Putting Human Rights up Front: Implications for Impartiality and the Politics of UN Peacekeeping

Abstract

This article traces the origins, development and implications of Human Rights Up Front (HRuF), a bold and visionary initiative launched by former Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon in 2013. While HRuF is part of a broader continuum of human rightsrelated reforms, its scope and focus is distinctive. HRuF puts the imperative to protect people from serious violations of human rights and international humanitarian law at the core of the UN's strategy and operational activities, and obliges staff to speak out about abuses and looming crises. Using the case study of South Sudan and drawing on over 150 interviews conducted incountry, this article considers the implications of HRuF for peacekeeping and, specifically, for impartiality, a norm traditionally regarded as the 'lifeblood' and 'heart and soul' of the UN Secretariat. I identify three challenges that have hindered the UN's ability to deliver impartially on its protection and human rights mandate and the consequences thereof for the UN's perceived legitimacy in South Sudan. Further, I examine how the Organization has tried, with mixed success to manage the dilemmas and tensions that have arisen from the privileging of individual, as opposed to state or government, security, and the implications for the broader functioning of the UN.

Adoption, adaptation or chance? Inter-organisational diffusion of the protection of civilians norm from the UN to the African Union

“…exploring it might require different theoretical and methodological tools, such as practice theory, which has already been applied to the study of inter-organisational relations (Graeger 2016;Bahr, Holzscheiter and Pantzerhielm 2021) and PoC implementation by the AU (Gelot 2017). In the field of peacekeeping and peacebuilding, norm implementation during mission planning, training and actual operations is a vibrant and growing body of research (Paddon Rhoads 2016Rhoads , 2019Jowell 2018;Bode and Karlsrud 2019;Holmes 2019;Laurence 2019). In this article, however, we focus on norm adoption and adaptation during the development of concepts, frameworks and guidance documents for AU peace operations.…”

The Politics of Human Rights Diplomacy

“…Impartiality for the UN is to be more than its procedural dimension, referring not only to the position of UN officials as unbiased and informed but also the value the institution seeks to project and that which UN officials are supposed to represent and further in the absence of particular interests. (Rhoads 2019). This organ of the UN has been criticized for its lack of consistent and transparent criteria when deciding which countries should be the target of resolutions and which topics should be prioritized.…”