The year 2024 marks a significant milestone for the United Nations, as it commemorates the twenty-fifth anniversary of Resolution 1265, the first-ever resolution adopted by the Security Council to specifically address the protection of civilians in armed conflict, condemning the targeting of civilians and calling on all conflict parties to comply with their obligations under international humanitarian law. During the recent UN Protection of Civilians Week, leaders and diplomats took stock of both the accomplishments and the stark realities highlighted in the secretary-general’s latest report: “The state of the protection of civilians in 2023 was resoundingly grim.”Footnote 1 In contexts like Gaza, Sudan, and Ukraine, the scale of civilian casualties and destruction has been unprecedented, underscoring the critical need for the Protection of Civilians (PoC) mandate.
Since the adoption in 1999 of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1270, which authorized the United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL) to protect civilians from physical violence, the PoC mandate has been a cornerstone of UN peacekeeping. There have been sixteen peacekeeping missions mandated to protect civilians, five of which are currently active.Footnote 2 Emphasizing the mandate’s critical importance, the first module of the UN’s military training materials on PoC warns that “failure to protect civilians undermines the legitimacy and credibility of field missions, and the UN overall.”Footnote 3 Former secretary-general Ban Ki-moon went so far as to call it the “defining purpose of the UN in the twenty-first century.”Footnote 4
This essay examines the future of the PoC mandate as UN peacekeeping faces a critical juncture. Between 2015 and 2024, the number of active missions has declined from sixteen to eleven, budgets have been slashed, the Security Council has not authorized a new mission since 2014, and current operations are scaling back. And yet, in places like the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), where peacekeepers are currently deployed with a protection mandate, and Sudan, where the mission was drawn down in 2021, insecurity remains rife, and the humanitarian situation is dire. Globally, conflicts have surged to unprecedented levels. According to the Uppsala Conflict Data Program, in 2023 there were seventy-five nonstate and fifty-nine state-involved conflicts recorded—the highest since 1946.Footnote 5 These conflicts are increasingly protracted and complex, causing devastating effects on civilians.
The first section of this essay charts the evolution of the PoC norm and assesses the effectiveness of protection in peacekeeping, drawing on existing scholarship, which has flourished over the last decade. It argues that PoC in peacekeeping has undergone significant transformation in its conceptualization and operationalization over the last twenty-five years, most notably expanding from a focus on physical protection against imminent threats to a more holistic approach that includes establishing a protective environment. The second section identifies four major challenges to protecting civilians: declining state commitment to UN peacekeeping, fragmentation of peace and security mechanisms, managing expectations and public perceptions in a rapidly changing information landscape, and personnel disillusionment and morale issues. The conclusion discusses the implications of these challenges for existing missions, peacekeeping transitions, and other peace and security arrangements. It argues that the future of PoC in peacekeeping is uncertain and fraught with difficulties that may not be easily overcome. Rather than transcending politics, the inherent political nature of protection poses significant obstacles, and the ability to navigate these dynamics remains a critical yet daunting task.
The Evolution and Effectiveness of PoC in Peacekeeping
The protection of civilians is a norm in the sense that it is a “prescription for action in situations of choice, carrying a sense of obligation, a sense that [it] ought to be followed.”Footnote 6 While many peacekeeping missions of the 1990s were involved in human rights monitoring, the protection of civilians as an explicit activity and objective of UN peacekeeping—and one in which peacekeepers are authorized to use force to realize—was first authorized in 1999 in the context of Sierra Leone. Prior to that, peacekeeping primarily focused on monitoring ceasefires, supporting political processes, and keeping warring factions apart through interposition. The adoption of the PoC mandate thus marked a significant shift, and was a direct response to the inability of UN peacekeepers to shield civilians from slaughter in the so-called safe areas of the former Yugoslavia and from genocide in Rwanda. It also aimed to clarify the broader obligations of UN forces and member states to protect populations.Footnote 7
As such, the initial focus of PoC was on physical protection provided by military contingents as well as through efforts to strengthen the capacity of national authorities to protect their own populations. According to Resolution 1270, UNAMSIL was “to afford protection to civilians under imminent threat of physical violence.”Footnote 8 Similar language was authorized by the Security Council in subsequent contexts. However, how peacekeepers were meant to intervene—what types of actions were required, including the extent to which force could and should be used proactively or preemptively—was underspecified, as were details on the procurement of resources necessary for protection. Given that the norm needed concrete, direct, and immediate application, ambiguity came with risk. UN officials both at HQ and in the field sought greater clarity on PoC and over time developed a robust corpus of policies, guidelines, training, and activities. This resulted in two notable and related conceptual changes.
