Description
At least since 1999, the protection of civilians (PoC) has moved to the center of the United Nations (UN) agenda and operations. Although the core language on civilian protection has remained consistent over time, here is no unified interpretation of the exact meaning of the formulation. In its 2009 study, the Department of Peacekeeping Operations acknowledged the existence of multiple connotations associated with the "protection of civilians" in United Nations' textual output. Since the institution's policy language defines mandate objectives and forms the basis for any mission design, this discrepancy between different protection approaches/conceptualizations can seriously jeopardize the successful execution of Blue Helmet mandates.
Using a supervised machine learning algorithm (Naïve Bayes classification), this article attempts to deconstruct this "civilian protection" blanket term. 5,750 related formulations from United Nations Security Council and General Assembly resolutions, meeting minutes and vetoes on the major humanitarian crises between 1990 and 2019 were categorized. It demonstrates significant variance in the meanings attributed to the investigated phrase. These include, among others, references to international law, narrow conceptualizations of physical protection, broad normative mission objectives or pragmatic combat tasks. Understanding how the institution's use of PoC has changed over time and across space, as well as its linkage to divergent operationalization by key stakeholders, is critical to making sense of protecting civilians on the ground.
