International peacekeeping is one of the primary ways that global and regional institutions, such as the United Nations and the African Union, respond to conflict, violence, instability, and human rights abuses. While a major component of many peacekeeping operations is military, peacekeeping is different enough from other military options that trying to analyse its proper conduct using the traditional just war principles of jus in bello is inadequate. A moral analysis of peacekeeping must take full account of the fact that peacekeepers should not relate even to hostile forces as enemies; and, ... More

International peacekeeping is one of the primary ways that global and regional institutions, such as the United Nations and the African Union, respond to conflict, violence, instability, and human rights abuses. While a major component of many peacekeeping operations is military, peacekeeping is different enough from other military options that trying to analyse its proper conduct using the traditional just war principles of jus in bello is inadequate. A moral analysis of peacekeeping must take full account of the fact that peacekeepers should not relate even to hostile forces as enemies; and, that peacekeeping is an endeavour that shares many characteristics with war, policing, and governance, but is distinct from all three. This book outlines a moral structure for peacekeeping centered on the idea that peacekeepers are there to manage violence (both that of parties to the conflict and their own) in such a way to permit a damaged political community to heal itself. It argues for a new understanding of the “holy trinity” of peacekeeping – consent, impartiality, and minimum use of force, based on dozens of field interviews with peacekeepers, and drawing on philosophical work in the ethics of care, deliberative democracy, and theories of respect, as well as research on the psychology of violence and concrete discussions of the conflicts and interventions in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Liberia, and Somalia. It also discusses the relationship between peacekeeping and the responsibility to protect civilians, and the distinction from related operations, such as peace enforcement and counterinsurgency.