Book Launch: The Law and Practice of Peacekeeping

TJI is delighted to host this book launch of 'The Law and Practice of Peacekeeping', co-authored by TJI Director Prof Siobhan Wills, Prof Rosa Freedman and Dr Nicholas Lemay-Hebert. This book presents a multidisciplinary analysis of the controversial UN Stabilization Mission in Haiti. The legacy of this mission includes sexual scandals, the excessive use of force and a cholera outbreak.

Prof Nigel White (Nottingham) will be acting as a discussant for this book, and Prof Rory O'Connell will chair.

The Law and Practice of Peacekeeping: Foregrounding Human Rights

(Cambridge University Press 2021)

In an increasingly complex world, it is more crucial than ever to have a full picture of how international peacekeeping can be a force for good, but can also have potentially negative impacts on host communities. After thirteen years of presence in Haiti, the highly controversial United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti has now withdrawn.

The UN's legacy in Haiti is not all negative, but it does include sexual scandals, the divisive use of force to 'clean up' difficult neighbourhoods as well as a cholera epidemic, brought inadvertently by Nepalese peacekeepers that killed more than 8,000 Haitians and infected more than 600,000.

This book presents a unique multi-disciplinary analysis of the legacy of the mission for Haiti. It presents an innovative account of contemporary international peacekeeping law and practice, arguing for a new model of accountability, going beyond the outdated immunity mechanisms to foreground human rights.

Authors

Rosa Freedman

Rosa Freedman is Professor of Law, Conflict and Global Development at the University of Reading. She has published widely on the UN and human rights, and serves on the UN Secretary-General's Civil Society Advisory Board for the prevention of sexual exploitation and abuse and as a Specialist Adviser to the UK Government.

Nicolas Lemay-Hébert

Nicolas Lemay-Hébert is a Senior Lecturer and Director of Research at the Department of International Relations, Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs, Australian National University. Prior to joining ANU in 2019, Nicolas worked as a professor at the University of Quebec and senior lecturer at the University of Birmingham. His current research interests include intervention issues, in particular local resistance to international interventions and the political economy of interventions.

Siobhán Wills

Siobhán Wills is Director of the Transitional Justice Institute. She has led two Arts and Humanities Research Council projects on human rights and excessive use of force in policing and law enforcement. She has co-directed two films It Stays With You: Use of Force by UN Peacekeepers in Haiti and Right Now I Want to Scream: Police and Army Killings in Rio: the Brazil Haiti Connection.

Discussant

Professor Nigel White is Chair in Public International Law at the University of Nottingham and Co-Director of the Nottingham International Law and Security Centre. He served on the REF and RAE panels in 2014 and 2020. Professor White's expertise lies in the fields of United Nations law, peacekeeping law, sanctions, arms control law, the regulation of private security contractors, war powers, and military justice.

He has undertaken a number funded research projects including:

• the regulation of private military and security contractors (PRIVWAR - EU-FP7)
• democratic accountability and the deployment of troops (Nuffield)
• human rights and post-conflict situations UK FCO)
• the role of national courts in international law (COST)
• counter-terrorism and the rule of law (American Bar Association and World Justice Project)
• the role of private security actors in extractive industries (Netherlands - NWO)

He has given written and oral evidence to:

• the UK House of Commons Constitutional Affairs Committee (on war powers)
• the Foreign Affairs Committee (on the legal consequences of Scottish independence, and on the regulation of private military contractors)
• the All Party Parliamentary Inquiry into Terrorism (on international legal responses to terrorism)

He has also made a written submission to the Iraq Inquiry (on the legality of the UK's use of force in 2003).

Among other editorial responsibilities Professor White is co-editor of the Journal of Conflict and Security Law published by Oxford University Press.