The Effectiveness of the United Nations Peacekeeping Operations in Building the Capacity of Local Police Forces: Case of Kosovo

Abstract

Kosovo has historically been the scene of ethnic-driven regional conflicts among the communities. After the disengagement of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY) in 1992, the conflicts that had begun with the independence declarations of the Republics of SFRY eventually evolved into ethnic disputes between Serbs and Albanians. As the United Nations (UN) failed to resolve the conflict by diplomatic means, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) initiated an air campaign to stop armed attacks by Serbian Military Forces on the Albanian civil communities. The UN Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) was established in 1999 to restore peace and stability in Kosovo. One of the mandated tasks of the UNMIK was to establish the local police known as Kosovo Police Service (KPS) and to build its capacity. The objectives of this research are to determine whether the UNMIK was effective and successful in building the KPS’s capacity. A set of new success criteria is developed and applied to evaluate the success of UNMIK in this mandated task. Data for this study were collected using official reports of the UN and the crime statistics of the KPS. As a result of the analysis, it was determined that UNMIK was successful in establishing a local police force.

Keywords

• united nations
• peace keeping
• unpol
• unmik
• kosovo