Brazil and the United Nations Peacekeeping Operations: A new model from the “South”?

Peacekeeping Operations have been an important tool for collective security since the creation of the UN after World War II. It has suffered several changes in the way it is conducted and the nature of its concept. In an attempt to answer these changes, Secretary General of the UN, Boutros Boutros-Ghali published in 1992 An Agenda for Peace. This document created a more “robust” Peacekeeping and affected all countries in different ways. The more active Troop Contributing Countries (TCC) believed that the use of force without consentient of the parties was beyond acceptable. In 2000, the UN published the Brahimi Report. In spite of not bringing major changes in concepts or policy, the report analyzed PKO in a way that has never been done before. The Report created a good atmosphere to give PKO a boost. However, the traditional TCC were not back. New TCC started to rise, mainly developing countries. After 2004, with the creation of MINUSTAH, Brazil became one of the biggest TCC of the PKOs conducted by the UN. Alongside with India, Brazil is the only TCC nowadays that questions the formation of the Security Council and requests reforms in its composition as well as the way Peacekeeping should be conducted. One of its major contributions was to link security issues with economic and social recovery. The objective of the paper is to analyze the way the “South” is making Peacekeeping, especially Brazil. The new TCC suffer similar problems that host countries of PKO are affected. The paper will focus on how Brazil is taking its role in the 21st Century Peace Operations and how it has been influencing the UN to change its paternalistic view of countries affected by conflicts.