Structural and functional transformation of UN peacekeeping forces within the scope of sustainable peace

The discipline of international relations emerged in the early 20th century as a discipline built mainly on the concepts of war and peace. In its early years, the main objective of the discipline was to draw up a roadmap for the peaceful resolution of the conflicts and disputes between the states that caused World War I. However, these efforts could not have prevented the Second World War. Following the Second World War, the United Nations was launched to ensure international peace and security. From its foundation, the UN has been a party to the conflicts that threaten international peace and security arising between individuals, communities, groups and states that form the international order. The UN uses the peaceful and interventionist methods set out in the UN Treaty to resolve disputes it has ratified. His most common method of intervention is peace-keeping operations, which are not mentioned directly in the UN Treaty. Since 1948, many peace keeping operations have been carried out to restore international peace and security. The peace keeping operations are carried out with different structure and duties. Although there are several reasons why peacekeeping operations are performed with different structural and duties, the main reasons behind these actions is taking the concept of sustainable peace on the UN agenda. The concept of sustainable peace has resulted in the functional and structural transformation of the ongoing peace operations and the new peace operations. In this context, the subject and main purpose of this study is to display the functional and structural transformation of peace operations within the framework of sustainable peace. The study is planned to consist of three parts. The first part of this study examines the conceptual and theoretical infrastructure of war and peace, and defines the concept of sustainable peace. Subsequently, peacekeeping operations are examined in a multifaceted manner, addressing the process, capacities, duties and structure of UN peacekeeping operations. The third chapter examines the functional and structural transformation of the UN peacekeeping forces in the framework of sustainable peace through the disputes between Cyprus, Haiti and Mali, which have been carried out by the UN as a peacekeeping operation. In the third chapter, it was determined that in addition to the military elements, police and civil elements were also assigned to the peacekeeping operations, the number of soldiers decreased, the peacekeeping forces were given tasks such as establishing the socio-economic order, the spread of democracy and the activities carried out for the youth. In addition to the traditional peace understanding, the peacekeeping operations also undertook tasks to resolve the cultural, structural, economic and social causes that led to co flict with the aim of establishing sustainable peace. In line with these findings, the study concluded that peace operations are transforming functionally and structurally within the framework of sustainable peace.