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111. Resource Conflicts over Arable Land in Food Insecure States: Creating an United Nations Ombudsman Institution to Review Foreign Agricultural Land Leases

Author:
Anastasia Telesetsky
Publication Date:
06-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Goettingen Journal of International Law
Institution:
The Goettingen Journal of International Law
Abstract:
In the last decade of globalization, States in the Middle East, East Asia, Europe, and North America have looked towards Africa and Southeast Asia for opportunities to lease for 30-50 years large tracts of arable land for production of commodity crops and biofuels in order to meet the needs of home markets. Facing their own governance challenges, States in Africa and Southeast Asia have leased land to private foreign investors without requiring any environmental review or mitigation of the proposed land leases. This paper argues that in food insecure states the recent flurry of land leasing activity to foreign agribusiness is likely to lead to unintended long term consequences for the ecology in land-leasing States by depleting the already fragile environment through monocropping, chemical pesticide and fertilizer applications, and large scale irrigation. This paper argues that international investment law may provide foreign investors with legal protection if land leasing States in the future decide to regulate the leases in a manner that discriminates against large agribusiness. The current proposals for self-regulatory voluntary codes of conduct do not provide sufficient oversight over the leasing process to protect the public's interest in a healthy and productive environment against foreign investors who have under the current lease structure no incentive to improve the land that they are leasing. The creation of an United Nations based ombudsman to provide legal and technical oversight and support for States making long-term leases has greater potential than a voluntary code for ensuring a balanced negotiation among the interests of host State governments for investment, investors for arable land, and the public for long-term sustainability.
Topic:
United Nations
Political Geography:
Africa, Europe, Middle East, East Asia, North America, and Southeast Asia

112. Ending corruption in Africa through United Nations inspections

Author:
Stuart S Yeh
Publication Date:
05-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
Chatham House
Abstract:
Evidence suggests that a lack of effective checks and balances against corruption undermines the rule of law, the protection of human rights and economic growth in sub-Saharan Africa. This article suggests the need for an international treaty to establish an African commission against corruption, involving United Nations inspectors to investigate and prosecute corruption. A range of evidence is reviewed suggesting that pressure from constituents as well as international organizations may be effective in compelling African leaders to sign this type of protocol.
Topic:
Corruption and United Nations
Political Geography:
Africa

113. East Africa Food Crisis: Poor rains, poor response

Author:
Elise Ford
Publication Date:
07-2011
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Oxfam Publishing
Abstract:
East Africa is facing the worst food crisis of the 21st Century. Across Ethiopia, Somalia, and Kenya, 12 million people are in dire need of food, clean water, and basic sanitation. Loss of life on a massive scale is a very real risk, and the crisis is set to worsen over the coming months, particularly for pastoralist communities.
Topic:
Security, Agriculture, Humanitarian Aid, United Nations, and Food
Political Geography:
Kenya, Africa, Ethiopia, and Somalia

114. Corruption and the Rule of Law in Sub-Saharan Africa

Author:
Stuart S. Yeh
Publication Date:
01-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
African Journal of Legal Studies
Institution:
The Africa Law Institute
Abstract:
The World Bank and IMF attribute underdevelopment in sub-Saharan Africa to the practice of directing economic activity through centralized planning. They prescribe privatization and economic liberalization to restructure African economies, promote competition, reduce the scope for corruption, and promote good governance. However, inadequate checks on political power permit African elites to subvert these reforms. This article reviews the political economy of sub-Saharan countries as well as a case study of Sierra Leone to illustrate the problem. The analysis suggests the need for an international agency such as the UN to provide the capacity to investigate, expose and check corruption by employing UN inspectors who are immune to pressure from powerful African elites. This type of check on corruption is necessary to promote the rule of law in sub-Saharan Africa.
Topic:
Economics, United Nations, and Law
Political Geography:
Africa

115. Assessing the African Union Concerns about Article 16 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court

Author:
Dapo Akande, Charles C. Jalloh, and Max du Plessis
Publication Date:
01-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
African Journal of Legal Studies
Institution:
The Africa Law Institute
Abstract:
This article assesses the African Union's (AU) concerns about Article 16 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC). It seeks to articulate a clearer picture of the law and politics of deferrals within the context of the AU's repeated calls to the United Nations Security Council (UNSC, or the Council) to invoke Article 16 to suspend the processes initiated by the ICC against President Omar Al Bashir of Sudan. The Council's failure to accede to the AU request led African States to formally withhold cooperation from the ICC in respect to the arrest and surrender of the Sudanese leader. Given the AU's continued concerns, and the current impasse, fundamental questions have arisen about the Council's authority to exercise, or not exercise, its deferral power. This culminated into a November 2009 African proposal for an amendment to the Rome Statute to empower the UN General Assembly to act should the UNSC fail to act on a deferral request after six months. Although ICC States Parties have so far shown limited public support for the AU's proposed amendment to the deferral provision, this article examines its merits because a failure to engage the “Article 16 problem” could impact international accountability efforts in the Sudan, and further damage the ICC's credibility in Africa. This unresolved issue also has wider significance given that the matters underlying the tension ‐ how ICC prosecutions may be reconciled with peacemaking initiatives and the role and power of the Council in ICC business ‐ will likely arise in future situations from around the world.
Topic:
United Nations
Political Geography:
Africa and Sudan

