ABSTRACT

Protecting civilians has been the primary raison d’être of the UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) since civil war erupted in late 2013. Since then, UN efforts to protect vulnerable civilians have focused on a handful of so-called protection of civilians (PoC) sites. While they have unquestionably saved lives, the PoC sites have also absorbed the lion’s share of mission resources, severely limiting UNMISS’ ability to protect civilians elsewhere. The signing of the still-fragile Revitalised Agreement on the Resolution of the Conflict in South Sudan (R-ARCSS) has enabled a reconsideration of the UNMISS protection mandate in light of what remains an uncertain transition. Given the systemic constraints on the UN’s ability to project force in the name of PoC, we argue that UNMISS’ most constructive and lasting contribution to both protection and peace in South Sudan will be through sustained investments in inclusive local-level peacebuilding. Re-orienting the PoC mandate along these lines offers an opportunity to at least partially counteract the decidedly exclusive nature of the country’s current peace process, and to support bottom-up conflict resolution processes that could eventually interact in constructive ways with top-down dynamics.

摘要

保护平民一直是存在的主要理由自 2013 年末内战爆发以来，联合国南苏丹特派团 (UNMISS) 的成员。从那时起，联合国保护弱势平民的努力集中在少数所谓的平民保护 (PoC) 站点上。虽然他们无疑挽救了生命，但 PoC 站点也吸收了大部分任务资源，严重限制了南苏丹特派团保护其他地方平民的能力。鉴于仍存在不确定性的过渡，签署仍然脆弱的《解决南苏丹冲突重振协议》（R-ARCSS）使人们能够重新考虑南苏丹特派团的保护任务。鉴于联合国以 PoC 的名义投射武力的能力受到系统性限制，我们认为，南苏丹特派团对南苏丹保护与和平的最具建设性和最持久的贡献将是通过对包容性地方一级和平建设的持续投资。沿着这些思路重新定位 PoC 任务提供了一个机会，可以至少部分抵消该国当前和平进程的绝对排他性，并支持最终可能以建设性方式与自上而下动态相互作用的自下而上的冲突解决进程。