Defence Forces Review 2008

The Nobel Lecture - 9 January 1989
on the countries which provide the troops, and is also harmful to the essential principle of
collective responsibility. It sends a feeble and wavering message, when what is required is
confidence and strong support. Collective governmental responsibility for the financing of
peacekeeping operations is an essential basic principle. However, if governments decide
that the financial burden is too heavy for them to bear alone, other means of financing may
have to be considered. In some cases, those who benefit financially from the results of a
peacemaking and peacekeeping operation might be asked to share in the costs. A reserve
fund for peacekeeping emergencies has also been suggested. A more far-reaching idea has
been floated, embracing the concept of using some of the money spent on war to pay for
peace through an appropriate international levy on all overseas arms sales. This money could
be used to build up such a fund. As long as, regrettably, the arms trade continues, we would
at least be robbing war to pay for peace. It is an interesting coincidence that the figure of
1.5 billion dollars, often mentioned as the possible bill for peacekeeping in 1989, is almost
exactly one percent of the official arms exports for 1987 - 164 billion dollars.
A peacekeeping operation must have a workable and realistic mandate fully supported by
the international community. It must also have the cooperation, however grudging, of the
governments and authorities in the area of conflict, and their understanding that the operation
serves their long-term interests, no matter what their short-term political difficulties may be.
A peacekeeping operation needs disciplined and broadly representative contingents and an
effective integrated command. The operation must be guided at all times by the Secretary-
General and kept on course with the objectives of the Security Council.
The nonviolent nature of peacekeeping must be understood by the soldiers and respected by
the parties to the conflict. A peacekeeping force that uses its weapons for purposes other than
strict self-defense quickly becomes part of the conflict and therefore part of the problem. It
loses its essential quality of being above the conflict. These essential conditions seem to be
present to a far greater extent than any time in the past forty years. Indeed we have come a
very long way since 1948, when Secretary-General Trygve Lie’s suggestion of “a small guard
force” for Palestine was dismissed without serious discussion.
The situation in the Security Council is particularly encouraging. For the first time the permanent
members seem to be becoming a collegial body working together with the non-permanent
members and with the Secretary- General to evolve common approaches and solutions for
problems of international peace and security. This development opens up new possibilities of
a more general nature in arms control and disarmament and in the settlement of international
disputes, as well as in the development and use for the technique of peacekeeping.
Here the change in the Soviet attitude is particularly encouraging. New Soviet proposals,
both as regards the future development of peacekeeping and the wider use of such operations,
indicate that a major obstacle to progress has been removed. The Soviet proposals aim at
seeing “the positive experience and practice of United Nations peacekeeping operations
consolidated and further developed and put on a more solid legal and financial basis” so that
they can be used “more extensively for the implementation of Security Council decisions as
well as for the prevention of emerging armed conflicts”.
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