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The United Nations, the Peacebuilding Commission and the Future of East Timor

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 May 2025

Geoffrey Gunn
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On 23 June 2006 the UN proudly launched its Peacebuilding Commission (PBC) seeking to reverse a situation where international efforts to rebuild war-torn societies had, more often than not, failed. In the words of its charter, the PBC will “marshal resources at the disposal of the international community to advise and propose integrated strategies for post-conflict recovery, focusing attention upon reconstruction, institution-building, and sustainable development in countries emerging from conflict.” As an advisory body made up of 31 member countries including four permanent members of the Security Council, and currently chaired by Japan, the PBC purports to offer tailor-made solutions to target countries making the transition from war to peace.

Type
Research Article
Information
Asia-Pacific Journal , Volume 6 , Issue 4 , April 2008 , e8
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BYCreative Common License - NCCreative Common License - ND
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is unaltered and is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press must be obtained for commercial re-use or in order to create a derivative work.
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 2008

References

Notes

[1] “Timor-Leste's Displacement Crisis,” International Crisis Group, Asia Report No.148, 31 March 2008.

[2] A/RES/60/180 of 30 December 2005.

[3] In March 2007 Japan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs hosted a symposium on peacebuilding including the possibilities of a PCB role in East Timor. It can only be surmised why Burundi and Sierra Leone alone have met PCB inscription criteria. Can it be the case that the UN wished a success with these two cases rather than face another failure as with East Timor?

[4] See, for example, Richard Tanter, “The Crisis Beyond the Coup Attempt.”

[5] One, albeit premature, assessment of UNMISET is offered in Geoffrey C. Gunn and Reyko Huang, New Nation: United Nations Peacebuilding in East Timor, Tipographia Macau Hung Heng, Macau, 2006, pp.169-73.

[6] Evidently this was a view shared by some members of the Core Group. See this report.

[7] Lusa, 14 July 2006, “Ramos Horta Government gets “benefit of doubt “– dissident army officer.”

[8] Joseph Nevins, “Timor-Leste in 2006: The End of the Post-Independence Honeymoon,” Asian Survey, Vol.XLVII, no.1, January/February 2007, p.166.

[9] For a lucid discussion on East Timor and failed state prospects, see James Cotton, “Timor-Leste and the discourse of state failure,” Australian Journal of International Affairs, 61:4, December 2007, pp.455-470. Cotton argues that if East Timor is to be a “successful state” it is more likely to conform to Melanesian rather than Southeast Asian forms of functionality.