First, the UN’s approach to protection in peacekeeping gradually extended beyond the “domain of physical protection from imminent threat.”Footnote 9 Specifically, the UN’s operational concept for the protection of civilians, initially elaborated in 2010 and updated in the 2020 Protection of Civilians handbook, broadened the concept of protection to consist of three tiers: (1) protection through dialogue and engagement (for example, national and local conflict resolution and mediation, good offices of the secretary-general, and so on); (2) provision of physical protection (such as protective presence, interpositioning, and threatening or using force); and (3) establishment of a protective environment (such as through capacity building and promoting the rule of law)—with four phases (prevention, preemption, response, and consolidation).Footnote 10
The three-tiered model of protection was accompanied by an expansion of protection roles. PoC became a whole-of-mission responsibility, involving all UN peacekeeping personnel, both military and civilian. Everyone now had a role to play.Footnote 11 Further, this shift was part of broader efforts to harmonize the protection work of all UN entities in a country, catalyzed under the “One UN” approach. Ban Ki-moon’s 2015 “Human Rights Up Front” initiativeFootnote 12 reinforced this notion of collective responsibility for preventing and responding to protection crises, as does the 2024 Agenda for Protection, which begins with the “Protection Pledge.”Footnote 13
Attendant to this widening of the PoC concept in peace operations has been a greater emphasis on engaging local and affected communities in the design and implementation of peacekeeping protection plans and strategies. A 2015 High-Level Independent Panel on United Nations Peace Operations report called for a “people-centered” approach to peacekeeping and argued that the UN should develop better strategies for community engagement at all stages of the mission cycle.Footnote 14 In practice, this approach has been pursued through innovative tools, developed largely at the field level, such as the community liaison assistants, joint protection teams, and community watch groups.Footnote 15
And the track record generally has been strong, despite perceptions surrounding high-profile incidents where civilians have been harmed in mission contexts. Indeed, research over the past decade consistently underscores peacekeeping as a powerful instrument for protection. Multiple studies, employing diverse methodologies and focusing on different aspects of peacekeeping, reveal a clear pattern: The presence of peacekeepers correlates with reduced violence against civilians and diminished local or subnational conflicts.Footnote 16 This impact is achieved primarily through monitoring and patrolling, and enforcing civilian protection behind the front lines, with studies showing that effectiveness hinges on factors such as the number,Footnote 17 quality,Footnote 18 and diversityFootnote 19 of military personnel involved. The primary contribution of peacekeepers is thus the creation of a protective environment through their presence and demonstrable resolve, which deters violent action and creates the space to change the broader dynamics of violence. In certain scenarios, peacekeepers have taken robust actions to separate combatants and mitigate battlefield activities that put civilians at risk, though studies show that such uses of force are rare.Footnote 20 Further, while much of the literature to date has focused on the military, civilian personnel also play a crucial function through engagement and dialogue, gathering critical information through relationships with local actors, and supporting national and local mediation efforts as well as institutional reforms under Tier 3.Footnote 21
While there is overwhelming evidence that UN peacekeepers do help to reduce violence against civilians, there remain valid questions as to the limitations of PoC. This is because a continuously evolving conflict landscape and broader geopolitical shifts are challenging existing approaches to protection and peace.
