Accountability for sexual exploitation & abuse in UN peacekeeping operations: the promise of the new model MOU

August 2005 - (UN Observer.org)

Summary
In the wake of the most recent peacekeeper abuse scandal, there has been progress toward accountability for sexual exploitation and abuse committed in UN peacekeeping operations. The momentum behind this issue must be sustained, but it is vulnerable to a slackening of the political pressure that has been driving it. The next step toward peacekeeper accountability depends on the development of the new model memorandum of understanding [MOU] for troop-contributing countries that will be considered by the Special Committee on Peacekeeping Operations in early 2006. A model MOU that is drafted with the goal of eliminating sexual exploitation and abuse can go far in addressing the tangle of administrative and legal issues involved. It would also give the UN the reliable leverage it now lacks vis-à-vis recalcitrant troop-contributing countries regarding their responsibilities.

Context
Although the issue of accountability in international peacekeeping operations has been gaining prominence, accountability for sexual exploitation and abuse has remained until recently, at best, a back-burner issue. That changed in early 2004 when the media ‘uncovered’ widespread abuse by MONUC peacekeepers and, subsequently, allegations in many other peacekeeping missions.

The pressure on the UN to acknowledge and address the problem has been initially successful. The long-standing argument that the UN “can do nothing about” sexual exploitation and abuse by peacekeepers has been discredited by its own capacity to do so much in so little time. What was ignored, denied and actively suppressed as recently as 2004 is now the subject of numerous valuable reports and recommendations across the UN system and of high-level consultations with (and between) member States. There are new activities at all levels, including in the Secretariat and in individual peacekeeping missions. There have been a great many investigations and dismissals, including the repatriation of both soldiers and commanders. There has been disciplinary action by some troop-contributing countries, including criminal prosecution. Despite the fact of uneven implementation and compliance (including, in some cases, outright obstruction), there have been successes.

The most important development of the last year and a half is the change of momentum. There is now momentum toward accountability for sexual exploitation and abuse in UN peacekeeping operations, but is vulnerable because it depends on political pressure caused by a “perfect storm” of withering media coverage in a context of other UN scandals, UN reform and US-UN tension. As political attention shifts, there is little guarantee of further progress.

This is especially true of progress in areas that require troop-contributing country cooperation, such as pre-deployment training, participation in investigations, post-repatriation disciplinary action (including prosecution) and follow-through reporting to the UN. Troop-contributing countries’ responsibilities in these areas should be addressed in the model MOU, the agreement between the UN and countries participating in peacekeeping operations. The model MOU should be specific about responsibilities and requirements within a strategy of eliminating sexual exploitation and abuse.

This would provide clarity to what is now a confusing administrative and legal environment. It would also give the UN leverage with recalcitrant troop-contributing countries - even as political pressure fades. The UN must have both a culture of accountability for sexual exploitation and abuse and a legal environment that can demand it. It currently has neither, but it is moving toward both.

A new model memorandum of understanding (MOU)
On June 22, 2005 the General Assembly adopted a resolution that enables the UN to implement the recommendations of the Report of the Special Committee on Peacekeeping Operations and its Working Group on the 2005 resumed session. (A/59/19 Add.1) Consequently, the Secretary-General has been directed to prepare a draft model memorandum of understanding (MOU) to present to the Special Committee in early 2006. This new model MOU is currently being developed within the UN and in consultation with member States.

The recommendations from the Special Committee draw upon, but fall well short of, recommendations from the report A comprehensive strategy to eliminate future sexual exploitation and abuse in United Nations peacekeeping operations by the Secretary-General’s Special Adviser, Prince Zeid Ra’ad Zeid Al-Hussein, Permanent Representative of Jordan.(A/59/710) The hesitation that can be read into the Special Committee’s recommendations is a concern to all who welcomed the Zeid report as a refreshingly honest and thorough examination of the issue.

The approach to drafting the new model MOU must reflect the Zeid report’s comprehensive strategy by incorporating provisions that incorporate a binding form of the standards set out in the 2003 Secretary-General’s bulletin: Special measures for the protection from sexual exploitation and abuse (ST/SGB/2003/13),
require pre-deployment training in these standards, highlighting the responsibilities of commanders to ensure their contingent’s participation,
require troop-contributing countries to make a military prosecutor (or similar expert in its own military law) available to participate in investigations,
require troop-contributing countries to take disciplinary action against contingent commanders who have been repatriated for failure to cooperate with an investigation,
enable the UN to recover payments from troop-contributing countries for contingent commanders who are repatriated for failure to cooperate with an investigation,
enable the UN to commend or otherwise acknowledge contingent commanders who cooperate with investigations involving members of their contingents,
enable the UN to deduct from future payments to troop-contributing countries funds paid to any member of their contingent who is found guilty of sexual exploitation and abuse and that these funds are placed in a “trust fund for victims”;
require the UN and troop-contributing countries to establish processes for paternity claims,
require that troop-contributing countries will forward cases (where it is concluded that the allegations are well founded) to their national authorities to be considered for domestic prosecution, that action will be taken “in the same manner” as it would be for a similar domestic case and that the country will report on the outcome to the Secretary-General, and
require troop-contributing countries to report to the Secretary-General explaining why no action is taken in cases where allegations are determined to be well-founded, yet where the country decides that prosecution is not appropriate.

A lesser result for the new model MOU will undermine the momentum toward peacekeeper accountability, will put the progress made since early-2004 at risk and, certainly, will be back on the agenda in the wake of the next UN peacekeeper abuse scandal.

This article was written by Kathleen Schneider of UN Observer.org.

At UN Observer.org, we believe that leadership is best achieved by example. Therefore our mission is to encourage and assist the United Nations system to hold itself to the same human rights and environmental principles that it promotes.

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