United Nations Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea

UNMEE in Ethiopia and Eritrea

Introduction

In June 2000, after the two years of a border dispute, Ethiopia and Eritrea agreed on Cessation of Hostilities organised by Algeria and the Organization of African Unity (OAU). In July, the Security Council established the United Nations Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea (UNMEE), and in September, UNMEE was authorised by the Council to ensure the observance of security commitments and to monitor the cessation of hostilities. UNMEE was the most recent case of a traditional peacekeeping operation deployed from 2000 to 2008. The paper analyse the change of UNMEE mandate and the challenges the mission faced.

What were the main points of the mandate (if any)?

First of all UNMEE's original mandate are almost same from the Agreement on Cessation of Hostilities. Guttry (2000, p.83) claims that “besides committing themselves to an immediate cessation of hostilities, in the Agreement the two parties formally requested the UN to deploy a peacekeeping mission under the auspices of the OAU.” Its mandate was to cooperate with the two parties of conflicting nations, sustain the cessation of conflict, and support a future peacekeeping operation (Bellamy and Williams 2010). Other than the self-defence in the case of being attacked, the operation had no right to any recourse to armed force for the mission goal (Gutty 2000). Thus the mission was to monitor rather than to act.

Did the mandate change over time?

The adjustment of Resolution 1430 of August 14th, 2002, brought UNMEE´s mandate to support the Boundary Commission in carrying out its delimitation decisions in an orderly and expeditious manner, involving the following task “demining in key areas to support demarcation; and administra...

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...ed its incapability to archive its own aims and to complete wider tasks or active contribution for conflict resolution due to conductive environment was limited by the decision of uncooperative parties in Ethiopia and Eritrea. Thus UNMEE was less effective in conflict resolution, but it contributed to prevent war to some extent.

Bibliography:

Bellamy, A.J. and Williams, P. 2010. Understanding peacekeeping. Polity.

Guttry, A. 2008. The UN Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea[Online]. Available from: http://web1.sssup.it/pubblicazioni/ugov_files/101667_Andrea%20de%20Guttry%20UNMEE.pdf [Accessed 1 April 2014].

Security Council. 2002. Security Council adopts resolution adjusting mandate of United Nations Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea [Press Release], 14 August. Available from: http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2002/sc7481R1.doc.htm [Accessed 1 April 2014].