From post-Cold War optimism to disengagement: Boutros Boutros-Ghali's mandate and new interpretations of UN Peace Operations

• Grant number: 20/06341-8
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Master
• Start date: November 01, 2020
• End date: August 31, 2022
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Political Science - International Politics
• Principal Investigator: Yi Shin Tang
• Grantee: Pedro Lopes da Ponte
• Host Institution: Instituto de Relações Internacionais (IRI). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

This project problematizes the mandate of UN Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali from 1992 to 1996, marked by an exponential increase in peace operations and changes in the conduct of those operations, at a time when the UN experienced a significant crisis. The central question of this research is to help understand to what extent Boutros-Ghali has met the expectations initially placed in his mandate to overcome existing crises. The project starts with the hypothesis that throughout its mandate Boutros-Ghali has progressively lost support for its proposals, leading to an increasing disengagement of the most influential countries from the Security Council. The overall objective of the research is - through a historical analysis of official documents - to consider the debate on peace operations of the period, taking into account how the concepts introduced by Boutros-Ghali were instrumentalized in this debate. The research also considers how Brazilian diplomacy interpreted Boutros-Ghali's mandate to contribute to the rescue of a diplomatic line in relation to the UN that may be currently being lost. This research seeks to contribute to a type of analysis hardly present in the area of International Relations in Brazil: that of studying the UN as an organization with its own policy rather than just a forum. Thus, this study is part of a research agenda that aims to analyze the United Nations through the delimitation of the mandates of those who were at the head of the Organization. (AU)