The ongoing conflict in Eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) recently saw a major escalation of violence when the March 23 Movement (M23) rebel group reportedly seized Goma – the largest city in the region.
The attack against the city resulted in the deaths of at least 13 members of the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) who were part of both the SADC deployment in the DRC (SAMIDRC) as well as the UN Organisation Stabilisation Mission in the DRC (MONUSCO) (see here and here). International condemnation has followed, with SADC, the African Union Peace and Security Council, and the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) holding emergency meetings over the situation.
What has also followed since are questions concerning the very status of SAMIDRC. While some claim the deployment is a peacekeeping mission, others highlight its peace enforcement objectives.
Peacekeeping v peace enforcement?
Peacekeeping missions are traditionally associated with UN deployments although today they are widely used by a variety of other international organisations. Peacekeeping revolves around three predominant principles: consent, impartiality, and the non-use of force. Peacekeeping forces operate with the consent of the parties to a conflict. Peacekeepers are impartial actors and do not engage in offensive operations against either of the parties to a conflict. Finally, peacekeeping forces do not ordinarily make use of military force except for the protection of their mandate, in self-defence, and in defence of civilians under imminent harm.
On the other hand, peace enforcement operations are far more robust. They generally do not require the consent of the parties to the conflict other that the host State in which they operate. If such enforcement operations are authorised by the UN Security Council, even the consent of the target State is not required – especially when the UN Security Council exercises if enforcement powers under Chapter VII of the UN Charter. In addition, peace enforcement operations usually have a far more coercive mandate allowing for offensive operations to directly engage conflicting parties.
SAMIDRC as a peace enforcement operation
SAMIDRC was first deployed to the DRC on 15 December 2023. The decision to deploy the force was taken on 8 May that year at the Extraordinary Summit of Heads of State and Government when it ‘approved the deployment of a SADC Force within the framework of the SADC Standby Force as a regional response in support of the DRC to restore peace and security in Eastern DRC’. The deployment of the SADC Standby Force is provided for under SADC treaty law – most notably the Protocol on Politics, Defence and Security Co-operation (the Protocol) and the SADC Mutual Defence Pact. The SADC Protocol is the primary instrument permitting the deployment of SADC military operations and established the relevant SADC organs and procedures for deployment. Under the Mutual Defence Pact, SADC may also deploy troops assisting any of its member States that has been the victim of an armed attack – broadly conceive as regional codification of the right of collective self-defence in international law.
While the SAMIDRC deployment is in the DRC with the consent of the DRC government, its legal basis seems to have been formally invoked with the right of collective self-defence in assisting the DRC government. On 23 March 2024 at an extraordinary meeting of the SADC Organ and Troika in the context of the situation in the DRC, the Summit reiterated its commitment expressed in the SADC Mutual Defence Pact that ‘an armed attack against one shall be deemed a threat to regional peace and security’. The statement in this communique is exceptional and confirms that SADC views SAMIDRC in principle a response to an external armed attack against a SADC State (the DRC). In contrast to SADC’s deployment in Mozambique in 2021, no such legal basis was forwarded.
The fact that SADC has formally invoked the Mutual Defence Pact in the context of the DRC suggests the deployment is not only meant as a peace enforcement one, but it is an exercise of the bloc’s right of collective self-defence under international law. This in turn suggests that SADC either interprets that it can resort to self-defence against a the M23 as a non-state actor (which itself remains controversial under international law) or that the M23 is supported by Rwanda (what it in one communique in July 2023 called ‘foreign aggressors’). Formally and legally at least, it is impossible to equate such deployment in the exercise of collective self-defence with a peacekeeping mission.
That SAMIDRC is indeed not a peacekeeping mission is confirmed also by the very wording of the Status of Forces Agreement, which indicates the deployment is pursuant to, among others the Protocol and the SADC Mutual Defence Pact. Although it erroneously indicates the SAMIDRC is also deployed pursuant to Article 4(h) of the African Union Constitutive Act and Article 42 of the UN Charter, since neither the African Union nor UN Security Council have authorised the deployment, the references to these and other provisions points towards, at the least, a peace enforcement operation.
Finally, the Status of Forces Agreement also outlines the SAMIDRC mandate, which includes among others the task to support the DRC to ‘neutralise negative forces and armed groups’ in Eastern DRC and restore and maintain peace and security. Such tasks can only be viewed as a mandate which empowers SAMIDRC to engage in coercive operations, hardly reconcilable with any peacekeeping mission.
Written by Dr Marko Svicevic and Prof. Martha M. Bradley.
