Book excerpt: The United Nations peacekeeping has evolved as a practical measure for preserving international peace and security. Recent peacekeeping has two important features: the use of force which arguably exceeds self-defence on the one hand, and multifunctional operations on the other. The Security Council has started considering a wide range of factors including serious human rights violations as threats to international peace and security. Recognising the UN's principle to seek peaceful settlement which underlies the legality of peacekeeping, this research focuses on the human rights functions of multifunctional peacekeeping operations. Such functions have immense potential for enhancing conflict resolution through peaceful means. In order to illustrate these issues and the diverse practice of UN peacekeeping, the author of this book has dealt with four detailed case studies on El Salvador, Cambodia, Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia. The achievements, problems and defects experienced by different operations are analysed using the insights of the author's own experience in a peacekeeping operation.