The role of the United Nations women, peace and security agenda in promoting gender justice in post-conflict societies: is the agenda transformative?

This paper aims to bring forward the problems within the WPS agenda by questioning its accountability mechanisms. The most significant accountability mechanism of the agenda is the National Action Plans (NAPs) which are supposed to be adopted by each UN member states to implement the agenda within their domestic sphere. The paper illustrates the implementation of the agenda by applying to the Bosnia and Herzegovina’s NAPs in order to demonstrate the disconnections and continuities between the UNSC agenda (international law) and Bosnia and Herzegovina’s NAPs (domestic law)б both are precluding the transformation of women’s roles in post- conflict reconstruction process. It has been suggested that in order to create gender mainstreaming, the NAPs should go beyond the prescribed solutions under the WPS resolutions and should even challenge the WPS agenda. SC WPS agenda is a long way away from transforming the roles of women in conflict and post-conflict societies and from addressing the root causes of the conflicts. Instead, it remains restricted by the goal of conflict resolution and does not challenge the existing structural forms of the conflicting societies.