The recent US threat to international peacekeeping forces raises questions about the way Ireland has tied its hands to operating only under the UN mandate, argues Gerry McMahon
So A deal has been done on the extension of the UN mandate for the Stabilisation Force (Sfor) in Bosnia. In bowing to the threatened US veto, the Security Council has papered over the cracks which hide the true arrogance of the Bush administration towards the rest of the world.
Mandates for various UN peacekeeping missions will not now face a US veto: in return, US peacekeeping troops will be immune from prosecution by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for an initial period of 12 months.
Diplomatic compromise has been reached for the time being, but there is no guarantee that UN-mandated peacekeeping is safe from US veto in the future. Implications for Irish peacekeeping also remain at the mercy of the US.
The negative stand of the US is based on American attitudes to the ICC in The Hague. The ICC has been established as a permanent court to deal with crimes against humanity, genocide, mass rape and other crimes of war. It is a logical development from the ad-hoc tribunals, such as the International Criminal Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), which currently deal with such matters.
Since the concept of the ICC was introduced in the Rome Statute of 1998, it has been opposed by the the Americans. They feel that frivolous cases would be taken against their peacekeepers simply because they were American. The US also held that its own justice system was more than adequate to such tasks if they arose. Of course, the ICC was never envisaged as an alternative to national justice institutions, but this point is ignored by the US.
Initially the problem did not surface. Under the Rome Statute more than 65 countries had to sign up to the ICC before it could come into being, and it was felt that this would take a long time to achieve. Countries signed up at a faster rate than was anticipated, however, and the necessary number of signatories had been achieved by mid-June of this year. The Irish people voted Yes to the ICC in a referendum last year.
The new court exists in embryonic form since July 1st. The US threat to veto UN-mandated peacekeeping missions was the next position adopted by the Bush administration.
The US attitude to the ICC is, on the face of things, simplistic and unsustainable. During May of this year I lectured in the Irish Human Rights Centre at UCG. Investigators from ICTY, ICTR, and the Special Tribunal on Sierra Leone were in attendance. The professionalism and dedication of the police investigators, forensic experts, lawyers and human rights activists was self-evident and gave a clear indication that these tribunals - and by inference the ICC - was not some kind of trumped-up kangaroo court designed to assail US soldiers.
There are plenty of fail-safe devices in the way the court will operate, which guarantee that flimsy proceedings will not take place against Americans or indeed against anyone.
The real reason behind this strange attitude to the ICC is much more complex than just the fear of prosecution of US peacekeepers.
The US is the current global superpower. As such, it is paranoid about treaties and institutions which seem to curb its power. Its interference in democratic elections in South America is well documented.
It has instructed the Palestinians to drop their elected chairman, Yasser Arafat. It has opposed the Kyoto protocols on global warming and various treaties against landmines. Now it fears that the ICC will supersede its own justice system. In pursuing its aims the US was quite willing to close down all UN peacekeeping operations as their mandates came up for renewal.
Such action would, of course, have created a problem for Ireland. The Government has indicated clearly that it will only support peacekeeping where a UN mandate is in force.
The Minister for Defence, Mr Smith, and the Irish military authorities had a ready answer to the conundrum posed by the US threat to the renewal of the Sfor mandate. They held that they were considering pulling out of Sfor anyway in order to concentrate the Irish effort in Kosovo with the Kosovo Force (Kfor).
It seemed to be a tidy solution but it didn't address the question of what Ireland would do if the US vetoed an extension to the Kfor mandate when it comes up for renewal.
Taken to its logical conclusion, US self-interest and veto could have sounded the death knell for Irish peacekeeping worldwide. That in turn should pose questions about Ireland's insistence on serving in peacekeeping only where a UN mandate exists.
AS A nation we have a great admiration for the UN and we have supported UN peacekeeping since 1958, many of our soldiers paying for world peace with their lives. In some quarters, however, this connection to UN peacekeeping has been pursued blindly to the exclusion of all other options.
For instance, the EU Rapid Reaction Force is viewed with suspicion in some quarters. It is almost as if the UN were viewed as a separate organisation, above reproach in a world of heinous alliances and evil regional organisations.
We forget that the UN is only as good as its member-states allow it to be. This is particularly true of the permanent members of the Security Council. If the Bush administration continue along the arrogant road that they have taken they have the ability to undermine the UN as a peacekeeping body. Where will Ireland stand then? Given our insistence on UN-mandated peacekeeping, it will be the end of the road.
Have we tied our own hands by our insistence on working under a UN mandate only? Should we have been more flexible? Should we have retained options to embrace EU-mandated peacekeeping where we would have a significant voice? By sticking rigidly to UN-mandated operations, our voice can be silenced by the self-interested veto of the US.
• Lieut Gen Gerry McMahon is a former chief-of-staff of the Defence Forces with extensive peacekeeping experience