09/04/2020 - International Relations

KEY POINTS

·         The fight against COVID-19 has to be on a war footing. For this we need a composite force that has the capabilities of massive sanitisation, testing, hospitalisation and providing support systems.

·         The only UN body which has the training for assembling fighting forces for emergencies is the Department of Peace Operations.

·         The UN Security Council (UNSC) stands paralysed because of petty battles on the name of the pandemic, its origin and the need for transparency. It should hold an emergency meeting and authorise the UN Secretary General to put together a force under Chapter VII of the UN Charter. The mandate of the Charter should be interpreted to emphasise that this is the greatest threat to international peace and security.

·         As for the cost, the responsibility for the deployment of forces for peacekeeping, peace building and peace enforcement is that of the permanent members. Instead of competing with each other for leadership of the post-COVID-19 world, let them help create a post-COVID-19 world.

·         The UN stands discredited today as the UNSC has not been able to meet. It may take place, now that China has vacated the Security Council chair and Dominican Republic has taken over. Several resolutions are in circulation, but none under Chapter VII.

·         The first step will be to pass a resolution to take action to end the crisis and authorise the Secretary General to request member states to make personnel available.

·         The UN peacekeeping forces are called Blue Berets because of the colour of the caps that they wear. The health force can have caps of another colour, probably red. The launch of the Red Berets will be a historic action to be taken at a critical moment.

The security council has primary responsibility under the United Nations Charter, for the maintenance of international peace and security.UN peace security keepers also knew as Blue Berets or Blue Helmets.

Need for a special peacekeeping force

# WHO equipped to handle this situation, it's responsibility is Monitor threats to public health, inform and advise it's members.

#Even well-developed countries like USA & European union states couldn't handle the situation. So we need a combined effort to handle the situation.

# Countries with previous experience with handling such a situation will help other countries also.

# Increased technology and funds will help the developing and underdeveloped countries which consist of two by a third of the world population.

Each one of us is dependent on others. Handling this situation except for any part of the world will affect all of us. After 3 months of the outbreak of the pandemic our PM proposes a COVID-19 emergency fund in SAARC.We need efforts of various summits like G20, BIMSTEC, SAARC, EU, etc.

United Nations for keeping international peace and security maintains Peacekeeping Forces.These forces are called called Blue Berets consist of around 90,000 security personnel from the countries around the world.They are assigned with the role of peacekeeping and so far their efforts for peace keeping are laudable.

Necessity for a special UN Peace Keeping force :

Pandemic is spreading rapidly and WHO alone cannot monitor the issues single-handedly.There is a need for the combined effort from all the nations together in the areas of medical research,exchange of strategies for containing Covid-19,sharing medical equipment like Personal Protective Equipment etc,.Collective and combined effort is shown by holding various multilateral summits like G-20,SAARC which is a positive sign.But,we are not able to find the same action from less equipped countries because of lack of funds,technology and support.Here,the U.N peace keeping force similar to blue berets which is successful till date,help these less developed countries to contain the virus.Also,it raises the spirit of oneness among different developed and developing countries as the forces are gathered from different countries.This further result in lowering of conflicts among developed nations like between U.S and China,E.U and Italy for economic reconstruction.

China,South Korea did well in containing the pandemic and they should also realize that its not enough.Since it is a globalized world,the trade operations depend on the prosperity of each and every country across the globe,there is a need for containing the epidemic in every nation.There are many steps to tackle and establishing a Red Berets similar to Blue Berets may be one of the major steps in this direction of containing the VIRUS.