The General Assembly,
Recalling its resolution 2006 (XIX) of 18 February 1965 and all other relevant resolutions,
Recalling, in particular, its resolution 46/48 of 9 December 1991,
Welcoming the progress made by the Special Committee on Peace-keeping Operations during its recent sessions,
Convinced that peace-keeping operations are enhancing the effectiveness of the United Nations in the maintenance of international peace and security,
Recognizing that the peacemaking activities of the Secretary-General and of organs of the United Nations, which are actions to bring hostile parties to agreement, essentially through such peaceful means as those foreseen in Chapter VI of the Charter of the United Nations, constitute an essential function of the United Nations and are among the important means for the prevention, containment and resolution of disputes and for maintaining international peace and security,
Taking into account that increasing activities in the field of United Nations peace-keeping require both increasing and better managed human, financial and material resources for the Organization,
Aware of the extremely difficult financial situation of the United Nations and its peace-keeping operations and of the heavy burden on the troop contributors, especially those from developing countries,
Taking note of the report of the Secretary-General on the work of the Organization and, in particular, his report entitled "An Agenda for Peace",
Taking note also of the useful exchange of views on "An Agenda for Peace" during the inter-sessional meetings of the Special Committee devoted to that report and of the role of the Special Committee in carrying out further analysis and consideration, in particular as regards peace-keeping operations,
Recalling its debate on agenda item 10 during the forty-seventh session, and in particular the views expressed by Member States on "An Agenda for Peace",
Recalling also that in the statement by the President of the Security Council of 29 October 1992, on the report of the Secretary-General entitled "An Agenda for Peace", the Council expressed support for, inter alia, the suggestions contained in paragraphs 51 and 52 of the report,
Having examined the reports of the Special Committee,
1. Takes note of the reports of the Special Committee on Peace-keeping Operations;
2. Notes that only a small number of Member States have to date responded to the questionnaire issued by the Secretary-General on 21 May 1990 pursuant to General Assembly resolution 44/49 of 8 December 1989 to identify those personnel, material and technical resources and services which Member States would be ready, in principle, to contribute to United Nations peace-keeping operations, and urges Member States that have not yet replied to do so;
3. Requests the Secretary-General to explore the possibility of improving the formulation of his questionnaire of 21 May 1990 and to recirculate the questionnaire on a regular basis;
4. Encourages the Secretary-General to consider circulating a separate questionnaire on civil police and civilian experts whom Member States would be ready to contribute to United Nations peace-keeping operations;
5. Urges Member States to transmit promptly to the Secretary-General their replies to those questionnaires;
6. Recommends that the guidelines in the current questionnaire be developed and used subsequently in the "Notes for Guidance" in order to achieve a standard organization for type units;
7. Calls upon the Secretariat to consult with and assist Member States in completing the questionnaires, with a view to ensuring commonality of approach and understanding;
8. Requests the Secretary-General to promote, based on the questionnaires, the establishment on a voluntary basis among Member States of a pool of resources, including military units, military observers, civil police, key staff personnel and humanitarian materiel, that might be made readily available to United Nations peace-keeping operations, subject to national approval;
9. Encourages Member States to inform the Secretary-General of their willingness to provide forces or capabilities to the United Nations for peace-keeping operations and the type of units or capabilities that might be available at short notice, subject to overriding national defence requirements and the approval of the Governments providing them;
10. Encourages the Secretariat and those Member States which have indicated such willingness to enter into direct dialogue so as to enable the Secretary-General to know with greater precision what forces or capabilities might be made available to the United Nations for particular peace-keeping operations and on what time-scale;
11. Stresses the need for the United Nations to be given resources commensurate with its growing responsibilities in the area of peace-keeping, particularly with reference to the resources needed for the start-up phases of such operations;
12. Recalls that the financing of peace-keeping operations is the collective responsibility of all Member States in accordance with Article 17, paragraph 2, of the Charter of the United Nations, and reiterates its call upon all Member States to pay their assessed contributions in full and on time and encourages those States which can do so to make voluntary contributions that are acceptable to the Secretary-General;
13. Reiterates the need to maintain the accepted principles and guidelines on the financing of all United Nations peace-keeping operations;
14. Stresses the need to delegate increased financial and administrative authority to Force Commanders, or Special Representatives for multi-component missions, in order to increase the missions' capacity to adjust to new situations and specific requirements;
15. Encourages consideration in the appropriate forums of the establishment of a reserve fund or other appropriate arrangement to improve the start-up financing of peace-keeping operations;
16. Also stresses the importance of the need to reimburse the outstanding dues of troop-contributing States;
17. Considers it important that, in establishing future peace-keeping operations, financial questions should continue to be studied seriously, particularly at the planning stage, in order to ensure the most cost-effective and efficient conduct of such operations and strict control of their expenditures;
