to South Sudan in 2017, although the GoJ has never confirmed its true motivation (Cabinet Secretariat et al.,

2017). It also seems very unlikely that the GoJ will restart such contributions, at least in the foreseeable future. To dissect the question of what has brought Japanese peacekeeping to an impasse, we will carefully examine how Japan’s efforts to follow the international tides of “integration” and “robustness” have shaped its peacekeeping policy over the last few decades and why Japan’s challenges have reached their limit. Finally, we will briefly consider the change of course in Japan’s peacekeeping policy after the 2017 suspension of troop contributions.

2 ‘THE CONTEMPORARY “INTEGRATION”

AND “ROBUSTNESS” TRENDS IN UNPKOs

2.1 Classic Peacekeeping

Before we discuss Japan’s peacekeeping policy, let us provide an overview of the recent evolution of “integration” and “robustness” as dominant trends within UNPKOs. Traditionally, classic UNPKOs originated in the Cold War era and were mostly carried out by unarmed or light-armed military personnel playing only limited roles, such as monitoring ceasefires between states. Although the UN Charter includes no mention of UNPKOs, the United Nations Secretary-General (UNSG) Dag Hammarskjöld, who held office from 1953 to 1961, once defined classic peacekeeping as an operation of “UN Charter Chapter Six and Half”’— that is, a measure that falls between a pacific settlement under Chapter VI and military sanctions under Chapter VII (Bring, 2011). In 1958, Hammarskjöld also identified the three principles of classic peacekeeping (UNSG, 1958), which would later be conceptualized as the classic version of three principles: consent from a// concerned parties, neutrality, and the use of force only for self-defense purposes.

2.2 The Rise of “Integration” in the UNPKOs

After the end of the Cold War, the increase of civil wars radically transformed the nature of UNPKOs, giving rise to two distinctive features: “integration” and “robustness.” On the one hand, the UNPKOs became increasingly involved in the reconstruction of conflict-affected countries under the statebuilding mandate, authorized by a United Nations Security Council Resolution (UNSCR). Rebuilding collapsed statehoods considerably expanded the range of UNPKOs’ duties, which soon covered not only traditional cease-fire monitoring (peacekeeping) but also diverse civilian-oriented tasks, such as election observation, support for refugee repatriation, and institution support for local governments (peacebuilding). By encompassing various issue fields, the comprehensive UN missions now cover both peacekeeping, primarily conducted by uniformed personnel (military and police), and peacebuilding, mainly carried out by civilians. This book refers to the trend of uniting peacekeeping and peacebuilding as “integration,” in which civil-military cooperation has been developed.

The origin of “integration” can be dated back to the multidimensional (or multifunctional) peace operations in the early 1990s (Inoue, 2018, pp. 25-26; Doyle et al., 1997). As typically seen in the case of UNTAC, multidimensional missions included various activities, ranging from the military’s truce monitoring and the UN police’s provision of advice to the local police, to civilian activities such as election supervision. Around the same time, UNSG Boutros Boutros-Ghali advocated the concept of “postconflict peacebuilding” in his controversial policy paper on peacekeeping reform, widely known as An Agenda for Peace (UNSG, 1992). The multidimensional UNPKOs in the 1990s, however, soon revealed flaws, such as a narrow concentration on elections, inflexibility in scheduling, and weak coordination mechanisms. To overcome these shortcomings, the concept of “integration” appeared in the 2000 Brahimi Report (UNSG, 2000), the highly influential peacekeeping reform recommendations written by UNSG Kofi Annan’s advisory group chaired by the Algerian former Minister of Foreign Affairs Lakhdar Brahimi.

The prototype for an integrated mission was embodied in the United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor (UNTAET) from 1999 to 2002. In line with the idea of “integration,” UNTAET was assigned comprehensive mandates, encompassing a wide range of civilian-led peacebuilding activities (e.g., police and judicial reforms, institution building, election monitoring, and infrastructure development), as well as traditional peacekeeping duties conducted by both the military and the police. In particular, it was emphasized that peacekeeping and peacebuilding efforts should be integrated into a unified scope of operations. Following this logic, the prefix “post-conflict” was removed from Boutros- Ghali’s term “post-conflict peacebuilding.” It is now simply called “peacebuilding” to indicate the need to embark on it in parallel with peacekeeping. In 2005, the United Nations Peacebuilding Commission was established to improve the practice of peacebuilding (UNDPO, n.d.-c), further promoting the trend of “integration.”

From the mid-2000s onward, it became common to describe the newly established UNPKOs as “Integrated Missions,” as seen in the case of the United Nations Integrated Mission in Timor-Leste (UNMIT), established in 2006. These integrated missions attach high value to coordination, since “integration” inherently involves a multiplicity of actors. This trend was typified by the rising focus on the “One-UN” approach since the mid-2000s to reduce silos among various agencies under the UN framework (United Nations, n.d.). Moreover, the conception of “integration” covers not only the UN agencies but also various external actors, such as humanitarian and development agencies, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and business and local civil societies. To promote smooth coordination, the Special Representative of the Secretary-General (SRSG), who is the head of each UNPKO on site, is now granted more authority (de Coning, 2010).

