Peace Building Commission

The Peace Building Commission was established in December 2005 and is an inter-governmental advisory body that will help countries in post-conflict peace building, recovery, reconstruction and development

Historical introduction

The Peace Building Commission (PBC) is one of the new entities created by the reform process initiated during the 60th session of the General Assembly of the United Nations. The debate over the reform of the United Nations systems is not a recent one. Since the creation of the organization (June 1945), most of delegates and commentators believed that the structure they had given birth to was a merely temporary one as a first step towards the establishment of the new multilateral system. Indeed, the third paragraph of article 109 is a clear clue of this initial orientation, as it states that a General Conference aimed at reviewing the Charter should be called from the tenth annual session of the General Assembly onward. But, the first attempt to reform the UN structure failed at the very 10th session, when the General Assembly, even though aware of the need of a reform, decided to postpone any decision. Various attempts to reform the UN took place during the decades but the core issues (Security Council reform, veto power, UN enforcement) failed to be properly addressed.

The High-level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change

The new environment and challenges brought by the post September 11th system of international relations, spurred the Secretary General Kofi Annan to seek for new proposals and solutions in order to reform certain sensitive area of the UN system. This approximately was the mandate of the High-level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change. Mr Annan announced the membership of the 16-member Panel in a letter (dated November 3rd 2003) addressed to the President of the General Assembly, Julian Robert Hunte (Saint Lucia). Mr Anand Panyarachun, former Prime Minister of Thailand, was appointed to chair the high-level panel on global security threats and reform of the international system. The other 15 members were as well political leading figures and diplomats, like Gro Harlem Brundtland (former prime minister of Norway and chair of the World Commission on Environment and Development that in 1987 issued the report “Our Common Future” in which the concept of sustainable development was stated for the first time) and Gareth Evans (former Minister for Foreign Affairs of Australia and President of the International Crisis Group). The Panel was asked to analyse and assess future threats to peace and security and to evaluate existing approaches, instruments and mechanisms, including the organs of the UN system. In this view, the Panel was specifically asked to:

• Examine today’s global threats and provide an analysis of future challenges to international peace and security;
• Identify clearly the contribution that collective action can make in addressing these challenges;
• Recommend the changes necessary to ensure effective collective action, including but not limited to a review of the principal organs of the United Nations.

The list above makes clear that the panel was not asked to formulate policies on specific issues. Rather it was asked to make an assessment of current challenges and to recommend proper changes in order to meet them effectively. The final report of the High-level Panel, named A more secure world: Our shared Responsibility, set out a number of recommendations to address problems and issues in six main areas of concern on which the multilateral system should concentrate its action now and in the decades ahead:

1. war between States;
2. violence within States (civil wars, gross violations of human rights and genocide);
3. poverty, infectious diseases and environmental degradation;
4. nuclear, radiological, chemical and biological weapons;
5. terrorism; and
6. transnational organized crime. (reference: executive summary, link)

Considering the second point, the analysis of the panel identified “a key institutional gap: there is no place in the United Nations system explicitly designed to avoid State collapse and the slide to war or to assist countries in their transition from war to peace” (reference: report, paragraph 261). Since the United Nations should be able to act coherently and effectively from preventive action through post-conflict peace-building, the panel recommended to establish a Peacebuilding Commission as a subsidiary body of the Security Council itself. As it is stated in the report, “the core functions of the Peacebuilding Commission should be to identify countries which are under stress and risk sliding towards State collapse; to organize, in partnership with the national Government, proactive assistance in preventing that process from developing further; to assist in the planning for transitions between conflict and post-conflict peacebuilding; and in particular to marshal and sustain the efforts of the international community in post-conflict peacebuilding over whatever period may be necessary”. (reference: paragraph 264). For what concern more practical and in-depth aspects of this new body, the panel just recommends that the Commission should be reasonably small, meet in different configurations in order to consider both general policy issues and country-by-country situations and strategies, involve the main relevant actors in different fields (UN organs such as ECOSOC and representative from UN agencies, International Financial and Economic Institutions, representatives of regional and subregional organizations) and it should be assisted by Peacebuilding Support Office established in the Secretariat.

Full List of the Members of the High-level Panel

• Anand Panyarachun (Thailand), former Prime Minister of Thailand and chair of the High-level Panel;
• Robert Badinter (France), Member of the French Senate and former Minister of Justice of France;
• João Clemente Baena Soares (Brazil), former Secretary-General of the Organization of American States;
• Gro Harlem Brundtland (Norway), former Prime Minister of Norway and former Director-General of the World Health Organization;
• Mary Chinery-Hesse (Ghana), Vice-Chairman, National Development Planning Commission of Ghana and former Deputy Director-General, International Labour Organization;
• Gareth Evans (Australia), President of the International Crisis Group and former Minister for Foreign Affairs of Australia;
• David Hannay (United Kingdom), former Permanent Representative of the United Kingdom to the United Nations and United Kingdom Special Envoy to Cyprus;
• Enrique Iglesias (Uruguay), President of the Inter-American Development Bank;
• Amre Moussa (Egypt), Secretary-General of the League of Arab States;
• Satish Nambiar (India), former Lt. General in the Indian Army and Force Commander of UNPROFOR;
• Sadako Ogata (Japan), former United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees;
• Yevgeny Primakov (Russia), former Prime Minister of the Russian Federation;
• Qian Qichen (China), former Vice Prime Minister and Minister for Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China;
• Nafis Sadik (Pakistan), former Executive Director of the United Nations Population Fund;
• Salim Ahmed Salim (United Republic of Tanzania), former Secretary-General of the Organization of African Unity; and
• Brent Scowcroft (United States), former Lt. General in the United States Air Force and United States National Security Adviser.

Structure and mandate of the Peace Building Commission

Institutional Framework

The Peace Building Commission is a subsidiary organ of both the General Assembly and the Security Council, thus the legal basis for its institution is to be found in artt. 22 and 29 of the UN Charter, devoted respectively to GA and SC subsidiary bodies. For this reason the Security Council adopted on December 20th, 2005 its 1645 resolution in concurrence with an analogue act approved by the General Assembly, the 60/180 resolution of December 30th, 2005. In both texts the Peace Building Commission is described as an intergovernmental advisory body, and among its tasks there is the duty to submit an annual report to the General Assembly which is supposed to hold an annual session to dicuss it.

Current memebers

The current composition of the Peace Building Commission's Organizational Committee is as follows:

• members of the Security Council, including all permanent members:
  1. China
  2. Denmark
  3. France
  4. the Russian Federation
  5. United Kingdom
  6. United Republic of Tanzania
  7. United States of America.

• members elected by the General Assembly:
  1. Chile
  2. El Salvador
  3. Jamaica
  4. Burundi
  5. Fiji
  6. Croatia

• members chosen as top providers of military personnel and civilian police to United Nations missions:
  1. Bangladesh
  2. Ghana
  3. India
  4. Nigeria
  5. Pakistan

• members elected by the Economic and Social Council:
  1. Angola
  2. Belgium
  3. Brazil
  4. Guinea-Bissau
  5. Indonesia
  6. Poland
  7. Sri Lanka

• members chosen as top providers of contributions to United Nations budgets, funds programmes and agencies:
  1. Germany
  2. Italy
  3. Japan
  4. the Netherlands
  5. Norway

the PBC takes its first steps

References: