Roadmap to 1325 – a Project for Engendering the Peace and Security Policy in all European Countries and within the EU policy

By Gitti Hentschel

Content:

1. Political Background
   
2. The three “P” of UNSCR-Resolution 1325
   
3. The German Women’s Security Council
   
4. Roadmap to 1325 – the idea and the concept
   
5. Activities, further plans and perspectives
   

The project “Roadmap to UNSCR 1325” is intending to realize the implementation of the UN Resolution 1325 in all European countries and within the EU as whole. The project is conceptualized as a symbolic relay race through all EU-states. It started with a conference in Berlin/Germany in May 2007 and was developed by the German Women’s Security Council and by the Gunda-Werner-Institute for Feminism and Gender Democracy in the Heinrich Böll Stiftung Berlin.

1. The Background of the project

At a global level the EU and the European member states are becoming more and more part of military interventions. We have examples in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Lebanon or the Democratic Republic of Congo. Civilian forms of intervention and conflict management are increasingly forced into the background. A further militarization of the European Security and Defence Policy is looming with the formulation of the European Security Strategy, the development of EU intervention forces and the building of a European Defense Agency.

At the same time, the implementation of Resolution 1325 – “Women, Peace and Security - is still outstanding in the institutions of the European Union and the European states. The seriousness in which this binding resolution of the UN Security Council is taken on varies. Some country have by now develop national action plans, other have not even translated the resolution into their national language. Since Denmark adopted the first national action plan in June 2005, 8 other countries have followed and have developed similar policies. These countries are Austria (August 2007), Iceland (March 2008), the Netherlands (December 2007), Norway (March 2006), Spain (2008), Sweden (June 2006), Switzerland (March 2007) and the UK (March 2006). Belgium is planning to develop an action plan as well. These national action plans vary from country to country, both in terms of substance and process. Yet it must be said that they are a feasible instrument for a country to develop a holistic strategy on implementing 1325, as opposed to single micro projects.

Other countries, like Germany, refuse to develop an action plan. The German government repeated several times in letters addressed to the German Women’s Security Council that they do not see any need for an action plan. This position was emphasized last year in the report of the German government on realizing UNSCR 1325. The reason: the government has developed other action plans and other means like gender mainstreaming to implement the demands of the resolution. But: from the point of view of the Women’s Security Council these do not cover the demands of the resolution. To make this clear I want to shortly introduce the central issues of the UNSCR:

2. The three “Ps” of UNSCR-Resolution 1325

The UN Security Council adopted the resolution 1325 “Women, Peace and Security” in October 2000. Like every resolution of the UNSCR also this resolution is international law binding for all members of the United Nation and has to be realized. From women’s and gender perspective it is one of the most important UN-resolutions within the field of peace and security policy. This resolution contains instructions which can be summarized in three “Ps”:

• Prevention of armed conflicts and war by implementing the gender perspective in national and international peace negotiations, activities and security policy.
  
• Participation of women at all levels of peace processes and security policy, especially at the level of political decision making. That includes also the participation of women’s peace activist groups and organizations as experts at the negotiation tables wherever political negotiations and decisions concerning peace and conflict regulation or post-war-reconstruction take place.
  
• Protection of women and children in war and (post) conflict situations especially the protection from sexual violence which is known to be part of the strategy within armed conflicts.
  
  

3. Why do we need action plans on UN-Resolution 1325?

In general, action plans on realizing resolution 1325 are necessary because a resolution like UNSCR 1325 cannot define concrete guidelines like quotas and time tables to fulfil the demands. As already said before, they are necessary to identify and report a holistic implementation strategy as opposed to single projects. And just this is the problem if we look at the results since 2003:

Although there has been a lot of activities, discussions, conferences and recommendations concerning realizing the resolution in Germany as well as in other European countries and an increasing attention and consciousness in the public and by responsible politicians on the level of European Parliament, EU-Council and German Government. But, nevertheless, there has been no real change in the central field of peace and security policy, neither in Germany, nor within Europe (nor in other parts of the world that I have no time to extend my analysis to). Facing the increasing militarization of the European Security strategy, we – the women of the German Women’s Security Council, got more and more doubts if there is really the political will to make women participate in all fields of peace and security policy. It was this perception that led us to the project “Roadmap to 1325”. The idea is to ensure succint and coordinated activities that aim for an implementation of the resolution 1325 in Europe, i.e in the European Security Policy, in EU-countries and in those countries which are targets of EU-intervention.

4. What is the German Women’s Security Council ?

To explain shortly: the German Women`s Security Council is a voluntary network of women experts, partly individuals, partly representing different political organizations and groups involved in peace and development, and political foundations and peace studies institutes and I am part of its steering committee. We started in 2003, when Germany was member of the UN Security Council for two years. We see our main task in critically accompanying the government concerning activities to realize UNSCR 1325. We make detailed proposals and give them ideas for conceptions and especially observed whether there is progress concerning the implementation of the Resolution, especially in conflict regions. We also write shadow reports referring to the report of the German Government concerning 1325. We actually just finished our second Shadow report and presented it to different politicians and members of the Foreign Council in the end of June 2008. We try to organize different public events to inform about the resolution and its implications and to put pressure on the government by formulating demands like realizing an action plan.

5. Roadmap to 1325 – the idea and the concept

We had two starting points: the first arose from the fact that in the first half of 2007 Germany was holding the presidency of the European Union. This was a perfect setting for a conference on Gender and the European Union’s peace and security policy in Germany, as a first step. The German government should utilise the presidency of the European Union to play a decisive role in the implementation of Resolution 1325 at the European level.

