At the end of January 2025, the M23 captured the city of Goma, the largest city in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and the region’s humanitarian and security hub. Why does this matter to us international lawyers? It matters for many reasons, not least because this is another escalation in one of the world’s largest humanitarian crises that has cost the lives of millions of people (since 1998) with millions more displaced. The DRC is also host to what was once the UN’s largest peacekeeping operation, MONUSCO, an operation that should have withdrawn in December 2024 yet has remained, fighting alongside the Congolese armed forces (FARDC) and SAMIDRC, the South African Development Community (SADC) mission– a battle which resulted in the death of 13 UN peacekeepers in January. This recent escalation of violence, caused by the M23’s offensive, has also led to the severing of diplomatic ties between the DRC and Rwanda, given Rwanda’s backing of the M23, with the DRC government claiming that the capture of Goma is a…
Peace Keeping
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Finding UN responsibility for its stabilization activities
United Nations (UN) peace operations have changed in recent years and several missions now pursue stabilization mandates. These stabilization missions uniquely work alongside the host government, promote the rule of law, engage in counter-terrorism activities, and use robust force to counter spoilers to the peace process. Stabilization mandates often expressly call for the missions to assist with the…
Development, Peacebuilding, and the Rohingya in Myanmar
During his official visit to Myanmar in January 2017, the then British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson was accused of ‘incredible insensitivity’, for while in the Shwedagon Pagoda he suddenly started reciting from Kipling’s colonial-era poem ‘Mandalay’ in front of local dignitaries. The accompanying tense British High Commissioner had to stop him by reminding him that reciting this…
Failure to Protect Civilians in the Context of UN Peace Operations: A Question of Accountability?
On 31 July 2018, thirty-two States asked the United Nations (UN) Secretary-General António Guterres to go a step further in addressing the failures of UN peace operations to protect civilians. In particular, they stressed the importance of holding those accountable who have failed to protect civilians in line with their mission’s mandate (see Letter…
Revising the Treaty of Guarantee for a Cyprus Settlement
On June 28th, 2017, the UN-sponsored international conference in Crans-Montana, Switzerland, will attempt to comprehensively settle the Cyprus Issue. The Greek-Cypriot and Turkish-Cypriot delegations will be joined by the delegations of the three ‘Guarantor Powers’ (Greece, Turkey and the UK), and one from the EU as an observer, in order to discuss the issue of security and guarantees…
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