The legal protection of personnel of United Nations peacekeeping operations in times of NIAC

Abstract

United Nations peacekeeping operations have increasingly been deployed to situations of armed conflict and have frequently been targeted by parties to the conflict. Against this backdrop, the legal protection for personnel of United Nations peacekeeping operations in times of armed conflict has been developed particularly since the 1990s. International humanitarian law and the 1994 Convention on the Safety of United Nations and Associated Personnel are now the principal sources of legal protection for personnel of United Nations peacekeeping operations in times of armed conflict. However, they pose difficulties of a different nature in determining when those personnel are protected and when they are not, particularly when such personnel are engaged in hostilities in situations of non-international armed conflict. This chapter explores these issues in detail and concludes that the practice has not sufficiently evolved to resolve them.