The WPS Agenda and Strategy for the Twenty-First Century

Author(s):  
Chantal de Jonge Oudraat

UN Security Council Resolution 1325 recognized the critical roles women can and must play in advancing international peace and security. The WPS agenda, however, has focused largely on the protection of women in conflict, in particular from sexual and gender-based violence. In doing so, the substantive participation of women in peace and security remains significantly underexplored. This chapter suggests that the lack of progress on the WPS agenda is due to the perception that it is a women’s agenda, as opposed to one that seeks to advance gender equality and security. Moreover, this chapter reveals the challenges associated with the disparate nature of the WPS and security communities. In response, this chapter suggests that for the WPS agenda to advance, the community needs to emphasize that this is not only a women’s agenda. Specifically, the dialogue needs to be reframed to acknowledge that a focus on women is necessary, but not sufficient.

Author(s):  
Jacqui True

Why is VAWG a threat to international peace and security? Gender-based violence against women, girls, men, boys, and gender-diverse groups invokes conflict and fuels acts of revenge, perpetuating cycles of violence. As conflicts flow over borders and/or draw in the militaries of other states...


Author(s):  
Christine Chinkin

UN Security Council Resolution 1325 was not adopted in a vacuum, but rather can be read with a number of other programs within the Security Council (SC) and UN architecture. These include other thematic resolutions, as well as broader policy initiatives. Taken together, these diverse strands sought to shift the understanding of the SC’s role in the maintenance of international peace and security, away from a classic state-oriented approach to one that places people at its center. The adoption of Resolution 1325, along with these other developments, had implications for the making of international law (the place of civil society and experts within the international legal and institutional framework), for rethinking participation, and the meaning of security/protection. This chapter suggests that 2000 was a pivotal moment when a more human-oriented international law seemed a real possibility and before the turn back toward militarism and national security in the wake of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.


AJIL Unbound ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 108 ◽  
pp. 129-134
Author(s):  
Boris N. Mamlyuk

Larry Johnson’s timely and important essay challenges both utopian and realist accounts of UN law and practice by reviving the debate over the nature and functions of the UN General Assembly, particularly the General Assembly’s power to deploy certain legal tactics not only to influence collective security deliberations in the UN Security Council, but also, more significantly, to provide some legal justification for multilateral military “collective measures” in the event of Security Council gridlock. One vehicle by which the General Assembly may assert its own right to intervene in defense of “international peace and security” is a “Uniting for Peace” (UFP) resolution, authorized by resolution 377(V) (1950). At its core, a “uniting for peace” resolution is an attempt to circumvent a Security Council deadlock by authorizing Member States to take collective action, including the use of force, in order to maintain or restore international peace and security. General Assembly resolution 377(V) does not require resolutions to take specific legal form—language that echoes the preambular “lack of unanimity of the permanent members [that results in the Security Council failing to] exercise its primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security” is sufficient to render a given resolution a UFP, provided the General Assembly resolution calls for concrete “collective [forceful] measures.” For this reason, experts disagree on precisely how many times a UFP has indeed been invoked or implemented, although informed analysts suggest UFP has been invoked in slightly more than ten instances since 1950.


Author(s):  
Wood Sir Michael

The UN Security Council impacts on the law of treaties in many different ways — ways that are both foreseen and unforeseen in the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties. This has led to harsh criticism by writers, less so by states. There is an important distinction to be made between obligations that are binding on the parties to a treaty by virtue of their participation therein, and obligations that are binding on states for some reason outside the treaty, for example because they are made so by mandatory Council action. Article 103 of the UN Charter has assumed increasing importance and should not be interpreted narrowly. The Council has shown self-restraint in its approach to treaties, interfering only to the extent necessary for the maintenance of international peace and security.


