Under the UN Charter, the UN Security Council has primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security. In fulfilling its mandate, the Security Council may adopt a range of measures, including the establishment of a UN peace mission or the authorisation of action by a group of States or a regional organisation, such as the European Union or the African Union.
However, no new peacekeeping missions have been approved by the UN Security Council since 2014.
Peace operations include a range of types of missions from armed interventions to special political missions. Other regional organisations, including the African Union and the European Union, also authorise missions of various types. The details supplied by the Deputy refer to missions which were approved by a number of different regional organisations, including the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CTSO), the African Union, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), and the East African Community (EAC), rather than UN-mandated peacekeeping operations.
In January 2022, the intervention of the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO) in Kazakhstan did not have a UN mandate. The CSTO is an intergovernmental military alliance consisting of six states: Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, and Tajikistan. Kazakhstan requested deployment of CSTO troops after demonstrations escalated to mass protests, claiming international terrorist groups had hijacked the protests. The operation was terminated two weeks later.
In February 2022, the Stabilisation Support Mission in Guinea Bissau (SSMGB) was established by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) following an attempted coup. This mission is described by ECOWAS as a stabilisation force. It is not a UN peacekeeping mission and is not mandated by the UN Security Council.
In April 2022, the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) was reconfigured as the African Union Transition Mission in Somalia (ATMIS). This mission does have a UN mandate, but is not a new mission given that it is a reconfiguration of AMISOM and largely shares the tasks and capacities of AMISOM while being designed with an expected mission transition in mind. AMISOM was established in 2007.
In June 2022, the East African Community Regional Force (EACRF) in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) was established by the East African Community (EAC) in response to increased instability and conflict in eastern DRC due to the resurgence of the March 23 Movement (M23) in the winter of 2021. There is a UN peacekeeping operation in the DRC, MONUSCO, established in 2010. The EACRF in DRC does not have a UN mandate and its aims go beyond the traditional parameters of peacekeeping.
In December 2022, the African Union established the Monitoring, Verification and Compliance Mission (AU-MVCM) as part of the Cessation of Hostilities agreement between the government of Ethiopia and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front. This is a monitoring and verification mission, not a peacekeeping mission, and it does not have a UN mandate.
Of the five referenced missions, only one, ATMIS, has a UN mandate. ATMIS is a continuation and reconfiguration of AMISOM, established in 2007. Accordingly, no new peacekeeping missions have been approved by the UN Security Council since 2014.
