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UN Peacekeeping Force – 1995

On 15 December 1995, UN Security Council authorized the deployment of the NATO-led Implementation Force (IFOR) in Resolution 1031.¹ IFOR was deployed in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) in December 1995 with a one-year mandate. The resolution authorized a deployment of 60,000 troops in Bosnia and Herzegovina to implement peace.² Eighteen non-NATO countries, including Russia, former members of the Warsaw Pact, and the Arab League, contributed troops to the IFOR.³ This gave it a mandate not just to maintain peace, but also, where necessary, to enforce it. The main aim of IFOR was to oversee the implementation of the military aspects of the Dayton Accord. Its main task was to guarantee the end of hostilities and separate the fighting forces of the Bosnian Serbs, Bosnian Croats, and Bosnian Muslims.⁴

As mandated in the Dayton Accord, the mandate of the United Nations Protection Force (UNPROFOR) was terminated on 20 December 1995, leading to the deployment of IFOR. UN Security Council Resolution 1035 of 21 December 1995 transferred the peacekeeping mandate from the UN to the NATO-led IFOR.

1. Report of the Secretary-General Pursuant to Security Council Resolution 1026, U.N. Security Council (S/1995/1031), December 13, 1995.
2. SFOR Fact Sheet – SFOR Restructuring, Stabilization Force (SFOR), 2004, accessed April 19, 2011, http://www.nato.int/sfor/factsheet/restruct/t040121a.htm.
3. Lawrence Kaplan, NATO Divided, NATO United: The Evolution of an Alliance, (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2004), 121.
4. Peace support operations in Bosnia and Herzegovina, North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), accessed April 19, 2011, http://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/topics_52122.htm.