Today is International Youth Day, a day to celebrate the ability and agency of young people to shape their world and effect meaningful change. This year’s theme is “Youth Engagement for Global Action”, which “seeks to highlight the ways in which the engagement of young people at the local, national, and global levels is enriching national and multilateral institutions and processes”. In this “super anniversary” year at the United Nations (75 years since ratification of the UN Charter, 25 years since the establishment of the Beijing Platform for Action, 20 years since the adoption of the first Women, Peace and Security resolution, and five years since the creation of the Youth, Peace and Security agenda), youth participation is on the agenda now more than ever. The Youth, Peace and Security (YPS) agenda has cemented the need for youth engagement in the peace and security sector. With the recent passing of Security Council Resolution 2535 (SCR 2535), this International Youth Day provides us with an opportune moment to reflect on this resolution and the status of youth engagement for global action in peace and security.
Just one month ago, on July 14, the topic of youth engagement in peace and security was on the table once again at the Security Council with the adoption of SCR 2535. This resolution is a much-anticipated third installment of YPS resolutions, following SCR 2419 and SCR 2250, and ultimately laying the groundwork for a more comprehensive YPS normative framework.
Despite this important progress for the YPS agenda, SCR 2535 was passed unanimously by a Security Council membership fraught with tensions and impasse. In the last year, the Security Council has been immobilized by unprecedented levels of opposition and polarization, receiving criticism over their inability to pass a resolution on COVID-19 until early July, months after a global pandemic was declared. Tensions have also been high in the Council when negotiating Women, Peace and Security (WPS) resolutions, with permanent members insisting that the current WPS agenda goes beyond the scope of the Security Council mandate, and threatening vetoes over language concerning sexual and reproductive health, human rights defenders, and civil society. Even though 2019 saw two new WPS resolutions passed, it was the first time a WPS resolution was not passed unanimously, and fear of potential rollbacks on the WPS agenda persists.
On the heels of these tensions, many consider the unanimous adoption of SCR 2535 to be a much-needed indication of progress in the Security Council. However, the YPS agenda, much like the WPS agenda, is not immune from the politics inherent to the institution that creates it. If the mandate for youth engagement in peace and security is being framed by the Security Council, we cannot ignore the politics of the Council and entrenched hierarchies of power that it reproduces. Despite these new resolutions, implementation of both the WPS and YPS agendas is discernibly lacking. Understanding the wider context of the Security Council brings into question whether the adoption of SCR 2535 is a sincere indication of progress, or merely low-hanging fruit that can achieve consensus because youth engagement is not taken seriously by the Council?
Similar to the WPS agenda, SCR 2535 is the product of concerted efforts and extensive mobilization by young people to have their voices and contributions recognized by the Security Council. However, a closer examination of SCR 2535 reveals that the text falls short of catalyzing the transformational change demanded by young people, and continues to rely on stereotypes and essentialist notions of youth participation. Once again, SCR 2535 over emphasizes the relationship between youth, security, and terrorism, stressing “the importance of providing opportunities for young people to strengthen resilience against radicalization to violence and terrorist recruitment by creating policies for youth...as an essential part of successful counter-terrorism efforts”. Young people are not tools of counter-terrorism, and to predicate their inclusion in peace and security on these essentialist notions is to undermine their integral contributions to building peaceful societies.
Despite the persistent challenges presented by the YPS resolutions (many reflective of the same challenges faced by the WPS agenda over the past 20 years), SCR 2535 does provide concrete guidance on how to start addressing the implementation gap, and is significantly more action-oriented than previous resolutions. For example, requesting the Secretary General to provide biennial reporting on the implementation of YPS resolutions provides an effective transparency mechanism, one that has worked well for monitoring implementation of the WPS agenda. The inclusion of gender language and recognition of the specific barriers faced by young women, as well as their invaluable contributions, should also be celebrated as an important contribution of SCR 2535. The resolution also explicitly recognizes the connection between the YPS and WPS agendas, a connection that needs to be further strengthened in both rhetoric and practice.
Similar to previous YPS and WPS resolutions, SCR 2535 focused heavily on the participation pillar of the agenda. It is no coincidence that International Youth Day 2020 is also centred on a theme that promotes participation, since it is easier to include youth in systems of power than to allow young people to fundamentally transform them. We are often cautioned against an “add women and stir” approach to inclusion in peace and security, and similarly we cannot expect transformational change to occur just by having young people at the table. When we say that youth engagement is needed for global action, we also need to ask what systems we are asking youth to engage in when they are simply not listened to or taken seriously in spaces of power. These systems are systems of oppression, perpetuating hierarchical notions of race, gender, class, ability, age and sexual orientation. For many young people, global action does not come merely from engaging, but from the struggle to emancipate themselves from systems of oppression.
International Youth Day 2020 asks us to engage youth for global action. From SCR 2535 it is clear that the YPS normative framework is giving us a mandate to do just that. However, at OGIP, we echo the call from young people around the world and are asking you to do more: don’t just ask us to engage in your established systems, help to redefine peace and security by allowing us to do global action on our own terms. Don’t just include us in your systems of power, help us transform them.
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