Necessity of Use of Force: UN Mandate and Protection of Civilians

Mandates of the UN peace operations differ in different situations, contexts, and missions. The protection of civilians has now become an essential part of these mandates. Even without explicit inclusion in the mandate, it is the peacekeepers’ moral responsibility to protect innocent civilians from life-threatening consequences. Despite several policy documents issued by the UN and using the Chapter vii mission mandate, the protection has remained a huge challenge for several reasons. These could vary from a hesitation to use force, a dictate from the home country or even a contingent’s desire to avoid future hostilities with a contesting group. This adversely impacts the UN peace operations’ performance and creates a negative perception of the UN’s ability to protect civilians. Even though military force has been used in many places to carry out the UN mandate, specific instances of such use to protect civilians have given mixed results. This paper examines if there is any tangible value in authorising UN peace operations to use force in protecting civilians in armed conflicts. An evaluation of the use of force for carrying out the mandate and specifically for the protection of civilians has been attempted. It proceeds first to ascertain the reasons for such authorisation and successful usage and looks at peacekeepers’ reluctance to use force. This has been followed up by examining a few cases of the use of force at operational and tactical levels and deducing that using force to protect civilians can be the right decision.