UN Transitional Administrations: enjoying immunity or impunity? : A legal study on UN Transitional Administrations and their post-colonial impact on victims’ access to justice

Abstract: United Nations peacekeeping forces and operations, have long had a history of crimes against civilians by its personnel, not least concerning crimes of sexual exploitation and abuse. While human rights violations are grave despite their origin, there is a specific element of impunity and distrust when the same people who comes to ‘protect’, are the same people who become perpetrators. In this sense, it is notably interesting and important to examine victims’ rights to access justice when crimes have been committed by UN Personnel. The primary aim is to explore to what extent the fore-mentioned victims have the possibility to access justice within the legal system of UN Transitional Administrations. These UN operations are chosen since it is particularly important to examine the extent to which victim’s may access justice when the UN exercises governmental powers and acts as a quasi-state. An underlying aim is to explore how the eventual inconsistencies within this system may be colored by postcolonial tendencies. In this sense, the study is conducted through a doctrinal method with a postcolonial perspective, examining the normative aspects of law in the light of a critical lens. The legal basis and the legal obligations of UN Transitional Administrations are compared to the International Standard on Victims’ rights and evidence on how victims’ rights to access justice is practiced within these administrations. Finally, the aim is to evaluate the result of this analysis from the standpoint of postcolonial theory.