Challenges
Waning Host and Member State Commitment
Peacekeeping is an important tool for protection, but its effectiveness hinges on political factors beyond a given mission’s control. Chief among these are host-state consent and the political backing of member states, especially those in the Security Council. Host-state consent is a core principle of peacekeeping, one that is said to distinguish it from other international interventions, like peace enforcement. It refers to the agreement and willingness of the main conflict parties, particularly the host state, to allow the deployment and operation of a peacekeeping mission, enabling it to implement its mandate effectively.
While historically consent has at times been conditional or fractured, recent years have seen escalating tensions between host states and UN missions, leading to what some experts call a “crisis of consent.”Footnote 22 In several contexts, host governments, emboldened by shifting geopolitical divisions inside and outside of the Security Council, are becoming more assertive and uncooperative with UN missions. This trend was starkly illustrated by the insistence by the transition government of Mali on the withdrawal of the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali, or MINUSMA, in June 2023. Following a military coup in May 2021, Mali’s transitional government increasingly viewed MINUSMA with suspicion and hostility. Aligning with Russia and inviting the Russian private military company Wagner for security assistance, the Malian government distanced itself from Western partners, notably France. Criticizing MINUSMA for its perceived failure to protect civilians and ineffectiveness against jihadist threats, the government ultimately ordered the mission’s withdrawal. The Security Council acquiesced, and on December 31, 2023, the last of MINUSMA’s twelve thousand personnel were sent home.
Compromised consent—understood as a situation in which consent for a peacekeeping operation and its mandate is either inadequate from the outset or deteriorates over time—often has significant, and even traumatic, practical effects on protection efforts. As several recent studies show, it frequently results in restricted or reduced freedom of movement; access denials to areas of concern, including “checkpoint delays/obstructions, regulation of aerial movement, and blocking the transport of UN equipment, supplies, and humanitarian containers.”Footnote 23 Such restrictions severely impede the ability of peacekeeping missions to carry out patrols, monitor human rights, and deliver essential supplies, thereby undermining the PoC mandate. In some contexts, UN personnel, facilities, and assets have been attacked by host-state actors.Footnote 24
While scholars have shown recently that some protection of civilians’ activities, such as local peacebuilding efforts, might still be possible in a context of compromised host-state consent,Footnote 25 dependence on such consent at the strategic level creates dilemmas for the mission that are directly related to its PoC mandate. In several contexts, UN officials have at times been hesitant to address government abuses or status-of-forces agreement violations, fearing strained relations and reduced access.Footnote 26 Further, research indicates that the UN is more likely to respond to violence by nonstate armed groups than by government actors, prioritizing the maintenance of government consent over protection from all types of threats.Footnote 27 This means that civilians are protected in some situations and not in others. Finally, some argue that the UN’s uncritical support to the state, particularly under Tier 3, may inadvertently reinforce repressive tendencies within the host state, undercut long-term efforts to build peace, and potentially implicate the UN in the permanency of illiberal regimes.Footnote 28
This crisis of host-state consent should be seen within the context of a broader “crisis of confidence” in peacekeeping.Footnote 29 Acknowledging waning state commitment, the UN secretary-general introduced the Action for Peacekeeping initiative in 2018, with the aim of achieving a “quantum leap in collective engagement” among member states.Footnote 30 However, this initiative has largely fallen short of its goals. Longstanding grievances over power disparities and unequal burden sharing between major financial contributors and troop- and police-contributing countries have escalated recently.Footnote 31 These tensions are accompanied by differing perspectives on the future of peacekeeping. Some member states support more militarized stabilization and protection approaches, while others advocate for a return to the fundamental principles of traditional peacekeeping.Footnote 32 These longstanding tensions have been exacerbated by divisions within the Security Council, making the situation even more pronounced.
