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64 Harv. Int'l L.J. 1 (2023)
Empty Promises: Peacekeeper Babies and Discretionary Impunity within the United Nations

handle is hein.journals/hilj64 and id is 7 raw text is: VOLUME 64, NUMBER 1, WINTER 2023 Empty Promises: Peacekeeper Babies and Discretionary Impunity Within the United Nations Emma Svoboda* What I fear most is power with impunity.1 Where there are sexual contacts between foreign soldiers and local women, whether they are consensual or exploitative/abusive in nature, children are being born. 2 In six decades of U.N. peacekeeping operations, the presence of U.N. military units in some of the planet's most unstable conflict zones has led to the births of tens of thousands of Peacekeeper Fathered Children (PKFC). Mothers of PKFC seeking acknowledgments of paternity or child support payments have been stonewalled by the United Nations; the organization has used its legal immunities to absolve itself of any responsibility to connect abandoned children with their peacekeeper fathers. This inaction has persisted despite extrnal and internal calls for reform and promises by U.N. leadership for nw pathw ays to remedies. This Note sets out the problems and obstacles faced by PKFC mothers when seking paternity claims and details the ways in which U.N. policies create a remedy gap. It additionally proffers an explanation for that paradox of inaction: the United Nations' automatic categorization of all PKFC as instances of improper Sexual Exploitation and Abuse (SEA). The United Nations is temperamentally disposed to zealously exercise its legal immunities as an International Organization (10) to shield itself from civil or criminal claims setking damages for rape, sexual abuse, or other misdeeds. This Note argues that impulse may be hampering the United Nations' ability to take ownership over civil paternity claims, even as it claims that providing remedis to PKFC and their mothers is a political priority for the organization. INTRODUCTION In some of the most unstable conflict zones in the world, U.N. peacekeep- ing forces are deployed to protect civilians and rebuild local institutions. With forces numbering sometimes in the tens of thousands, these cont- ingents consist of military personnel, uniformed police, and civilians, * J.D. Candidate 2023, Harvard Law School. I would like to express my gratitude for Professor Naz K. Modirzadeh and the members of my 2021-2022 writing group, who gave invaluable comments on early drafts. Beatrice Lindstrom introduced me to the work of the BIA and Haitian advocates and helped shape this Note's ultimate form. I would also like to thank the editors of the Harvard International Law journal for their hard work in preparing this piece for publication. All errors remain my own. 1. Isabel Allende, Tales of Passion, TED (2007), https://www.ted.com/talks/isabel/al- lendetalesof.passion/ [https://perma.cc/RGZ6-V4TW}. 2. Sabine Lee & Susan Bartels, 'They Put a Few Coins in Your Hand to Drop a Baby in You': A Study of Peacekeeper-fathered Children in Haiti, 27 INT'L PEACEKEEPING 177, 181 (2020).

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