Violating Peace

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jasmine-Kim Westendorf
Keyword(s):  
United Nations ◽  
Civil Wars ◽  
Sexual Exploitation ◽  
Significant Risk ◽  
Field Research ◽  
Sexual Misconduct ◽  
International Community ◽  
Un Peacekeeping ◽  
Extensive Field ◽  
Global Peace

This book investigates sexual misconduct by military peacekeepers and abuses perpetrated by civilian peacekeepers and non-UN civilian interveners. Based on extensive field research in Bosnia, Timor-Leste, and with the UN and humanitarian communities, the book uncovers a brutal truth about peacebuilding as it investigates how such behaviors affect the capacity of the international community to achieve its goals related to stability and peacebuilding, and its legitimacy in the eyes of local and global populations. As the book shows, when interveners perpetrate sexual exploitation and abuse, they undermine the operational capacity of the international community to effectively build peace after civil wars and to alleviate human suffering in crises. Furthermore, sexual misconduct by interveners poses a significant risk to the perceived legitimacy of the multilateral peacekeeping project, and the United Nations more generally, with ramifications for the nature and dynamics of United Nations in future peace operations. The book illustrates how sexual exploitation and abuse relates to other challenges facing UN peacekeeping, and shows how such misconduct is deeply linked to the broader cultures and structures within which peacekeepers work, and which shape their perceptions of and interactions with local communities. Effectively preventing such behaviors is crucial to global peace, order, and justice. The book thus identifies how policies might be improved in the future, based on an account of why they have failed to date.

Conclusion

2020 ◽  
pp. 134-163
Author(s):  
Jasmine-Kim Westendorf
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Exploitation ◽  
Sexual Misconduct ◽  
International Community ◽  
Local Communities ◽  
Peace Operations ◽  
Discipline Policies ◽  
Global Peace ◽  
Policy Shifts ◽  
Recent Policy ◽  
Robust Response

This concluding chapter discusses how intervener cultures interact with the broad range of factors that challenge and undermine the effectiveness of peace operations, including by giving rise to the perpetration of sexual misconduct against local communities. In light of this, it details the key insights this book has revealed about the nature and impacts of sexual misconduct by interveners in peace operations and suggests how the international community might better address this issue and its complex, interlinked implications in the future. The chapter also reflects on the major shortcomings of policy on sexual exploitation and abuse to date, including the individualization of sexual exploitation and abuse, which relegates responses primarily to conduct and discipline policies rather than addressing the broader and systemic issues at play. It then considers the extent to which recent policy shifts might avoid replicating past mistakes in terms of sexual exploitation and abuse policy. Ultimately, recognizing the mutually reinforcing ways in which sexual exploitation and abuse by interveners undermines peacekeeping and peacebuilding outcomes and developing an effective and robust response to such misconduct and other interlinked peacekeeping challenges based on that understanding is crucial to the pursuit of global peace, order, and justice.

Beyond Keeping Peace: United Nations Effectiveness in the Midst of Fighting

2014 ◽  
Vol 108 (4) ◽  
pp. 737-753 ◽  
Author(s):  
LISA HULTMAN ◽  
JACOB KATHMAN ◽  
MEGAN SHANNON
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Civil Wars ◽  
Violent Conflict ◽  
Empirical Examination ◽  
Post Conflict ◽  
Un Peacekeeping ◽  
United Nations Peacekeeping ◽  
Peacekeeping Missions ◽  
The Cold War

While United Nations peacekeeping missions were created to keep peace and perform post-conflict activities, since the end of the Cold War peacekeepers are more often deployed to active conflicts. Yet, we know little about their ability to manage ongoing violence. This article provides the first broad empirical examination of UN peacekeeping effectiveness in reducing battlefield violence in civil wars. We analyze how the number of UN peacekeeping personnel deployed influences the amount of battlefield deaths in all civil wars in Africa from 1992 to 2011. The analyses show that increasing numbers of armed military troops are associated with reduced battlefield deaths, while police and observers are not. Considering that the UN is often criticized for ineffectiveness, these results have important implications: if appropriately composed, UN peacekeeping missions reduce violent conflict.

Legitimacy in Crisis

2020 ◽  
pp. 103-133
Author(s):  
Jasmine-Kim Westendorf
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Abuse ◽  
Central African Republic ◽  
Sexual Exploitation ◽  
Sexual Misconduct ◽  
International Community ◽  
Peace Operations ◽  
Institutional Level ◽  
Political Implications

This chapter focuses on the macro- and institutional-level impacts of sexual exploitation and abuse. It shows that sexual misconduct in individual missions has far-reaching impacts that reduce international capacities to engage effectively in peace operations and diminish the perceived legitimacy of the international community engaged in peacekeeping and peacebuilding, thereby undermining the international community's capacity to pursue the broader aspirational goals that animate peacekeeping. Sexual misconduct also seeds conflict between different organizational or peacekeeping units as a result of perceived misbehaviors and undermines the morale of peacekeepers and humanitarians. This can result in reduced financial and other support for peace operations and related work and provide fodder for anti-intervention campaigners. Tracking the international responses to the 2015 peacekeeper sexual abuse scandal in the Central African Republic and the 2018 Oxfam sexual exploitation scandal in Haiti, the chapter also explores the global political implications of such scandals.