This has not always been the case. In the immediate post–Cold War era, peacekeeping operations were generally unaffected by tensions among the permanent five (P5) members of the Security Council. Even the fallout from the Iraq War did not diminish the Council’s commitment to deploying peacekeepers.Footnote 33 However, the deep divisions among the P5 following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, along with the recent conflict in the Middle East, are challenging this stability. Renewals for existing missions increasingly lack unanimity, signaling waning political support. This support is vital, particularly when state consent is compromised, as it helps present a united front and provides “top cover” for UN staff in the field as discussed below. Instead, the lack of unanimity has empowered host authorities to push back against the Council. Experts note that host states have reacted by pushing for particular mandate priorities, lodging complaints about the penholder and certain civil society briefers, and aiming to have more control over the missions’ role.Footnote 34 In some cases, Russia and China have shown solidarity with host governments and promoted their own agenda by abstaining from mandate renewals, arguing that peacekeeping infringes on state sovereignty by seeking unrestricted operations and movement, especially on human rights and protection activities.Footnote 35
Fragmentation of Peace and Security Mechanisms
A related challenge stems from the fragmentation of peace and security responses and the proliferation of “alternative security arrangements.” Diminishing state commitment to UN peacekeeping has been accompanied by “forum shopping,” whereby states choose security mechanisms that best suit their political and strategic needs. While regional responses to conflict are not new—the Charter defines a role for regional organizations—the number of such operations has increased significantly, and the political dynamics have evolved. Furthermore, the recent resurgence of state-affiliated private military and security companies, such as the Wagner Group, complicates this landscape and presents dilemmas for the United Nations in certain contexts.
Nowhere has this trend been more visible than in Africa. Since 2000, thirty-eight African-led peace and security operations (PSOs) have been conducted, with ten active PSOs operating across seventeen countries in 2023. Notably, only three of these are mandated by the African Union (AU), while the rest are led by regional economic communities such as the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the East African Community (EAC), and the Southern African Development Community (SADC), or other subregional configurations or ad hoc initiatives like the G5 Sahel and the Lake Chad Basin Commission.Footnote 36 These responses display “variable geometry” with UN-led forces, including sequential deployment; parallel or co-deployment; hybrid or full integration; and standalone missions or partnerships with the host state.
This shift toward regional operations aligns with the secretary-general’s vision articulated in A New Agenda for Peace, which emphasizes robust regional operations and UN support rather than deployment of traditional UN peacekeeping missions.Footnote 37 It also finds expression in Security Council Resolution 2719, passed in late 2023, which seeks to deepen the UN-AU partnership in peace and security and makes a commitment from the Security Council to support sustainable financing of AU-led PSOs.
The allure of PSOs lies in their perceived ability to provide flexible and rapid military responses to address insecurity and consolidate state control. Operations fielded have primarily focused on peace enforcement and counterterrorism, framing civilian protection more as harm mitigation and human security rather than a core objective. They typically deploy only military personnel and lack the multidimensional approach of UN missions. However, in some instances, regional security forces have been accused of committing grave human rights abuses during operations, including cases of extrajudicial executions or unlawful killings, and enforced disappearances.Footnote 38
The regionalization of stabilization and peacekeeping tasks presents several challenges for the UN. It risks further marginalizing existing UN missions, reducing the UN’s political leverage, and increasing opportunities for institutional exploitation.Footnote 39 Furthermore, collaborating with and supporting regional powers or ad hoc coalitions, especially those established without Security Council involvement, is risky for the UN. This risk includes possible complicity where human rights abuses are committed, compounded sometimes by difficulties in vetting and a lack of transparency. In addition, over the long term, a military approach may be problematic given that most violent conflicts cannot be resolved through military means alone. Thus, there is no guarantee that states will achieve their goals by relying on these mechanisms. In the DRC, the government’s dissatisfaction with the engagement of the United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO) with rebel groups led to calls for ad hoc coalitions, first from the EAC, and then, when that did not achieve the hoped-for aims, from the SADC.
