Strengthening the local accountability of UN peacekeeping

United Nations (UN) peacekeepers regularly fall short of achieving their intended consequences – of fulfilling in practice the goals set out in their UN Security Council (UNSC) mandates. But perhaps the greater tragedy is the unintended, negative consequences UN peacekeeping operations have had for host societies, among them distortions of the local economy, negative impacts on humanitarian action and criminal activity. ¹ Most notorious are the acts of sexual violence and abuse by blue-helmeted soldiers towards local women and children, ² prompting substantial attention since the mid-1990s on the accountability of peacekeepers, particularly to the legal aspects of such exploitation, given the immunities and privileges on which peacekeeping deployments are based. ³