Curriculum Guide · Courses

Professors Darin Johnson and Christina Sanford

LL.M Course 878 (cross-listed) | 2 credit hours

In many situations involving a severe human rights and humanitarian crisis, such as Kosovo and Darfur, the international community increasingly seeks to ameliorate the situation through the deployment of peacekeeping forces. This course seeks to give an overview of the legal and operational issues involved in international peacekeeping. After reviewing the evolution of international peacekeeping, we will focus on a few contemporary case studies. We will examine UN authorities for establishing peacekeeping forces and for using force as a means of international conflict resolution. We will discuss legal issues arising in the relations of peacekeeping operations to host states and troop contributing states. We will review US national security law and consider constitutional and statutory issues regarding the scope of the President's power to deploy forces to peacekeeping missions in conflicts abroad. We will consider whether and how existing international law, particularly international human rights law and the law of armed conflict, applies to the conduct of peacekeepers as well as proposed accountability mechanisms for their misconduct. We will consider the special issues that arise in connection with regional and ad hoc peacekeeping operations, particularly with regard to the African Union. We conclude by assessing what the evolution of peacekeeping means in the broader context of international law and the development of concepts relating to humanitarian intervention and the responsibility to protect others.

Prerequisite: International Law I: Introduction to International Law.