Peacekeeping

The military instrument alone cannot deal with complex crises involving diverse communities.  Existing strategies, organizations, and force structures are in many cases poorly suited to future contingencies. Accordingly, national and intergovernmental organizations have sought responses to increasingly complex challenges. Among them is the notion of a comprehensive approach.  This paper examines the principles and mechanisms of a comprehensive approach as applied to multinational peacekeeping and maritime, cyber, and energy security.

La terminologia utilizzata è piuttosto vasta: "small wars", "three block wars", "asimmetric warfare". Una più approfondita trattazione può essere trovata in Pastori G. "L'Occidente in guerra con gli altri: lezioni storiche" in de Leonardis M. e Pastori G. "Le nuove sfide per la forza militare e la diplomazia: il ruolo della NATO", op.cit. pp.46-47 8 Per quanto riguarda il concetto di "security complex" e di "hard security" e "soft security" si veda

This article examines the emergence of counterinsurgency doctrine in Coalition interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq. While counterinsurgency is complimentary to the tenets forwarded by its classical military predecessors in several respects, the article shows that it is also more than a refashioning of conventional military practice. Counterinsurgency is intimately tied to institutional practices that shape global liberal governance. It can be traced to dominant trends in international humanitarian, development and peace interventionism since the end of the Cold War and it deepens the links between the social development of war-affected populations and the politics of international security. Rather than simply a shift in military practice, counterinsurgency is distinguished by its investment in civilian modes of warfare. Counterinsurgency retells the narrative of intervention as part of the evolution of political and economic liberalisation, marking a passage from interventionary force to post-interventionary governance. Modern counterinsurgency, it is concluded, exposes the widening indistinction between contemporary modes of peace and those of war in international relations.

This study demonstrates that that the lion’s share of everyday policing and patrol in Onion Lake and Ahtahkakoop is  administered by Peacekeepers and that their withdrawal would result in a significant impact on the effectiveness of the RCMP who
heavily rely on their assistance and guidance. The vast majority of respondents do not wish to see the Peacekeepers become a police service under the “self-administered” option of the FNPP. Without exception, however, Peacekeepers, administrators, and
RCMP officers believe the Peacekeepers need funding for  standardized training, better equipment, and uniforms as well as more formalized information sharing with the RCMP.
Under the current parameters of the FNPP, however, no such remedy is available. Without a change in the FNPP, the Peacekeepers will continue to act as underpaid, overworked and minimally trained first responders and role models upon whom the RCMP is, by their own admission, heavily dependent but unable to support. Given this state of affairs, it is recommended that the FNPP be revisited to allow for the possibility of plural forms of policing outside the First Nations Self- Administered (FNSA) and RCMP Community Tripartite Agreements (RCMP CTA) .
Peacekeepers are inexpensive and very effective. It would take very little to expand and improve their service provision and thereby free up the RCMP to also engage in more proactive and culturally appropriate mentorship and community involvement.

Transitional justice is a major concept in promoting peace and reconciliation between conflicting parties. It is usually associated with formal judicial processes such as criminal justice, rule-of law reform and paying reparations. This chapter focuses on another transitional justice method, a more informal one: memory work. There is a growing realization of the major impact on the way in which the history of a conflict is viewed by the members of parties involved on their psychological and behavioral reactions. Addressing that history properly can promote their well being, conflict resolution and reconciliation between the parties. There are many ways of addressing the relevant history, for example, through truth and reconciliation committees, the rewriting of history textbooks, and commemoration projects. This chapter focuses on another way: the role of the autobiographical memory, that of the people who experienced the conflict directly, as it is manifested in their memoirs, newspaper articles and interviews with scholars. To this end the chapter uses a case study approach, regarding the causes for the main historical event of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: the 1948 Palestinian exodus. It explores for the first time the way in which Israeli-Jewish 1948 war veterans presented these causes between 1949 and 2004. The question posed was: did their autobiographical memory present a Zionist narrative (willing flight of the Palestinians) or a critical/post-Zionist narrative (willing flight combined with expulsion)? This exploration is based on an analysis of all published war veterans' memoirs and newspaper articles, as well as interviews with scholars, in the 56 year research period. During this study, interviews were also conducted with 1948 war veterans. Following the description of the empirical findings regarding the Israeli-Jewish autobiographical memory of the exodus, these findings are used to theoretically conceptualize various phenomena. For example, what determines the way in which direct-experience people describe their experiences during a conflict, how these people influence directly and indirectly the collective memory of their society of a given conflict, and the way in which they influence the dynamics of

Ce travail est né d’un constat général sur l’actualité de la résolution des conflits armés en Afrique et tout singulièrement en RCA. Si autrefois, l’option militaire était privilégiée comme solution de règlement du conflit, la perspective aujourd’hui s’inscrit dans la négociation et plus généralement la résolution pacifique. Dans cette dynamique de résolution des conflits, les accords de paix constituent un moyen utile pour éviter toute solution militaire. C’est donc à juste titre que nous avons décidé de travailler sur un thème aussi expressif qu’actuel.. L’intérêt que nous avons porté à ce sujet n’était pas de voir l’aspect militaire de la résolution des conflits mais plutôt ces instruments nouveaux que constituent les accords dont l’objectif est de mettre fin à ces nombreux conflits. Ceci nous a permis de comprendre qu’au bout de toute logique militaire se trouvait la nécessité de négocier et de parvenir à une négociation de paix, d’où l’intérêt de notre sujet et de la problématique que nous avons pu dégager dans le cadre de nos recherches.

The European Union (EU) has closely correlated different aspects of the peace process in Bosnia with progress towards European accession. The ‘power of attraction’ of EU membership would presumably induce the Bosnian authorities to accept the adaptation costs of political and economic transformation. However, the Europeanisation approach has not produced the expected results. The track record of the EU’s policies towards Bosnia represents a paradigmatic case of what would happen if almost nothing works as efficiently as in the case of the countries that joined the EU in 2004 and 2007. The article investigates the causes of EU policy failure in Bosnia and claims that the EU has not effectively responded to three challenges: 1) adjust the process to the needs of an ethnically divided post-war state; 2) preserve the credibility of accession conditionality, and 3) convey the proper messages on how to comply with EU rules. Therefore, the article argues for a more cohesive and consistent EU approach towards Bosnia.

The post Soviet space harbors several "frozen" conflicts and so far, there is no tangible solution of these conflicts achieved, nor do overt clashes between the opposing sides take place on the ground. The mounting doubts over protracted character of these conflicts seem to suggest that there is no sufficient interest expressed by the parties involved to solve these conflicts peacefully as soon as possible. Outbreak of Crimean conflict has further solidified the view about Russia's unpleasant intentions toward the CIS states -by keeping the local conflicts under the Kremlin's tight control, it tries to exert some influence over the domestic and foreign policy of these countries. Russia, as a sole "peacekeeping" actor in the region, has failed to design a workable platform to provide a feasible degree of peace and stability. Furthermore, Moscow used its peacekeeping mandate as a tool of power projection in the host countries, with an aim to coerce local regimes to adopt Russia's demands by means of blackmailing, positive and negative inducements etc. Thus, there were certain national interests rather than preoccupation with humanitarian crisis behind Russia's perseverance to launch "peacekeeping" operations in the CIS countries. The Kremlin has successfully applied the strategy of using secessionist groups as an instrument to compel the central governments to obey Russia's objectives. Because of Moscow's reluctance to maintain the peaceful solution, the current status quo remains fragile, while "frozen" nature of conflicts enables Russia to exert lasting influence over these countries.

מאמר זה מבקש לתאר ולהגדיר את תפיסת התכסית האנושית, שהתפתחה
בצבא האמריקאי לאור ניסיונו באפגניסטן ובעיראק. המאמר יעמוד על הסיבות
שהובילו את הצבא האמריקאי לפתח תפיסה זאת; יתמקד בתשתית התיאורטית
ובזיקות שבין התכסית האנושית לבין מודיעין תרבותי ואינטליגנציה תרבותית.
כל אלה, לאור הניסיון האמריקאי והישראלי בזירות העימות השונות.

With the budget cuts to peace operations implemented last year and the prospect of even more reduction in resources, debates about UN peacekeeping effectiveness have intensified. One of the areas sorely in need of innovation is peacekeeping training and, more generally, the preparation of troops, police officers, and civilians for peace operations.  Secretary General António Guterres  acknowledged this point in January 2018 at the African Union (AU) Headquarters in Addis Ababa, when he emphasized the need to ensure better preparation for peacekeeping forces.  The point is also reinforced by the recent report “Improving Security of United Nations Peacekeepers,” which identified deficient pre-deployment training as one of the main causes of fatalities and serious injuries among peacekeepers in the field. Improving peacekeeping training centers in the most important troop and police contributing countries (TCCs and PCCs) for UN and AU missions—most of them developing countries facing considerable resource limitations—has thus acquired greater urgency.

SNMPE: "Es gibt keine Strategie, um illegalen Bergbau zu formalisieren oder auszurotten"
- Der IWF schlägt eine Erhöhung der Bergbausteuer vor.
- Der Botschafter der physisch lebendigen Erde
weiss um eine andere Lösung.

04.12.2021 06:11 Uhr Die National Society of Mining, Oil and Energy (SNMPE) warnte diese Woche vor "einer unkontrollierten Ausweitung des informellen Bergbaus" in Puno und 13 weiteren Regionen. Demnach hätte der jüngste Zusammenbruch einer Abraummine in den Händen kleiner Bergbaukooperativen Verbindungen zu illegalen Mineralabbauorganisationen. Angesichts der Tatsachen forderte die Gewerkschaft am 26. November in Ananea, Puno, eine Untersuchung durch die Regulierungsbehörde Osinergmin und die Environmental Assessment and Enforcement Agency (OEFA) des Umweltministeriums. "Die Ursachen und Verantwortlichkeiten für den Einsturz der Infrastruktur, der durch das Überlaufen der Abraumhalden entstanden ist, müssen identifiziert werden ", sagte die Gewerkschaft und betonte, dass es sich nicht um einen Einzelfall handele, da im November 2019 ein weiterer Abraumdamm in demselben Gebiet eingestürzt sei an zwei Genossenschaften Bergbau.

Die Lösung und Sichtweise vom Botschafter der physisch lebendigen Erde bitte Im Text und Link lesen.

Through an analysis of UN operations including international territorial administration, refugee camps, peacekeeping, the implementation of sanctions and the provision of humanitarian aid, Guglielmo Verdirame shows that the powers exercised by the UN carry a serious risk of human rights abuse. The International Law Commission has codified and developed the law of institutional responsibility, but, while indispensable, these principles and rules cannot on their own ensure compliance and accountability. The 'liberty deficit' of the UN and of other international organisations, thus remains an urgent legal and political problem. Some solutions may be available; indeed, recent state and institutional practice offers interesting examples in this respect. But at a fundamental level we need to ask ourselves whether, judged on the basis of the principle of liberty, the power shift from states to international organisations is always beneficial.

Im Kontext mit allen benannten Phänomenen in diesem Post, ergibt Alles ein schlüssiges Bild zu
„United States INC“ Konkurs?
Wieviel davon stimmt kann ich nicht sagen. Da ich die Wahrscheinlichkeit als eher hoch erachte, dass da im Hintergrund in diese Richtung schon was passiert ist und laufend "gewerkelt" wird, möchte ich diese interessante Meldung bringen. Interessant auch vor dem Hintergrund des buchstäblichen
Impfwahnsinns
und
was in Afghanistan passiert
und
der neuen Goldenen Bulle der Erlösung Proklamation
und
im Kontext mit der Papstrede im Deutschen Bundestag 2011,
sowie
neues von Prof. Franz Hörmann zu Zukunft der Wissenschaften und dem Gelsystem
und
Botschaften vom Botschafter der physisch lebendigen Erde zu Recht und Kräfte
über
der Wiederanbindung zum ein 1 einzig All-Bewusstsein
mit
der Wiederanbindung verloren gegangener Wahrnehmung der 12 Sinnesorgane.
und der physischen Lebenordnung kosmischer Gesetze mit den Naturgesetzen.
zuerst Video ansehen
https://www.academia.edu/video/kAwrO1

June 6, 2021 The genocide in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region has been going on for seven months now. The UN is doing nothing and the slaughter continues. To understand events there one must examine the context in which they were created.
The past 500 years of colonialism and even world politics today are very easy to understand. Euro-American colonialists are inherently white supremacist to give them a unifying bond, uniformly amoral and totally capitalist. Over time they realized its easier to get the “colored savages” to fight each other rather than waste good white boys on the effort so they became masters at dividing indigenous groups within the Americas, Asia and Africa, setting them upon each other, then rolling in later on to “clean up the mess” and totally take over while congratulating themselves on their kindness.
The First Italo-Ethiopian War 1895 – 1896 in which the Italians claimed the entire country of Ethiopia as their own was bad enough, but then the Second Italo-Ethiopian War from 1935 – 1937 saw 200,000 Italian soldiers invade proving what a totally ineffectual entity the League of Nations (1920 - 1946) truly was, precisely the same as the modern so-called United Nations.
What the foreign invaders were really after was a solid base in East Afrika, and specifically the Ethiopian Highlands, the largest continuous elevated area on the continent, sometimes called the “Roof of Africa.” The highlands mountain areas extend from central and northern Ethiopia north into Eritrea. Those are deliciously cool and beautiful lands far better suited to the more delicate European constitutions than the deserts, Savannah and tropics found elsewhere in Afrika along with all manner of fearsome wildlife including those horrid malaria carrying mosquitos.
Jumping forward in time a bit we find the USA with an urgent “existential need” of some kind to rule the entire world forever that looks upon the ancient land of Ethiopia with distain. Myopically addicted to fragmenting and dominating all nations of the earth in perpetuity, the clever but not wise directors of American foreign policies have decreed Ethiopia needs a good war to break it down some more, as if the droughts and endemic poverty brought about by predatory Euro-American aggression in Afrika weren’t enough.
So, the ever-so-clever but avaricious American foreign policy makers locked the former dominant political party called the TPLN located in the northern ancient holy Tigray region into power for an overly long time while feeding their corruption, and at the same time fed anger and resentment towards them from all directions, Eritrea to the north, and the other Ethiopian political parties to the south.
- This short brutally honest satire is an alternative introduction to the much more detailed and analytic article I posted on Academia.edu yesterday titled: Made in Amerika - Genocide in Ethiopia - A four-part article series. That the UN does nothing is not surprising, however it's astonishing to me that so few people seem to even care about another genocide. Is only 20,000 innocents slaughtered too insignificant to call your Congressional representatives and demand the UN send in peacekeepers?

Fortunately, there is a science-based approach that can protect Pakistan from both internal and external threats. It is appropriately termed, Invincible Defence Technology (IDT), because it assures invincibility, peace and even economic progress, to the nation and the military that employ it.

Its methods have been proven and adopted as part of the training of America's future commanders at Norwich University, a nationally respected and oldest military academy in the USA. IDT is further validated by 23 peer-reviewed studies carried out in both developed and developing nations. Its coherence-creating effect has also been documented on a global scale in a study published in the Journal of Offender Rehabilitation. When large assemblies of civilian IDT experts gathered during the years 1983 - 1985, international conflict decreased 32%, terrorism-related casualties decreased 72%, and overall violence was reduced in nations without intrusion by other governments.

Localizada no Sudeste Asiático, a República Democrática do Timor-Leste se tornou um país independente no dia 20 de maio de 2002 com o apoio da Organização das Nações Unidas (ONU) que, através da promoção de missões de paz, realizou esforços na (re)estruturação desse país entre 1999 e 2012. Durante esse período, a República Federativa do Brasil ampliou as suas capacidades de projeção no âmbito externo e na coordenação das Forças Armadas brasileiras ao se engajar em diversas dessas operações relacionadas à questão timorense, considerada por Pepe e Mathias (2006) como um dos principais eventos das relações internacionais depois de findada a Guerra Fria. Nessa perspectiva, buscou-se depreender quais foram as motivações brasileiras e como o Brasil se engajou nas missões de paz da ONU em Timor-Leste. Para tanto, foi necessário aplicar um recorte histórico que demonstrasse a árdua trajetória timorense em busca de sua independência.

Throughout its existence, the inhabitants of the Holy Roman Empire frequently evoked concepts of peace in legal, governmental, and moral affairs. In particular, the term Landfrieden can be found in sources from the thirteenth to the eighteenth centuries. Historians and legal scholars have long debated its meaning, typically defining it either as a form of legislation or else as a type of regional peacekeeping union. This article synthesizes the array of evidence regarding Landfrieden and makes the argument that it was central to discourses about public peace and authority in the pre-modern German lands, which could find expression within both regional and pan-imperial organizations, laws, and institutions. The article surveys concepts and applications of Landfrieden from the high medieval period to the Holy Roman Empire's dissolution in 1806, demonstrating how it could legitimize leagues, alliances, and other associations while also underpinning the evolving imperial constitution.

Available on De Gruyter's website: https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9783110591316-008/html

Although it was not traditionally an active contributor to UN peacekeeping, Turkey's role in this realm has remarkably expanded in the post-Cold War era. Turkey has been actively contributing to several international missions with different mandates, from East Timor through Bosnia-Herzegovina. Turkey has participated not only in several UN-led peacekeeping and humanitarian actions, but also in other operations conducted by regional organizations or coalitions of the willing. Despite Turkey's assuming a more assertive role in this field, the scholarly attention paid to the subject remained scant. In this regard, the intention in this article is to provide some starting points for bringing this unexplored area under the daylight. The purpose of the first section is to trace Turkey's record in peace operations in order to identify the number and type of peace operations Turkey has participated so far. Moreover, Turkey's specific contributions to each mission under consideration will be discussed. The missions Turkey participated actively will be analysed under four main categories; namely, observer missions, UN peacekeeping operations, subcontracted 'robust' peace support operations, and civilian police missions. Thereafter, some possible explanations will be offered which could help us establish a framework of analysis in explaining why Turkey has been assuming such a new role in peace operations. In so doing, rather than conducting a case study in the strict sense of the term, we will be basically putting forward a number of deductive propositions. Those different levels of explanation, which are in no way intended to be exhaustive, include: Turkey's self-perception as a contributor to the world peace; Turkey's connection to Western security architecture; a supposed Turkish sphere of influence and resultant more activist Turkish foreign policy; outside -US- demand on Turkey and the promotion of Turkey as a regional peacekeeper; and credible military preparedness demanded by the new peace operations.

This article explores the reasons behind Canada’s declining participation in United Nations peacekeeping operations. It proposes a decision-making model that explains how politicians assess opportunities to commit personnel to peacekeeping missions by balancing their policy objectives with the pressures of electoral politics. Emphasizing the importance of voters in political decision-making processes, it argues that participation in peacekeeping is dependent on three key factors: a belief in the value of peacekeeping in principle; a belief in the value of a given peacekeeping operation; and risk aversion in response to the potential costs of peacekeeping. Tracing Canada’s declining participation in peacekeeping operations since the 1990s, it particularly focuses on how this calculus has, in different ways, limited Canada’s involvement in peacekeeping under Stephen Harper’s Conservative government and Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government, arguing that the former undervalued peacekeeping as a means of obtaining its foreign policy objectives and as a feature of national identity, minimizing the perceived benefits of participation, while the latter has focused on the inherent risks of peacekeeping despite a professed commitment to peacekeeping in principle, maximizing the perceived costs of further personnel commitments. The decisions of successive Canadian governments have led to a free-rider problem in which Canada is willing to enjoy the benefits of peacekeeping but unwilling to bear the costs.

Korea is one of the world's most volatile areas, not least because traditional UN mediation and peacekeeping missions are impossible. Having intervened in the Korean War on behalf of the southern side, the UN is a party to the conflict, rather than a neutral arbiter. The situation is particularly problematic because political interactions are characterized by a high degree of state-control over security policy. In both parts of the peninsula the state has, at least until recently, exercised the exclusive right to deal with the opponent on the other side of the hermetically divided peninsula. Given these domestic and international constrains, alternative approaches to conflict resolution are urgently needed. The recently proliferating literature on human security offers possible solutions, for it urges policy makers to view security beyond the conventional military-based defence of the state and its territory. Using such a conceptual framework, the essay assesses the potential significance non-state interactions between North and South, particularly those that promote communication, information exchange and face-to-face encounters. Even though these interactions remain limited, they are of crucial importance, for they provide an opportunity to reduce the stereotypical threat images that continue to fuel conflict on the peninsula.

The article discusses the efforts to undertake economic reconstruction in Bosnia following the end of the war. It argues that, despite certain successes such as the rehabilitation of
infrastructure and the privatization of the banking sector, overall progress has been below expectations. The study, accordingly, attempts to analyse the reasons behind the reconstruction
failure by grouping Bosnia’s problems into four different challenges for analytical purposes: the post-Dayton institutional deficiency; overcoming political fragmentation; creating appropriate conditions for economic revival; and graduating from dependency on foreign economic aid. In this respect, it is concluded that the intersection between the economic and political dimensions of post-conflict reconstruction has generated a paradox: while huge amounts of economic assistance have intended to facilitate political reconciliation, the nature of the administrative (political) structure that was established in the post-war period has in turn hindered economic
recovery and the creation of a unified economic space. Moreover, political fragmentation and slow progress in economic reconstruction have been in a mutually constitutive relationship in which the existence of the one has contributed to the sustenance of the other.

The historical novel From the Nile to the Jordan is an enthralling story about the "Second Exodus" of Jews from Egypt to Israel. This so far little-noticed aspect of the Arab-Israeli Conflict, could spread new light on the events of 1948, make the suffering of both sides public and bring the middle east one step closer to peace. Before 1948 there was a prospering community with 100,000 Jews in Egypt, today there are only few Jewish widows left. This book combines the well-researched historical facts based on Aharoni's research on the topic, as a professor of Sociology, with her personal perspective as a witness who had to leave Egypt as a young woman. This approach makes the book an eye-opener for an important chapter of Jewish history, that is widely unknown. Aharoni goes beyond the past, aiming at using the story of the "Second Exodus" as a tool for reconciliation, convinced that if Israel and Egypt can make peace, peace between Israel and Palestine is possible too.

After six years of UN presence, women and children still lack the protection they have been promised. Through a grant of USD 1.6 million from the Norwegian Government administered through UNDP, the Liberian National Police (LNP) has now been able to establish Women and Children Protection Sections (WACPS) in over twenty locations in Liberia. These sections are meant to address the protection of women and children, especially against genderbased violence (GBV), including sexual violence. While having been recognized from the UN as representing a landmark effort, these sections nevertheless do not function as intended. There is a dire lack of resources for running these sections. Furthermore, GBV is not addressed in a comprehensive manner. Thus, police officers involved in the WACPS, in spite of often being well-trained, willing and qualified, often go through the motions rather than addressing the substantive challenges facing women and children.

the material is concerned, specifi cally the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfi lms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specifi c statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.

This lecture was presented during the online panel on "Missões de paz e epidemia" ["Peace missions and pandemic"], on 29 April 2021, organised by the Brazilian Research Network on Peace Operations (REBRAPAZ) and the Institute of Strategic Studies of the Fluminense Federal University (INEST/UFF).

An intriguing book that could very well leave thoughtful readers somewhat frustrated by the end. Beautifully written with a compelling and challenging main argumentthat the Westerndominated vision of Africa-as-victim or Africa-as-incompetent has to be replaced or at least challenged by new thinking to more accurately reflect the continent's place in a fast-changing worldthe book is too short to truly carry this banner on its own. More importantly, the manner in which the argument is constructed throughout the book, though eloquent, is not systematic in any form and therefore reads more like a collection of reflections and loosely-organized commentary. This is the true shame for it robs some of the potential from the work: everything is well-argued and the points made are important and thought-provoking. But when organized in such a manner it almost relegates itself to an audience of area studies specialists/political sociologists, who are used to and accept this style of investigatory writing. There is nothing wrong with this audience per se, except when one suspects the audience could be and indeed should be much wider. A very good book that could have been great.

The rising pressures of urbanization in fragile and conflict-affected countries have increased concerns about the vulnerability of cities to armed threats. Changes in the character of armed conflict during the twenty-first century and its effects on cities in the developing world have exposed gaps in the planning and practice of peace and security, which retain a “nation-State bias” that circumvents local perspectives and agencies. Whereas full-scale use of military power in cities remains as destructive today as it has ever been, international organizations such as the United Nations have called for changed approaches to State tactics in urban areas. Mechanisms designed to prevent conflict or to help countries transition back to peace are particularly key if massive human and economic damages are to be avoided in a world of increasingly dense cities. Another key concern is the vulnerability of developing-world cities to low-intensity, if protracted, forms of violence by non-State a...

In order to progressively end the recruitment and use of children as soldiers, the world must focus on effective prevention. The impacts of violence on children affected by armed conflict, and particularly those recruited and used as soldiers, are substantial. Thus, in order to break endemic cycles of violence and achieve peace and security globally, we need to prioritize the prevention of recruitment and the protection of children. This article features examples of effective prevention-oriented strategies, including tangible and practical methods that can be implemented towards the ultimate goal of preventing the recruitment and use of children as soldiers.Keywords: prevention, child soldiers, violence, children and armed conflict, Vancouver Principles

The UN Secretariat’s role in the expansion of peacekeeping after the cold war is debated. Different theoretical accounts offer competing interpretations: principal–agent models and sociological institutionalism tend to emphasize the Secretariat’s risk-averse behaviour; organizational learning scholarship and international political sociology find evidence of the Secretariat’s activism; constructivism analyses instances of both. I argue that the UN Secretariat can be both enthusiastic and cautious about new tasks depending on the circumstances and the issue area. For example, UN officials have been the driving force behind the development of public information campaigns by peacekeeping missions aimed at the local population. During the cold war, it was not regarded as necessary for UN missions to communicate with the public in the area of operation: their interlocutors were parties to the conflict and the diplomatic community. With the deployment of the first multidimensional missions in the late 1980s and the early 1990s, UN staff realized the need to explain the organization’s role to the local population and provide information about UN-supported elections. In promoting this innovation, they played the role of policy entrepreneurs. The institutionalization of this innovation, however, was not an automatic process and required continuous advocacy by UN information staff.

With the rapid development of international law, norms and institutional reform in the area of human protection over the past three decades, this article assesses the current trends at the UN to identify whether there is an international backlash currently occurring. It traces the development, implementation and constestation of international human protection norms in three key areas, namely the protection of civilians in UN peacekeeping, the responsibility to protect, and the human rights and prevention agenda. It argues that while states have demonstrated both a commitment and creativity in the implementation of human protection norms, these developments have been matched by contestation over the human rights foundations of international human protection norms, providng insight into the pragmatic direction that global governance is headed to accommodate the global shift in power relations. Finally, it considers avenues through which countries, such as Australia, that are committed to the values of human rights and the international rule of law, can promote the strengthening of these important human protection norms. United Nations, human protection, international norms, human rights, protection of civilians, responsibility to protect