Peace and Conflict Studies Commons^™

Human Rights Investigation And Dialogue, Bronwyn Leebaw

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of:

Shattered Voices: Language, Violence, and the Work of Truth Commissions by Teresa Godwin Phelps. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004. 180pp.

and

International Citizens’ Tribunals: Mobilizing Public Opinion to Advance Human Rights by Arthur Jay Klinghofer and Judith Apter Klinghofer. New York, NY: Palgrave, 2002. 272pp.

Georgia, James Smithwick

Human Rights & Human Welfare

The conflict between Chechnya and Russia combined with September 11 has focused more international attention on the Russian Caucuses. However, little has changed since America declared a War on Terror in the Republic of Georgia. The state turned a blind eye to religious persecution before September 11, and continues to do so. Multiple separatist movements persist in the same manner as they did prior to September 11.

Iran, Syd Dillard

Human Rights & Human Welfare

The West has been conditioned to perceive Iran as hostile, suspect, and promoting terrorism. The conventional wisdom is that Iran is not an “open society”, but one where dissent is repressed. However, the literature, as in the quote above, paints a picture of diverse peoples and political thought. Yet diversity in popular attitudes does not preclude Iran from a troubling human rights record. The more reformers demand and speak out, the more repressive the regime becomes. In defense of these activities, Iran appeals to cultural and religious tradition. Outside its borders, Iran has also been either a sponsor or supporter …

Uganda, Simon Amajuru

Human Rights & Human Welfare

The war in northern Uganda is one against civilians. Although the government purports to be targeting Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) rebels, it is well known that more than 80% of the current rebels were conscripted against their will. The war has continued for more than 17 years, caused displacement of more than 1. 6 million people, and left more than 100,000 people dead. Over 20,000 children have been abducted and forced to join the LRW ranks or become sex slaves, while over 50,000 children have turned into “night commuters” for fear of abductions.

Supranationalism And The Superpower Rubicon, Imtiaz Hussain

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of:

The Chapter VII Powers of the United Nations Security Council by Erika de Wet. Portland, OR: Hart Publishing, 2004. 413pp.

Neotrusteeship In Afghanistan, Melanie Kawano

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Afghanistan is currently under the tentative rule of an international administration, or neotrusteeship, thereby restricting its national sovereignty. However, self-determination and nonintervention have never been persistent features of Afghanistan. Foreign interventions, invasions and great power showdowns on its territory have made a truly autonomous Afghan state a shortlived phenomenon. The outcome at each stage of Afghan history has been an unstable state that seems to invite even more external involvement.

State-Building In Afghanistan, Melanie Kawano, Amy Mcguire

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Since the U.S. intervention in Afghanistan in late 2001, Afghan citizens and members of the global community have been grappling with the question of how to build a state that can fill the void created by decades of conflict and violence. However, the concept of “state-building” is complex. The term describes both an internal process and international assistance; it requires short-term action as well as a long-term vision. While no precise formula for state-building exists, there are historical precedents and “models” of state-building expressed by great powers and multilaterals. In reality, however, these are based on best guesses that fail …

Democratization In Bosnia, Melanie Kawano, Amber Goodman, Chris Saeger

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Democratization in post-conflict, post-Dayton Bosnia has been characterized by many scholars as a “noble experiment”: the West’s guinea pig for internationally initiated post-communist democratization. In a state so wearied by war and dictatorship, democracy would be expected to take root quickly and flourish. However, due to various cultural and political influences, what the Dayton Peace Agreement originally intended to quickly lead to Bosnia’s self-governance has instead resulted in the state’s crippling dependence on external actors. The articles in this section of this bibliography explore the myriad influences (primarily under the umbrella of ethnicity) on the process.

Neotrusteeship In Bosnia, Lauren Ingram

Human Rights & Human Welfare

The conflict in Bosnia resulted in 4.3 million displaced people, 250,000 estimated casualties, and more than 200,000 wounded including 50,000 children. (Cousens and Carter 25). In 1995, these facts became known to the world when the U.N. Protection Force (UNPROFOR), NATO, and the United States were able to reach a peace agreement with warring factions. As in World War II, Bosnian-Serbians, Bosnian-Croatians, Croatians, Muslim were active combatants. However, unlike World War II, no single governing authority emerged. Instead, the U.N., with key U.S. involvement, had to institute not only peace but also an administration that could uphold that peace. The …

State-Building In Bosnia, Chris Saeger

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Although the idea of state-building is at least as contentious as the idea of the state itself, international technocrats and foreign policymakers remain resigned to this project. International state-building has been conceived of as maintaining intermestic social order, protecting individual rights, and consolidating transnational linkages of power. Yet whatever the motive, effect or standard form of state-building, some political organization called “the state” is a necessary condition for membership in international society, if not for protecting individual human rights.

