The Hybridization of Peace Operations in Africa and the Protection of Civilians: Towards Coherent Doctrines?
This project will investigate how the ongoing UN/AU hybrid mission in Darfur (UNAMID) and the current operational restraints of African forces pose challenges to the emerging doctrine of integrated UN missions, as well as the practical challenges encountered at the doctrinal level in terms of standardizing two different rationales (AU and UN) into a common doctrine.Deltakere
At a time when the international community tries to enhance the consistency of peace operations by harmonising humanitarian, developmental, and security policies (and training activities) into “integrated missions”, the lack of effective tools to protect civilians is worrisome. Indeed, protection of civilians is a crucial component of any peacekeeping operation, and provides the underpinning rationale behind humanitarian interventions. While the protection of civilians obviously involves pressing short-term measures, the concept of integrated missions also stresses the need for these measures to derive from long-term comprehensive reconstruction efforts. This means seeing the Protection of Civilians not only as physical protection from acts of violence and abuse through war, but also as protection through indirect measures, not necessarily directly related to warfare, such as securing the working environment of health personnel who, for instance, can prevent the outbreak of epidemics.
The preamble to the ongoing UN/AU hybrid mission in Darfur (UNAMID) has already posed several challenges to the parties involved, both in the planning of the operation, as well as in the field of providing more practical training. Examples of such challenges are for instance the fact that both the UN and the AU operate with sometimes different standards and doctrines, and that in streamlining these standards for the first hybrid UN/AU mission, problems can be exacerbated once the mission is in place, especially in terms of how to respond to different situations in the field. Furthermore, new challenges can be expected to arise due to the regional context of the Darfur operation, with the planned joint EU and UN operation in the Chad. Also of relevance is how the AU relates to the IM and R2P concepts, being concepts originally those of the UN.
Taken the special context and composition of UNAMID, the present project will investigate how the hybrid composition of the operation and the current operational restraints of African forces pose challenges to the emerging doctrine of integrated UN missions, as well as the practical challenges encountered at the doctrinal level in terms of standardizing two different rationales (AU and UN) into a common doctrine. Furthermore, it will engage with questions related to the perceived legitimacy of the peacekeepers from different origins.
Finansiering
Ministry of Foreign Affairs