How Ending Impunity for Conflict-Related Sexual Violence Overwhelmed the UN Women, Peace, and Security Agenda: A Discursive Genealogy

Abstract

The recent unprecedented focus on ending impunity for conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV) is positive in many respects. However, it has narrowed the scope of Security Council Resolution 1325 and the women, peace, and security (WPS) agenda it established in 2000. Through a critical discursive genealogy of the interrelation of two UN agendas—protection of civilians in armed conflict and women, peace, and security—the author traces how CRSV emerged as the defining issue of the latter while the transformative imperative of making women’s participation central to every UN endeavor for peace and security has failed to gain traction.