The Women, Peace and Security Agenda: Reflections on the Effectiveness and Relevance of UN Security Council Resolution 1325

2021 ◽  
pp. 030437542110366
Author(s):  
Kerry Longhurst
Keyword(s):  
Security Council ◽  
Security Council Resolution ◽  
Un Security Council ◽  
Peace And Security

scholarly journals Frictional interactions on Women, Peace and Security in Mali

2021 ◽  
Vol 59 (4) ◽  
pp. 463-483
Author(s):  
Jenny Lorentzen
Keyword(s):  
Security Council ◽  
Peace Process ◽  
International Community ◽  
Feedback Loops ◽  
Security Council Resolution ◽  
Women's Participation ◽  
Un Security Council ◽  
Peace And Security ◽  
Local Actors ◽  
The Way

AbstractMore than 20 years after the adoption of UN Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security, the international community is concerned with taking stock of its implementation in countries undergoing transitions from war to peace. This article contributes to a better understanding of the dynamics involved in implementing the Women, Peace and Security agenda through a focus on the frictional interactions that take place between different actors promoting women's participation in the peace process in Mali. Based on extensive fieldwork in Bamako between 2017 and 2019, it analyses interactions between different international and local actors in the Malian peace process through a discussion of vertical (between international and local actors) and horizontal (between local actors) friction. It finds that the way different actors respond to friction shapes relationships and impacts norm trajectories by triggering feedback loops, which in turn trigger new responses and outcomes.

WPS and Adopted Security Council Resolutions

2018 ◽  
pp. 97-109
Author(s):  
Laura J. Shepherd
Keyword(s):  
United Nations ◽  
Security Council ◽  
Security Council Resolution ◽  
Policy Framework ◽  
Future Directions ◽  
Representational Practices ◽  
Un Security Council ◽  
Peace And Security ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
Over Time

This chapter outlines the architecture of the Women, Peace, and Security agenda at the United Nations. Building on the explanation of the adoption of UN Security Council Resolution 1325 provided earlier in the volume, it explores the meanings of “women,” “peace,” and “security” that are constructed through the WPS policy framework. The chapter traces the continuities and changes to the central concepts in the resolutions and reflects on the implications of these representational practices as they affect the provisions and principles of the WPS agenda in practice. Moreover, the chapter draws out the key provisions of each resolution to explore the tensions that have arisen over time regarding the types of energy and commitment that have become manifest in the architecture supporting WPS implementation. This in turn enables a brief analysis of likely future directions of WPS practice and a comment on the ways in which Security Council dynamics might affect and effect certain possibilities while excluding or proscribing others.

The WPS Agenda

2018 ◽  
pp. 828-839 ◽  
Author(s):  
Swati Parashar
Keyword(s):  
Gender Equality ◽  
Political Violence ◽  
Security Council ◽  
Global South ◽  
Security Council Resolution ◽  
Violent Extremism ◽  
Un Security Council ◽  
Peace And Security ◽  
A Site ◽  
Just Peace

This chapter offers a postcolonial critique of the Women, Peace, and Security (WPS) agenda. Moreover, it problematizes the emphasis on gender equality and women’s empowerment as universal outcomes for the implementation of a gender-just peace. In doing so, it suggests that the normative evolution of the WPS agenda that derives from UN Security Council Resolution 1325 produces a discourse for understanding WPS that perceives of individuals in the Global South as merely recipients of norms. To demonstrate the implications of this claim, the chapter draws from attempts to include the WPS agenda in the development of policies designed to counter violent extremism (CVE). It highlights the failure of these policies to account for the complex histories of political violence and extremist ideologies rooted in colonial encounters. In response, this chapter argues that for the WPS agenda to acquire universal character and meaning, the Global South must be employed as a site of knowledge and investigation.

Implementing UN Security Council Resolution 1325: Putting the Responsibility to Protect into Practice

2012 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 241-272 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sahana Dharmapuri
Keyword(s):  
Security Council ◽  
War Crimes ◽  
Security Council Resolution ◽  
Responsibility To Protect ◽  
Crimes Against Humanity ◽  
Ethnic Cleansing ◽  
Theoretical Terms ◽  
Un Security Council ◽  
Peace And Security ◽  
Security Operations

Although the principle of the Responsibility to Protect has a number of supporters, there is still little agreement on institutional procedures to execute Responsibility to Protect (RtoP) systematically. This is due to a lack of consensus on how exactly to operationalize specific RtoP practices with regard to genocide, crimes against humanity, ethnic cleansing, and war crimes. The acceptance of this line of thinking is peculiar in its ignorance of the implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 1325 (UN 1325) on Women, Peace and Security, by militaries, both national and multinational, over the last five to ten years. Misunderstanding, underutilization, and neglect of the UN 1325 mandate within the RtoP community has caused many important developments in the field to be overlooked. This article attempts to begin filling that gap. It presents an overview of what UN 1325 is about and compares UN 1325 to the Responsibility to Protect agenda. It also examines how implementing UN 1325 in UN and NATO peace and security operations is pushing the RtoP agenda forward in practical, not theoretical, terms in three key areas of military peace and security operations – the transformation of doctrine, command structure, and capabilities.

