Duty of Care

Duty of care, or the protection of the well-being of personnel deployed in multilateral peace operations, entails the rights and obligations of multilateral organisations receiving seconded personnel, of national institutions seconding personnel and of the personnel themselves.

Without adequate provision of duty of care, the sustainable implementation of a peace operation’s tasks cannot be ensured. This is why the interest in an effective and successful fulfilment of a peace operation’s mandate is inextricably linked with duty of care.

Ideally, personnel welfare and the policy interests involved in a peace operation do not contradict each other, but are rather mutually reinforcing. The aim is not to exclude risks, but rather to mitigate risks through responsible action on the part of the individual taking part in a peace operation, the seconding country and the receiving organisation.

In collaboration with other international partners, we have developed guidelines that lay out a common understanding of the shared responsibility for ensuring the well-being of personnel. The so-called “Voluntary Guidelines on the Duty of Care to Seconded Civilian Personnel” presents the only voluntary, self-regulatory framework document on the topic to date.

The guidelines are structured around five questions:

1. What are the legal requirements relating to duty of care under national, European and international law?

2. What questions should be asked and answered regarding the security and risk management of a peace operation to enable the deployment of personnel?

3. What information should be provided to secondees prior to their signing an employment contract to ensure that they are sufficiently well-informed to deploy?

4. How should personnel be selected, trained and prepared in order to help ensure the success of a peace operation in accordance with the foreign policy interests of the secondee’s home country?

5. How can the processes surrounding the deployment of personnel in multilateral peace operations be continuously improved?

These guidelines for seconding and receiving institutions represent a milestone in the development of a common understanding of the concept of duty of care in multilateral peace operations.

By strengthening relevant structures and processes with partners in international organisations and peace operations can also help to improve the working conditions of (German) civilian experts in the field. This is why we foster international dialogue aimed at improving standards and activities surrounding duty of care for secondees in peace operations.

In cooperation with the German Federal Foreign Office, we have been hosting the international Duty of Care Roundtable since 2014 – an event that brings together seconding states, their implementing agencies and the international organisations receiving secondees in a format that builds mutual trust and confidence.

Our engagement in the area of duty of care also extends to the Standby Partnership Network, a cooperative network of United Nations organisations seconding and receiving personnel in the area of humanitarian operations. We advise institutions such as the United Nations on duty of care for seconded personnel (so-called “non-staff personnel”) deployed in humanitarian crisis operations.