The United Nations Mission for Justice Support in Haiti (MINUJUSTH) marked one year of operations in April 2019, with officials acknowledging that progress had been hampered by the country’s deteriorating political and security situation. MINUJUSTH had replaced the long-running MINUSTAH peacekeeping mission in October 2017 with a smaller, more targeted mandate focused on justice, rule of law, and police capacity building.
In its one-year assessment, the mission highlighted modest gains in training Haitian National Police officers and supporting judicial reform efforts, but acknowledged that persistent political instability had complicated its work. Human rights monitors attached to the mission documented numerous cases of excessive force by police during protests, as well as ongoing concerns about arbitrary detention and prison overcrowding.
The Security Council was already deliberating the mission’s future, with plans in place to transition from a peacekeeping mission to a smaller UN political presence by October 2019. Critics argued that the drawdown was premature given Haiti’s ongoing instability, while supporters maintained that Haiti needed to take greater ownership of its own security and governance challenges.
The mission’s relationship with the Haitian government remained complex, shaped by lingering public resentment over the UN’s role in introducing cholera to the country in 2010.