• INTERNATIONAL LAW:Preventing Genocide and Mass Killing: The Challenge for the United Nations • HUMAN RIGHTS: Report of the Commission for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation in East Timor • DISPLACEMENT: Mass Exoduses and Displaced Persons: Report on the Human Rights of IDPs • HEALTH: Assault on Survival: A Call for Justice, Restitution • ARMED GROUPS: Security Sector Reform and its Role in Challenging of Radicalism • INT'L ORGANIZATIONS: Regional Capacities to Protect Civilians in Violent Conflicts • PEACE OPERATIONS: Meeting the Challenges of Peace Operations: Cooperation and Coordination • CONFLICT PREVENTION: Hard Measures by a Soft Power? Sanctions Policy of the European Union • GOVERNANCE: Weak States and Global Threats: Assessing Evidence of “Spillovers” • SMALL ARMS: Demanding Attention: Addressing the Dynamics of Small Arms Demand • POST-CONFLICT: Planning Post-conflict Reconstruction in Iraq: What Can We Learn? • CHILDREN: Girls Formerly Associated with Fighting Forces and their Children INTERNATIONAL LAW, JUSTICE AND ACCOUNTABILITY Preventing Genocide and Mass Killing: The Challenge for the United Nations Minority Rights Group International The place of human rights within the UN’s priorities has evolved in fits and starts. Punctuated by the uncertainties of the cold war, human rights – sometimes, the concept is expressed rather more broadly as ‘human security’ – has become the UN’s raison d’être. The proposals of the Highlevel Panel in December 2004, In Larger Freedom: Towards Security, Development and Human Rights for All presented by the Secretary-General in March 2005, and the Outcome Document of the September 2005 Summit, confirm this. These documents represent the principal contributions to the debate about UN reform. In affirming a responsibility to protect populations at risk of genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity, the Outcome Document effectively trumps the archaic language about non-intervention in matters essentially of domestic jurisdiction. And in agreeing to replace t he Commission on Human Rights with a new Council, the UN’s structure will be transformed to reflect the central position of the protection and promotion of human rights within the organization’s mission... International law, as it now stands, requires states to prevent and to punish genocide, other acts of mass killing, and serious acts of persecution directed against minority groups. Continue Reading More on International Law, Justice and Accountability HUMAN RIGHTS Final Report of the Commission for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation in East Timor International Center for Transitional Justice On January 20th, President Xanana Gusmão of Timor-Leste presented the UN Secretary-General, Mr. Kofi Annan, with the final report of the Commission for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation in Timor-Leste (CAVR in its Portuguese acronym). In so doing, President Gusmão complied with the UN regulations that established the CAVR in 2001 and with Timorese legislation. President Gusmão had earlier handed the report over to the Timorese parliament and cabinet. The CAVR delivered its report to the president on October 31, 2005, marking the end of more than three years of intensive work, during which more than 7,000 victims gave testimony on human rights violations committed in East Timor between April 1974 and October 1999. The Commission found that at least 102,800 Timorese people died as a direct result of the 24-year Indonesian occupation. This corresponds to approximately 10% of Timor-Leste's present popula tion. The final report is a comprehensive and detailed record of the suffering of the Timorese people in their struggle for freedom, a harsh indictment of the 24-year Indonesian occupation and a plea to overcome the inaction of the international community. Based on rigorous legal analysis and extensive information, the CAVR concluded that Indonesian security forces committed human rights violations that amounted to crimes against humanity and war crimes against the Timorese population. Continue reading More on Human Rights DISPLACEMENT Mass Exoduses and Displaced Persons: Report of the Representative of the Secretary-General on the Human Rights of Internally Displaced Persons Commission on Human Rights The Representative of the Secretary-General on the human rights of internally displaced persons, Walter Kälin, provides the Commission on Human Rights with a detailed report on the first full year of his mandate. Alongside the ongoing work responding to internal displacement resulting from armed conflict, the last year has dramatically shown the scope and vulnerabilities of persons also displaced by natural disaster. At the same time, the humanitarian reform and wider United Nations reform processes have provided new opportunities to strengthen the response to internal displacement, whatever the cause. The present report sets out the comprehensive human rights-centred approach to all activities undertaken pursuant to the Representative’s mandate, and examines his dialogue with Governments over the last year, his efforts to mainstream the human rights of internally displaced persons into all parts of the United N ations system, his promotion of the Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement, particularly at regional and national levels, and a variety of other activities promoting the human rights of internally displaced persons. He concludes with an assessment of the overall impact of his mandate thus far and provides a series of recommendations for future action. Continue reading More on Refugees and Internally Displaced People HEALTH AND SECURITY Assault on Survival: A Call for Justice, Restitution