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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
For more than twenty-five years, human rights components have been core elements of United Nations (UN) peacekeeping operations and special political missions (collectively, “field missions”). Field missions are among the most visible, effective tools of the UN to prevent and manage conflict and to advance peace and security. The UN increasingly focuses on preventing conflict, sustaining peace and becoming more cost-effective—making human rights-based approaches in these missions more important than ever.
Human rights have been a pillar of the UN since its founding and a concept that has influenced the work of all of its Member States, its principal organs, its Secretariat, and its agencies, funds and programmes. In February 2020, UN Secretary-General António Guterres launched his Call to Action for Human Rights, detailing a seven-point blueprint aimed at promoting positive change.
Most often, concern for human rights creates the political momentum for a field mission to be mandated by the Security Council; similarly, the improvement in the human rights situation is the single biggest measure for of when a mission can be drawn down. This report demonstrates that human rights components contribute not only to addressing the human rights that are central concerns of field missions, but also play fundamental roles in creating the political conditions essential for such missions to build sustainable peace and relaunch development progress when conflict recedes.
The report presents cases that demonstrate how human rights components in field missions strengthen UN efforts across a broader agenda that includes preventing human rights abuses in times of crises, promoting international peace and security and public participation and civic space, and addressing frontier human rights issues; all while helping to prevent and resolve violent conflict.
Human rights and UN field missions share a common history, principles and objectives. The Security Council referenced human rights in mandating the earliest peacekeeping operations and a dozen UN field missions include integrated human rights components today. Human rights violations are recognized as a root cause of numerous conflicts and are a central part of the General Assembly’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. At every step along the road from conflict prevention and conflict management, to peacemaking, peacekeeping, stabilization, peacebuilding and development, human rights issues play an important role.
This report complements previous studies on human rights components and the closely related task of the protection of civilians (POC), examining the ways in which human rights components contribute to the implementation of broad strategic goals of UN field missions; this includes objectives that are not always associated with a narrow interpretation of human rights work or with human rights components. It finds that human rights components are important enablers across a wide swath of mission actions.
The study finds that, when properly leveraged, human rights components become significant enablers for these mandates by creating opportunities for mission initiatives, managing risk and offering leverage with key actors. These contributions strengthen the mission’s pursuit of political solutions, its ability to build a sustainable peace, and its prevention of violent conflict. The study also finds strong support for the importance of human rights principles in mission mandates and the role of human rights components integrated into field missions amongst mission leadership and mission personnel. Staff from UN field missions felt that their work would be detrimentally affected if the human rights component were a stand-alone office rather than a part of the mission. Interviewees felt that including the human rights component within the mission facilitated information sharing, led to more effective political engagement, strengthened the mission’s ability to support the government institutions as part of peacebuilding programmes, and created greater opportunities for collaboration with joined-up chains of command. While this study is not sufficiently broad to argue that all UN field missions should include an integrated human rights component, this was the clear consensus that emerged amongst the staff from missions where such components are integrated. There was a clear consensus that it has added value to the mission as a whole.
This study uses illustrative case studies that elaborate in concrete terms the link between human rights work and the peace, security and peacebuilding goals of the United Nations. The case studies highlight the many ways in which human rights components contribute across a range of missions operating in different contexts. The report focuses on three baskets of mandated tasks, drawn from a list of 21 mandate areas, including (1) supporting political objectives; (2) building sustainable peace; and (3) support to preventing, deterring and mitigating conflict.