The Force Intervention Brigade in the DRc, Civilian Security and Women Peace and Security

This article examines the UN Security Council (UNSC) authorised Force Intervention Brigade (FIB) in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and the component of the mandate that articulates civilian security as a rationale for justified force. In examining civilian protection (articulated as both civilian security and as the protection of civilians), we explore the parallels between the women, peace and security agenda and the image- versus the reality- of civilian vulnerability in the DRC. In focusing on the narratives of civilian security we explore how the ten years of repeat authorisations for the FIB replicate heteronormative and colonial tropes that have ultimately undermined security in the DRC and, for international lawyers, undermine peacekeeping principles, authorisations of force, and understandings of consent. The contradictions between the Security Council's commitments to addressing and preventing conflict-related sexual violence and the mobilisation of the FIB are drawn on to demonstrate the ways in which gender simultaneously strengthens the Council's legitimacy and yet produces few spaces of significant change from a feminist perspective. We conclude that not only is the legacy of the FIB detrimental to women's security in the DRC given reports of sexual exploitation and abuse (SEA) perpetrated by peacekeepers but that the FIB has transformed peacekeeping away from peace, embedding militarised responses to a complex humanitarian crisis.