Locating Masculinities in WPS

2018 ◽  
pp. 87-97 ◽  
Author(s):  
Henri Myrttinen
Keyword(s):  
Gender Equality ◽  
Security Council ◽  
Positive Change ◽  
Security Council Resolution ◽  
Peace And Conflict ◽  
Un Security Council ◽  
Peace And Security ◽  
Gendered Roles ◽  
Unrealistic Expectations

UN Security Council Resolution 1325 and subsequent resolutions on Women, Peace, and Security only theoretically consider gender to include men and boys. Far more common is the use of the term “gender” as a placeholder for women. This textual marginalization of men, boys, and, in particular, masculinities—their gendered ways and expectations of being and acting—is problematic as it renders their vulnerabilities invisible. This chapter argues that these perceptions fail to acknowledge the gendered ways in which men and boys contribute as agents for positive change or as potential spoilers. It concludes that the WPS architecture’s approach to gender, be it masculinities or femininities, creates unrealistic expectations of the gendered roles individuals occupy in peace and conflict. To that end, this chapter suggests that to ensure progress is made toward the goal of gender equality institutions need to transition from a WPS agenda to one that considers Gender, Peace, and Security.

Where the WPS Pillars Intersect

2018 ◽  
pp. 192-205
Author(s):  
Marie O'Reilly
Keyword(s):  
Security Council ◽  
Security Council Resolution ◽  
The Other ◽  
Power Structures ◽  
Post Conflict ◽  
Conflict Situations ◽  
Un Security Council ◽  
Peace And Security ◽  
Challenges And Opportunities ◽  
Gendered Power

The four pillars of UN Security Council Resolution 1325 are typically understood as prevention; protection; participation; and relief and recovery. While theoretically these pillars are conceived of as equally important to the advancement of the women, peace, and security (WPS) agenda, the operationalization of each has been highly uneven. Most Security Council resolutions that followed Resolution 1325 on WPS focused on protection, with participation and prevention receiving less attention. Similarly, WPS-related interventions in conflict-affected contexts frequently focus exclusively on protection without drawing possible synergies from the other pillars. This chapter explores the challenges and opportunities of “cross-pillar engagement” in conflict and post-conflict situations, arguing that greater emphasis on participation would lead to gains in all four areas and beyond. I suggest that understandings of participation need to evolve beyond merely taking part. To more effectively challenge the gendered power structures that continue to hinder progress, women seeking peace and equality need to adopt a transformative, feminist approach to participation.

scholarly journals The UN and women's marginalization in peace negotiations

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrea Schneiker
Keyword(s):  
Security Council ◽  
International Organizations ◽  
Peace Process ◽  
Security Council Resolution ◽  
Peace Negotiations ◽  
Peace Agreements ◽  
Women's Participation ◽  
Participation Of Women ◽  
Un Security Council ◽  
Peace And Security

Abstract Although UN Security Council Resolution 1325 calls for increased participation of women in all stages of a peace process, the number of women who participate in formal peace negotiations is still very limited. In order to augment their number, UN Women and other international organizations have published a series of policy reports in which they argue that women's participation increases the success of peace negotiations and leads to more inclusive peace agreements. However, based on an analysis of relevant policy reports and interviews with women and men involved in peace negotiations, I argue that the policy reports do not lead to women's empowerment. Instead, they contribute to women's marginalization in peace negotiations, because they entrap women between conflicting expectations. The type of behaviour that international advocates of the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda expect of women when they participate in peace negotiations limits the women's room for manoeuvre—at best. At worst, this type of behaviour prevents women from participating in the negotiations, because it is dismissed by domestic (male) negotiators. But if women who participate in peace negotiations violate the behavioural script proposed by the policy reports, they are considered as not acting in line with the WPS agenda. Hence, no matter how women behave when they sit at the negotiation table, they either lose the support of international or national gatekeepers.

Narrating the Women, Peace and Security Agenda

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura J. Shepherd
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Security Council ◽  
Security Council Resolution ◽  
Policy Agenda ◽  
Un Security Council ◽  
The World ◽  
Peace And Security ◽  
History Of ◽  
Own Name

This history of UN Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 1325, and its articulation of the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda that grew from its adoption, are as familiar to anyone working on the agenda as the alphabet, the rules of grammar and syntax, or the spelling of their own name. This book encounters WPS as a policy agenda that emerges in and through the stories that are told about it, focusing on the world of WPS work at the United Nations Headquarters in New York (noting, of course, that many other equally rich and important stories could be told about the agenda in other contexts). Part of how the WPS agenda is formed as (and simultaneously forming) a knowable reality is through the narration of its beginnings, its ongoing unfolding, and its plural futures. These stories account for the inception of the agenda, outline its priorities, and delimit its possibilities, through the arrangement of discourse into narrative formations that communicate and constitute the agenda’s triumphs and disasters. This is a book about the stories of the WPS agenda and the worlds they contain.

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