Policy Brief on the Security Council’s Consideration of the Protection of Civilians in Armed Conflict (2019 - 2023)

Executive Summary

The Security Council has consistently addressed the protection of civilians (PoC) over the past five years through specific and detailed language:

• The Security Council further elaborated the obligations of – and its expectations from – parties to conflict, including increased references to and detailed language on prohibited acts committed during the conduct of hostilities, such as the indiscriminate use of weapons in populated areas, and attacks against civilian infrastructure and means of livelihood. While being increasingly specific, the Council remained consistent in its protection language across country-specific resolutions.

• The Security Council has been able to under- stand the threats facing civilians and track progress on the ground through the spectrum of monitoring activities and mechanisms that contribute to PoC. These include human rights monitoring; monitoring, analysis and reporting arrangements (MARA) on conflict-related sex- ual violence (CRSV); and the monitoring and reporting mechanism (MRM) on grave violations against children in armed conflict, extended and deployed in countries affected by armed conflict and/or complex emergencies throughout the last two decades.

• The Security Council has increasingly addressed the situation and specific protection needs of particular groups of persons in situations of armed conflict and called for protection measures in more detail. For instance, it incorporated the protection needs of persons with disabilities, as well as missing persons and their next of kin through thematic resolutions S/RES/2475 and S/RES/2474.

• The Security Council has also called for the greater involvement of women, youth, persons with disabilities and internally displaced persons (IDPs) in all their diversity in peace and political processes, acknowledging the need to include affected populations to establish lasting peace.

The Security Council has continued to prioritize the mandate to protect civilians against the threat of violence (the PoC mandate) in UN Peacekeeping Operations (PKOs). However, it has simultaneously accelerated the drawdown and withdrawal of several PoC-mandated PKOs, as well as the United Nations Integrated Transition Assistance Mission in the Sudan (UNITAMS) special political mission (SPM), due to reduced or lost consent by host States and diminished global political support. The closure of these peace operations, as well as the ongoing transition of other PoC-mandated PKOs, has come with expectations that host States will fulfil their primary responsibility to protect civilians from violence, and that other mission tasks that contribute to PoC can be transferred to UN Country Teams (UNCT). However, this has been challenging in most contexts.

The Security Council has increasingly addressed the potential adverse consequences of its restrictive measures (UN sanctions) on the provision of humanitarian assistance and protection. This culminated with the adoption of resolution 2664 in December 2022, which establishes a standing humanitarian exemption across UN sanctions regimes. According to this exemption, otherwise prohibited transfers of resources to listed actors are authorized when necessary for the conduct of UN-coordinated humanitarian operations. This marked a key development in the Security Council’s approach to the intersection between UN sanctions and humanitarian action.

The Security Council has further developed its Children and Armed Conflict (CAAC) Agenda through, for example, enhanced focus on the provision and protection of education during armed conflict, while continuing to systematically address the particular protection needs of children across its wider PoC Agenda.

The Security Council has maintained focus and emphasis on the protection needs of women and girls through its thematic Agendas on Women, Peace and Security (WPS) and CRSV. An illustration of this progress is the Security Council recognizing the crucial role of and calling for the adoption of a survivor-centred approach in response to sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) in conflict and post-conflict situations.