What if there was no UN?
Varghese Theckanath traces the history of the United Nations and briefly reviews its successes. Theckanath argues that these successes outweigh the failures and, ultimately, that the great potential of the UN to promote human development and international understanding makes it an invaluable tool in the effort to build a more peaceful and secure world for everyone.
Addressing Past Violence: The New Brazilian Truth Commission
Leonard Ghione argues that the Brazilian truth commission has a strong legal mandate to achieve the goal of creating an authoritative historic account of the country’s violent past. Its main challenge will be coping with the limited number of staff and the long period of time it must cover. The goal of national reconciliation in Brazil will require not only the unearthing of the truth but also the unearthing of a conflict that has been systematically negated until now and is part of Brazil’s culture of violence. If the commission succeeds in unearthing this underlying negated conflict, it will increase public pressure against the amnesty law, which may eventually lead to its revocation in the long term, contributing to a less violent society.
The Wholesaling of Political Islam
“Political Islam” is a term often used to mask over many shades of political and Islamic opinion as well as their interactions. Abukar Arman unmasks the term and discusses its complexity in light of Egypt’s ongoing political crisis.
Learning from the Past and Looking Towards the Future: The Situation of Child Soldiers in Colombia
In light of the current peace negotiations between the FARC and Colombian government there is the potential for thousands of children to be demobilized in the upcoming year(s). While this is promising, children have not been adequately included in the peace process so far. This is ominously reminiscent of the 2003 demobilization of the AUC, which led to only a few hundred of potentially thousands of children being formally demobilized, many of whom are believed to have been re-recruited by neo-paramilitary groups and organized criminal gangs. This paper will explore the current situation of children associated with illegal armed groups in Colombia, the challenges facing their reintegration, and the lessons learnt from the failure of the previous demobilization, all with a view towards improving the potential demobilization of child soldiers following a successful peace process between the FARC and Colombian government.
The Need for Security Sector Reform in Afghanistan to Curb Corruption
This paper, on the basis of available literature and organizations’ experiences, aims to evaluate and analyze the institutional limitations and weaknesses of the police and judicial sector of Afghanistan’s security sector.
Understanding the trends and inadequate practices in the services delivery systems of the Afghan security sector will set the stage for possible policy recommendations to enhance the effectiveness of the sector and curb corruption. Subsequently, identification of effective and feasible policy recommendations to enhance the performance of the Afghan police and judicial sector will enable other service delivery institutions to resourcefully implement development initiatives.
Peace movements
February 15 2003 saw the biggest public demonstration worldwide against the war on Iraq. Since then a large number of the organizations involved have continued to voice their concerns over the occupation of Iraq, although interests have broadened to embrace less high-profile conflict situations The following details a selection of the hundreds of organizations and their plans for helping to bring peace.
From Conflict to Coexistence – An Intervention Model
Ssentongo and Raalten propose a Conflict Intervention Model to diagram conflict in its general sense. While the model is based on the idea that structural and psycho-cultural approaches are foundational to resolution, it simplifies the process by utilizing John Paul Lederach’s pyramid on leadership.
Comfort Women and the Failure of International Law
Seong Eun Lee discusses the failure of international law to hold states responsible for their use of women as sexual slaves during the Pacific War. The history of international treaties and regulations outlawing such behaviour are briefly reviewed, as is the current state of the former comfort women’s struggle for justice. The author argues that interlocking structures of oppression based on power imbalances of gender and ethnicity have continued to frustrate this struggle in the arena of international law.
Key words: Korea, Japan, comfort women, international law, development, South Asia, World War II, gender, peace and conflict, ethnicity, sexual slavery, justice.
Just War
Alex Powell examines the concept of just war, and if it is compatible with peace. The framework of the analysis is the nature of justice and the implication of semantics in the term “just war”.
Is Independence the Answer for S. Cameroons?
Southern Cameroons nationalists continue with their efforts in an attempt to secure a sovereign state, despite the daunting reality of human rights abuse and unprovoked killings that haunt communities living in the threatened region of the country. Without declared charges against them, victims continue to be held in prisons for extended periods of time. Although the case for Southern Cameroons renders in the eye of the international community, still no accord has been made to quell contention between the peoples.