The History Of UN Peacekeeping

The world has gone through many forms of injustice and oppression. Throughout the centuries, empires, dictatorships and even governments have imposed corruption and injustice towards their people. Wars are fought, and many lives are lost. Throughout the worlds trials and tribulations, a group of countries decided to end the violence and oppression. This lesson was learnt after World War II when the Nazi regime were committing acts of genocide towards their Jewish population. It is estimated that roughly 6 million Jews were murdered, and hundreds of thousands were displaced, all fleeing to their neighbouring countries and abroad. Canada was one of the first countries to agree to this new world order; a United Nations which united all the allies

Section one of this paper will discuss Canada’s involvement with the United nations from the beginning until its recent years. Section two will analyze the author’s argument of Canada and their involvement in Afghanistan and how it began to lack UN peacekeeping. And section three will try to answer the following question: did Canada really stray away from its traditional UN peacekeeping, by analyzing Badescu’s

It was regarded as one of the first UN members to participate in a peacekeeping operation starting in 1947, when it sent a contingent to Korea as part of a UN temporary commission on Korea. It is also important to note that foreign affairs minister Lester B. Person had put Canada on the map as the inventor of modern peacekeeping. He created a proposal for a UN peacekeeping force to resolve the conflict during the Arab Israeli war over the Suez Canal in 1956. Canada has also “contributed to over 10% of the total UN military personnel deployed on peacekeeping operations since 1947, more than any other state”. Therefore, as the Badescu suggests, “Canada has played an important role in the conceptualization and operation of UN peacekeeping in the last two decades.” The article later discusses that Canadian peacekeeping has played an important role with the development of practical measures to improve physical and legal protection of civilians to reduce violence and abuses against civilians, which is what defines the UN today. The promotion of peacebuilding is another detail in which the Badescu discusses. She writes that Canada has created a Peacebuilding fund in 1998 within the Canadian International Development Agency, and that Canada was one of the first UN member states to support peacebuilding in general. In addition to this, Canada currently contributes 180 military and police