Resources - Sunday, March 23, 2008 11:23 - 0 Comments

UN Under Fire on Peacekeeping Standards

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis

UNITED NATIONS, October 29 — The UN itself may be engaged or complicit in extra-judicial executions, the UN’s special rapporteur on the topic has told Inner City Press. Concerns about the UN’s own practices were echoed by the rapporteur on the promotion and protection of ,human rights, while countering terrorism. On Friday, law professor Philip Alston told journalists that he limits his inquiries to execution cases that are not being effectively investigated by the responsible authorities. Inner City Press asked Prof. Aston if, given that the UN system does not discipline its peacekeepers but rather allows them to return to their home countries, he has made such inquiries with the UN. Yes, he said, “the UN has a long way to go,” adding that he intends to make further inquiries with the UN.

It emerged that he has already written to the UN’s mission in Haiti. Inner City Press raised to further example: allegations of torture and even executions by peacekeepers in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and the case of the shooting death of Kosovar protesters by Romanian peacekeepers using 13-year old rubber bullets. These peacekeepers returned to Romania, where neither they nor the officials who, with presumptive criminal negligence, supplied long-out-of-date rubber bullets, have faced any justice. Continue…