The Role of Albania within UN Peacekeeping Operations

The Status of the Multinational Protection Force was established in the Agreement between the Government of the Republic of Albania and the Government of the Nations contributing to the Multinational protection Force, signed in Rome on 21 April 1997. The Agreement reflected the model of the Status Forces Agreements (SOFA-s) which means that was limited to the regulation of the juridical status of the Multinational Force and of its personnel and was not dealing at all with the regulation of the status of other international missions such as OSCE. In the other hand the status of OSCE was regulated through the stipulation of a specific agreement between the OSCE and the Government of Albania. As usually happens in the case of the SOFA, from one side is regulated the status of the force itself and from the other side is making reference to a specific international convention. In this case the referral convention was the United Nations Convention on Lien and Immunities of 13 February 1946. It is foreseen that the arrangements of this Convention related to the status of the mission’s experts are carried out mutatis mutandis to the personnel of the force itself (art. II.3). This is a singular aspect of the SOFA’s of the Alba Operation, compared to the SOFA of the peacekeeping forces of the United Nations, codified through the model adopted from the General Assembly of the United Nations on 1990. In the other hand the arrangements of the SOFA for Alba find a precedent in the agreement of Dayton Peace Agreements, according to which to the NATO personnel deployed in the mission are applied the mutatis mutandis norms. As well based on Art. III.2 of the Agreement the Personal Inviolability of the personnel was absolute. The innovations were related particularly to the aspect of the responsibility for damages caused or undergone from the force itself foreseen in the Art. VIII of the Agreement. In this regard at Art. VIII. 3 was adjourned the conclusion of an agreement ad hoc. Art. VIII.3 of the agreements reads as follows: “claims arising out of the activities in connection with the civil disturbances, protection of the Multinational Protection Force, firing of weapons or which are incidents to an operational necessity (e.g. activities which provide for the support, implementation and participation of the FMP), are excluded and shall not furnish the basis for the payments of the claims." Last but not least the SOFA’s agreement had foreseen as well the establishment in different levels of liaison offices between the Government of Albania and the force itself (Art. XII) and as well as the establishment of arrangements in order to resolve the disputes that may arise from the interpretation and the application of the agreement itself, based on negotiations and diplomatic consultations (Art. XIII).
The rules of engagement were elaborated by the Military Summit of the Multinational Protection Force and were approved by the Steering Committee during one of its first meetings held on April 1997.

These rules of engagement were inspired to the following principles such as:

* full respect for the international law;
* the right to use the force, in conformity with the principle “jus necessitatis” in order to protect the persons from serious criminal acts;
* the right of self-defence, as in case of an operation authorized from the Security Council it is possible to use the force only when it is extremely necessary for the fulfilment of the task itself. This was in few words the scenario where the Multinational Protection Force, known as Operation Alba conducted, its activities. In the end, the case of Albania is indicative of the need for a strengthened and revitalised OSCE, especially if it is to become the primary peacekeeping organisation in Europe. The OSCE should explore ways and means to assume the leading role in the multinational operation in Albania, in order to:
* ensure a larger involvement by the international community in the operation in Albania;
* guarantee an effective coordination between the humanitarian and military components of the mission;
* provide a legitimising umbrella to the mission