Keeping the peace: Police peacekeeping and capacity development in the promotion of human rights

In this chapter, I propose to examine the challenge still facing policing in many parts of the world today in terms of providing basic policing services to residents. By those basic services, I include the protection of human rights. As noted already, not only do police fail to protect in many instances, but they are often part of the problem of insecurity that ordinary people face in their daily lives. Understanding how policing can let people down, and why accountability for these failures is so often lacking, is important before we can assess the recent and current efforts to build peace and uphold human rights.