The Relationship between Contributors’ Domestic Abuses and Peacekeeper Misconduct in United Nations Peacekeeping Operations

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cale Horne ◽  
Kellan Robinson ◽  
Megan Lloyd
Keyword(s):  
United Nations ◽  
Sexual Exploitation ◽  
Peacekeeping Operations ◽  
Military Forces ◽  
Un Peacekeeping ◽  
Original Dataset ◽  
United Nations Peacekeeping ◽  
The Relationship

Abstract Recent research has begun to examine patterns of sexual exploitation and abuse (SEA) perpetrated by peacekeepers deployed in United Nations (UN) peacekeeping operations (PKOs). Yet, SEA makes up only a fraction of credible allegations of misconduct by peacekeepers. In this article we explore the contours of misconduct in UN PKOs beyond SEA allegations. We argue that the behavior of military forces in their own countries should easily predict their behavior when deployed as part of UN PKOs, which are typically set in fragile, postconflict countries where civilians have minimal protections or legal recourse. Using an original dataset of misconduct in PKOs from 2009 to 2016, we find the behavior of PKO contributor states toward their own populations strongly and consistently predicts the behavior of these states’ military forces in UN PKOs. These findings have implications for the vetting, supervision, and composition of PKOs.

The UN Security Council and the Political Economy of the WPS Resolutions

2017 ◽  
Vol 13 (04) ◽  
pp. 721-727 ◽  
Author(s):  
Soumita Basu
Keyword(s):  
United Nations ◽  
Security Council ◽  
Sexual Exploitation ◽  
United Nations Security Council ◽  
Armed Conflicts ◽  
Peacekeeping Operations ◽  
Peace Processes ◽  
Un Peacekeeping ◽  
Peace And Security

As of June 2017, there were eight United Nations Security Council Resolutions (UNSCRs) on “women and peace and security”—UNSCRs 1325, 1820, 1888, 1889, 1960, 2106, 2122, and 2242. These UNSCRs recognize the gendered nature of armed conflicts and peace processes. They propose institutional provisions geared mainly toward protecting women and girls during armed conflicts and promoting their participation in conflict resolution and prevention. In addition, in March 2016, the Security Council adopted UNSCR 2272, which recommends concrete steps to combat sexual exploitation and abuse in United Nations (UN) peacekeeping operations, an issue that is of significant concern for women, peace, and security (WPS) advocates. The volume of resolutions and policy literature on WPS would suggest that UNSCR 1325 and the follow-up UNSCRs have become central to the mandate of the Security Council. Yet there is a paucity of financial resources to pay for implementation of the resolutions; this has been described as “perhaps the most serious and persistent obstacle … over the past 15 years” (UN Women 2015, 372).

scholarly journals Child soldier realty in Uganda: International law and reintegration

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 189-202
Author(s):  
Zeynep Banu Dalaman ◽  
Türkan Melis Parlak
Keyword(s):  
United Nations ◽  
International Law ◽  
Civil Wars ◽  
Child Soldiers ◽  
International Community ◽  
Child Soldier ◽  
The United Nations

The use of children who have been most exposed to the destructive effects of wars for various military activities has been seen throughout history. Child soldiers are involved in civil wars and conflicts in many countries, especially in Africa, without discrimination. Even if the participation of 15-year-olds in the Army is accepted as a war crime by the United Nations, some 300,000 children are actively involved in wars today. The key to child soldiers is the reintroduction and retraining of these children. However, what should be mentioned here is that these children are guilty? Or a victim? In this article, the child soldier problem will be discussed from two angles. First, the effectiveness of the decisions taken to prevent criminal organisations and states from committing this crime to recruit child soldiers within the framework of international law rules will be discussed. Secondly, based on the example of Uganda, the programs prepared by the international community for the reintegration of former child warriors to society will be analysed.

