Victims of Peace: UN Responsibility and Remedial Mechanisms
Subject Areas : Politics
1 - Allameh Tabataba’I University
Keywords: the United Nations, peacekeeping operations, victims of peace, remedy, international responsibility, immunity,
Abstract :
Occasional violations of international law occur as the United Nations and its peacekeeping forces carry out their important responsibility and mission for protecting global peace and security. Remedial mechanisms become more complicated when the actions of peacekeeping forces are attributed to the UN as a result of certain principles of international responsibility. On the one hand, the UN’s responsibility toward victims of such violations requires the world body to be answerable while, on the other hand, its immunity to trial in national and transnational courts, has barred victims from taking legal action. Although the UN has taken steps to solve this problem in order to restore the credit it has lost as a result of the actions of its forces as well as its immunity, the proposed mechanisms have posed new challenges, thus, making the UN target of new criticism. Such criticism seems even more justified as a result of the promotion of human rights in international community and alterations in the aforesaid immunity. The present paper discusses the necessity of introducing new mechanisms or reforms by the UN which would make the existing mechanisms more efficient and fairer