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Protection of civilians is central to most contemporary peacekeeping mandates, but the first line of defence for most civilians is their own activity, or that of other formal or informal civilian groups. When peacekeepers enter a conflict area, they will not find civilians waiting passively for rescue, but engaged in their own self-protection activities. With special reference to the women's peace movement in Liberia, this chapter examines the moral implications for peacekeepers of working with civilians. Engaging with civilian self-protection activities and groups can provide critical information and prevent peacekeepers from inadvertently disrupting civilians’ own strategies; but it also risks drawing peacekeepers into the conflict in a non-impartial way, as civilian self-protection is almost inevitably tied up in the political issues at stake. The chapter argues that peacekeepers should see their role as one of “protection-with,” and try to extend civilian strategies by providing safety for peace builders who are trying to engaged across the fault lines of the conflict.

This chapter gives an overview of the 1949 IV Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, which reflected the treatment of civilians during the Spanish Civil War, World War I, and World War II. In particular, after the express horrors of World War II, the international community finally considered creating definite provisions for the protection of civilians. Until this juncture the formal laws of war said very little about the definition, much less protection, of the civilian because the protections and standards of civilization were said to be sufficient. The closest to codification these particular protections of civilization ever came was in the Martens clause. Written by Frederic de Martens, an influential Russian lawyer and diplomat and a delegate to The Hague, the Martens clause conjures its “ancient antecedents in natural law and chivalry.”

This chapter analyses how the role of the UN Security Council in the promotion and protection of human rights developed since 1945: an organ not endowed with any specific powers in the field of human rights became the ‘centre-piece of the human rights protection system’ of the international community. It describes the place of the Security Council in the framework of the UN human rights institutions, and how the Council came to regard human rights violations as a threat to international peace, making it possible for the Council to take action against such violations with measures provided for in Chapter VII of the UN Charter. It identifies three human rights which have attracted most of the Council's attention: the right of peoples to self-determination, the right to democratic governance, and the fundamental rights (arising under international human rights law and international humanitarian law) of civilian populations and minorities during war and internal conflict.

Focusing on military activities to protect civilians, the chapter analyses the approaches taken by the UN, the EU, NATO, and the AU and finds that despite the unprecedented concern with improving the physical security of civilians under threat, none of the four organizations does so effectively. The UN knows what it takes to protect, but seldom displays the will to apply military force for this purpose. NATO is willing to use force to protect, but is less aware of how it should be done when civilians are directly targeted. The AU has the knowledge, experience, and willingness to apply force to protect, but remains highly dependent on external resources to do so consistently. The EU has both concepts and capabilities, but struggles to generate troops in time when needed. The authors posit that understanding the limitations and comparative advantages of each organization is an important step towards more effective protection.

This chapter outlines the historical evolution of civilian protection concepts. It considers key developmental drivers and explores the various modern conceptions of civilian protection, comparing and contrasting how it is understood and applied in humanitarian, human rights, and military contexts. The chapter contrasts the conception and practice of the protection of civilians during the inter-war period, which focused heavily on neutral and impartial action, with the concept and practice latterly developed by the Security Council, incorporating greater focus on international human rights law and the use of force. It concludes by examining the responsibility to protect and the use of protection-of-civilians language in the Security Council resolution authorising the 2011 intervention in Libya.

This chapter argues that the widely held view that civilians are worse off in today’s wars is flawed. It explores changes in the past two centuries in the roles and perceptions of the civilian. It questions the oft-repeated statistics showing an increase in the ratio of civilian to military casualties. It suggests that in the laws of war (also called international humanitarian law), there have been advances in internationally agreed standards of protection of civilians from the effects of war, and that in practice something has been achieved under the auspices of the United Nations and humanitarian relief bodies. Despite the problems encountered in the protection of civilians, such protection will remain an important aspect of international attempts to limit the effects of war.

The protection of civilians in armed conflict (POC) since 1999 has been recognized as a core obligation of the United Nations, and as vital to the legitimation of the Security Council’s role and status in its efforts to control and confront large-scale violence. Over the course of this same period, and with the passage in 2000 of Security Council Resolution 1325, the women, peace and security (WPS) agenda has also become a prominent part of action associated with the protection of civilians. This chapter first discusses some of the steps that have been taken to put POC and WPS on the UN’s agenda, before turning to the official Chinese response to these two core areas of the UN’s activities. That response illustrates once again a complex interplay between Beijing’s understanding that it must be responsive in this area of action, while remaining attentive to its belief in the need to ensure the preservation of a state-based international order that includes a restrained UN Security Council interpretation of the types of conflict that represent threats to international peace and security. In both the POC and WPS policy areas, China accords a primary role to economic development as the most effective means of preventing the conflicts that are the source of civilian harm and for improving women’s rights and representation.

Peacekeepers now consider “protection of civilians” to be central to their obligations – both morally and, at least since 1999, usually as a matter of their mandate. The concept of “protection” is not as clear as it may seem; some kinds of protection may preserve physical life at the cost of impeding civilians’ abilities to live meaningful lives, or provide short-term safety while interfering with the goal of creating a more secure environment long-term. This is especially so because peace building often requires contact between groups and individuals in conflict, rather than keeping safe distance. Peacekeepers also need to be aware of the ways in which their own actions can make people unsafe, rather than seeing themselves as simply providers of protection from other dangers – particular attention is paid, in this regard, to the problem of sexual abuse and exploitation. This chapter seeks to provide a more sophisticated analysis of protection in terms of vulnerability, the ways in which our abilities to pursue our own lives are both enhanced by, and dependent on, the actions of others.

This chapter situates the protection of displaced persons in the broader challenge of protection of civilians, considering the place that displacement occupies in the protection agenda of the Security Council. It examines the protection that international law affords civilians who are at risk of, or experiencing, displacement in situations of armed conflict. The analysis presented focuses on three elements: (a) protection against the act of forced displacement; (b) protection when displaced, both cross-border and through internal displacement; and (c) safe and sustainable solutions to displacement. The legal analysis is illustrated by reference to actual situations of displacement in contemporary conflicts.

This chapter examines the contribution of human rights to protecting people in conflict. The authors consider the link between human rights and the protection of civilians and describe human rights protection practice using examples from Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, and South Sudan. Drawing on the three case studies, the authors conclude that UN human rights protection practice can significantly contribute to overarching civilian protection objectives before, during, and after conflicts. However, they find that despite a strong normative basis and renewed determination by the UN, serious challenges persist with regard to operationalizing human rights standards and ensuring that human rights work plays a full part in protection strategies on the ground.

The chapter examines changes in three key aspects of the collective security system: (a) the mechanism for determining aggression and deciding response measures; (b) the determination of threats to the peace; and (c) the measures used to address such threats. It finds that the system recognizes the legitimacy of civilians as a group to be protected irrespective of their polity, but at the same time remains committed to States as the primary security actors, and therefore seeks to execute protection within that paradigm. In doing so, the system creates two distinct but closely linked communities—a society of individuals and a society of States—both of which civilians are simultaneously members, and that, it is argued, represents a trajectory toward a cosmopolitan idea of the ordering of global society.

This chapter focuses specifically on protection obligations of UN Security Council-mandated missions, noting that civilian protection norms have developed in an ad hoc manner through a combination of legal and political enterprises. Consequently, although peacekeeping mandates authorize protection activities, there is little established guidance as to what a force is expected to do, and even less as to what it is obliged to do, to carry out its mandate. The chapter argues there are legal obligations to protect that are derived largely from international human rights law, international humanitarian law, and the International Law Commission’s Draft Articles on the Responsibilities of International Organizations. These obligations are comparatively weak because they depend on a narrow intersection of developing (or debatable) law, practice, and circumstance, but nevertheless, they have important operational implications for UN missions.

