Encyclopedia of Violence, Peace, & Conflict (Third Edition): Peacekeeping

UN peacekeeping is an international activity by some Member States of the United Nations to help other member's states in conflict to navigate the path from conflict to peace. It is one of the unique activities to support the UN Charter drafted in 1945, “to save a succeeding generation from the scourge of war.” UN peacekeeping is not part of the UN Charter but plays a significant role in supporting the provision for the peaceful resolution of disputes (Chapter VI), the use of force to end the conflict (Chapter VII), and the role of regional organizations in maintaining international peace and security (Chapter VIII). This chapter explains the history of UN peacekeeping and modern UN peacekeeping, particularly recent developments such as Action for Peacekeeping (A4P). Indeed, the growth in numbers and scope of recent demands for UN peacekeeping operations have strained the UN's ability to respond, and it has become impossible for the UN alone to deal with this enormous range of security problems. Regional peacekeeping is therefore emerging as an important addition to UN operations. We examined the success and failures of UN peacekeeping with different case studies in this research work.