1325 at 25: What Is a Battered Tool Good For?

In an early conversation on the relevance of United Nations Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 1325, the resolution is described by Carol Cohn as presenting “an important tool to all of us who seek the empowerment of women and sustainable peace, and who believe that the two are interconnected,” and by Sheri Gibbings as a “tool to justify military occupation on behalf of ‘liberating’ women” (Cohn, Kinsella, and Gibbings 2004, 138–9). Both prospects have been borne out in the 25 years of the implementation of, and rhetoric relating to, UNSCR 1325 and the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda that emerged from the landmark resolution. There is substantive documentation of, and scholarship on, the implementation of the agenda (see, for example, Coomaraswamy 2015; Davies and True 2019). It is evident from this literature that the realization of feminist peace, which propelled civil society advocacy for the passage of UNSCR 1325, has not been the only driving factor behind this implementation. In practice, the WPS resolutions have been employed by a range of actors for varying purposes.