International Responsibility for Ensuring the Protection of Civilians

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.