Reintroducing women, peace and security

Abstract

International Affairs 92: 2 (2016) 249–254 © 2016 The Author(s). International Affairs © 2016 The Royal Institute of International Affairs. Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford ox4 2dq, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA. This special issue of International Affairs, launched on International Women’s Day 2016, explores the potential and limits of the Women, Peace and Security agenda, a global policy architecture supporting gender equality and today a significant reference point in the management and resolution of, as well as recovery from, violent conflict. The Women, Peace and Security (conventionally abbreviated to WPS) agenda was formally inaugurated by United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 in October 2000. Across 18 operative paragraphs, the Council appealed for the greater participation of women in decision-making in national, regional and international institutions; their further involvement in peacekeeping, field operations, mission consultation and peace negotiations; increased funding and other support for UN bodies’ gender work; enhanced state commitments to women’s and girls’ human rights and their protection under international law; the introduction of special measures against sexual violence in armed conflict; and the consideration of women’s and girls’ needs in humanitarian, refugee, disarmament and post-conflict settings. The foundational resolution also mandated the secretary-general both to study the impact of war on women and girls and to report back to the Council regularly.1 Over the ensuing 15 years, these areas of concern have been repackaged several times, sometimes around three ‘themes’ (participation, protection and the gender perspective), at other times around four ‘pillars’ (identified variously: some cite prevention, protection, participation and peacekeeping, while others substitute relief and recovery for peacekeeping and yet others recognize a normative dimension).2 However expressed, the agenda was demanding, constituting as it did a platform from which it was possible to imagine radical reform of peace and security governance, and it was celebrated as such. For those who had agitated to bring Resolution 1325 into being, WPS was truly transformative in its scope, and its passage through the Council was therefore a ‘watershed’ moment for the global