Protection Trinity: Assessing the Three-tier Framework in United Nations Resolutions

The 2010 Operational Concept for the Protection of Civilians (POC) has formalized the United Nations (UN) protection strategies into a three-tier structure: protection through dialogue and engagement (Tier 1), physical protection (Tier 2) and the establishment of a protective environment (Tier 3). Using a Naïve Bayes algorithm to classify 1,118 protection references in Security Council and General Assembly resolutions between 1990 and 2019, this article first systematically evaluates the impact of this policy. Has the three-tier approach shifted the traditional focus away from physical protection? Has the post-2010 period witnessed a surge in the prominence of holistic and long-term POC strategies? The findings reveal a notable increase in the frequency of protection mentions following the introduction of the Operational Concept. However, even in the final years of the observation period and in the context of five multi-dimensional peacekeeping operations, references to the physical protection cluster (Tier 2) outnumber mentions of Tiers 1 and 3. These findings hold policy relevance, as they stress the United Nations’ difficulty in integrating the diverse protection approaches outlined in the three-tier structure of the Operational Concept into a cohesive strategy.