Secondly, we analysed the realization of national actions plans in some European countries. They were the result of more or less intensive lobbying by non-governmental organisations and women’s networks. So, for us it was quite clear: To achieve a gender-sensitive EU-policy on peace and security and also to reach action plan on 1325 within the EU-countries, a new strategy had to be developed:

Part of this new strategy is a symbolic relay race through the countries of the EU, headed by the respective EU - presidencies.

The concept behind this relay race is to combine activities of the civil society organisations with the respective presidency of the European Union. By regular conferences and other activities, step by step, in all the EU member states, the demands for an implementation of UN Resolution 1325 can be loobied for, and also be made more visible. By doing that, we also design a time-frame to concentrate on concrete events in single countries of the EU with one mutual aim: a European-wide implementation of this Resolution. This would be the realisation of “Roadmap to 1325”.

5. The activities, further plans and perspectives

So, in May 2007, we organised a conference in Berlin, supported by a lot of NGOs and other organisations like Womnet, amnesty international, medica mondiale, and 1000 PeaceWomen Across the Globe, with three central goals:

1. Raising awareness for the different effects of the EU’s peace and security policy on women and men.
   
2. Building a European network of actors and experts who are working for the implementation of Resolution 1325.
   
3. Starting a European-wide relay race for the implementation of Resolution 1325 into the European peace and security policy.
   

The more than 150 participants of the conference were peace and security experts within bodies of the EU, political representatives and members of peace research institutes. Representatives of various parts of the world, living in central conflict regions which are targets of EU-intervention, like Congo, Kosovo, Israel/ Palestine and Afghanistan. As a result, we all formulated a catalogue of demands. The main point was an EU-wide action plan to realize UN Resolution 1325. It was sent as well to the German government namely to the Chancellor Angela Merkel as the EU-presidency in the first half of 2007, as well as to the European Commission and Council. The participants expressed particular concern for the situation in Sudan and Kosovo demanding for the immediate participation of the female peace activists in negotiation talks.

And we decided to start the relay race “Roadmap to 1325”. Representatives from Portugal and Slovenia - the next EU-presidency-countries - participated in that conference and agreed to bring the spirit and concept of that relay race into their own countries. And so, I am very grateful to Svetlana Slapsak from ISH Ljubljana Graduate School in Humanities and Sonja Lokar who picked up the relay race to UNSCR 1325 and succeeded in organizing this conference. Furthermore, I am glad to see that among the participants here a representative of the civil society in France – the next country of EU-presidency-has joined us.

Since May 2007, there were several activities within Europe and on EU-level, to realize the resolution and to push the participation of women of all levels of security policy and conflict prevention. For example there was a first exchange concerning UN resolution 1325 in Portugal, in October 2007. And in Brussels the Roadmap-idea continues as a 1325- EU partnership round table initiated by EPLO, the European peacebuilding liaison office. This Roundtable consists of members of the European Parliament, of the EU Council and Commission also representatives of several civil society organisations,with the aim to discuss in which way the implementation of the resolution can be pushed forward at the EU-level.

In November 2007, another big international conference on the resolution 1325 took place in Brussels. There the – mostly female – participants from all over the world claimed the inclusion of women on all levels of peace processes and conflict regulation and formulated recommendations especially for the European security policy. As a result, International Alert in Great Britain started a European – wide mapping on resolution 1325 to get an overlook on what kind of activities and organisations do exist in which countries that are busy in pushing the gender perspective in peace and security policy and in implementing UNSCR 1325.

And a new publication of the Gunda-Werner-Institute will be published in autumn. It is about the “Roadmap to 1325” and contains detailed analyses concerning EU-security policy and the lack of gender awareness within the EU - security policy. It also gives an insight into the EU security system and the possibilities for lobbying within the EU system, and presents successful models of feminist lobby strategies like the International Women’s Commission, the result of female peace activists across the boarders of Israel and Palestine who do lobby work mainly on the UN level.

Maybe, we can discuss whether their way of working together could be a model for the peace activists in Serbia and Kosovo, or for other Balkan women activities.

I think it is important strategically discuss two central points on this conference:

1. The successes and non-successes of civil society in peace processes in the Balkans: What kind of networks do exist in the Balkan? What kind of network models among peace activists are needed to ensure better Balkan-wide lobbying for a gender perspective in Security politics? What kind of cooperations could we develop with the governments and across the borders?
   
2. The inclusion of a European perspective?
   

Alongside the questions I just raised, we have to think about how we to design an effective European 1325 network and to find concrete ways to concentrate our energies, share our experiences and develop possibilities to work together. From the experience of the German Women’s Security Council, I would also like to ask: Could a European Women’s Security Council be a model? Or: Which alternatives are thinkable to develop effective lobby work on peace and security issues from a gender perspective?

As a result of this conference, I hope that we shall together also develop some recommendations as well to the Slovenian EU-Presidency as well as to the following French presidency concerning the demands of the Balkan societies and the special conflict regulation strategies including the gender perspective and the participation of women within security policies of the several states of Balkan.

And it would be great if we can ensure the continuation of the relay race “Roadmap to 1325” throughout the European countries - to France. That means that the participants coming from France would stand up for the idea and the concept of the relay race and bring it to France - surely with the support of all of us and surely with the support of the German Women’s Security Council as well as of the Gunda-Werner-Institute for feminism and gender democracy in the Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung.