Peacekeeping and human rights : a crucial but uneasy relationship

Abstract

With the end of the Cold War, the United Nations has found itself increasingly involved in conflict resolution of protracted civil wars. Accordingly, peace operations were mandated to deal with national reconciliation and democracy-building, but also with other non-military mission objectives, such as the protection of humanitarian relief. The monitoring of compliance with human rights has become an integrate part of this new type of peacekeeping. But, the complex relationship between peacekeeping and human rights has not been sufficiently addressed yet, neither by scholars nor by practitioners. This study proposes to use the numerous peace operations in the greater Mediterranean area to look at the role of the human dimension in peacekeeping today. It will examine to what extent questions of human rights or humanitarian relief protection have entered primary or secondary mission objectives and how multi-component operations affect the overall performance of peace missions. [excerpt]