United Nations Peacekeeping Operations and Security and Reconstruction

This Article is in part based on a memorial lecture delivered by Muna Ndulo at The University of Akron School of Law in honor of the late Justice Tawia Modibo Ocran...In August 2000, a famous UN report, the Brahimi Report, acknowledged the shortcomings of the UN peacekeeping efforts and recommended wide-ranging reforms aimed at strengthening the operations and making them more effective. Since then there have been numerous other reports aimed at implementing reforms to strengthen UN PKOs...This Article builds on that report and discusses the broad challenges facing UN peacekeeping missions today and the role of the UN PKOs in the resolution of conflicts and in the reconstruction of post conflicts states. The objective of the Article is to identify areas that need attention to make peacekeeping missions more effective. The Article is broken down into the following sections: (II) peacekeeping in theory and practice; (III) the peacekeeping mandate; (IV) conditions and factors that can help determine the success or failure of a peacekeeping mission; and (IV) the broad challenges that face peacekeeping mission