It never fails to annoy me when misbehavior by personnel attached to the UN in some capacity is attributed to the UN as an organization, rather than to the nations of origin of the personnel in question. It annoys me when members of the general public do this, but I can only regard that as largely forgivable, given the prevalence of sloppy journalism which fosters this image. It's not just the low-brow media, like the New York Post which complains about the number of parking violations by "UN staff" when what is meant are members of the national delegations, who are not UN staff members but diplomatic representatives of their respective countries. Even supposed "quality" news providers like the BBC are prone to this kind of crap. Take this article, "UN troops face child abuse claims," on the BBC News website, and look at some of the wording:
Children have been subjected to rape and prostitution by United Nations peacekeepers in Haiti and Liberia, a BBC investigation has found. [...] The UN has faced several scandals involving its troops in recent years, including a DR Congo paedophile ring and prostitute trafficking in Kosovo.
Once again, to get things clear: strictly speaking, there is no such thing as "UN troops." The UN Department of Peace-Keeping Operations (DPKO) essentially rents soldiers from national governments, and those governments reserve the right to discipline their own soldiers should they misbehave while seconded on UN duty. Compare the following passages from the BBC article:
A 14-year-old described her abduction and rape inside a UN naval base in [Haiti] two years ago. Despite detailed medical and circumstantial evidence, the allegation was dismissed by the UN for lack of evidence - and the alleged attacker returned to his home country.
The UN's own figures show 316 peacekeeping personnel in all missions have been investigated, resulting in the summary dismissal of 18 civilians, repatriation of 17 members of Formed Police Units and 144 repatriations or rotations home on disciplinary grounds.
Under UN regulations, military personnel cannot be prosecuted in the country where they are serving, and it is up to the courts in their home countries to prosecute crimes committed.
Italics mine. These second and third passage indicates the extent of DPKO's authority: the most severe disciplinary measure it can impose is to return the offender to his country of origin, where any subsequent punishment is at the discretion of his national government. Interestingly, despite the supposed dismissal of charges in the Haiti case, DPKO imposed the most severe penalty it could: repatriation. This amounts to a ruling of "we know you did it, but we don't want to embarrass your government, so we're just going to get rid of you and say we can't prove anything conclusively."
Evidently, DPKO isn't the only one keen to avoid embarrassing the national governments in question, as the BBC article notably fails to mention the nationalities of any of the offending troops. This is not a constructive approach if you actually want to put a stop to malfeasances by personnel in blue berets. It is the national governments which have (reserved for themselves) the authority to discipline the troops they have contributed to UN missions, and if you want to shame them into cleaning up their armed forces' acts (or at least that of the units they rent out to DPKO), you have to name them.
