Peacekeeping Resources

Since the topic of an international peacekeeping mission to Southern Lebanon is on the table, it may be useful to look at some of the major peacekeeping resources out there, especially those that include a legal dimension.

I have not included government resources from Canada (there are numerous National Defence handbooks, peacekeeping training materials, and military and international humanitarian law guides developed for Canadian Forces personnel) because Canada has announced it will not provide any troops for any eventual Lebanon intervention force.

• Legal periodical databases: in LegalTrac, use the subject heading "peacekeeping forces"; in Index to Legal Periodicals and Books, use the subject "United Nations peacekeeping forces"; in Index to Legal Periodicals (Wilson) use the descriptor "United Nations peacekeeping forces"
• United Nations Department of Peacekeeping Operations: provides an overview of past and current UN peacekeeping missions, as well as information on how UN missions are set up under international law and how they are managed (financing, reporting mechanisms etc.)
• Handbook on United Nations Multidimensional Peacekeeping Operations: "As peacekeeping has evolved, particularly since the late 1980s, a growing number of United Nations peacekeeping operations have become multidimensional in nature, composed of a range of components, including military, civilian police, political affairs, rule of law, human rights, humanitarian, reconstruction, public information and gender. There are also a number of areas, such as mission support and security and safety of personnel, that remain essential to peacekeeping regardless of a particular mission’s mandate. This Handbook (...) is intended to serve as an introduction to the different components of multidimensional peacekeeping operations (...) it is intended to provide field personnel who are new to the United Nations, or who are being deployed to one of our multidimensional peacekeeping operations for the first time, with general background on the responsibilities of each component of our operations and how these fit together to form the whole"
• United Nations Peacekeeping Best Practices Section: the Section assists in the planning, conduct, management and support of peacekeeping operations by learning from experience through a range of activities such as knowledge management and the development of best practices. The Library is a collection of documents published by the Section, other UN bodies and external organizations relating to peacekeeping operations. The Library serves as a centralized repository for literature relating to all aspects of peacekeeping operations
• Peace-keeping Operations : a bibliography: This bibliography, prepared by the United Nations Dag Hammarskjöld Library, contains only English-language monographs published between 1945 and 2002. French language resources on this topic may be found in the section "Maintien de la paix", Les Nations Unies : une bibliographie des ressources en français
• United Nations Documentation: Research Guide - Peacekeeping: UN Research Guide prepared by the United Nations Dag Hammarskjöld Library to help track down Security Council and UN General Assembly documents setting up peacekeeping operations
• Responsibility to Protect Bibliography: United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan, in his report to the 2000 General Assembly, challenged the international community to try to forge consensus, once and for all around the questions of when armed intervention is justified to protect civilians, under whose authority, and how. The independent International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty was established by the Government of Canada in September 2000 to respond to that challenge. The Commission's report, The Responsibility to Protect, was formally presented to Secretary-General and the United Nations community in 2001. The report contains an extensive bibliography on issues such as humanitarian intervention, conflict prevention, the legal aspects of the use of force, the operational aspects of peace-keeping, peace support and peace enforcement actions, as well as country cases
• Peacekeeping and Related Operations - University of New Brunswick: this is an extensive resource guide that points to bibliographies, reference sources, organizations and government documents from many different countries
• Peacekeeping Web Links - United States Institute of Peace: it is an independent U.S. federal institution devoted to stuyding peace issues. The site links to many organizations, official UN mission sites, official reports on how to strengthen peacekeeping efforts, peace agreements, truth and reconciliation commissions, electronic journals, online reports, policy briefs, occasional papers, working papers and other research papers pertaining to conflict prevention, conflict resolution and peacekeeping operations
• ReliefWeb - Policy & Issues by Keyword - Peace-Keeping: ReliefWeb describes itself as the world’s leading on-line gateway to information on humanitarian emergencies and disasters. ReliefWeb is administered by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
• International Humanitarian Law Research Initiative: the Initiative is a research and information project founded in 2002 at the Program on Humanitarian Policy and Conflict Research at the Harvard School of Public Health. Its focus is the protection of civilians in conflict situations, particularly in view of the increasing targeting of civilians, the evolution of current methods of warfare, and the fragmentation of states in conflict areas
• UN Peacekeeping - Global Policy Forum: this New York-based website includes an overview of international peacekeeping trends, news on current operations, commentary and analysis, lessons from past experience, and discussion of proposed reforms to peacekeeping missions
• Partnership for Effective Peacekeeping - Peacekeeping Information Center: a non-partisan policy group that brings together the humanitarian, human rights, peace and security, think tank, and academic communities, the site links to issue briefs, reports, op-eds and other documents from a wide ideological range of contributors (everything from the conservative Heritage Foundation to Oxfam to the left-leaning Foreign Policy in Focus)
• International Peace Academy Publications: the Academy is an independent, international institution dedicated to promoting the prevention and settlement of armed conflicts between and within states. It works closely with the United Nations, regional and other international organizations, governments, and nongovernmental organizations, as well as with parties to conflicts in selected cases
• Peacekeeping - A Selected Bibliography: this bibliography was created by the U.S. Army War College Library. It is now in the fourth revised edition, and includes books, documents, periodical articles and Internet sites dated 2000 to the present
• Peacekeeping Operations: this is a basic but extensive bibliography from the Swiss association UN Jobs (links go to the online book retailer Amazon)