restoring law & order and crime prevention - Peace Operations ...

8INTRODUCTIONMaintaining peace in the world is one of the most important responsibilitiesof the world organisation, the United Nations, which it has been doing –based on its Charter-- since its’ inception in 1945 through setting up ofpeacekeeping missions in conflict affected areas around the world.However, the term peacekeeping has not been explicitly mentioned in theCharter of the United Nations. Dag Hammarskjold, the second UNSecretary-General, referred to it as belonging to Chapter Six and a Half ofthe Charter, placing it between traditional methods of resolving disputespeacefully --such as negotiation and meditation under Chapter VI-- andmore forceful actions as can be authorised by the UN Security Councilunder Chapter VII of the Charter 1 .Peacekeeping Missions have been employed by the UN as an instrumentto help create conditions of peace in areas affected by conflict. Right fromthe inception of the world body, United Nations through peacekeepingmissions across the world has played a very significant role in maintainingpeace in the world and peacekeeping missions have remained importantcomponent of the peacekeeping activities of the United Nations. During theCold War period the traditional UN peacekeeping missions mainlyconsisted of unarmed or lightly armed troops and their role primarilylimited to maintaining ceasefires and limited peace agreement so as tocreate conditions for resolving the conflict by diplomatic efforts andpeaceful means. With the end of the Cold War however, the nature ofconflicts in the different parts of the world changed dramatically; frominter-State conflicts to intra-State conflicts; mostly expressed as civil wars.Consequently, the nature of peacekeeping operations also changed. The last1United Nations Peacekeeping. At: http://www.un.org/en/peacekeeping/ (last visited Oct. 16, 2009)