Peacekeeping comprises activities intended to create conditions that favor lasting peace. Research generally finds that peacekeeping reduces civilian and battlefield deaths, as well as reduces the risk of renewed warfare.
Within the United Nations (UN) group of nation-state governments and organizations, there is a general understanding that at the international level, peacekeepers monitor and observe peace processes in post-conflict areas, and may assist ex-combatants in implementing peace agreement commitments that they have undertaken. Such assistance may come in many forms, including confidence-building measures, power-sharing arrangements, electoral support, strengthening the rule of law, and economic and social development. Accordingly, the UN peacekeepers (often referred to as Blue Berets or Blue Helmets because of their light blue berets or helmets) can include soldiers, police officers, and civilian personnel.
The United Nations is not the only organisation to implement peacekeeping missions. Non-UN peacekeeping forces include the NATO mission in Kosovo (with United Nations authorisation) and the Multinational Force and Observers on the Sinai Peninsula or the ones organised by the European Union (like EUFOR RCA, with UN authorisation) and the African Union (like the African Union Mission in Sudan).
Under international law, peacekeepers are non-combatants due to their neutral stance in the conflict between two or more belligerent parties (to the same extent as neutral personnel and properties outside of peacekeeping duties) and are to be protected from attacks at all times.
United Nations peacekeeping
There is a range of various types of operations encompassed in peacekeeping. In Page Fortna's book Does Peacekeeping Work?, for instance, she distinguishes four different types of peacekeeping operations. Importantly, these types of missions and how they are conducted are heavily influenced by the mandate in which they are authorized. Three of Fortna's four types are consent-based missions, i.e.
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Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's second-largest country by total area, with the world's longest coastline. Its border with the United States is the world's longest international land border. The country is characterized by a wide range of both meteorologic and geological regions. It is sparsely inhabited, with the vast majority residing south of the 55th parallel in urban areas.
A neutral country is a state that is neutral towards belligerents in a specific war or holds itself as permanently neutral in all future conflicts (including avoiding entering into military alliances such as NATO, CSTO or the SCO). As a type of non-combatant status, nationals of neutral countries enjoy protection under the law of war from belligerent actions to a greater extent than other non-combatants such as enemy civilians and prisoners of war.
A gendarmerie (ʒɒnˈdɑːrməri,_ʒɒ̃-) is a military force with law enforcement duties among the civilian population. The term gendarme (ˈʒɒndɑːrm) is derived from the medieval French expression gens d'armes, which translates to "men-at-arms" (armed people), or "rural police". In France and some Francophone nations, the gendarmerie is a branch of the armed forces that is responsible for internal security in parts of the territory (primarily in rural areas and small towns in the case of France), with additional duties as military police for the armed forces.
Under the title "State Fiction" (2014–2021) the artist's long-term research focusses on the zone that divides the two Koreas, a locus of congealed international Cold War interests and a source of improbable images. After an internationally brokered armisti ...
As part of her exhibition Oasis of Peace. Neutral Only On The Outside at Centre culturel suisse, the artist Denise Bertschi talks with Heonik Kwon (Senior Research Fellow in Social Anthropology at Trinity College, University of Cambridge). For her exhibiti ...
Tsunamis, Impulse waves and the sudden collapse of dams are rare phenomena, but highly destructive. Nevertheless recent events showed that structures with openings can effectively reduce impact forces, ensuring people’s safety and limiting reconstruction c ...