Peacekeeping and the Responsibility to Protect 

Peacekeeping is only one of many protection activities that must operate within an R2P framework for the doctrine to be effectively implemented. However, as peacekeeping can be critical to all stages of R2P - prevention, reaction and rebuilding, creating an R2P framework specifically for peacekeeping is an important first step in this process.

CWS proposed such a framework to the Australian Senate Inquiry on Peacekeeping, held earlier this year.  Our submission applies the peacekeeping framework set out in the original R2P Report to Australia’s unique peacekeeping capacity.

The submission also recommends changing the name of Australia’s operations from “peacekeeping”, which implies a monitoring presence, to “Human Protection Operations”, which covers the full spectrum of protection activities carried out by Australian military, police and civilian personnel: peacekeeping, peacebuilding, peacemaking, and peace enforcement. This framework ensures that legitimate operations can provide effective protection, but also that illegitimate operations, like the war in Iraq, are not conducted, as they do not meet the threshold criteria required for an operation deployment.  

Click here to read the full report.

The Senate Committee is expected to release their recommendations to the Australian Government in early 2008.