Expectation Management and Local Perceptions
As prescriptions for action that have an element of moral or ethical duty, norms invariably create expectations, and the PoC norm is no exception. Indeed, managing expectations regarding protection has been a perennial challenge in UN peace operations. Several reports, beginning with the landmark 2000 Report of the Panel on United Nations Peace Operations—commonly known as the Brahimi Report—have cautioned that the deployment of a UN mission invariably generates heightened expectations among the population that peacekeepers will protect those at risk.Footnote 40
To manage expectations both locally and globally, peacekeeping resolutions have often stipulated that peacekeepers protect civilians “within the scope of their mandates and areas of operation” and with “respect to the responsibilities” of the host state. However, the effectiveness of these caveats is limited. As Jean-Marie Guéhenno, the former head of peacekeeping operations for the UN, notes, “Civilians don’t read the fine print of Council mandates.”Footnote 41 While missions have also tried to manage expectations through improved strategic communications and honest messaging about mission limitations, these can backfire. If locals feel unprotected, they can quickly move to feeling that the very presence of the mission is not “necessary or desirable.”Footnote 42 This was evident during the August 2022 protests in the DRC, where the mission’s candor about its capabilities played a role in inciting violence and discontent.
Protection is inherently subjective because it is shaped by individual and communal experiences, perceptions, and cultural contexts. What one group perceives as adequate protection may be seen as insufficient or even harmful by another. Fewer fatalities do not necessarily translate to a perception of increased safety or mission success. Two factors have exacerbated the challenge of managing expectations in recent years: deeper engagement with local communities and the spread of mis-, dis-, and malinformation.
Deeper engagement with communities can raise expectations, as locals anticipate more direct benefits and responses to their specific needs and concerns. Critically, it can also expose divergences in understandings of protection—of what being safe means—that are not easily resolved and can provoke a backlash. Indeed, at times there has been a disjunction between how the UN conceives of PoC and how communities or groups do. There can in many cases be competing understandings of what constitutes a threat and what is protection and how it should be pursued within and across communities. The UN’s support for community watch groups (CWGs) in South Sudan’s PoC sites, for example, led to accusations of condoning gender inequalities and neglecting female protection concerns. To ensure that communities retained decision-making power, the UN allowed communities to nominate CWG members, and those nominated were mostly male. While the UN advocated for female participation, in some PoC sites such advocacy did not align with what the community itself called for and was even met with resistance.Footnote 43 Similarly, UN staff in the PoC sites had to deny requests from CWGs for containers in which to detain people, lest the organization become complicit in unlawful detention practices.Footnote 44
The rise of social media has amplified these challenges. Peacekeepers now navigate both physical and digital landscapes, in which disinformation actors exploit genuine grievances or fabricate new ones to undermine and sabotage peacekeeping efforts. In some mission areas, hostility incited by disinformation has led to diminished consent from local communities, manifesting in restrictions on the freedom of movement, targeted demonstrations, and direct attacks. These campaigns have been strategically waged by various actors, including civil society, state and nonstate armed groups, host governments, and foreign entities. In the DRC, during the Ebola epidemic, false claims were spread suggesting that MONUSCO peacekeepers were involved in spreading the virus, which led to increased hostility and attacks on the mission’s personnel.Footnote 45 And in Mali and CAR, the Wagner Group undermined the missions’ credibility by orchestrating sophisticated disinformation campaigns, which included producing falsified public opinion polls purportedly indicating strong support for the mercenaries.Footnote 46
Personnel Disillusionment and Morale Issues
The final peacekeeping challenge, with implications for the future of protection, centers on the well-being and morale of “UN people.” As Eugene Chen and Katharina Coleman recently observed, UN peacekeeping faces more than just a severe “public relations problem” in the sense that outside observers fail to appreciate its full benefits; “many of the people most closely connected with UN peacekeeping—both at HQ and in deployment locations—are disillusioned and disaffected.”Footnote 47
Peacekeeping is hard. Protection is hard. The volatile environments in which most UN staff live and work, and the nature of their roles, can be stressful, emotionally straining, and sometimes traumatic. Civilian and military personnel witness crises and violence and are themselves exposed to risks from unstable political situations, including, in recent years, violent protests against them. Given these hardships and risks, it is not surprising that empirical studies reveal higher rates of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and other mental health issues among UN personnel who have been deployed to UN peace operations compared to the general population.Footnote 48 Despite recent initiatives to bolster mental health support and awareness, experts argue that the system of care remains inadequate.Footnote 49
