This course´s aim is to highlight the change that the United Nations (UN) has underwent as far as its peacekeeping activities are concerned, from its inception to the present. The course will focus on the following topics:

• Peacekeeping, collective security and the pacific settlement of disputes
• Peacekeeping before its time: the League of Nations
• Peacekeeping and the UN Charter: main actors and their roles
• Concepts and evolution of international peacekeping
• Peacekeeping in the post-Cold War era
• New paradigms of peacekeeping
• Peacekeeping and the use of force
• Peacekeeping, conflict prevention, peacemaking and peacebuilding
• Operational aspects of peacekeeping operations
• The regionalization of peacekeeping
• Case studies of peacekeeping missions.

• Identifying UN peacekeeping in its evolution
• Understanding the nature of first and second-generation peacekeeping
• Understanding how peacekeeping interacts with UN´s other instruments for preserving international peace
• Identifying the impact of peacekeeping within the conflicts dynamics

• BIERMAN, Wolfgang e VADSET, Martin (1998), eds., UN Peacekeeping in Trouble: Lessons Learned from the Former Yugoslavia, Aldershot, Ashgate
• DIEHL, Paul (1994), International Peacekeeping. Baltimore, Md., Johns Hopkins University Press
• DURCH, William (1993), The Evolution of UN Peacekeeping. NY, St. Martin´s Press
• DURCH, William (1996), UN Peacekeeping, American Politics, and the Uncivil Wars of the 1990s, NY, St. Martin´s Press
• RATNER, Steven R. (1995), The New UN Peacekeeping: Building Peace in Lands of Conflict after the Cold War. NY, St. Martin´s Press