Protection of Civilians in UN Peace Operations
The Institute of Security and Global Affairs (ISGA) recently received a grant from the German Ministry of Defence to advice on how to strengthen Germany’s approaches to the protection of civilians in UN peace operations.
Led by Professor Joachim Koops, the research team of researchers from ISGA, the Institute of Security Policy of the University of Kiel (Germany), the Global Governance Institute (GGI) and an international advisory board of former force commanders and senior peacekeeping leaders will analyse during the next 10 months existing capacities across the German military, police and civilian forces and will advise on future potentials and international training and capacity-building partnerships at the national, regional (EU/NATO) and global (UN) levels.
The project kicked off with two stakeholder workshops during the first half of November: on 9 November, ISGA and its partners co-organized with Georgetown University an expert workshop on “Twenty Years of Protection of Civilians in UN Peacekeeping: Challenges, Best Practices and Ways Ahead”. On 12 November, a second stakeholder workshop was organised at the International Peace Institute in New York with more than 20 UN member states representatives, focusing on the “Protection of civilians in the context of Peace Operations: Translating UN policies into national frameworks.
The next phase of the project includes a two-day expert conference at the Ministry of Defence in Berlin from 12-13 December with the final advice report due in June 2020. The project also benefits from the expertise and networks of ISGA’s new Kooijmans Professor – the former Dutch Foreign Minister and former Special Representative for the UN Operation in Mali, Bert Koenders.