Going Further Together: The Contribution of Human Rights Components to the Implementation of Mandates of United Nations Field Missions

Abstract

This study examines whether and how human rights components in UN field missions contribute to broader mission mandates, such as mandates focused on politics, peacebuilding and military or police that may not be associated with human rights narrowly defined. The study grew out of reflections on the work of human rights components in field missions and progressive policy development, such as the Policy on Human Rights in UN Peace Operations and Political Missions and the Human Rights Due Diligence Police on UN support to non-UN security forces. The study began in 2019 as a series of strategic-level discussions on the role of human rights in peacekeeping and special political missions, with many senior interviewees raising the broad impact of human rights work. These preliminary discussions progressively evolved into a more focused study of the contributions of human right components beyond “traditional” human rights mandated tasks.