This chapter questions whether the UN has effectively used the range of tools at its disposal to protect civilians in conflict and considers the role that the UN, the international community, individual States, and civilian populations can and should play to protect civilians. It finds that the UN’s efforts both to provide physical protection and to build State capacity have revealed the Organization’s limitations. Noting the shallow political consensus for dealing with protection issues, it suggests that protection–of-civilians peacekeeping mandates may simply reflect Security Council recourse to a concept adopted from international humanitarian law, used to mask continuing political divisions. For the protection of civilians to truly serve people on the ground, and be more than a temporary response to an emergency, it argues that UN efforts need to go beyond the superficial and address the creation of a lasting protective environment, which ultimately empowers communities.

This chapter considers the ways in which the application of military force in atrocity situations differs from conventional military interventions. The distinctions between applying force in atrocity settings versus conventional combat operations poses a number of significant challenges. First, how should ‘protection’ relate to other military concepts and goals and the unique features and considerations that apply to a protection mission? A secondary challenge that logically flows from the first is practical implementation. As NATO’s 2011 intervention in Libya underscores, how should states and regional and international organizations prepare military forces to carry out such operations at the tactical level? The chapter concludes by urging R2P advocates towards developing common doctrine and enhancing military capabilities so that atrocity prevention can succeed in practice.

The chapter examines the evolution and raison d’être of the protection-of-civilians mandate and elaborates the legal framework governing the use of force by UN peacekeepers to protect civilians from the imminent threat of physical violence. It finds that the legal framework for the protection-of-civilians mandate and the authority to use all necessary means, up to and including deadly force, is both broad and deeply founded. However, a number of factors may have an inhibiting effect on the use of force by UN peacekeepers beyond self-defence and for the protection of civilians. These include: confusion regarding the meaning and scope of the legal terminology; concerns regarding the host State’s consent; lack of clarity around the mission leadership’s roles and responsibilities; the potential for criminal accountability and/or becoming a party to the conflict; the duality of contingent and mission command structures; and the ‘basic principles’ of peacekeeping.

This chapter studies the effect of UN peacekeeping on violence against civilians in civil wars, proposing that peacekeepers reduce civilian targeting by making violence more costly and helping belligerents commit to giving up the use of violence. Peacekeeping missions with greater capacity are better able to stop violence against civilians. Among types of UN peacekeeping personnel, armed troops and police are best positioned and able to mitigate violence against civilians. Thus, missions constituted of greater amounts of armed troops and police should be more likely to reduce civilian targeting by combatants. The chapter presents a global quantitative analysis of peacekeeping deployments on deaths resulting from anti-civilian violence in all civil wars from 1992 to 2014. The analyses reveal that as the number of armed peacekeeping troops and police deployed to a civil war increases, fewer deaths occur from civilian targeting. The chapter concludes that UN peacekeeping missions with greater capacity and constituted of armed troops and police are effective in reducing violence against civilians.

Drawing on the foregoing chapters, the conclusion offers a holistic vision of the protection of civilians, attempting to reconcile definitions, identify a cohesive legal framework, and find complementarities in protection activities. The chapter argues that a shared understanding of protection terminology would facilitate the spectrum of protection actors working together to achieve complementary objectives, and offers a common definition. It provides an analysis of both positive and negative protection obligations drawn from the UN Charter, international humanitarian law, international human rights law, and international refugee law. It advocates for the development and conclusion of a clear unified statement of the normative framework governing protection. Finally, the chapter promotes the development of general principles for protection practice, drawing upon the challenges and solutions that various authors identify throughout the volume.

This chapter tracks the practice of the Security Council in addressing the protection of civilians, presenting an ‘inside story’ of protection-of-civilians diplomacy within the Council. The chapter also considers Council interaction with a number of other stakeholders, including host States and troop-contributing countries, the UN Secretariat, and regional and sub-regional organizations. It draws conclusions about the benefits and limitations of Security Council engagement on protection issues given its composition and function as prescribed by the UN Charter as well as its working methods, highlighting the fundamental importance of political will as well as the role of non-permanent Security Council members.