After the Brahimi Report: doctrinal culture, practical developments and the new and remaining challenges of UN peace operations

Abstract

The article analyses the advances, setbacks, and new and remaining challenges in the implementation of the Brahimi Report’s (2000) recommendations 20 years after its publication. Because of the innovations it proposed, the document is considered a milestone in the consolidation of a doctrinal culture of UN peace operations. However, we argue that the deployment of stabilisation operations, aimed at providing task-forces to support national authorities in neutralising non-state armed groups, undermines the Report’s guidelines and exacerbate intricate issues already identified in it. We discuss stabilisation to evidence how it is at odds with the doctrinal culture established before, creates new, and accentuates remaining challenges for peace operations. Methodologically, the article is based on an analysis of UN official documents to understand peace operations’ normative and practical adaptation in recent years.