Dag Hammarskjöld Medal

The Dag Hammarskjöld Medal is a posthumous award given by the United Nations (UN) to military personnel, police, or civilians who lose their lives while serving in a United Nations peacekeeping operation. The medal is named after Dag Hammarskjöld, the second Secretary-General of the United Nations; Hammarskjöld died in a plane crash in 1961.

Creation of medal
On 22 July 1997, during its 3802nd meeting, the United Nations Security Council unanimously adopted Resolution 1121, in which it established the Dag Hammarskjöld Medal. In the resolution, the Security Council also requested that the UN Secretary-General establish criteria and procedures for the awarding of the medal. The first medals were awarded in October 1998.

Criteria
On 1 December 2000, Kofi Annan, the UN Secretary-General, published regulations for the awarding of the medal. The award is given to any military personnel, police, or civilians who lose their lives while serving in a United Nations peacekeeping operation, so long as the death did not result from misconduct or criminal acts. The criteria came into force on 1 January 2001 and the medal may be given to individuals who qualified before or after that date. The physical medals are presented to the next of kin of the deceased recipient.

Medal
The medal is egg-shaped and made of clear lead free glass, engraved with the name and date of death of the recipient, the United Nations logo, and the inscription “The Dag Hammarskjöld Medal. In the Service of Peace”, in English and French.

Recipients
On 6 October 1998, the first three Dag Hammarskjöld Medals were awarded to Dag Hammarskjöld, René de Labarrière, and Folke Bernadotte. Beginning in 2001, the UN began awarding dozens of medals each month for the UN peacekeepers who had been killed between 1948 and 2001. Since 2001, there have been an annual medal ceremony for those who were killed in UN peacekeeping operations the previous year. The ceremony is held on 29 May, which is the International Day of United Nations Peacekeepers.

In 2009, the medal was awarded to each of the 132 UN peacekeepers who were killed in 2008.