2019 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 467-479
Author(s):  
Bahia Tahzib-Lie ◽  
Jan Reinder Rosing

Summary On 31 December 2018, the Kingdom of the Netherlands — the Netherlands, Aruba, Curaçao and St Maarten — concluded its one-year membership of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), prompting many to reflect on its meaningful contribution to international peace and security during this time. The UNSC has exclusive and far-reaching powers with regard to maintaining international peace and security. For this reason, non-permanent seats on the UNSC are highly coveted. They confer prestige, influence and respectability on the seat-holders. Given the popularity of these seats, the Kingdom’s ability to influence decision-making within the UNSC became possible only after an intensive election campaign. In this practitioners’ perspective, we provide our insights and observations on the Kingdom of the Netherlands’ campaign strategy for the UNSC elections in 2016.


Author(s):  
Kimberly Theidon

This chapter focuses on the absence of certain marginal groups from the United Nations’ Women, Peace, and Security Agenda and suggests correctives to those exclusions. The chapter discusses how men and boys as victims of sexual and gender-based violence have been erased in this agenda, and the consequences of this erasure. It challenges the assumptions of militarized masculinity as a uniformly shared identity among conflict-engaged men. It also looks at the outcome of pregnancies resulting from wartime rape and shows how children born of rape are presented and treated in their communities. The chapter draws on research conducted in Peru and Colombia and shows the necessity of understanding both the perpetration and experience of violence in nuanced ways.


2016 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 241-277 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alena F. Douhan

The United Nations organization was planned to be established as a single universal system of collective security. Major efforts were supposed to be taken by the UN Security Council. Regional organizations were introduced into the system as a subordinate subsidiary means – elements of the system. Over the course of the time it has, however, appeared that the UN Security Council was not able to act in the way prescribed by the UN Charter in suppressing newly emerged threats and challenges in the sphere of security. In the contrary, the role of regional organizations has increased substantially. They do the majority of tasks in the sphere of maintenance of international peace and security, often without authorization or even informing the UN Security Council, although the legality of some of these actions may be dubious. As a result, the Council itself transfers the accent in relations between the UN and regional organizations from subsidiarity to complementarity or even partnership. It is thus necessary to re-check the meaning of the concepts of complementarity and subsidiarity as well as the UN Charter provisions in the changed circumstances and to specify principles of the new system.


Author(s):  
Nizam Safaraz

Abstract             Every human being has the rights to be protected from discrimination by any party, especially the act of gross human rights violations. In order to prevent this, the Security Council has a function to secure international peace and security from threats to international peace. One of the case that is becoming an international concern is the human rights violations on Rohingya by Myanmar Military. In its implementation, the UN Security Council can intervene a country known to violate human rights of its people, however the Security Council's intervention caused a controversy that questioned the validity of the intervention by Security Council. Thus, the purpose of this research is to find out whether the situation in Myanmar is valid for the UN Security Council to carry out humanitarian interventions. Accordingly, this research also analyzes legal measures by the UN Security Council in dealing with human rights violations in Myanmar. Keyword: Human Rights, Humanitarian Intervention, Rohingya, UN Security Council


2017 ◽  
Vol 52 (3) ◽  
pp. 3-29 ◽  
Author(s):  
Heidi Hudson

Against the backdrop of global and continental women, peace, and security discourses, this contribution analyses the gender and women-focused language of national action plans from four African countries (Kenya, Liberia, Nigeria, and Uganda), which were drafted with a view to United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325. I argue that national action plans have the potential to transcend the soft-consensus language of Security Council resolutions because they create new spaces for feminist engagement with policy and practice. The analysis reveals three discursive themes – namely, the making of “womenandchildren,” women civilising war, and making women responsible for preventing gender-based violence. The themes relate to the construction of, respectively, gender(ed) identities, security, and violence. To varying degrees, the plans reflect a combination of predominantly liberal-feminist language interspersed with some examples of critical insight. I conclude that the ambiguous nature of the messages sent out by these plans serves as a reminder that discourses are fragmented and therefore offer an opening for nuanced contextual analyses and implementation.


2019 ◽  
Vol 113 ◽  
pp. 209-212
Author(s):  
Kristen Boon

Since the end of the Cold War it has become clear that non-state actors (NSA)1 can have a substantial impact on situations affecting international peace and security.2 Although the authority of the Security Council to directly address NSA is not uncontroversial, it is clear that as a practical matter the Council does exercise this authority regularly.3 My remarks will address this practice and explain its legal significance.


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