Human rights are a fundamental principle and purpose of the United Nations (UN). Yet, UN peacekeeping operations (PKOs) exhibit substantial variation in their ability to engage in human rights activities. While existing research has investigated deployment and mandates, we explain what peacekeepers can actually do on the ground. We argue that the UN Security Council’s permanent member states (the P5) limit human rights mandates if they have private interests in PKO host countries, thereby diminishing peacekeepers’ ability to promote and protect human rights. Moreover, armed conflict shifts priorities away from human rights activities. We use novel data on 21 human rights activities in African countries (1991–2016) and item response models to capture PKOs’ latent ability to engage in these activities. Random and fixed effects regression and mediation analyses with sensitivity tests support our expectations. We find that the P5’s economic interests in the PKO host country negatively correlate with the strength of human rights mandate provisions, which in turn negatively correlates with PKOs’ ability to engage in human rights activities. We find similar, although less consistent, correlations for P5’s security interests. Yet, while mandates partly define the scope of PKOs’ activities, field-level conditions also have an influence. Specifically, ongoing armed conflict negatively correlates with PKOs’ ability to engage in human rights activities. Our results suggest that rising challenges to the liberal international order by powerful states, coupled with the more frequent deployment of PKOs in conflict zones, will likely increase the hurdles that UN PKOs need to overcome to meet expectations regarding their human rights engagement.

中文翻译：

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需要克服许多障碍：解释维和人员参与人权活动的能力


人权是联合国 （UN） 的一项基本原则和宗旨。然而，联合国维和行动 （PKO） 在参与人权活动的能力方面表现出很大差异。虽然现有研究调查了部署和任务，但我们解释了维和人员在实地的实际工作。我们认为，如果联合国安理会常任理事国（常任理事国）在维和行动东道国有私人利益，就会限制人权任务，从而削弱维和人员促进和保护人权的能力。此外，武装冲突使优先事项从人权活动转移开来。我们使用非洲国家 21 项人权活动（1991-2016 年）的新数据和项目响应模型来捕捉 PKO 参与这些活动的潜在能力。随机和固定效应回归和中介分析以及敏感性测试支持我们的预期。我们发现，五常在维和行动东道国的经济利益与人权任务条款的强度呈负相关，而人权授权条款又与维和行动组织参与人权活动的能力呈负相关。我们发现 P5 的担保权益存在类似但不太一致的相关性。然而，虽然授权部分定义了 PKO 的活动范围，但现场层面的条件也有影响。具体而言，持续的武装冲突与维和行动组织参与人权活动的能力呈负相关。我们的结果表明，大国对自由国际秩序的挑战日益增加，加上在冲突地区更频繁地部署维和行动，可能会增加联合国维和行动需要克服的障碍，以满足对其人权参与的期望。