Sudan, Alexandra Nichols

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Since independence Sudan has found itself almost constantly embroiled in civil conflict within its own borders. Throughout the 1990’s, Sudan was widely known to sponsor terrorism, having such as including Osama bin Laden from 1991-1996. American sanctions have been in place in Sudan since 1997, the last American ambassador was removed in 1998, and Sudan has been on the U.S. State Departments list of sponsored terrorists since 1993.

Human Rights And Post-War Reconstruction: Introduction, Roberto Belloni

Human Rights & Human Welfare

The expression “post-war reconstruction,” commonly adopted by both practitioners and academics, is somewhat misleading. Reconstruction does not entail rebuilding or return to the pre– war state of affairs as the expression seems to suggest. Rather, reconstruction involves difficult multiple transitions: from war to peace, from a state to a market economy, and from authoritarianism to democracy. Each transition taken by itself would be daunting. Taken together, they can be almost overwhelming.

Background For The “War On Terror”

Human Rights & Human Welfare

September 11 changed the United States’ understanding of terrorism. Prior to these attacks, Americans typically viewed terrorist events and actors through the lens of foreign affairs, quite removed from “everyday” concerns. Terrorist events involving Americans did occur, occasionally on American soil, but a sense of American invulnerability never truly wavered. September 11 challenged this presumption; as well as perspectives on the history of terrorism, compelling some to reexamine past events in order to find portents of the future tragedy.

Sri Lanka, Amanda Donahoe

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Sri Lanka has been entrenched in a civil war for two decades. As in ethnic conflicts in many other post-colonial countries, the different groups of Sri Lanka give loyalty primarily to the group, rather than to the entire country. The Sinhalese majority have slowly populated the government and treated the Tamil minority as a threat to national stability, instead of as candidates for conciliation and power sharing. Consequently, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) has taken up arms against the Sinhalese controlled government to fight for an independent homeland in the north and north-east parts of the country in …

Politics, Rights, And The Refugee Problem, Richard Dagger

Political Science Faculty Publications

In The Origins of Totalitarianism, the political philosopher Hannah Arendt pointed to the years between World War I and World War II as the time when the plight of refugees became a pressing political problem.' If Arendt were still alive (she died in 1975), she would no doubt agree that the problem is at least as pressing in the early twenty-first century as it was sixty or more years ago, when she herself was a refugee from Nazi Germany. Who would not agree? According to a report of the U.N. Population Division, 16 million people were refugees at the …

The Morality Of Human Rights: A Nonreligious Ground?, Michael J. Perry

Faculty Articles

In the midst of the countless, grotesque inhumanities of the twentieth century, however, there is a heartening story, amply recounted elsewhere: the emergence, in international law, of the morality of human rights. The morality of human rights is not new; in one or another version, the morality is very old. But the emergence of morality in international law, in the period since the end of World War II, is a profoundly important development.

The twentieth century, therefore, was not only the dark and bloody time; the second half of the twentieth century was also the time in which a growing …

Itf Enhancing Human Security Annual Report 2005, Itf-Enhancy Human Security

Global CWD Repository

The journey towards SE Europe region free from the impact of mines unites various stakeholders – the mine affected communities and their mine action authorities, international and local donor communities, the implementing partners and agencies – in a harmonized cooperation towards a positive end. The mandate of raising and managing funds has been entrusted to the ITF, which proved to be a recognizable and trustworthy partner. In 2005, the ITF funded some 50% of the demining programme in Bosnia and Herzegovina, approximately 20% in Croatia, 75% in Albania and over 50% in Serbia and Montenegro (incl. Kosovo). The overall number …

Report Of The Focus Group Workshop On Victim And Casualty Data Collection And Support Requirements For Imsma Version 4, Cisr

Global CWD Repository

The Mine Action Information Center (MAIC) at James Madison University (JMU) hosted a focus group workshop on 15-16 August 2005 in support of the development of version 4 of the Information Management System for Mine Action (IMSMA). Mr. Alan Arnold, the IMSMA program manager, tasked the MAIC to organize and host the workshop in order to bring together subject matter experts in the fields of Mine Risk Education (MRE) and Mine Victim Assistance (MVA). The objective was to elicit, categorize and record comment on and suggestions for the proposed design of Victim and Casualty Data Collection and Analysis modules for …

Landmine Impact Survey Data And Planning For Reconstruction, Bob Eaton

Global CWD Repository

This report is the result of a Survey Action Center consultancy for the UN Mine Action Centre Afghanistan on collecting reconstruction and/or planning data and how it can be combined with Landmine Impact Survey data for follow-up on reconstruction/planning, casualty reduction, and surveillance and development of field reporting systems.

