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As is stated in Article 42 of the UN Charter, the UN Security Council has the power to take any necessary measures including “ by air, sea, or land forces” to maintain or restore international peace and security. (The UN Charter) Therefore, the Security Council has “charter-assigned preeminence” and “political weight” in terms of peacekeeping. (Ratner 1995, p60) Therefore, peacekeeping operations must function under the leadership and supervision of the UN Security Council. On the other hand, the UN General Assembly may exercise “secondary responsibility” when there is a stalemate in the Security Council, which is best illustrated by the Uniting for Peace Resolution in 1950. (Dervort 1998, p493)
In general, peacekeeping operations can be categorized into observation missions and peacekeeping troops, with the former composed of a group of military observers and the latter made up of national contingents donated by the UN member states. This article mainly focuses on peacekeeping troops.
Peacekeeping troops in general perform multiply functions like collective security and peace observation, which may fall into three categories: military functions, governmental or political functions and civil functions. (Rikhye 1991, p20) As neutral military observers, peacekeeping troops are responsible for ensuring the enforcement of the cease-fire agreement established between the protagonists and creating an efficient mechanism to deal with alleged violation and disputes. Peacekeeping troops function as buffer or interposition forces to prevent hostile incidents that may lead to escalation of conflicts and promote a moral barrier to hostile actions, are responsible for the maintenance of law and order especially in interstate conflicts and perform humanitarian activities to aid the local population in the areas of conflict. Peacekeeping troops mainly perform non-coercive missions and therefore must keep total neutrality to avoid getting involved in internal affairs of the host countries or armed conflicts among protagonists.
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