116. Who Are the MDG Trailblazers? A New MDG Progress Index

Author:
Benjamin Lee and Julia Barmeier
Publication Date:
08-2010
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Development
Abstract:
In September, world leaders will assemble in New York to review progress towards the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Ahead of the ensuing discussions, we examine how individual countries are faring towards achieving the highly ambitious MDG targets. We outline a new MDG Progress Index, which compares country performance against the core MDG targets on poverty, hunger, gender equality, education, child mortality, health, and water. Overall, we find evidence of dramatic achievements by many poor countries such as Honduras, Laos, Ethiopia, Uganda, Burkina Faso, Nepal, Cambodia, and Ghana. In fact, these countries' performance suggests that they may achieve most of the highly ambitious MDGs. Moreover, sub-Saharan Africa accounts for many of the star MDG performers. Interestingly, poor countries perform nearly on par with middle-income countries. Not surprisingly, the list of laggards largely consists of countries devastated by conflict over the last few decades, such as Afghanistan, Burundi, the DRC, and Guinea-Bissau. Most countries fall somewhere in between, demonstrating solid progress on some indicators and little on others.
Topic:
Development, Human Welfare, Poverty, Third World, and United Nations
Political Geography:
Uganda, Africa, New York, Cambodia, Nepal, United Nations, and Ethiopia

117. Eritrea: The Siege State

Publication Date:
09-2010
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
International Crisis Group
Abstract:
Eritrea has been deeply troubled since independence in 1991. Following the devastating war with Ethiopia (1998-2000), an authoritarian, militarised regime has further tightened political space, tolerating neither opposition nor dissent. Relations are difficult with the region and the wider international community. At African Union (AU) behest, the UN Security Council imposed sanctions in 2009 for its support of the Somali Islamic insurgency. It has become, in effect, a siege state, whose government is suspicious of its own population, neighbours and the wider world. Economically crippled at birth, it is a poor country from which tens of thousands of youths are fleeing, forming large asylum-seeking communities in Europe and North America. But Eritrea is an extreme reflection of its region's rough political environment, not its sole spoiler. More effort to understand the roots of its suspicions and greater engagement rather than further isolation would be a more promising international prescription for dealing with the genuine risks it represents.
Topic:
Islam, United Nations, Insurgency, Fragile/Failed State, and Sanctions
Political Geography:
Africa, Europe, North America, Ethiopia, and Eritrea

118. Unwilling and Unable: The Failed Response to the Atrocities in Darfur

Author:
James Traub
Publication Date:
09-2010
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect
Abstract:
Starting in mid-2003, the government of Sudan responded to an armed rebellion in the western state of Darfur with a massive campaign of killing and expulsion carried out both by regular army troops and by a proxy force known as the Janjaweed. United Nations (UN) sources estimate that this orchestrated effort led to the death of at least 300,000 people, while over two million were forcibly displaced. Extensive documentation by the UN, human-rights organizations and the media leaves no doubt that the Sudanese government and the Janjaweed committed war crimes and crimes against humanity, and did so over a period of many years. Yet all attempts to stop the killing, whether by neighbors, regional organizations, Western states or the UN Security Council, proved ineffective. In 2005, states-including Sudan-unanimously agreed that they had a responsibility to protect populations from mass atrocities; but this abstract commitment has had little effect on the Sudanese government or on other UN member states who had made this pledge.
Topic:
Security, Political Violence, Genocide, Human Rights, United Nations, Armed Struggle, and Sectarian violence
Political Geography:
Africa

119. Somalia: Line in the Sand--Identification of MYM Vulnerabilities

Author:
Eloy E. Cuevas and Madeleine Wells
Publication Date:
09-2010
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College
Abstract:
The influence of Islam on governance and clan politics has both negatively and positively affected the people of Somalia. It has facilitated justifying the removal of national, regional, and grassroots or clan leadership, especially if socioeconomic conditions and quality of life standards have been degraded or the leadership failed to ensure the safety of the people. Additionally, charismatic clan leaders have leveraged the low level of education among the Somali population to incite leadership changes. On a positive note, enforcement of Islamic law (Sharia) has been a major factor in helping to stabilize the lawlessness that has gone unchecked throughout the ungoverned parts of Somalia. By establishing courts and increasing the appointment of judges, Islamic leaders have attempted to bring normalcy to people's daily lives, amid all the street-level battles, clan intra and interconnected struggles for leadership and influence, and the presence of foreign fighters on both sides of the conflict.
Topic:
Diplomacy, United Nations, and Peacekeeping
Political Geography:
Africa

120. LRA: A Regional Strategy beyond Killing Kony

Publication Date:
04-2010
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
International Crisis Group
Abstract:
The Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) has become a regional problem that requires a regional solution. Operation Lightning Thunder, launched in December 2008, is the Ugandan army's latest attempt to crush militarily the one- time northern Ugandan rebel group. It has been a failure. After the initial attack, small groups of LRA fighters dispersed in the Democratic Republic of Congo (Congo), South Sudan and the Central African Republic (CAR), where they survive by preying on civilians. National security forces are too weak to protect their own people, while the Ugandan army, with U.S. support, is focused on hunting Joseph Kony, the group's leader. The Ugandans have eroded the LRA's numbers and made its communications more difficult. But LRA fighters, though disorganised, remain a terrible danger to civilians in this mostly ungoverned frontier zone. National armies, the UN and civilians themselves need to pool intelligence and coordinate their efforts in new ways if they are to end the LRA once and for all.
Topic:
Conflict Prevention, Security, International Cooperation, United Nations, Armed Struggle, Counterinsurgency, and Peacekeeping
Political Geography:
Uganda, Africa, United States, and South Sudan