Brazilian Participation in United Nations Peacekeeping Operations

2016

The present study looks at the Brazilian engagement at the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) and seeks to bring insight into the growing participation of an emerging power in peacekeeping. To that end, both conceptual and practical implications of normative behavior in international relations are debated and peacekeeping is seen as a barometer to assess Brazil’s global posture. Accordingly, this thesis argues how the country has projected, through MINUSTAH, a distinguished and more proactive peacekeeping profile, and analyzes to which extent this profile has shaped, challenged or endorsed existing rules and practices. Exploring both how peacekeeping becomes discursively articulated by Brazil at the United Nations and what practical meanings it acquires on the ground in Haiti, it is demonstrated that the bluehelmet enterprise offers, at the same time, platforms for Brazil to demonstrate international commitment and capacity, as well as means for the country to become activist in themes it would otherwise have little influence on. The study draws upon social constructivist insights in International Relations, placing particular emphasis on the role of norms in multilateral processes, and argues that peacekeeping is constructed, shaped and re-shaped by normative underpinnings, shared principals and perceptions of appropriate behavior at the global stage. This thesis presents the results of fieldwork conducted in Rio de Janeiro, New York and Port-auPrince in late 2015 and early 2016, and adopts a qualitative research design where primary empirical data is combined with secondary sources and theoretical insights. It concludes that Brazil’s peacekeeping profile, while not set in stone, reflects a balancing act where the country, ambitioning to strengthen its global standing, seeks to demonstrate its belonging and adaptation to the international environment within which it acts; but also to challenge and participate more vigorously in the normative casting of the still Western-dominated realms of peace and security governance. Through the illustrative case of the Brazilian peacekeeping engagement in Haiti, this thesis attempts to contribute to the yet limited academic debate on emerging powers’ posture in collective security and conflict resolution arrangements. The study can be of interest to scholars of international relations, peace operations and Brazilian foreign policy.

This article seeks to identify elements that represent Brazil’s path in the United Nations (UN) missions since its first participation in 1947. Its intent is to unveil the important legacy Brazil is leaving, not only for the country itself, but also for discussions on the future of UN operations. During periods of crisis, like the current one, identifying patterns of behavior is even more relevant, as recurrent aspects may guide decision-making once the fog of uncertainty dissipates. With that in mind, this paper analyzes all of Brazil’s contributions to the UN missions, including peacekeeping missions, special political missions, and multinational forces. The main results brought to light in this article include the following: • Between 1947 and 2015, Brazil deployed military and police in a total of 47 UN missions; • Of the 71 peacekeeping missions authorized by the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), 43 relied on Brazilians in the field, which is equivalent to 61%. Besides these, Brazil participated in three special political missions and one multinational force authorized by the Security Council; • The number of missions with Brazilian participation has increased considerably in the past 15 years: in 2000, Brazil participated in three missions, and as of today the country is engaged in nine—which represents a 300% increase; • Over 48,000 Brazilian military and police have been in the field under the UN’s blue flag. Of this total, 87% were deployed in the past 25 years; • Only three moments stand out due to the involvement of significant numbers of Brazilian troops in the field: 1950s/1960s (Suez/UNEF I), 1990s (Angola/UNAVEM III) and 2000s/2010s (Haiti/MINUSTAH, along with Lebanon/UNIFIL); • Brazil’s participation in UN missions seems to be motivated by both specific and general interests: when the country/region is a high priority for Brazilian foreign policy (specific interest), the UN mission attracts large numbers of Brazilian troops, and when the country/region is a low priority (general or global interest), it still attracts Brazil, but with a low and steady number of professionals in the field; and • Despite the excessive caution in Brazil’s diplomatic discourse on the engagement in missions authorized under Chapter VII of the UN Charter, data shows the participation of Brazilians in 74% of these missions. The data above is evidence that the country’s profile, when it comes to international peace and security, has reached such a magnitude that it is no longer possible to turn back without major damage to the organization of the international system, or to the country’s own relative position in the global order. The federal government must understand the great role Brazil plays, so that this profile is maintained in years to come.

Journal of International Peacekeeping

This article explores the provision of assistance for United Nations (UN) peacekeeping through the lens of South-South cooperation and considerations of expertise and international status. More specifically, the article analyses recent attempts by the Brazilian Peace Operations Joint Training Center (ccopab) in sharing Brazil’s accumulated expertise from the 13 years of engagement in the UN Mission in Haiti (minustah) with other Global South countries. While the article contributes to the understanding of how Brazil tries to renegotiate its peripheral position in the domain of peacekeeping, it also interrogates how this new authoritative position is, nevertheless, permeated by ambiguities and limitations.

