■ Produce reports for the purpose of alerting the Secretary-General and to facilitate advanced planning (UNSec b). The reports or products produced by the Early Warning Cell fall into three categories: monitoring, coordination, and warning. The reports are intended to provide the Secretary-General and the Under-Secretaries-General current information on humanitarian concerns and alert them of humanitarian crisis, triggering concurrent responses by other departments in the Secretariat. DHA is currently undergoing significant reforms in the information management arena. Both the New York Office and the office located in Geneva are concurrently developing their own information-gathering systems. Documentation outlining the specific developments taking place in the Geneva office was unavailable. However, references to a system known as Relief Web, a prototype Internet connection, give some indication that the Geneva office is attempting to enhance its ability to gain and disseminate information from a variety of sources. DHA is receiving a great deal of attention by the SecretaryGeneral in relation to early warning and fact-finding. These reforms, as well as those in DPA and DPKO, are consistent with Boutros-Ghali's conviction that a rapid UN response, addressing the root causes of crisis, is the most efficient and effective method of maintaining peace and security (see Edwards, this volume, for a detailed analysis of early warning functions). FACT FINDERS: THE EYES AND EARS OF THE SECRETARY-GENERAL An increased resort to fact finding is needed, in accordance with the Charter, initiated either by the Secretary-General, to enable him to meet his responsibilities under the Charter, including Article 99, or by the Security Council or the General Assembly. Various forms may be employed selectively as the situation requires (UNGA A/ 47/277: 7). Fact finding is defined by the UN as "any activity designed to ascertain facts which the competent UN organs need to exercise effectively their functions" (Charter: 33). It received a large degree of emphasis in An Agenda for Peace, because of its connection with preventive diplomacy and peacemaking. Boutros-Ghali's concept of fact finding parallels a report issued from a UN committee designed to evaluate the mechanisms available to the UN to maintain international peace. This committee held a special session on fact finding and made the following recommendations. While fact-finding missions might be undertaken by the Security Council, the General Assembly or the Secretary-General, preference should be given to the Secretary-General, who could designate a special representative or a group of experts to report to him. The Secretary-General, on his own initiative or at the request of the States concerned, should consider undertaking such missions in areas where a situation exists which may threaten the maintenance of international peace and security. ■ A world-wide survey of the state of international peace and security should be made to help prevent situations which might threaten international peace and security. Early warning of such situations should be enhanced. The Secretary-General should fully use and strengthen the Secretariat's information-gathering capabilities (Charter: 33). The committee's report focused on limiting the risk of war and mass human suffering by creating a mechanism to identify and respond to growing crisis. This same theme is present in An Agenda for Peace and may have contributed to its development (Charter: 32). This paper will now focus on the UN's capability to collect information in circumstances where it controls the collector. The official collection mechanism controlled by the UN falls under the direction of the SecretaryGeneral and is divided into two categories, special representatives and factfinding teams. THE SECRETARY-GENERAL'S SPECIAL REPRESENTATIVE The Secretary-General may, on his own initiative, appoint someone to represent him called a "personal representative," or he may appoint a “special representative," which denotes that an organ outside the Secretariat such as the Security Council requested the official (Rivlin and Gordenker: 82). In practice, both tend to be referred to as a "special representative." Regardless of who makes the decision that a special representative is required, clearly the Secretary-General controls all aspects of the special representative's mission. The Secretary-General, usually following consultations, decides who the special representative will be, what role he or she will assume, and most importantly what tasks are required. Tasks of the Special Representative The tasks of a special representative fall into three categories. First, he or she may be assigned the task of starting the peacemaking process between disputing parties. In this case, the special representative is a true diplomat assuming the role of a negotiator, mediator, or both. Second, the special representative may have the specific task of gathering information. Often the Security Council asks the Secretary-General for information concerning a dispute or regional conflict. Responding to this request, or to satisfy his own concerns, the Secretary-General dispatches a special representative for the purpose of collecting information. Third, the special representative may be dispatched as a surrogate for the Secretary-General to administer executive control of peacekeeping operations in the field (Rivlin and Gordenker: 84). This quasi-command-and-control function is not clearly defined and is often the subject of debate among the memberstates