NCJ Number
198289
Date Published
April 1999
Length
28 pages
Annotation
This report presents the proceedings and discussions of a workshop convened to consider the juridical or theoretical underpinning of the civilian police component of contemporary multinational peacekeeping.
Abstract
Although the participation of civilian police in peace operations began many years ago, there has recently been a dramatic increase in both the scale and scope of their roles. This increase is related to the normative justification for so many recent peace operations. Although soldiers are appropriate for separating warring factions, violence by substate actors down to the level of individuals and the need to re-establish civil order can be addressed by civilian police and their associated partners in law enforcement interventions. Thus, civilian police, both local and multinational, play critical, long-term roles in peacekeeping missions in troubled countries. Civilian police have been deployed in geographically widely separated crisis zones. Their numbers have increased from 35 United Nations-deployed police officers in 1980 to more than 3,600 in 1997, involving personnel from more than 30 member states. This workshop determined that such civilian police have not been deployed in a systematic, organized manner. The U.N. police staff headquartered in New York City consists of fewer than 10 officers, who are impaired in their operational capability to oversee complex police operations, maintain a logistics support pipeline, or ensure compliance with Security Council mandates. The workshop developed recommendations regarding the strengthening of the logistics and management of civilian police deployment and operations; a review of the compatibility of rules, precepts, and guidelines that govern international police interventions; the role of the U.S. Government in enhancing the capabilities of regional organizations to provide forces, training, and support for future civilian police peace operations; the establishment of an interagency planning group within the executive branch of the U.S. Government to integrate policy and planning for multinational police operations; a review of the recruiting, training, and equipping of U.S. civilian police for participation in multinational police peace operations; and a review of existing U.S. legislation to ascertain its sufficiency for dealing with the type and range of international crises that require some form of multinational police peace operations. Appended summaries and excerpts of workshop presentations