Jasmine-Kim Westendorf's discomforting book investigates sexual misconduct by military peacekeepers and abuses perpetrated by civilian peacekeepers and non-UN civilian interveners. Based on extensive field research in Bosnia, Timor-Leste, and with the UN and humanitarian communities, Violating Peace uncovers a brutal truth about peacebuilding as Westendorf investigates how such behaviors affect the capacity of the international community to achieve its goals related to stability and peacebuilding, and its legitimacy in the eyes of local and global populations.

As Violating Peace shows, when interveners perpetrate sexual exploitation and abuse, they undermine the operational capacity of the international community to effectively build peace after civil wars and to alleviate human suffering in crises. Furthermore, sexual misconduct by interveners poses a significant risk to the perceived legitimacy of the multilateral peacekeeping project, and the UN more generally, with ramifications for the nature and dynamics of UN in future peace operations.

Westendorf illustrates how sexual exploitation and abuse relates to other challenges facing UN peacekeeping, and shows how such misconduct is deeply linked to the broader cultures and structures within which peacekeepers work, and which shape their perceptions of and interactions with local communities. Effectively preventing such behaviors is crucial to global peace, order, and justice. Violating Peace thus identifies how policies might be improved in the future, based on an account of why they have failed to date.

About the Author

Jasmine-Kim Westendorf is Senior Lecturer in International Relations at La Trobe University, Australia, and a Research Associate at the Developmental Leadership Program. She is author of Why Peace Processes Fail. Follow her on X @jasminekimw.

Reviews

A very significant contribution that provides an often-neglected perspective on sexual exploitation and abuse (SEA) by UN peacekeepers. Often-times, as Westendorf points out, SEA is treated as an issue of isolated individual misconduct, which has long been addressed by the UN through a conduct and discipline approach. The UN's zero-tolerance policy has not been particularly successful despite a number of new rules, new offices and new obligations. This book argues that SEA needs to be seen and tackled in a fundamentally different way if the UN is serious about SEA prevention and accountability. This book is highly recommended for not only scholars researching on gender, accountability, or the UN, but also for policy makers and practitioners, who would benefit from Westendorf's analysis of the reasons for SEA and its negative effects.

* International Peacekeeping *


Awards
Runner-up for Oceania Book Prize for International Studies 2020 (United States).



Book Information
ISBN 9781501748059
Author Jasmine-Kim Westendorf
Format Hardback
Page Count 232
Imprint Cornell University Press
Publisher Cornell University Press
Weight(grams) 454g
Dimensions(mm) 229mm * 152mm * 24mm