18. Also considers it important to contain financial expenditures of peace-keeping operations by determining, during initial planning, the levels of personnel, materials and technical equipment required, by early definition of the sequence of each operation, and by improved estimating, during the planning stage, of operational costs;
19. Acknowledges the competence of the General Assembly for the appropriation and apportionment of the costs of United Nations peace-keeping operations, and also acknowledges the importance of the Security Council members being informed of the cost implications of such operations;
20. Emphasizes the importance of making, from the standpoint of sources of financing, a clear distinction between peace-keeping operations themselves, and the provision to States and parties to a conflict, at their request, of other assistance from the specialized agencies and departments of the United Nations not an integral part of the operation;
21. Considers that in view of the critical financial situation of the United Nations, as described in the report of the Secretary-General, 7/ the issue of supplementing diversified financial resources, on terms acceptable to the Secretary-General, to the assessed contributions should be further studied in all the appropriate forums;
22. Recognizes the need for an augmentation of the strength and capability of military staff serving in the Secretariat and of civilian staff dealing more generally with peace-keeping matters in the Secretariat;
23. Requests the Secretary-General to report to the General Assembly on this subject as soon as possible; in that report he might consider the establishment in the Secretariat of an enhanced peace-keeping planning staff and an operations centre in order to deal with the growing complexity of initial planning and control of peace-keeping operations in the field;
24. Urges Governments of host countries to take all necessary measures to create conditions that will permit United Nations forces to be kept to a minimum, and equally urges them to provide, in accordance with their capacity, the greatest possible logistic and material support for these operations;
25. Invites the Secretary-General, as Chief Administrative Officer, to consider the necessary strengthening and reform of the Secretariat units dealing with peace-keeping operations, so that they can deal effectively and efficiently with the planning, launching, ongoing management and termination of peace-keeping operations;
26. Welcomes the creation of the Department of Peace-keeping Operations and invites the Secretary-General to consider the creation of a unified, integrated structure within the Department to establish clear lines of responsibility and accountability, which are essential for the effective and efficient management of peace-keeping operations; in that regard, it requests the Secretary-General to consider whether relevant parts of the Field Operations Division should be transferred to that Department;
27. Also welcomes, in the light of the increasing use of civilian police in peace-keeping operations, the decision of the Secretary-General to appoint a Senior Police Adviser;
28. Requests the Secretariat to consider, in due course, the utility of training guidelines for civilian specialized units, including civilian police;
29. Encourages all Member States to organize national or regional training programmes, to include cross-cultural education and relevant international humanitarian law in such programmes and to promote cooperation with other national and regional peace-keeping training programmes;
30. Takes note with appreciation of the report of the Secretary-General on the feasibility, including costs, of establishing an annual peace-keeping fellowship programme for national peace-keeping trainers to be administered by the Secretariat, and the information he has gathered on national peace-keeping training and similar activities, and requests him to issue a regularly updated list based upon national submissions;
31. Invites the Secretary-General to institute proper arrangements and procedures for providing additional personnel on a short-term basis in order to ensure that the Secretariat can respond effectively and efficiently to fluctuations in its workload, particularly when new operations are planned and launched;
32. Reiterates its invitation to the Secretary-General to consider identifying a focal point for contacts by Member States seeking information on all facets, including operational and administrative matters, of ongoing and planned peace-keeping operations;
33. Also invites the Secretary-General to review, with a view to streamlining procedures and enhancing effectiveness, the applicable United Nations financial and administrative regulations concerning peace-keeping operations;
34. Further invites the Secretary-General to consider means whereby Special Representatives/Force Commanders and other key personnel are identified at the earliest possible time;
35. Recommends that the Secretary-General conduct a study on how to prevent duplication of responsibilities of civilian and military staff personnel in the field, especially in the areas of supply, communication and transportation, and how to improve their interaction and cooperation in fulfilling the tasks assigned to them;
36. Invites the Secretary-General immediately to envisage the adoption of all necessary arrangements to define logistics doctrine and standard operational procedures combining civilian and military aspects in order to achieve the greatest possible efficiency and cost-effectiveness, and urges Member States to cooperate with the Secretary-General in this exercise;
37. Encourages the Secretary-General to invite Member States to provide qualified military and civilian personnel to assist the Secretariat in the planning and management of peace-keeping operations;
38. Expresses its appreciation to the Secretary-General for reporting on peace-keeping operations and requests him to report periodically on the performance of all peace-keeping operations;
39. Requests the Secretary-General to consider establishing a training programme for key staff personnel of peace-keeping operations with a view to creating a pool of trained personnel with knowledge of the United Nations system and its working procedures;
40. Requests the Secretariat immediately to make all necessary arrangements for the reissue of The Blue Helmets in 1995;