Physicians for Human Rights For over two years, the Government of Sudan (GOS) and their ruthless proxy militias, the Janjaweed, have carried out a systematic campaign of destruction against specific population groups, their way of life and all that sustains them. This report tells the story of Darfurian lives and livelihoods obliterated in three of the thousands of villages literally wiped off the map by the genocidal killers who also pillaged, plundered, and pursued men, women and children in an all-out assault on the very survival of a population. By delving deeply into the experiences and accounts of eyewitnesses from the villages of Furawiya, Terbeba and Bendisi, Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) is adding to the mounting evidence of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide perpetrated against non-Arab civilians in Darfur. By eliminating access to food, water and medicine, expelling people into inhospitable terrain and then, in many cases , blocking crucial outside assistance, the GOS and the Janjaweed have created conditions calculated to destroy the non-Arab people of Darfur in contravention of the “Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. Continue reading More on Health and Security ARMIES, PARAMILITARIES, AND NON-STATE ARMED GROUPS Security Sector Reform and its Role in Challenging of Radicalism Danish Institute for International Studies This working paper explores the linkage between security sector reform and development assistance in countering radicalization. It is argued that security is an essential prerequisite to sustainable development. The premise of this paper is that there are important security sector reform objectives that are essential in countering radicalisation through addressing many of the underlying root causes that can create and sustain radical opposition to authoritarian or totalitarian governments in developing countries. It is often the case that the security forces are themselves not so much guarantors of security but rather a key agent of insecurity in themselves. At its simplest security sector reform seeks to improve the professional capacity of the security sector while at the same time also seeking to ensure that it respects human rights and is not corrupt and properly accountable. Continue reading More on Armies, Paramilitaries, and Non-State Armed Groups PEACE OPERATIONS Meeting the Challenges of Peace Operations: Cooperation and Coordination Challenges of Peace Operations: Into the 21st Century The multinational project 'Challenges of Peace Operations: Into the 21st Century' was initiated in 1997. Its aim is to foster and encourage a culture of cross-professional cooperation and partnership and to generate practical recommendations that will benefit the effectiveness and legitimacy of multinational and multidisciplinary peace operations. Phase I of the project was brought to a close in 2002. Partner Organizations decided to proceed with a second phase in which they would address, in more depth, some of the specific challenges identified in the first report. The multidimensional nature of contemporary peace operations produces a complex web of challenges, all of which demand a high level of international cooperation at strategic, operational and tactical levels. Effective cooperation and coordination among states, organizations and individuals are critical factors to success and Project Partners decided to focus o n three areas: the Regional Dimensions of Peace Operations, Rule of Law, and Education and Training. The present report 'Meeting the Challenges of Peace Operations: Cooperation and Coordination' draws on the discussions and findings from seminars held between late 2002 and early 2005, hosted by Partner Organizations in Australia, China, Nigeria, Sweden, Turkey, and the United Kingdom. Continue reading More on Peace Operations and Post-Conflict Reconstruction INTERNATIONAL AND REGIONAL ORGANIZATIONS Realizing “Never Again”: Regional Capacities to Protect Civilians in Violent Conflicts Fund for Peace The Fund for Peace believes that the international community should now focus on a "second generation" of peacekeepers or peace enforcers that are needed to address the main threats to global security today. There remains a gap between the recognition of needs and the identification of capacities. Recent operations have demonstrated that the experiences and niche capacities that nations and regional organizations bring to peacekeeping and stability operations have frequently proven critical to the success of the mission. This report reviews those capacities, identifying both the strengths and weaknesses of a vital part of the evolving international architecture of peace and stability operations in the 21st century. Continue reading More on International and Regional Organizations CONFLICT PREVENTION Hard Measures by a Soft Power? Sanctions Policy of the European Union Bonn International Center for Conversion This paper aims at giving an overview of EU sanctions during the time period leading up to the first programmatic document on sanctions policy in June 2004. The author defines EU sanctions, discusses the development of sanctions regulations at the EU level, and outlines the history of EU sanctions since 1984. He also examines the coordination of economic sanctions between the UN, the OSCE, and the EU. The paper concludes with a set of 25 brief cases studies of EU sanctions. Continue reading More on Conflict Prevention GOVERNANCE Weak States and Global Threats: Assessing Evidence of “Spillovers” Center for Global Development A key motivation behind recent donor attention and financial resources devoted to developing countries is the presumed connection between weak and failing states, on