A critical examination of Australian police peacekeepers navigating ethics, human rights, structure, and agency in Timor-Leste and the Solomon Islands

Abstract

Since 1964 Australia has sent police officers on peacekeeping and capacity building missions to almost every continent. In particular, Australia's geopolitical interests in the Asia-Pacific have contributed to involvement in major long-term missions in Timor-Leste and the Solomon Islands and the creation of the International Deployment Group as a permanent arm for deploying Australian police internationally. However, as is the case with domestic policing, the complex moral dilemmas experienced by police, and the subsequent implications for human rights, are evident. Current research into police peacekeeping has shown that donor police in post-conflict societies have been implicated in a range of moral and human rights breaches suggesting that peacekeepers have on occasion failed to uphold their obligations to ethical practice and human rights maintenance. What is missing from current research is an examination of the understanding and contribution to ethics and human rights from the police peacekeepers' perspective. This thesis focuses on examining the experiences of Australian police officers deployed to these nations with a view to conceptualising their understanding and lived experience of contributing to ethical practice and human rights maintenance, adopting a hermeneutic-phenomenological framework to give participants the opportunity to engage in reflexivity. This thesis also considers the lived experiences of people who worked or interacted with Australian police throughout their missions inclusive of a diverse array of backgrounds. Using theories of structure and agency, participants reflected on the contextual, cultural, socioeconomic, geographic, and historical structures that presented as both barriers and facilitators to police peacekeepers engaging in ethical practice and human rights. Participants also reflected on their use of agency in their practice to contribute to improvements in ethical practice and human rights in the host context through transformation of those structures. By going 'to the source' in the examination of human rights and ethical practice in police peacekeeping, consideration of their experiences elucidates their post-action reflections and provides an opportunity for considering ways towards making sense of ethical practice and human rights in post-conflict police work.

Date of Award	2019
Original language	English