Waging War on Toys
Sweden and Norway have successful voluntary restriction of the sale of war toys; Malta prohibits their import; Greece bans television advertising; Australia places some restrictions on imports. The European Parliament recommended that its member states ban advertising of war toys and reduce their sale.
What is your government doing about it?
The Nuclear Haves and Have Nots
Disarmament, deterrence, and the role of nuclear power in the UN system.
War is a Force that Gives us Meaning
Chris Hedges, War is a Force that Gives us Meaning, Public Affairs, pp 192. ISBN 1586480499
The Rise of Private Military Companies and the Legal Vacuum of Regulation
This paper discusses the rise of the private military industry as a challenge to contemporary international law. In recent times, the privatization of activities preserved by governments have been proposed and implemented;, such as communication facilities, garbage collection, electricity supply, immigration services and much more. Military operations have not been left out. The increasing privatization of military activities is proving to be a major challenge to international law. The literature on Private Military Companies (PMCs) is mind-boggling, but neither extensive nor exhaustive. As a new phenomenon, it receives situational attention. For example, when the operations of Executive Outcomes and Sandline International were unearthed by the press in the 90s,’ numerous scholarly material was written, but with distinct themes like the efficiency of the corporations and the human rights violations carried out, as well as the legal vacuum created by ex-professional soldiers banding up to create and legally incorporate a mercenary outfit. The issue of PMCs being present in weak states and ravaged war-torn zones is an understatement, yet these corporations are registered mostly in the U.S., U.K. and South Africa. The articles on this issue are usually highly polarized; opponents verses proponents of these corporations, as the activities of these outfits do not fit within any conventional classification as actors of war in the law of war.
This paper describes the history and definition of PMCs and analyses how the operations of these corporations affect human rights, sovereignty and states´ monopoly of violence. The paper also focuses on the legality of PMCs and proceeds to discuss how to regulate the industry. The paper concludes in favor of tougher regulatory controls through new international legal framework and national legislation to deal with mercenaries as decisively as with other non-state actors who wield violence.
US-Russia negotiations on missile defence
Key Words: US, Russia, Security Council, Nuclear Arms, Missile Defense Shield, Human development, Arms Stockpiles, conflict resolution, Negotiation, United Nations
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.
Terrorism and International Adjudication
In the past few years the international community has seen a rise in international terrorism, and international law has been stunned with a new problem that it has not been prepared for. Without international legislation defining what constitutes international terrorism, no alternative dispute settlement bodies are prepared to deal with such a phenomenon. This paper focuses specifically on the proliferation of international adjudicative mechanisms and whether or not this momentum can promote the creation of a new international adjudicative body to cope with the rise of international terrorism as an alternative means to the War on Terrorism.
Water War
Sam Wolf Cheney comes from a small town in Northern New Mexico, near the state capital of Santa Fe where he has lived for much of his adult life. The conflict there stems from familiar sources: struggle over scarce natural resources (primarily water); the arrival of one ethnic group into territory long held by another; a struggle between divergent cultural values; endemic poverty. Hope lies in shared responibility…
We All Look Alike, But We Are Not the Same: The Root Cause of the Conflict in Sri Lanka
UPeace Asia Leaders Fellow Aingkaran analyzes the conflict in Sri Lanka within the framework of the relationship between political power and modern ethnic identities.
Experiments with Diplomacy: The changing understanding of “real” in Realpolitik
This article traces the history of diplomacy as a history of shifting ideas and values, and also of surprising coherence across time and space, as ancient ideas of political interaction continue to underpin modern diplomatic practices and the emerging structure of 21st century international relations.