Search

Begin New Search Topic United Nations Author Charles T. Hunt

1. Specialized Police Teams in UN Peace Operations: A Survey of Progress and Challenges

Author:
Charles T. Hunt
Publication Date:
03-2024
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
International Peace Institute (IPI)
Abstract:
Over the past decade and a half, specialized police teams (SPTs) have emerged as an innovative complement to individual police officers (IPOs) and formed police units (FPUs) in UN police peacekeeping. In general, SPTs are comprised of police officers and civilian policing experts focused on “skills transfer” and capacity building through technical assistance and advice, training, and mentoring to host-state police in a specific area of police operations or administration. This paper provides an overview of the benefits and challenges of SPTs as compared to IPOs. Some of the benefits include that SPTs are generally highly capable and meet high standards in specialized areas of policing, provide a more coherent and cohesive approach, and focus on objectives within a specific area. They also maximize capabilities by matching the work of officers to their skill sets, can be quick to deploy and adaptable, and maintain continuity by implementing longer projects. Moreover, SPTs facilitate relationship building with host-state police, use sustainable capacity-building approaches such as training of trainers, provide broader benefits to missions, and are more attractive to some police-contributing countries. At the same time, several obstacles to greater effectiveness have emerged, including that SPTs confront high-level tensions over their development and administration, experience supply-side issues due to their reliance on voluntary contributions and shortages of specially trained officers and civilian experts, and are dominated by countries in the Global North. They also have inconsistent composition, plans, and modalities across and even within missions and phases; lack sufficient guidance on key operational aspects; and lack consistent and sufficient funding. Moreover, SPTs are disconnected from broader efforts, sometimes implement unsustainable programming that focuses on “quick wins,” and often lack adequate frameworks for monitoring and evaluation. The lessons emerging from the experience of SPTs to date emphasize the need for innovation around deployment and implementation modalities for this specialized approach to capacity building. At the same time, they highlight the need for greater organizational flexibility and adaptability to empower and maximize the potential of SPTs.
Topic:
United Nations, Peacekeeping, Police, Skills, and Capacity Building
Political Geography:
Global Focus

2. Strengthening a Rights-Based Approach to United Nations Peace Operations

Author:
Charles T. Hunt and Adam Day
Publication Date:
02-2024
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Geneva Centre for Security Policy
Abstract:
During a July 2020 open debate the United Nations (UN) Security Council highlighted the crucial roles human rights play in peace operations, including by providing early warning of issues or problems, supporting good offices, improving the protection of civilians, strengthening national rule-of-law capacities, ensuring due diligence/compliance for military operations, leading a range of protection-related activities and supporting efforts to protect political space in fragile settings. Despite this recognition of the important role of human rights, there has been relatively little research into how human rights support the implementation of the mandates of a range of peace operations, leaving the evidence base for understanding the contribution of human rights to peace operations very thin. The purpose of this policy brief is to chart out key complexities linked to operationalising a rights-based approach to peace operations. It identifies and introduces critical challenges to mandate implementation through specific themes, including the contribution of human rights to the protection of civilians, stabilisation mandates, smaller-footprint field offices, the political work of special envoys and mission transitions. The paper examines both theoretical and operational aspects of human rights in peace operations. In line with the High-Level Independent Panel on Peace Operations report (2015), it discusses human rights considerations in relation to a range of UN peace operations, including peacekeeping and special political missions, regional prevention offices, and special envoys. The first section locates human rights components and concerns across a spectrum of UN peace operations, comparing how human rights contribute to a wide range of peace and security engagements. The second section highlights several challenges to realising human rights aims and objectives in field missions. The final section proposes a series of questions that warrant further discussion to elucidate and support a rights-based approach to peace operations that could help to respond to the call in the New Agenda for Peace for a reflection on the limits and future of UN peacekeeping and other ongoing policymaking within the UN system. The paper illustrates that in order to support the UN’s recommitment to its core principles and human rights pillar, there is a need for greater attention to the ways that human rights can support the analysis and strategic positioning of UN peace operations.
Topic:
United Nations, Peacekeeping, and UN Security Council
Political Geography:
Global Focus

3. Protection through Policing: The Protective Role of UN Police in Peace Operations

Author:
Charles T. Hunt
Publication Date:
02-2020
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
International Peace Institute (IPI)
Abstract:
Since first deployed in 1960, United Nations police (UNPOL) have consistently been present in UN missions and have become increasingly important to achieving mission objectives. Since 1999, these objectives have often included the protection of civilians (POC), especially in places like the Central African Republic, Darfur, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Mali, and South Sudan. But despite its rise in prominence, the protective role of UNPOL is generally undervalued and regularly overlooked, and missions have tended to overly rely on militarized approaches to POC. This report examines the roles and responsibilities of UNPOL regarding POC. It outlines UNPOL’s contributions to POC and perceived comparative advantages, using examples of their role as compeller, deterrent, partner, and enabler. It also identifies and draws lessons from challenges to police protection efforts, including ambiguous mandates, policies, and guidance; poor coordination; problematic partnerships; and deficits in capabilities, capacities, and tools. Drawing on these lessons from past and current deployments, the report proposes recommendations for how member states, the Security Council, the UN Secretariat, and field missions can improve UNPOL’s efforts to protect civilians going forward. These recommendations include: Clarifying the role of UN police in POC through mandates, policies, guidance, and training to align the expectations of UN peace operations, the Secretariat, and member states for what UNPOL are expected to do; Involving all UN police in POC and giving them a voice in decision making and planning to infuse whole-of-mission POC efforts with policing perspectives and empower UNPOL to act more readily; Enhancing partnerships between UN police, host states, and other mission components to enable more responsive, better coordinated, and more comprehensive approaches to POC; and Providing more appropriate and more flexible capabilities, capacities, and tools to address critical capabilities gaps and adapt existing resources to better meet UNPOL’s latent potential for POC.
Topic:
Security, United Nations, Peacekeeping, Reform, Rule of Law, Civilians, and Police
Political Geography:
Africa, Darfur, Mali, South Sudan, Central African Republic, and Congo