Unhappy Birthday! Women, Peace and Security at 25

This year–2025–the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda marks its 25th anniversary, a milestone that invites both reflection and reckoning. WPS was born from United Nations Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 1325, unanimously adopted on October 31, 2000, and few at the time could have foreseen how widely it would spread, becoming the largest thematic domain of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), and sparking hundreds of national action plans (NAPs) and regional action plans. Today, the agenda faces a crisis of legitimacy, provoking questions about the depth of its roots, its convoluted growth, and whether it warrants celebration at all. Since the wars and atrocities of the 1990s that spurred the first resolution – itself a product of the turn toward human security and the wider embrace of liberal internationalism – authoritarianism has risen, multilateral norms have eroded, civic space has shrunk, and aid budgets have been slashed. This profoundly gloomy picture is set against ongoing violence, including repeated violations of international law, too often met with the silence or complicity of WPS champions and so-called liberal defenders.