28 research outputs found
The United Nations In The Great Lakes Region
No full textRhoads offers an analysis of the UN’s involvement in the Great Lakes region in the area of peace and security, focusing on UN missions deployed to Burundi and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) in the new millennium. This chapter charts the evolution of United Nations (UN) engagement and illuminates the strategic and political factors that shaped the UN’s role, allowing it to exert considerable leverage at certain junctures, but ultimately resulting in the institution’s marginalisation. While Burundi and the DRC are markedly different contexts, this chapter demonstrates how, analysed alongside each other, they offer valuable insights into the UN and its future role in the region
Taking Sides In Peacekeeping: Impartiality And The Future Of The United Nations
No full textUnited Nations peacekeeping has undergone radical transformation in the new millennium. \u27Taking Sides in Peacekeeping\u27 explores this transformation and its implications, in what is the first conceptual and empirical study of impartiality in UN peacekeeping. The book challenges dominant scholarly approaches that conceive of norms as linear and static, conceptualizing impartiality as a \u27composite\u27 norm, one that is not free-standing but an aggregate of other principles-each of which can change and is open to contestation. Drawing on a large body of primary evidence, it uses the composite norm to trace the evolution of impartiality, and to illuminate the macro-level politics surrounding its institutionalization at the UN, as well as the micro-level politics surrounding its implementation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, site of the largest and costliest peacekeeping mission in UN history. This book reveals that, despite a veneer of consensus, impartiality is in fact highly contested. As the collection of principles it refers to has expanded to include human rights and civilian protection, deep disagreements have arisen over what keeping peace impartially actually means. Beyond the semantics, the book shows how this contestation, together with the varying expectations and incentives created by the norm, has resulted in perverse and unintended consequences that have politicized peacekeeping and, in some cases, effectively converted UN forces into one warring party among many. The author assesses the implications of this radical transformation for the future of peacekeeping and for the UN\u27s role as guarantor of international peace and security
Putting human rights up front : implications for impartiality and the politics of peacekeeping
No full textFirst published online: 08 Jan 2019This article traces the origins, development and implications of Human Rights Up Front (HRuF), a bold and visionary initiative launched by former Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon in 2013. While HRuF is part of a broader continuum of human rights-related reforms, its scope and focus is distinctive. HRuF puts the imperative to protect people from serious violations of human rights and international humanitarian law at the core of the UN’s strategy and operational activities, and obliges staff to speak out about abuses and looming crises. Using the case study of South Sudan and drawing on over 150 interviews conducted in-country, this article considers the implications of HRuF for peacekeeping and, specifically, for impartiality, a norm traditionally regarded as the ‘lifeblood’ and ‘heart and soul’ of the UN Secretariat. I identify three challenges that have hindered the UN’s ability to deliver impartially on its protection and human rights mandate and the consequences thereof for the UN’s perceived legitimacy in South Sudan. Further, I examine how the Organization has tried, with mixed success to manage the dilemmas and tensions that have arisen from the privileging of individual, as opposed to state or government, security, and the implications for the broader functioning of the UN.The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Research Council under the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP/2007-2013) / ERC Grant Agreement No 340956 - IOW - The Individualisation of War: Reconfiguring the Ethics, Law, and Politics of Armed Conflict
From Theory to Practice: Assessing the Role and Effectiveness of UN Peacekeeping Operations
No full textReview essay of: From Theory to Practice: Assessing the Role and Effectiveness of UN Peacekeeping Operations Peacekeeping in South Sudan: one year of lessons from under the Blue Beret by Robert B. Munson, New York, Palgrave Macmillan, 2015, 150 pp. + notes + bibliography + index $90.00 (hbk), ISBN 978-1-137-50182-0 ; Taking sides in peacekeeping: impartiality and the future of the United Nations by Emily Paddon Rhoads, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2016, 213 pp. + bibliography + index £85.00 (hbk), ISBN 978-0-198-74724-
Protection as a spectrum:The different faces of protection in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo
No full textThe literature on civilian protective agency has paid scant attention to forms of protection that are provided according to private logics, in particular, protection as a commodity or protection as part of relations of patronage. Yet in war-affected eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, as this chapter shows, soliciting private forms of protection constitutes a crucial way in which civilians try to shield themselves against physical, political, economic, and social insecurity. In eastern DRC, protection as a public good, protection as a commodity, and protection in the framework of individual and collective patronage are entangled in complex ways, and can be provided, even simultaneously, by the same armed actors. Moreover, the boundaries between these different forms of protection are porous and shifting, implying protection can best be conceptualized as located on a spectrum between more public and more private, more voluntary and more coerced forms. Identifying where on the spectrum protection is located is useful for better understanding civilian agency, including the degree and types of coercion civilians face from armed actors. In addition, a more nuanced conceptualization of protection helps draw attention to civilians’ time horizon, specifically whether they seek to avert immediate danger or try to ensure protection in the long term. Finally, it enables a better understanding of the longer-term effects of protection on social orders. In the case of eastern DRC, the effects of protection informed by private logics are mostly negative and include the militarization of dispute settlement and the erosion of trust in the state security services.</p
The (Self) Protection Of Civilians In South Sudan: Popular And Community Justice Practices
No full textOver the past decade, a body of scholarship on civilian self-protection (CSP) has emerged, advancing understandings of civilian agency in war. In this article, we argue that CSP has been conceptualized in a narrow manner, reflecting the nascent status of the field. Scholars have focused on responses to threats directly related to the dynamics of conflict, physical in nature, and caused by the presence of armed groups. Using the case study of the Protection of Civilians (PoC) sites in South Sudan and drawing on over 150 interviews, we identify one type of protective response neglected in the literature: community and popular justice. Although the PoC sites provide a measure of protection, residents face a range of daily threats that are indirectly related to the conflict, such as crime. In this context, community justice emerged as a natural response, an overlooked yet vital form of CSP that addresses immediate protection needs and fulfills a social ordering function. By conceiving of justice in this way, this article aims to deepen understanding of civilian agency and start a conversation with scholars and practitioners about the boundaries of (self) protection
How Insider-Led Processes Lead To Localization: The Case Of Digital Technology And Humanitarian Protection
No full textThe humanitarian sector has been increasingly concerned with localizing its activities—devolving capacity, power, and decision-making authority to the local communities and organizations that are the frequent recipients of its assistance. However, the mere “outsider-led” provision of assistance to local actors is not itself sufficient to empower them. Instead, we argue that “insider-led,” locally initiated processes can be an effective approach to localization. We identify how such shifts can occur and distinguish three different configurations of “insider-led” processes: Autonomous Adopters, Balanced Partners, and Exporting Entrepreneurs. We examine “insider-led” localization in the context of the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) for civilian protection in humanitarian settings. The adoption of these technologies can generate localization if the structural power dynamics between global and local actors also shift to elevate locals. To illustrate these localization processes, we draw on original interviews and examples involving technology in the domain of civilian protection from the White Helmets in Syria and the Indigenous Guards in Colombia and Ecuador. The cases indicate that three conditions are important for the success of technology\u27s ability to generate “insider-led” localization: a degree of pre-existing capacity, social capital among local actors innovating ICTs for protection, and ties to outsiders. Our accounting of the mechanisms of “insider-led” processes shows how future localization efforts can sustainably rebalance relationships between global humanitarians and local actors
