ABSTRACT
International peace operations have evolved in three stages. The period from 1948 to 1989 was characterized by diplomatic peacekeeping between states.1 Principally from 1989 to 1994, during the United Nations’ (UN) ‘second generation’, military peace-enforcement was attempted in internal conflicts where consent to intervention was more difficult to identify.2 It has since become clear that social conflicts cannot be responded to only diplomatically or militarily; a unified concept of political peace- maintenance has been needed. As part of an overall transitional framework, the objectives of diplomatic activities, humanitarian assistance, military forces and civilian components can be not only coordinated but harmonized. Varying in the degree of its engagement between governorship, control, partnership or assistance, an interim authority, in conjunction with the local population, is able to administer directly the territorial area of its 162deployment. Peace-maintenance links the strategic and operational levels of command and control, and constitutes the exercise by the international community as a whole of political authority within nations.3