Parallel to the rise of “integration,” the concept of “robustness” has also emerged, encouraging peacekeepers to apply more determined, highintensity use of force under Chapter VI of the UN Charter. With the increase in civil wars after the Cold War, a cease-fire agreement is easily jeopardized, and lingering violence often steals the lives of ordinary citizens. To address this issue, the aforementioned policy paper, An Agenda for Peace, proposed another new concept in 1992: “peace enforcement.” This meant that when there was outright aggression, peacekeepers were allowed to take the use of force beyond the self-defense purposes delineated under the UN Charter Chapter VI, even without consent from the concerned parties (UNSG, 1992, para. 44). The United Nations Operation in Somalia II (UNOSOM II) in the early 1990s was a representative case of such “peace enforcement.” However, it ultimately resulted in failure after UN peacekeepers were involved in hostilities against indigenous militias.

2.3 The Rise of “Robustness” in the UNPKOs

Following the fiasco in Somalia, the momentum for “robustness” temporarily slowed, as Boutros-Ghali’s follow-up policy paper to An Agenda for Peace dejectedly admitted the failure of his previous ambitious initiative (UNSG, 1995). In the mid-1990s, atrocities against humanity, such as the genocide in Rwanda in 1994 and massacre in Srebrenica in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1995, reaffirmed the necessity for more definitive use of force, especially to protect civilians. From the late 1990s onward, armed enforcement measures authorized under Chapter VI of the UN Charter would often be “outsourced” to (a) voluntary state(s) for the purpose of civilian protection, which is typically referred to as “humanitarian intervention.” Meanwhile, the UN itself also gradually invented a milder form of enforcement action, namely the concept of “robust” peacekeeping, which typically goes hand-in-hand with the notion of “Protection of Civilians” (PoC). “Robust” peacekeeping is entitled to resolute use of force under the UN Charter’s Chapter VII, but it takes on more modest characteristics in comparison with peace enforcement.

In the 2000s, the rise of “robustness” inevitably remodeled the three classic principles of UNPKOs into a new form (Shinoda, 2018, pp. 49-50). In 2008, the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations (UNDPKO), which is now called the UN Department of Peace Operations (UNDPO), and the UN Department of Field Support (UNDFS), which is currently” called the UN Department of Operational Support (UNDOS), published a joint policy paper widely known as The Capstone Doctrine to confirm these changes (UNDPKO & UNDFS, 2008). First, “robust” peacekeeping requires consent from major concerned parties. It falls between the requirements of classic peacekeeping, which demands consent from all concerned parties, and peace enforcement, which requires no consent. This implies the existence of those who do not accept the UN’s presence in a host nation, especially at the local level. The UNDPO notes, “Universality of consent becomes even less probable in volatile settings, characterized by the presence of armed groups not under the control of any of the parties, or by the presence of other spoilers” (UNDPO, n.d.-a), meaning that contemporary peacekeepers are often supposed to work under hostile and unstable conditions.

Second, the concept of “impartiality” was also introduced, implying that the UNPKO is no longer neutral in the sense that it keeps away from any warring parties equally. Rather, the UNDPO compares the roles of peacekeepers today to those of referees in sports because they “will penalize infractions, so a peacekeeping operation should not condone actions by the parties that violate the undertakings of the peace process or the international norms and principles that a United Nations peacekeeping operation upholds” (UNDPO, n.d.-a). In other words, “robust” peacekeeping would take a decisive attitude against those who violate the UN’s principles and rules, typically expressed in UNSCRs and peace agreements.

Third, peacekeepers tasked with the new mandate of “robust” peacekeeping are often allowed to “use all necessary means” under Chapter VI of the UN Charter. The “robust” peacekeepers are frequently allowed to use force themselves in order to “deter forceful attempts to disrupt the political process, protect civilians under imminent threat of physical attack, and/or assist the national authorities in maintaining law and order” (UNDPO, n.d.-b). Nevertheless, the use of force in “robust” peacekeeping is limited only to the tactical level for the purposes of self-defense and defense of the mandate.

Theoretically, “robust” peacekeeping is clearly differentiated from peace enforcement, which tasks the use of force at strategic level on the condition that is authorized by the United Nations Security Council (UNSC). Being situated between classic peacekeeping and peace enforcement, the nature of “robust” peacekeeping is sometimes depicted as being between “forceful” and “non-forceful” measures (Kiriyama, 2019, p. 149). In actuality, however, it is highly dubious whether such a strict distinction can be made, especially between “robust” peacekeeping and peace enforcement. Since the armed peacekeepers would need to respond to the changing degree of violence on site, it would be extremely difficult for them, when facing imminent danger, to judge whether their conduct falls within the scope of “robust” peacekeeping or exceeds it.

Thus, in recent years, UNPKOs abandoned the stance of noninterference and began to virtually impose peacekeepers’ involvement in armed conflicts in order to implement the UNPKO goals or, more specifically, for the purpose of PoC. In 1999, the United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMIL), which was tasked with a limited PoC mandate under Chapter VII of the UN Charter, served as a test case for “robust” peacekeeping (UNSC, 1999). The UNAMIL mandate was followed by the 2000 Bralimi Report, which confirmed the global shift toward “robustness” in peacekeeping. From the 2000s onward, most newly established UNPKOs have been found in Africa, such as in Liberia, Côte d’Ivoire, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), South Sudan, and Mali (UNDPO, n.d.-e). These operations have been characterized by “robustness,” increasing the frequency of the use of force, especially for the purpose of defense of the mandate, and exposing peacekeepers to higher risk. As a result, in the twenty-first century, UNPKOs have seen an acute rise in fatalities, not only among civilians but also among uniformed personnel (Henke, 2018), as the Cruz Report warned in 2017 (dos Santos Cruz et al., 2017).