ORF-FUNAG 2022-INDIA AND BRAZIL IN THE GLOBAL MULTILATERAL ORDER, 2022

The six essays in this report—covering a gamut of issues from securing reforms at the UN Security Council to fixing the governance crisis in international trade—tackle this challenge head-on. The essays offer lucid assessments of the challenges that India and Brazil will confront in the immediate and long term. These analyses are complemented by pragmatic recommendations that seek to shape the future of the India-Brazil relationship. The Observer Research Foundation (ORF) provides non-partisan, independent analyses and inputs on matters of security, strategy, economy, development, energy and global governance to diverse decision-makers (governments, business communities, academia, and civil society). ORF's mandate is to conduct in-depth research, provide inclusive platforms, and invest in tomorrow's thought leaders today. The Alexandre de Gusmão Foundation (FUNAG), established in 1971, is a public foundation affiliated with the Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Its goal is to provide civil society with information concerning diplomatic history and international relations, promoting public awareness about issues concerning Brazilian foreign policy.

Coleção Meira Mattos, 2022

The article’s main objective is to identify and compile information regarding the actions taken by the Brazilian State in compliance with the commitments assumed regarding the pillar of performance & accountability of the Action for Peacekeeping (A4P) initiative. To do so, it is initially sought to present the A4P initiative, contextualizing it with the moment of its launch. Subsequently, a more in-depth analysis of the performance & accountability pillar was carried out to identify the commitments made by the various parties. Next, it is sought to identify in detail the actions taken by Brazil aimed at fulfilling the obligations assumed, based on two integrating aspects: the participation in the Peacekeeping Capability Readiness System and the training of human resources. From a methodological point of view, this is a qualitative exploratory investigation, carried out through bibliographical and documentary research, complemented by interviews. As a result, the survey indicated that Brazil has been adopting concrete measures, which fulfill the commitments assumed and shall allow the country to send high-performance military and police officers for future peace operations.

The article examines the worldview that discouraged Brazil from participating in UN peacekeeping operations from 1967 to 1989. It is divided in five sections, followed by a brief conclusion: the first analyses Brazil’s pre-1967 contributions to peacekeeping; the second contextualizes the roots of Brazilian multilateral activism from the late 1960s to the early 1980s; the third explores the limits of that activism and why peacekeeping fell outside of those limits; the fourth considers other factors that may have influenced policymakers’ attitudes towards peacekeeping; and the fifth briefly examines how Brazil reentered the world of UN peacekeeping in the late 1980s.

Revista da Escola de Guerra Naval

International law has been barely focused on the reputational status, which may be represented as a complex of attributes based on the perception of the others, that can determine the state's position in the international arena and cooperation scenarios. Thus, the opportunity of taking an active role in the international agenda makes Brazil and other middle powers and emerging markets as high-value partners, with an increasing and representative participation in international organizations in the last years. In respect to the Brazilian case, those functions that can be cited as determinants of reputation range from the peacekeeping mandates it has detained, to the candidacy as a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council. This paper is focused on providing a conceptual framework to explain the enhancing of one actor's international reputation based on Peacekeeping missions and considering Andrew Guzman´s typology (2001; 2010; 2011). This theme is an important way of thinking political gains in terms of international competition not only because it elucidates states' conditions for obtaining success but, also, how eligible they are for projecting themselves besides military strength. In addition, the effectiveness and compliance ratio, either for the Brazilian case or other emerging markets, are not clear to a great part of the analysts. So, under the soft or hard law, the intention is to make an archeology of the reputation model that is connected to political gains in the Brazilian contemporary case, as to expand its international reliability and promote economic odds.

2014

International Peacekeeping, 2019

Brazil has been the largest troop contributor and provided all force commanders to the UN Stabilisation Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH, 2004–2017). As the military embraced a leading role in UN peacekeeping’s turn towards peace-enforcement, Brazil’s governments have increasingly relied on soldiers in public security – occasionally even portraying these operations as a sort of ‘peacekeeping at home’. Yet how has Brazil’s participation in MINUSTAH affected internal military operations? I argue that narratives of the military’s effectiveness in Haiti have been used to legitimise the growing scope of internal public security missions. Drawing on data from a questionnaire-based survey, interviews and focus groups with soldiers and officers, this paper argues that the experience in Haiti has fuelled troops’ demands for rules of engagement that resemble those in UN peacekeeping. Given the armed forces’ increasing bargaining power in Brazil’s politics, the military leadership has been able to successfully lobby in favour of changing parts of the legal framework for internal operations. Lessons from the ‘robust turn’ have been used to promote more coercive internal missions of Brazil’s armed forces. Yet it is impossible to fully reconcile the content of the military’s demands with the rule of law in a democracy.

