Financing of the united nations peace operations as a global public good

Abstract

Peace has all the characteristics of pure public goods, such as non-excludability and non-rivalry. While peace in national level is a public good, peace in international level is a global public good which should be financed accordingly. In this study, first, characteristics of peace as a global public good is investigated, then, how peace operations are financed in United Nations (UN) is examined. Although, there have been significant improvements on financing structure of UN peace operations, it is still not very efficient and the current level of funding for UN peace operations is inadequate. There is also a need for an effective sanction for late payment of peacekeeping assessments. In the literature, there have been many new ideas to finance peace operations more effectively, ranging from insurance approach (countries get insurance from UN) to applying some kind of arm trade tax on countries. Suggestions to improve financing peacekeeping operations as global public goods are also discussed in this study.