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he modern world’s quest for peace eventuated in the formation of organisations such as the Congress of Vienna, the League of Nations and the United Nations. However, while all these organisations had some inherent strengths, they had weaknesses too. The Vienna Settlement ventured to redraw the map of Europe after Napoleonic wars, establish peace and maintain balance of power. It resulted in peace in Europe for around one hundred years. The outbreak of the WWI necessitated the formation of the League of Nations, which failed to sustain peace and great power rivalries culminated into the onset of the WWII. The horrible and catastrophic events of the WWII then forced the world leaders to establish the United Nations in 1945 for global peace keeping.
Some scholars and diplomatic experts argue that the UN—particularly through its peacekeeping and peacebuilding frameworks—has, at times, turned peace into a kind of status quo rather than a genuine transformation. Sometimes UN peace operations prioritise maintaining existing power structures over addressing deep injustice. Such an approach can produce what Johan Galtung, a Norwegian sociologist and founder of modern peace and conflict studies, termed as negative peace (the absence of violence) rather than positive peace (based on justice, equality, reconciliation and empowerment of the marginalised communities and nations).
The UN’s emphasis on stability, ceasefire and institutional rebuilding results in local and marginalised groups being alienated. Peace agreements often entrench elites or former combatants who actually benefit from UN frameworks. The UN has never focused on the root causes of conflicts such as exclusion, inequality or identity suppression. For many nations belonging to the Global South, the UN is dominated by Western interests, particularly through the UN Security Council’s structure having veto power for permanent members, which frustrate peacebuilding efforts of a majority of nations.
Many UN peacekeeping missions are perceived as foreign interventions serving the geopolitical interests of major powers rather than neutral peace efforts. Some liberation movements view UN peace operations as tools of international containment that perpetuate order and undermine self-determination or systemic change.
For instance, in Palestine the UN has become a symbol of stalemate with resolutions without enforcement. Regarding some conflicts in post-colonial Africa, peacekeeping missions are accused of freezing conflicts rather than enabling meaningful reconciliation or reform.
Paradoxically, while the UN tries to keep peace, at times, it does so at the cost of transformative justice. It seeks to prevent wars but risks institutionalising inequity as countries backed by powerful nations keep enforcing their will by selectively promoting ‘universal values’ while standing at the pedestal of power asymmetries that alienate those outside the dominant international order. In many post-conflict contexts, the UN’s interventions have reinforced the entrenched power relations, legitimising entrenched political elites and combatants who dominate peace negotiations while marginalising grassroots actors. Resultantly, peace becomes a technocratic process handled by international bureaucracies rather than genuinely inclusive political project.
By institutionalising peace as a condition of order and stability, the UN in effect alienates groups whose aspirations challenge existing political or territorial orders. Such non-state actors, indigenous resistance movements and secessionist groups often perceive the UN missions as mechanisms of containment, not mediation.
The UN interventions in Palestine, Western Sahara and the Republic of Congo, for instance, were criticised for perpetuating stalemate and status quo that yielded an equilibrium that suppressed conflict but left structural injustices intact. Thus, the UN’s rhetoric of impartiality and universality is dented irreparably. Its operational practices sustain unequal global and regional orders making the concept of peace a depoliticised entity which is severed from the pursuit of justice and emancipation.
The status quo not only alienates certain nations and groups but also disengages them due to operational shortcomings and ideological framing of peace as stability, order and governance rather than as social transformation.
Besides the operational problems, the UN is plagued with structural flaws too. For example, the Security Council’s veto system empowers the five permanent members to bulldoze or block peace operation in accordance with their strategic interests. This has invited criticism by the affected nations because it severely damages the neutrality of this institution. The Palestine issue, along with many others, has been subjected to veto for many times making its people suffer for generations.
Another case in point is the Rwandan genocide of 1994 where, despite clear risks, the Security Council refused to strengthen the UN Assistance Mission for Rwanda, prioritising political caution over humanitarian assistance. On the other hand, the NATO intervention in Kosovo in 1999 – carried out without authorisation by the UN but justified on humanitarian grounds—was successful and laid bare the limits of UN framework for peace. This also exposed inconsistencies, where UN’s commitment to peace is subordinated to geopolitical expediency.
In the South Asian context, following the 1947-1948 India-Pakistan conflict, the UN established the United Nations Commission for India and Pakistan and later, appointed the United Nations Military Observer Group in India and Pakistan to monitor the ceasefire line. Despite multiple resolutions calling for a plebiscite to determine the future of the region, the UN presence in Kashmir, like in many other problematic regions the world over, has become symbolic than substantive.
The writer heads the History Department at University of Sargodha. He has worked as a research fellow at Royal Holloway College, University of London. He can be reached at abrar.zahoorhotmail.com. His X handle: AbrarZahoor1.