Peacekeeping

Abstract

Although the term “peacekeeping” is not defined in the original 1945 United Nations (UN) Charter, the act of using civilian police and military forces to deter and halt conflict has been used on at least sixty-three major operations around the world since 1948. Chapter VI of the UN Charter covers the pacific settlement of disputes whereby the Security Council can decide to take action if a dispute is “likely to endanger the maintenance of international peace and security.” Likewise, Chapter VII of the UN Charter describes the Security Council’s activities concerning threats and breaches to the peace about which the UN may “take such action by air, sea, or land forces as may be necessary to maintain or restore international peace and security. Such action may include demonstrations, blockade, and other operations by air, sea, or land forces of Members of the United Nations.” To highlight the murkiness of peacekeeping, the second UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld is purported to have said that peace operations should fall under “Chapter Six and a Half” of the UN Charter. The goals of this bibliography are to familiarize readers and researchers on the evolution of peacekeeping operations using various works from the 1970s to 2010 in order to better understand the complex nature of these types of missions. The bibliography seeks to examine peacekeeping from multiple reference points to include time (Cold War vs. post–Cold War), geography (campaigns involving peacekeeping operations around the world), actor (perspectives of nations and non-UN coalitions that contribute to peacekeeping forces), activity (ranging from traditional peacekeeping to enforce cease-fire agreements and the use of lightly armed military observer teams, to more aggressive peace enforcement operations without consent of the belligerents), and operating environment (complex humanitarian relief operations conducted in the midst of intrastate conflict and civil war).