and the UN organs. Information Collection Typically, the special representative is conducting all or combinations of these tasks simultaneously. However, the task of collecting information is probably the most common and, for the purposes of this study, will be discussed separately from the others. Collecting information has almost always been a primary mission for special representatives. As early as 1960, during a conflict between Great Britain and several Arab states, a special representative was sent to Oman for the purpose of gathering military information. The special representative, Swedish Ambassador de Ribbing, stated: [The] primary task of the mission would be a fact finding one. The A more recent example is included in a report from Boutros-Ghali's special representative to Angola. He clearly identified his assigned mission. and reported the following information: As charged by the Secretary-General to report [what he sees] . . . attacked the civilian inhabitants using small arms and a machine gun mounted on a truck. The commander of the force relayed to me a communique that identified the village as a supporting organization of the rebel forces (UNSC S/27954). In both cases, it is clear that the special representative was tasked with the responsibility of collecting information and was placed in a position to be a direct observer of the events. The information reported from the special representative normally flows through the Department for Political Affairs to the Secretary-General. In larger, more developed missions, such as the United Nations Protection Force in the Balkans, formal reporting by the special representative is conducted through the UN Situation Center in DPKO. However, regardless of the mission, it is very likely that a communications link is established between the special representative and DPA or directly to the Office of the Secretary-General. FACT-FINDING TEAMS Dispatching a special representative for the purpose of information collection is not the only option available to the UN. In fact, a special representative may be deployed in response to recommendations made by a previous information-gathering mission. The Secretary-General may send a fact-finding team into a region to ascertain if a crisis exists, to determine its severity, and to make recommendations about further UN involvement. Fact-finding teams, like the special representative, are controlled by the Secretary-General, and the decision to deploy them may originate with the Security Council, General Assembly, or the Secretary-General himself. If the Secretary-General dispatches a fact-finding team without a request from the Security Council, he is likely using power implied under Article 99 of the Charter. For example, Secretary-General Boutros-Ghali deployed a fact-finding team to the Republic of Georgia in October 1993. That same month, the Security Council in Resolution 876 welcomed the decision by the Secretary-General, but it did not ask for or authorize a fact-finding mission. The wording used by the Secretary-General is revealing. Following reports of violations of human rights in Abkhazia, Republic of Georgia, and urgent requests to me to ascertain their nature and extent, in October I decided to dispatch a fact finding mission to investigate the situation of human rights violations in Abkhazia, including reports of "ethnic cleansing." The Security Council, in its resolution 876 welcomed that decision (UNSC S/ 26795: 17). The Secretary-General is clear that he made the decision to send the factfinding mission, but the origin of the reports of human rights abuses and the requests to verify those reports are unclear. This is in sharp contrast to the statements made in the Secretary-General's report concerning the fact-finding mission to Burundi in 1994. On 16 November 1993 the Security Council in a note from its President encouraged the Secretary-General "to continue using his good offices... and to consider dispatching in his support as soon as possible a small United Nations team, through existing resources, to Burundi a fact finding team . . ." In response to this request, the Secretary-General decided to send the Preparatory Fact finding Mission to Burundi (UNSC S/1995/157: 4). The statement clarifies that the Security Council requested the SecretaryGeneral's action. In this case, the Security Council used the position of the Secretary-General and the resources of the Secretariat to gain information about an issue the Council had already decided warranted its attention. Varying Tasks and Ad Hoc Composition There is no such thing as a standard fact-finding mission. The title, composition, and assigned tasks differ in almost every case. The only common element among the numerous missions deployed since 1991 is their connection to DPA. Historically, the teams are composed of any combination of Ambassadors from outside the formal UN structure, members from the Secretariat (commonly DPKO, DPA, and DHA), or appointed officials from interested member states. However, a member of DPA was included in all of the fact-finding missions reviewed for this study-which is consistent with its role as the leader in policy analysis. The titles and tasks assigned to fact-finding teams vary almost as greatly as their composition. UN documents use the terms fact-finding team (in a generic sense), Preparatory Fact-Finding Team, Initial Survey Team, Technical Survey Team, and Interagency Assessment Team. To date, there is no literature explaining what distinguishes these teams. However, by examining their mission |