the one hand, and a variety of transnational threats, on the other. Indeed, it has become conventional wisdom that poorly performing states generate multiple cross-border “spillovers,” including terrorism, weapons proliferation, organized crime, regional instability, global pandemics, and energy insecurity. What is striking is how little empirical evidence underpins such sweeping assertions. A closer look suggests that the connection between state weakness and global threats is less clear and more variable than typically assumed. Both the type and extent of “spillovers” depend in part on whether the weakness in question is a function of state capacity, will, or a combination of the two. Moreover, a preliminary review suggests that some trans-border threats are more likely to emerge not from the weakest states but from stronger states that possess narrower but critical gaps in capacity and will. Crafting an effective U.S. and international strategy towards weak states and the cross-border spillovers they sometimes generate will depend on a deeper understanding of the underlying mechanisms linking these two sets of phenomena. The challenge for analysts and policymakers will be to get greater clarity about which states are responsible for which threats and design development and other external interventions accordingly. This working paper represents an initial foray in this direction, suggesting avenues for future research and policy development. Continue reading More on Governance and Security SMALL ARMS Demanding Attention: Addressing the Dynamics of Small Arms Demand Small Arms Survey When UN member states gather in July 2006 to review progress on the implementation of the 2001 Programme of Action to Prevent, Combat and Eradicate the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All Its Aspects, they will be challenged from many quarters to commit themselves to effective action to reduce the effects of the spread and misuse of small arms and light weapons. This Review Conference will be instrumental in setting the tone and direction for global action on this issue for the years ahead. This paper aims to inform the debates that will shape the outcomes of the 2006 Review Conference by bringing what we call a demand optic to bear on the issue. In doing so, the goal is to broaden the understanding of factors that can be seen to underpin and drive small arms dynamics and to give exposure to a range of strategies that are essential complements to supplyside initiatives. This is important because the areas likely to be focused on at the conference—regulating arms brokers, establishing controls on arms transfers, and perhaps including ammunition as a necessary part of small arms management— reflect the supplyside bias that has dominated international small arms control debates to date. Continue reading More on Small Arms, Light Weapons and Landmines POST-CONFLICT RECONSTRUCTION Planning Post-conflict Reconstruction in Iraq: What Can We Learn? RAND Corporation Efforts to improve national and international capabilities to plan and manage post-conflict reconstruction operations are underway in many countries and are high on the agenda of several multilateral institutions. The international community has learned lessons from the numerous post-conflict reconstruction and nation-building operations that it has engaged in since the end of the Cold War but Iraq represented the most difficult and ambitious operation undertaken to date. Although the coalition effort in Iraq had many unique features, we can nonetheless draw lessons from the tenure of the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) both for the ongoing effort in Iraq and more broadly for future post-conflict reconstruction operations. This article discusses the challenges of post-conflict reconstruction planning and mission management and assesses what happened under the CPA. It draws lessons for the future international effort in Iraq and for the international community as it considers how to plan and organise future such missions. Continue reading More on Peace Operations and Post-Conflict Reconstruction CHILDREN AND ARMED CONFLICT Girls Formerly Associated with Fighting Forces and their Children: Returned and Neglected Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers This paper outlines the challenges to the successful community reintegration of girl mothers when they leave fighting forces, particularly in southern and western Africa. The paper grew out of an invited meeting on girl mothers, sponsored by the Rockefeller Foundation. Following country-specific analyses, which were conducted in preparation for the workshop, the authors present key issues discussed at Bellagio. Drawing upon these and other sources, they analyze some of the dilemmas provoked by the complex cultural, social and psychological situations of these young mothers and propose some approaches to working with them. Continue reading More on Children and Armed Conflict Compiled by Robert Hartfiel Human Security Research is produced by the Human Security Centre at the Liu Institute for Global Issues at UBC. The Human Security Centre produces the annual Human Security Report and is funded by the governments of Canada, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. For more information on human security visit the Human Security Gateway, an online research and information database that contains a broad range of human security-related resources. To subscribe to Human Security Research , send an email to hsc.list@ubc.ca with 'subscribe HS Research' in the subject field or click here. To unsubscribe, please reply to this message with 'unsubscribe HS Research' in the subject heading. |
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