Democratization In Afghanistan, Chris Rowe

Human Rights & Human Welfare

What determines whether a specific country embarks on the road to democracy, if it completes that voyage successfully, and finally consolidates democratic values, practices, and institutions? Analysts have debated these issues for decades and have identified a number of historical, structural, and cultural variables that help account for the establishment of successful democracies in some countries and its absence in others. Frequently cited prerequisites for democracy include social and economic modernization; a large and vibrant middle class; and cultural norms and values relating to politics.

Democratization In Iraq, Kate Lotz, Tim Melvin

Human Rights & Human Welfare

With the war in Iraq over, Coalition forces are still present as the cultivation of Iraqi democracy is underway. Coalition-led democratization in Iraq will prove to be a lengthy and complex objective, but one which will be pursued until successfully accomplished.

Neotrusteeship In Iraq, Tim Melvin

Human Rights & Human Welfare

This section deals with literature that examines the role and effectiveness of the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) in administering Iraq from 2003 till 2004. Foreign rule plays an important role in developing failed state’s infrastructure and institutions. By examining critical elements of the CPA’s administration, this section focuses on the overall success and failures of the CPA administrative capacity, and what this means for the future of Iraq’s new government. Since the cessation of the CPA, the Iraqi government has had its ups and downs and is still heavily reliant on the American presence. But some positive elements have been …

Human Rights And The War On Terror: Introduction, Jack Donnelly

Human Rights & Human Welfare

War rarely is good for human rights. The decision of the United States to launch a “global war on terror” in response to the suicide airplane bombings in New York and Washington has had predictably negative human rights consequences. In combating a tiny network of violent political extremists, human rights have in various ways, both intentional and unintentional, been restricted, infringed, violated, ignored, and trampled in many countries, sometimes severely.

State-Building In Iraq, Hafsteinn Hafsteinnsson

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Whether the 2003 invasion of Iraq was principally strategic or humanitarian, the United States’ involvement in Iraq has become a complex state-building mission. While there is agreement within the international community on the importance of rebuilding a democratic Iraq, there are many conflicting viewpoints on how this operation should proceed.

Afghanistan, Greg Sanders

Human Rights & Human Welfare

After September 11, Afghanistan became the first battleground of the War on Terror when the Taliban government refused to turn over Osama Bin Laden and other Al Qaeda members. Human rights concerns about these events fall in two areas. First, did the United States violate human rights when it launched Operation Enduring Freedom to overthrow the Taliban and during the subsequent occupation? Second, have the occupation forces and new regime of under the leadership of Hamid Karzai done enough to improve the previously miserable human rights situation in Afghanistan?

Chechnya, Kelley Laird

Human Rights & Human Welfare

The root of animosity between Russians and Chechens extends for more than a century, beginning when Chechens opposed Russia’s conquest of the Caucasus between 1818 and 1917. Tension reached an apex in the 1940s when Stalin deported thousands of Chechens to Siberia and East Asia in fear that they would collaborate with German Nazis.

Colombia, Travis Ning

Human Rights & Human Welfare

The events of September 11 continued of the pattern of redefinition in the conflict in Colombia. The complex war of today actually began decades ago as a small political struggle, which has gradually developed into a large-scale civil war. The continuation and growth of civil strife in Colombia witnessed the emergence of several organized anti-government guerrilla movements. Some of these groups have since been defeated or have integrated themselves into the recognized political system. Others have continued to violently challenge Colombian government authority. Currently, the two most significant anti-government insurgency groups are the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC) and …

Europe, Victoria Lowdon, Angela Woolliams, Robin Davey

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Both individually and collectively, European countries have vast experience with international and domestic terrorism. Because the point of terrorist attacks is primarily within a particular country (United Kingdom, Turkey and Spain), terrorism has come to be viewed by these states as a domestic problem. At the same time European countries have recognized the value of inter-governmental cooperation, which has been codified in various bilateral and multilateral agreements and conventions dating back to the 1950’s.

Israel, Sydney Fisher

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Israel and Palestine have been in an “interim period” between full scale occupation and a negotiated end to the conflict for a long time. This supposedly intermediate period in the conflict has seen no respite from violations of Palestinians’ human rights or the suicide bombings affecting Israelis. This section will provide resources spanning the issues regarding Israel, Palestine and how the human rights dimensions of this conflict interact with the war on terror. The issue of how both sides will arrive at peace remains a mystery.

Pakistan, Susannah Compton, Toni Panetta

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Following armed hostilities in 1947-1949 between India and Pakistan, the region once known as the Princely State of Jammu and Kashmir was divided. The disputed territory continues to split relations between Pakistan and India and the threat of war has been a daunting force as recently as 2002.