Civilian police use of English in international peace support operations

Abstract

International peace operations are drawing increasingly on civilian police from many countries. To qualify, police need to be proficient in the mission official language (MOL), which is most often English. Language testing currently used to measure candidates’ MOL expertise may not however reflect the actual skills required of these peacekeepers. The experience of UN civilian police is used to compare pre‐mission peacekeeping training and testing with on‐the‐job linguistic needs, based on surveys. Findings include MOL proficiency requirements for various peacekeeping positions. A program which combines language and peacekeeping content would address the gap between training and practice for civilian peacekeeping police.