“Their Priority Is Not the People”: Civilian Views on Peace Operations in Africa

“Their priority is not the people of Somalia,” a Somali woman who had recently fled to the Dadaab refugee camp in Kenya said about peacekeepers in her home country. “It is the government and themselves.” Unfortunately, this view is not uniqu Read More...

A Background to the Report of the High-Level Panel on Peace Operations

A year ago, when the Secretary-General put forward the idea of a new review of peacekeeping operations, he naturally referred to the Brahimi report. He argued that as the 15-year anniversary of that report approached, it was necessary “to take stoc Read More...

Between Bureaucracy and Adhocracy: Crafting a Spectrum of UN Peace Operations

The array of tools the UN has developed to prevent, manage and resolve conflict has expanded in recent years. They are being deployed in new formats, from political missions and small peacebuilding teams, to large observer missions and multidimension Read More...

Can we make UN peacekeeping great again?

If UN peacekeeping operations are “at a crossroads” as the Secretary-General told the Security Council on 6 April, then it is a policy and linguistic roundabout. This is the same phrase that a senior official used to describe the Brahimi report i Read More...

Challenges for Human Rights Sections of UN Peace Operations

Recent adaptations of peacekeeping practice are bringing into question the role of civilian components in UN peace operations, notably the human rights sections. When António Guterres succeeds Ban Ki-moon as UN Secretary-General, many problems will Read More...

GPOR Annual Compilation

This is the second edition of the Global Peace Operations Review (GPOR) annual compilation. It is the first to collect a full year’s worth of content from the website in a single publication. Using an online platform allows us to constantly innovat Read More...

GPOR Annual Compilation now available via print-on-demand

For almost a decade, the Annual Review of Global Peace Operations (ARGPO) was the flagship publication of the Center on International Cooperation (CIC). During that time, CIC also released three editions of the Review of Political Missions. Together, Read More...

Has UN Peacekeeping Become More Deadly?

Many practitioners believe that peacekeeping has become an increasingly dangerous undertaking in recent years. My research paper “Has UN Peacekeeping Become More Deadly? Analyzing Trends in UN Fatalities”, tries to get at the heart of this questi Read More...

How can the UN move towards more people-centered peace operations?

A slew of recent reviews, such as the high level panel on UN peace operations report (HIPPO report), the 2015 review of the UN peacebuilding architecture and the 2030 agenda for sustainable development, have all put people at the front and center of Read More...

Hurry Up and Wait: EU Battlegroups and a UN Rapid Reaction Force

Throughout its public discourse, the EU keeps expressing a strong commitment toward supporting the UN in maintaining international peace and security. This includes habitually recommitting to deploying the EU Battlegroups. There have been many calls Read More...

Key Messages from Civil Society on the UN’s role in Peace and Security

On its 70th anniversary, the United Nations finds itself at a crossroads. Old and new threats, challenges and risks to international peace and security are increasingly testing the ability of the organization and the efficacy of the instruments avail Read More...

La Professionnalisation du Maintien de la Paix des Nations Unies ou le travail de Sisyphe

Les critiques à l’égard du maintien de la paix des Nations Unies, de ses Casques bleus, sont nombreuses et font souvent, plus que ses succès, les gros titres de la presse nationale ou internationale ; le maintien de la paix subit les railleries Read More...

Protection of Civilians (

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Protection of Civilians Strategy: A Greater Role for the Council

The protection of civilians mandate in peacekeeping was a reaction to the challenges peacekeepers directly faced in Rwanda and the Balkans and more generally a reaction to the ‘new wars’ of the post-Cold War world. Fifteen years ago, the Brahimi Read More...