Due Diligence, the UN, and Peacekeeping

Abstract

This chapter focuses on the application, acceptance, and implementation of human rights due diligence obligations in UN peacekeeping operations. It points to growing, but uneven, evidence of the development of standards and measures by the UN that would fit the meaning and purpose of due diligence, although there are very few instances of due diligence being used as a term within the UN. The chapter argues that due diligence obligations are applicable either through customary human rights law, or the internal law of the UN, or both due to the fact that the UN’s principles of peacekeeping are themselves based on general principles of international law. The chapter stresses that the UN should have due diligence obligations especially as there is a gap between the commissioning of peacekeeping operations by the UN and the day-to-day control of peacekeepers by the UN.