The Protection of Civilians and the United Nations

Vijay Nambiar

Ambassador Vijay K. Nambiar, Retd, former Dy. NSA, NSCS, PR UN at New York and Spl Advisor of SG on Myanmar and Chief of Staff, UN. read more

The world has changed significantly since the founding of the United Nations and so have its conflicts. During the mid-twentieth century, the pre-eminent challenge for multilateral cooperation was the awesome prospect of a Third World War. Today, in the aftermath of the Cold War, we see a more elaborated focus on the prevention of conflict and the protection of communities and peoples—both as a sovereign responsibility of the modern nation-state as well as a central focus of the United Nations peace engagements. Today, while the challenges facing us have changed, our core responsibility to maintain international peace and security has not.