International Affairs, 2017

This article illustrates how Brazil responded to the policy challenges its foreign policy activism posed for its engagement with a fundamental question of the international order: the tension between the protection of human rights and the prohibitions on intervention and the use of force. Leading the military component of the UN Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) implicated accepting the mission's robust mandate that contradicted Brazil's traditional foreign policy positions. Notwithstanding this apparent contradiction, the country's diplomats also tried to shape UN debates on intervention norms, resulting inter alia in the ‘responsibility while protecting’ initiative. By analysing diplomatic efforts and military actions on the ground, we argue that since the watershed moment of becoming the most influential troop contributor to MINUSTAH, interests and actions of the armed forces increasingly contradict the efforts of Brazil's diplomatic establishment. The influence of Brazil's diplomacy in shaping intervention norms has proved to be rather elusive, compared with its military's palpable role in developing robust approaches for peacekeeping mandates revolving around the protection of civilians. Yet we argue that this apparent contradiction should not be seen as inconsistency. Instead, the case of Brazil shows typical signs of the ‘graduation dilemma’, in which both diplomats and military behaved in an eminently rational fashion.

The liberal international order is undergoing a major transformation. There are worrying signs of instability across Europe, North Africa, the Middle East and East and Southeast Asia. There are unsettling implications for peacekeeping – from the highest echelons of decision-making to the operational level. There are signs that the world is shifting to a “spheres of influence” model wherein the U.S. is no longer the uncontested global power. Both China and Russia, together with rising powers from the Americas, Africa and Asia, are forging new alliances and developing new rivalries. The likelihood for a major international conflict and deepening internal conflict has risen sharply. The new geometries of power are also presenting serious challenges to collective action – including through the United Nations Security Council and General Assembly, as well as regional entities. The flashpoints are diverse ranging from the sharpening tensions over the South China Sea, confrontation with North Korea or the ongoing conflict in Syria. Meanwhile, arms and ammunition continue pouring in to most peacekeeping theaters. Complex networks of organized crime and extremist actors are also prolonging conflicts. The result is that proponents of peace and security face a wide gamut of old and new challenges with disastrous implications for civilians. The UN has made some headway in addressing these global challenges. The organization has worked to reform and improve the effectiveness of its response mechanisms. In mid-2015, after months of intensive work and consultations with key stakeholders of the peacekeeping community, an expert panel created by the United Nations Secretary General launched the most comprehensive report on the topic in over 15 years (A/70/95-S/2015/446). Since then, the report of the High-Level Independent Panel on Peace Operations (commonly known as the “HIPPO report”) and its wide-ranging set of recommendations on the future of peacekeeping have triggered lively debates not only in New York and Geneva, but also in other parts of the world. In Brazil, in early 2016, the Igarapé Institute held a major event with Pandiá Calógeras Institute (a think tank linked to the Ministry of Defense) on peacekeeping, peacebuilding and the women, peace and security agenda, following the call of the 70th General Assembly. But the first event specifically designed to discuss concrete recommendations of the HIPPO report was only organized in November 2016 by the Igarapé Institute, the Brazilian Peace Operations Joint Training Center (CCOPAB), and the Núcleo de Pesquisa de Relações Internacionais of the University of São Paulo (NUPRI/USP). Five key themes were selected as a starting point for the discussions: (1) tailored peace operations; (2) military engagement in UN peacekeeping; (3) monitoring UN peace operations reform; (4) protecting civilians; and (5) women, peace and security. Over 60 professionals attended the two-day event in Brasília, including military, police, diplomats, UN personnel and researchers. The ideas and recommendations shared during the event are summarized in this note, in the hope that good practices and innovations can be picked up by decision-makers in Brasília, but also in New York and elsewhere.

Status and the Rise of Brazil, 2020

Over the past 15 years, the rise of new powers is changing the international agenda, as Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa and other emerging powers seek to influence the conduct of multilateralism. The quest for influence is bringing these powers into fields and policy arenas previously reserved for traditional great powers. As a consequence, fields such as trade negotiations, development aid, and international peace and security are undergoing significant changes. These changes raise questions about the role of Brazil in particular. Brazil has adopted a role of leader for the Global South in trade negotiations, made the case for less conditionality and interference in what it sees as sovereign affairs, and involved itself significantly in changing the international peace and security agenda. In all

2015

The acknowledgement that many vulnerable societies relapse into violence in the aftermath of the withdrawal of peacekeeping operations has underscored the imperative of developing sustainable exit strategies. Stabilization has hence emerged as a possible means to promote short-term security while avoiding direct political responsibility over complex crises, but the meaning of the term and its consequences remain disputed. The aim of this contribution is to examine the conceptual, academic and diplomatic debate over the concept of stabilization in peace operations by addressing the case of the United Nations Mission for the Stabilization of Haiti (MINUSTAH), and Brazil’s multidimensional role in it.

Revista Brasileira de Política Internacional, 2017

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