Study On The Problem Of Member Crime In United Nations Peacekeeping Operations

United Nations peacekeeping operation is the product of the practice, which is notclearly stipulated in the Charter of the United Nations. In practice, the UN peacekeepingoperations are neither compulsory execution function, nor the pure diplomacy, but a specialmeans somewhere between voluntary and compulsory. Therefore, the former UN SecretaryGeneral Dag Hammarskjold said, the United Nations peacekeeping operations should belongto the "UN Charter""the sixth chapter of half". UN Peacekeeping is guided by three basicprinciples: consent of the parties, impartiality and non-use of force except in self-defence anddefence of the mandate. Peacekeeping has unique strengths, including legitimacy, burdensharing, and an ability to deploy and sustain troops and police from around the globe,integrating them with civilian peacekeepers to advance multidimensional mandates. UNPeacekeepers provide security and the political and peace-building support to help countriesmake the difficult, early transition from conflict to peace. Peacekeeping is flexible and overthe past two decades has been deployed in many configurations. There are currently16UNpeace operations deployed on four continents. Today’s multidimensional peacekeepingoperations are called upon not only to maintain peace and security, but also to facilitate thepolitical process, protect civilians, assist in the disarmament, demobilization and reintegrationof former combatants; support the organization of elections, protect and promote human rightsand assist in restoring the rule of law.Peacekeeping has proven to be one of the most effectivetoolsavailable to the UN to assist host countries navigate the difficult path from conflict topeace, which makes important contribution to alleviate and eliminate regional and nationaltension, conflicts and crises, and to the maintenance of international peace and security. Now,peacekeeping operations have become one of the main functions and tasks of the Unitednations. Whether in the past, now or in the foreseeable future, UN peacekeeping operationshave their own necessity and feasibility. With the development of the United Nations and itspeacekeeping mechanism, peacekeeping operations and their functions will be furtherstrengthened. However, with the rapid development of peacekeeping operations, the crimeproblem of its members is growing. These allegations of serious misconduct had an extremelynegative and bad influence on the United Nations, peacekeeping operations, Member States,especially troop contributing countries and local residents. Therefore, we must resolutely put an end to any serious misconduct.This paper focuses on the United Nations peacekeeping members crime problems,researches the scope or connotation of the member of the peacekeeping operations, itsmembers’ immunity and waiver of immunity, summarizes the characteristics of crime,analyzes the causes of crime, investigates the relationship between immunity and the crime ofits members, focuses on the measures of the United Nations and put forward severalsuggestions, finally, elaborates Chinese legal provisions and attitudes on this issue.Through the investigation and comparative research, this paper found that the crime ofpeacekeeping members has the following characteristics: the special subject and object ofcrime, sexual exploitation and sexual abuse problems seriousness, investigation and evidencecollection and pursue criminal responsibility of people accused of criminal crimesdifficulty. The main factors driving peacekeeping members crime have two aspects: one is themission field; the other is beyond the mission.In addition to that most people of the specialmission enjoy privileges and immunities of different degree, personnel rotation rate high, thesex ratio imbalance, punishment mechanism not perfect, the welfare and recreational facilitiesincomplete, some officers and commanders irresponsible or not strictly fulfill their duties andso on, belonging to the reason of the mission field, this paper also points out speciallyenormous power difference between peacekeeping members and local residents is thefundamental cause of serious misconducts. In addition, this paper also puts forward somesuggestions to improve the United Nations’measures, for example, the United Nations shouldactively restore and develop the local economy, reconstruct the political structure and thejudicial system; provide employment opportunities, especially for women; strengthenaccountability and enforcement; eliminate gender discrimination in society concept; develop aModel Treaty on Extradition and so on.This paper focuses on studying and summing up the strategy and measures to dealwith the crime problem when United Nations confronted with peacekeeping members crimeproblems. The United Nations has a three-pronged strategy to eliminate sexual exploitationand abuse: prevention of misconduct, enforcement of United Nations standards of conductand remedial action.Through the establishment of the United Nations standards of behavior,and strengthen the training, improve the understanding of peacekeeping members to preventcrime; through the campaign, improve reporting mechanism, encourage local residentsespecially victims to report and supervise to expose serious misconduct; waive immunity, improve the investigation procedure and discipline and responsibility mechanism, and punishthe perpetrator, to strictly implement United Nations standards of behavior and maintain thepurposes and principles of the "UN Charter";through relief the victims, protect thewitness,recovery from damaged reputation of the members of false allegations and othermeasures to ensure the full implementation of the prevention, punishment and remedystrategy.Finally, elaborate China’legal provisions and attitudes on this issue. China firmlysupports and actively participates in the peacekeeping operations carried out in accordancewith the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations by UN, and continues toadhere to the three principles of peacekeeping which were effective practice. China havejurisdiction over cases in which Chinese Citizens seriously violate the provisions of Chinese"criminal law" during their serving as United Nations officials and experts on mission. Chinaagree with the United Nations to take measures to investigate criminal accountability ofUnited Nations officials and experts on mission, and agree to strengthen the exchange ofinformation and mutual support between the Member States and the United Nations.