The Liberal Peace: A One-size-fits-all Model?

Successive failures of the UN in response to humanitarian crises triggered by bloody conflicts in the aftermath of the Cold War in the late 1980s and early 1990s led to a new type of intervention of the International community: peace-building. This intervention of the UN, however, has recently come under severe criticism as the reproduction and imposition of Western models. This essay presents diverse critiques of the Western-crafted one-size-fits-all model of liberal peace-building by focusing on the three main points: (1) criticizing the liberal peace-building as a new form of imperialism, (2) questioning the universality of liberal values, and (3) reassessing the manner in which the liberal peace is pursued in post-conflict milieus. The article also reviews the case of Cambodia to assess whether, the critiques are appropriate and to what degree they are justified