The UN Security Council tonight authorised up to 26,000 troops and police for Darfur in an effort to protect civilians and quell violence in Sudan’s vast arid western region.

The decision, expected to cost more than $2 billion in the first year, crowns Gordon Brown's first overseas trip as Prime Minister with a diplomatic triumph.

The draft resolution, sponsored by the UK and France, was approved just hours after Mr Brown delivered an impassioned speech at UN headquarters and after China and Russia swung behind the initiative.

It commits the UN to the world's largest peacekeeping operation in one of its most hostile and unhappy regions.

The combined United Nations-African Union operation aims to quell violence in Darfur, where more than 2.1 million people have been driven into camps and an estimated 200,000 have died over the last four years.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon described the resolution as “historic” and urged member states to offer “capable” troops quickly.

The resolution, number 1769, invokes Chapter 7 of the UN Charter, under which the United Nations can authorise force.

The measure allows the use of force to be used for self defence, to ensure the free movement of humanitarian workers and to protect civilians under attack.

But the resolution, which has been watered down several times, no longer allows the new force to seize and dispose of illegal arms. Now they can only monitor such weapons.

Gone also is a threat of future sanctions, but Gordon Brown warned on Tuesday that “if any party blocks progress and the killings continue, I and others will redouble our efforts to impose further sanctions.

“The plan for Darfur from now on is to achieve a cease-fire, including an end to aerial bombings of civilians; drive forward peace talks ... and, as peace is established, offer to begin to invest in recovery and reconstruction."

The resolution calls on UN member states to finalise their contributions to the new force, called UNAMID or the United Nations-African Union Mission in Darfur, within 90 days. The resolution provides for up to 19,555 soldiers and 6,432 civilian police to be brought into the force - including the 7,000 AU troops - under-equipped and under-financed - already in Darfur.

Sudan, after months of hesitation, has agreed to the troop numbers but UN officials expect it will take a year to get the force in place. Khartoum also has to agree to allow individual units into the country.

Infantry soldiers will be drawn mainly from African nations, with Nigeria and Rwanda both expected to take leading roles. Personnel from elsewhere in the world are expected to be used for specialised engineering roles and in the force headquarters.

The United States is restricting its contribution to transporting troops to Darfur and helping to pay for the operation, while Britain's contribution will be mostly financial, with some logistical help.

As well as addressing Darfur in his speech, Mr Brown evoked the words of President John F. Kennedy to call for a new "coalition of justice" - in the spirit of Kennedy's Peace Corps - to help the world meet the UN's Millennium Development Goals, which in many cases are drifting off target.

"In 1960, here in America, President John Kennedy called for a peace corps - an international commitment to harness the idealism many felt in the face of threats to human progress and world peace. Today we should evoke the same spirit to forge a coalition for justice," he said.

"And when conscience is joined to conscience, moral force to moral force, think how much our power to do good can achieve," he told the invited audience of government officials, NGO delegates and business leaders. "Governments, business, scientists, engineers, doctors, nurses, charities and faith groups coming together to make globalisation a force for justice on a global scale."

"It’s time to call it what it is, a development emergency which needs emergency action."

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