The situation has arguably worsened in the current era of austerity and downsizing, exacerbating personnel disillusionment and low morale. UN personnel are increasingly asked to do more with less. Downsizing, as Coleman explains, fundamentally undermines the sense of job security for both national and international staff, which “long-lasting missions, routine contract renewals, and years of UN peacekeeping expansion had previously fostered.”Footnote 50 This has made the loss of UN status a more immediate prospect for both groups; however, national staff face unique risks, as the loss of UN protection in hostile environments can expose them to significant personal threats. For locally recruited staff, association with the UN can provoke hostility from local actors, leaving them vulnerable to retaliation.Footnote 51
Disillusionment is further intensified by the aforementioned “crisis of confidence” and a perception that member states do not care, do not care enough, and do not have the backs of those in the field. Such sentiments are further fueled by doubts surrounding the current secretary-general’s commitment to UN peacekeeping. His advocacy for a new generation of peace enforcement and counterterrorism operations, led by regional forces, adds to the uncertainty, and has eroded confidence.Footnote 52
This deep-seated disillusionment and demoralization has significant ramifications for the long-term sustainability and efficacy of peacekeeping operations. While the morale of any workforce is critical, it is particularly crucial in the context of protection, where the risks are significant and “mindset” plays such an important role, and not just for military personnel. PoC requires initiative and a belief for all concerned that their work makes a difference. Personnel will be less willing to take risks, put their necks out, and perform their duties if they do not feel supported. This was a key message of former UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon’s Human Rights Up Front initiative. Further, research has shown that the perception of “top cover” has at various junctures been essential for forces to take robust action.Footnote 53 As a result, personnel may be increasingly hesitant to take decisive action, calculated risks, or demonstrate courage in their duties if they feel undervalued and institutionally unsupported.Footnote 54
Conclusion
Despite the considerable challenges, it is premature and dangerous to dismiss the importance of UN peacekeeping and the crucial role it plays in protection. While there has been significant downsizing, thousands of peacekeepers remain in the field, with their withdrawal contingent on the demonstrated capacity of local security forces and governance institutions. These personnel continue to play a vital role in protecting civilians in some of the world’s most dangerous conflicts. We must not lose sight of the critical importance of their mission and its implications for hundreds of thousands of civilians who every day rely on its presence for their safety. Responsible transitions necessitate attunement to the challenges laid out above, lest they result in greater civilian suffering and damage to the UN’s legitimacy. Expectations must be managed, support to personnel increased, and the complex dynamics of local engagement navigated with care and sensitivity.
These challenges and the recent experiences of peacekeepers should also give pause to the Security Council in its authorization of protection for other types of missions, including, notably, special political missions (SPMs). SPMs, which are less expensive, more flexible, and politically palatable, have increasingly been deployed in contexts where host states are resistant to the presence of traditional peacekeeping forces, but where the violence is no less extreme. Whether SPMs play or should play a protection role is subject to internal debate within the Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs, the department that oversees them. And yet, experts argue they already do serve a protection role, not least given the secretary-general’s 2024 “Protection Pledge.” But they often fall short of being a complete solution. Such missions often face significant limitations, as they lack the robust mandates and operational capacities necessary for force protection. Furthermore, they are afflicted by many of the same political tensions that undercut peacekeeping operations. Therefore, while SPMs may represent a strategic adaptation, they are not a panacea.
Fundamentally, these challenges underscore that protecting civilians cannot substitute for addressing political tensions—the root cause of protection threats. Resolving these tensions remains crucial. The success of protection efforts is inherently tied to the broader political context, necessitating commitment and collaboration from member states and host governments. Protection and human rights cannot be divorced from power dynamics, partisan interests, historical injustices, and current inequalities. Protection, it must be said, is invariably political. The privileges accorded to states in international relations continue to play a significant role in the shaping of PoC initiatives. Thus, the political nature of protection poses inherent obstacles and opportunities that must be navigated with sensitivity and strategic acumen. The countless civilians worldwide seeking safety and security deserve nothing less.
Open access
