Keeping Watch: Monitoring, Technology and Innovation in UN Peace Operations

Knowledge in the hands of the UN peacekeepers can be a power for peace. Lacking knowledge, peacekeepers often find themselves powerless in the field, unable to protect themselves and others. The United Nations owes it to its peacekeepers and the "peacekept" to utilize all available tools to make its monitoring and surveillance effective. Keeping Watch explains how technologies can increase range, effectiveness and accuracy of UN observation. Satellites, aircraft and ground sensors enable wider coverage of areas, over longer periods of time, while decreasing intrusiveness. These devices can transmit and record imagery for wider dissemination, further analysis, and as evidence in human rights cases and tribunals. They also allow observation at a safe distance from dangerous areas, especially in advance of UN patrols, humanitarian convoys or robust forces. Sensor technologies have been increasing in performance ..., but the United Nations continues to use technologies from the 1980s. The few cases of technologies effectively harnessed in the field are identified. This book identifies potential problems and pitfalls with modern technologies and challenges of incorporating them into the UN system. It offers creative recommendations on how to overcome institutional inertia and widespread misunderstanding of ways in which technology can improve security in war-torn regions. Technological innovation can serve as a complement to human initiative in the quest for peace.