Making Peace or Preventing It? UN Peacekeeping, Terrorism, and Civil War Negotiations

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kaisa Hinkkainen Elliott ◽  
Sara M T Polo ◽  
Liana Eustacia Reyes
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Civil Wars ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Peace Operations ◽  
Direct Test ◽  
Monthly Data ◽  
Peacekeeping Operations ◽  
Rebel Groups ◽  
Un Peacekeeping

Abstract Previous studies have highlighted that United Nations (UN) peacekeeping operations are effective at reducing violence during civil wars. But can these operations also change the incentives of the warring parties and lead them to pursue non-violent alternatives? This article provides the first direct test of UN peacekeeping troops’ effectiveness at inducing non-violent engagements, specifically negotiations during civil wars. Our analysis of disaggregated monthly data on peace operations, negotiations, and violence in African conflicts (1989–2009) reveals that sizable deployments of UN military troops, by themselves, are insufficient to foster negotiations, even when they reduce battlefield violence. Instead, the probability of negotiation instances is conditional on rebel tactics. We posit, when rebels engage in terrorism, peacekeeping troops can inadvertently alter the “power to hurt” of the belligerents in favor of rebel groups and create conditions conducive to negotiations. Our results have important implications for research on the effectiveness of both peacekeeping and terrorism and for policy-making.

scholarly journals On the Frontline Every Day? Subnational Deployment of United Nations Peacekeepers

2016 ◽  
Vol 48 (4) ◽  
pp. 1005-1025 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrea Ruggeri ◽  
Han Dorussen ◽  
Theodora-Ismene Gizelis
Keyword(s):  
United Nations ◽  
Civil Wars ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
African Countries ◽  
Un Peacekeeping ◽  
Disaggregated Data

United Nations (UN) peacekeepers tend to be deployed to ‘hard-to-resolve’ civil wars. Much less is known about where peacekeepers are deployedwithina country. However, to assess peacekeepers’ contribution to peace, it matters whether they are deployed to conflict or relatively safe areas. This article examines subnational UN peacekeeping deployment, contrasting an ‘instrumental’ logic of deployment versus a logic of ‘convenience’. These logics are evaluated using geographically and temporally disaggregated data on UN peacekeepers’ deployment in eight African countries between 1989 and 2006. The analysis demonstrates that peacekeepers are deployed on the frontline: they go where conflict occurs, but there is a notable delay in their deployment. Furthermore, peacekeepers tend to be deployed near major urban areas.

Keeping the Peace Between Egypt and Israel, 1973–1980

1980 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 197-268 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nissim Bar-Yaacov
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Security Council ◽  
International Community ◽  
Third Party ◽  
Yom Kippur War ◽  
Dominant Pattern ◽  
Un Peacekeeping ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
Yom Kippur

Third party involvement in keeping the peace in the Middle East has been a constant phenomenon accompanying the vicissitudes of the Arab-Israeli conflict from the war of 1948 up to the present day. The dominant pattern has been the employment of United Nations forces and observers, charged with supervising either the implementation of Security Council resolutions calling for the cessation of hostilities, or the implementation of agreements reached between the parties concerned. The uninterrupted presence of UN personnel in the Middle East has shown that the international community as a whole and the parties in conflict have considered UN peacekeeping essential for reducing tensions and instrumental in bringing to an end local flare-ups. It was only natural that immediately after the Yom Kippur War of October 1973 the states actively involved in the pursuit of peace should rely on the establishment of effective UN supervisory machinery to monitor the execution by the parties of the various security arrangements agreed upon. A United Nations Emergency Force was accordingly dispatched to the Egyptian-Israeli sector and undertook the task of supervision, with the cooperation of observers belonging to the United Nations Truce Supervision Organization. However, foreseen and unforeseen problems arose in the process leading from one disengagement agreement to another and to the treaty of peace between Egypt and Israel of March 1979.

Power in Peacekeeping by Lise Morjé Howard

2020 ◽  
pp. 99-100
Author(s):  
Natasha Khan
Keyword(s):  
Conflict Resolution ◽  
International Relations ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Civil Wars ◽  
Central African Republic ◽  
Verbal Persuasion ◽  
Peacekeeping Operations ◽  
Un Peacekeeping ◽  
Novel Approach ◽  
Peacekeeping Missions

Howard is an experienced scholar in the fields of international relations, civil wars, peacekeeping and conflict resolution. She has authored several works on peacekeeping such as Learning to Keep the Peace? United Nations Multidimensional Peacekeeping in Civil Wars (2001), and UN Peacekeeping in Civil Wars (2007). Her recent work, Power in Peacekeeping, takes a novel approach to explore UN Peacekeeping Operations. This book makes a case for looking at the dynamics of power in peacekeeping missions and exploring how peacekeepers wield their authority in peacekeeping missions. The author suggests that while most studies on peacekeeping document empirical accounts of the successes and failures of PKO’s, it can prove beneficial to understand what kind of powers peacekeepers wield on the ground. These powers are grouped into three major categories: financial and institutional inducement, verbal persuasion, and coercion. The author further categorizes these into, persuasion in Namibia, financial inducement in southern Lebanon and coercion in the Central African Republic. Acting as part of a journalist team, the author has first-hand experience in the areas explored in the book and offers detailed accounts backed by existing research in the field of peacekeeping.

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