41. Recommends that the Secretariat continue the existing practice of informal consultations with contributing States more directly interested, as appropriate, and that, especially for particularly large or complex operations, these informal consultations be held on a more frequent and regular basis, with a view to providing effective follow-up and support to the operation from its initial stage to its termination;
42. Welcomes the report of the Secretary-General on ways of strengthening the capacity of the United Nations for preventive diplomacy, peacemaking and peace-keeping within the framework and provisions of the Charter, as requested by the Security Council at its meeting held at the level of Heads of State and Government on 31 January 1992;
43. Considers that the concept of preventive peace-keeping, that is, the deployment of peace-keeping operations as a deterrent to a possible aggressor, requires development and clarification as a helpful tool for the United Nations in its pursuit of preventive diplomacy;
44. Believes that the Secretary-General should have the means to dispatch his own missions, with the consent of the parties concerned, where necessary in cooperation with regional organizations, and to evaluate the situation and develop his peacemaking activities as appropriate;
45. Also believes that the Declaration on Fact-finding by the United Nations in the Field of the Maintenance of International Peace and Security, approved by the General Assembly in its resolution 46/59 of 9 December 1991, is a valuable contribution to the Organization's preventive functions;
46. Encourages Member States to provide the Secretary-General with full and up-to-date information concerning tensions that could escalate into an international conflict;
47. Believes, in this connection, that the closest attention needs to be paid to the issue of applying the preventive potential of the United Nations more broadly and considers that the responsibilities of the Security Council, the General Assembly and the Secretary-General in this regard should be strengthened in accordance with the framework and provisions of the Charter;
48. Recognizes the importance of according special consideration to mechanisms and means of deterring a potential aggressor and procedures for a prompt and effective response to acts of aggression and threats to international peace and security, in accordance with the provisions of the Charter;
49. Stresses that the parties to a conflict have an obligation to respect the international status of United Nations operations and to refrain from encouraging or taking actions capable of disrupting or impeding United Nations personnel in the performance of their peace-keeping, peacemaking or humanitarian functions, in accordance with the Convention on the Privileges and Immunities of the United Nations and status-of-forces agreements;
50. Urges all Governments of host countries and parties to a conflict to take all necessary measures to ensure the safety and security of United Nations personnel and to prevent any attempts on the life and health of those personnel;
51. Considers that, in the light of the ever-expanding role of peace-keeping operations, it is important that the United Nations, from planning through implementation of each operation, and on an ongoing basis, assess the risks to the safety and security of its units and personnel and take all necessary measures, including the elaboration of appropriate guidelines and procedures, to ensure the highest possible levels of that safety and security;
52. Encourages all regional and subregional organizations to promote the maintenance of peace, security and stability in their respective regions and, where applicable, work in cooperation with the United Nations, in accordance with Chapter VIII of the Charter, contributing to peace-keeping operations there;
53. Emphasizes that any deployment of peace-keeping operations should be accompanied, as appropriate, by an intensification of coordinated political efforts by the States concerned, by regional organizations and by the United Nations itself as part of the political process for a peaceful settlement of the crisis situation or conflict in accordance with Chapters VI and VIII of the Charter;
54. Believes that consideration might be given over the next few years to the elaboration of a universally acceptable text for a declaration on United Nations peace-keeping operations, which would include the main organizational and practical aspects involved and would contain recommendations on ways of enhancing the effectiveness of such operations;
55. Takes note of the establishment of an informal working group, open to all Member States, on "An Agenda for Peace";
56. Recommends that, should any of the proposals contained in the present resolution result in budgetary implications for the biennium 1992-1993, such additional costs should be accommodated within the appropriation level approved by the General Assembly in its resolution 46/186 A of 20 December 1991;
57. Decides that the Special Committee, in accordance with its mandate, should continue its efforts for a comprehensive review of the whole question of peace-keeping operations in all their aspects;
58. Encourages the Special Committee to consider holding an inter- sessional meeting to consider at the earliest opportunity the recommendations relating to peace-keeping contained in "An Agenda for Peace";
59. Requests the Special Committee to submit a report on its work to the General Assembly at its forty-eighth session;
60. Invites Member States to submit any further observations and suggestions on peace-keeping operations to the Secretary-General by 1 March 1993, outlining proposals on specific items in order to allow for more detailed consideration by the Special Committee, with particular emphasis on practical proposals to make these operations more effective;
61. Requests the Secretary-General to prepare, within existing resources, a compilation of the above-mentioned observations and suggestions and to submit it to the Special Committee by 30 March 1993;
62. Decides to include in the provisional agenda of its forty-eighth session the item entitled "Comprehensive review of the whole question of peace-keeping operations in all their aspects".
85th plenary meeting
14 December 1992
