The 75th Anniversary of UN Peacekeeping

In the shadow of two world wars, the architects of the UN boldly set out in its Charter “to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war.”Within a few years it was clear that peace, often hard fought for, was fragile and easily broken. Peace was something that would need to be kept. In turn, peacekeeping began tentatively. As Brian Drohan notes in the first article of this special issue, the UN’s engagement was initially “built on impartiality, the nonuse of force, and consent.” The UN was to be a neutral actor that would monitor, observe, and help to build trust between two or more conflicting parties. Today, peacekeeping is often perceived as a symbol of UN innovation and adaptation. Not only has peacekeeping become “one of themost visible symbols of the UN role in international peace and security,”1 it often represents the organization at its best. At the same time, peacekeeping also calls to mind some of the UN’s darkest hours, as peacekeepers have failed in the face of persistent and horrific violence and have sometimes brought harm to the very people they were pledged to protect. The editors of Global Governance are pleased to introduce this special issue reflecting on seventy-five years of UN peacekeeping. The contributors document UN innovations, competing expectations, efforts at adaptation, cases of significant success, moments of tragedy, as well as the efforts of scholars and policymakers to grapple with a kaleidoscopic landscape of conflict. The contributions here confirm that, to adapt a phrase from Charles Tilly, peacekeeping made theUNas theUNmadepeacekeeping. In the articles that follow, scholars and practitioners explore several key questions including: What is the United Nations’ peacekeeping function? How did it emerge, and how and why has it changed over time? What are the primary achievements of UN peacekeeping over the past seventy-five years and what challenges has it faced? Is UN peacekeeping effective at keepingpeace?And is it fit for purpose in light of thenature of conflict today and in the future?