13.05.08
The Protection of Civilians and the Post-Conflict Security Sector. A Conceptual and Historical Overview
NUPI Report | Oslo, NUPI | 18 pages
The report addresses the main challenges that must be met for the Protection of Civilians (PoC) in peacekeeping operations to be effective. Furthermore, it discusses the characteristics and problems of the security gap in post-conflict states, and possible ways of remedying to these. Finally, it addresses the relation between PoC and the Responsibility to Protect (R2P).
Security in Practice no. 8.
A Publication in the NUPI Series on Security in Practice
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>> Summary
The scope of protection in peace operations has widened in the last decades in an effort to meet the challenges of contemporary war fare. As a response to these trends, broader peacekeeping mandates have been designed in attempt to include a widening concept of the Protection of Civilians (PoC). In the present report, we outline the main challenges that must be met for the PoC in peacekeeping operations to be effective. First, we address the understanding of “protection” prevalent in UN documents today. Furthermore, we address the characteristics and problems of the security gap in post-conflict states, as well as their importance in the literature on conflict prevention and resolution. Finally, we present possible measures aimed at tightening the security gap in order to ensure a more efficient practice of protection of civilians. By way of conclusion, we address at recent developments of the related, but not synonymous concept of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P), which some have tried to equate with PoC, and the possible consequences of this conceptual confusion. Our argument is that the conflation of these two concepts may not only blur the distinction between them, but also have consequences for the perceived legitimacy of the concepts.
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