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211. Making Cooperation Attractive: Post-referendum Relations between Egypt and the Sudan

Author:
Øystein Rolandsen and Jacob Høigilt
Publication Date:
01-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Norwegian Centre for Conflict Resolution
Abstract:
The Sudan has gone through two harrowing civil wars since its independence in 1956. Foreign interference and assistance prolonged these, but external involvement has also been vital in Sudanese peace processes. This was the case with the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) between the Government of the Sudan and the Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A), the main rebel group, which was signed on 9 January 2005. The peace process that culminated in that agreement was led and hosted by the neighbouring countries through the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD), with support from further afield, in particular the United States, United Kingdom, South Africa and Norway. These countries have now intensified their involvement in discussions of post-CPA arrangements. The CPA process will have momentous consequences also for Egypt, as thus for Sudanese-Egyptian relations. It is therefore important that Egypt have a clear policy towards, and a constructive engagement in, deliberations over the Sudan's future.
Topic:
Civil War, Democratization, and Bilateral Relations
Political Geography:
Africa, United States, United Kingdom, Sudan, and Egypt

212. The Sudan Referendum and Neighbouring Countries: Egypt and Uganda

Author:
Øystein Rolandsen, Jacob Høigilt, and Åshild Falch
Publication Date:
01-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Norwegian Centre for Conflict Resolution
Abstract:
As a former coloniser and the Sudan's Nile-valley neighbour to the north, Egypt will inevitably be affected by the Sudan's political transition. As Egypt's regional influence appears to wane, the Sudan's increasing economic strength and the likely secession of Southern Sudan exemplify Egypt's overall difficulties in regard to the regional politics of the Horn of Africa and Nile Basin. Egyptian policy-makers and diplomats struggle with fundamental contradictions in Egypt's current regional status, competing priorities, and the need to stay on good terms with all political parties in the Sudan. To be able to balance domestic needs, relations with its immediate neighbours, and its role as a regional power Egypt must reshape its foreign policy; Egypt's national interests in the Sudan preclude neutrality in the processes ahead. It can however play a key role in a joint regional and international effort to secure the peaceful secession for Southern Sudan.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Foreign Policy, Civil War, Democratization, Diplomacy, Ethnic Conflict, and Islam
Political Geography:
Uganda, Africa, Sudan, and Egypt

213. Final Report: Observing Sudan's 2010 National Elections, April 11–18, 2010

Publication Date:
01-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Carter Center
Abstract:
The April 2010 elections in Sudan were mandated by the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA). They were intended to be instrumental in setting the stage for the referendum and corresponding negotiations and were envisioned as a critical part of a broader democratic transformation. In the period between the CPA's signing and the holding of the national elections, political rights and freedoms were circumscribed, placing limits on political parties and civil society and fostering distrust between the ruling parties and the opposition in the North and South that was to prove central in undermining the inclusiveness and credibility of the elections.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Security, Civil War, and Democratization
Political Geography:
Africa and Sudan

214. Southern Sudan - Economic Security and Independence - A contradiction of Terms?

Author:
William Morrell
Publication Date:
02-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Security Sector Management
Institution:
Centre for Security Sector Management
Abstract:
This paper will provide an overview of the historical, political and economic situation in Southern Sudan in the run up towards its referendum on independence in January 2011. There is a strong sense that the South will vote for secession without full cognisance of the implications for its longer term peace and prosperity. The paper will review the correlates of war onset identified in contemporary research and assess their applicability to Southern Sudan at this important juncture. It will look for mitigating factors and explore strategies for securing the economy as a prerequisite to longer term peace and economic viability.
Topic:
Economics
Political Geography:
Sudan and Alabama

215. Who's Afraid of the International Criminal Court?

Author:
David A. Kaye
Publication Date:
05-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Foreign Affairs
Institution:
Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:
Last February, soon after Libyan leader Muammar al-Qaddafi unleashed his forces against civilian protesters, the United Nations Security Council unanimously voted to refer the situation in Libya to the International Criminal Court. Days later, the ICC's chief prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, announced the launch of an investigation of members of the Qaddafi regime, promising, "There will be no impunity in Libya." With the UN Security Council injecting the court into one of the year's biggest stories, the ICC may seem to have become an indispensable international player. It already is looking into some of the gravest atrocities committed in recent decades -- in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sudan, and Uganda, among others -- and its investigation into the 2007 election-related violence in Kenya is shaking up that country's elite. But a closer look suggests that the ICC's sleek office building on the outskirts of The Hague houses an institution that is still struggling to find its footing almost a decade after its creation. The court has failed to complete even one trial, frustrating victims as well as the dozens of governments that have contributed close to $1 billion to its budget since 2003. The ICC's first trial was nearly dismissed twice. Its highest-profile suspects -- Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir and Joseph Kony, the leader of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), the rebel group that has terrorized northern Uganda and neighboring areas -- have thumbed their noses at the court and are evading arrest. And with all six of the ICC's investigations involving abuses in Africa, its reputation as a truly international tribunal is in question.
Topic:
Security and United Nations
Political Geography:
Uganda, Sudan, Libya, and Democratic Republic of the Congo

216. The Abyei Arbitration: A Model Procedure for Intra-State Dispute Settlement in Resource-Rich Conflict Areas?

Author:
Freya Baetens and Rumiana Yotova
Publication Date:
06-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Goettingen Journal of International Law
Institution:
The Goettingen Journal of International Law
Abstract:
In 2009, the Permanent Court of Arbitration administered a unique case: the Abyei Arbitration between the Government of Sudan and the Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army. This case is unique in several aspects: first, it is an example of intra-state dispute settlement in a conflict zone rich in natural resources, second, it was conducted under a fast-track procedure, and third, it was fully transparent, with all documents and full webcast of the proceedings still available on the PCA website. Currently there is a large number of outstanding intra-state disputes, not limited to Africa, so this paper assesses why the Parties in the Abyei Arbitration chose arbitration in the first place and whether this model could be successfully applied to other similar disputes.
Topic:
Government
Political Geography:
Africa and Sudan

217. Clean Trade in Natural Resources

Author:
Leif Wenar
Publication Date:
05-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Abstract:
The "resource curse" can strike countries that derive a large portion of their national income from exporting high-value natural resources, such as oil, gas, metals, and gems. Resource-exporting countries are subject to four overlapping curses: they are more prone to authoritarianism, they tend to suffer more corruption, they are at a higher risk for civil wars, and they exhibit greater economic instability. The correlations between resources and such pathologies as authoritarianism, corruption, civil conflict, and economic dysfunction are evident in the list of the five major African oil exporters: Algeria, Angola, Libya, Nigeria, and Sudan. The recent histories of mineral exporters support the correlations: for example, "blood diamonds" fueled Sierra Leone's decade-long civil war, and the continuing conflict in the metal-rich eastern Congo has caused up to 6 million deaths. The phenomenon is not solely African: Burma, Yemen, and Turkmenistan, for example, are also resource cursed. Moreover, poor governance in resource-cursed countries can engender follow-on pathologies, such as a propensity to cause environmental damage both domestically (for example, through the destruction of forests) and globally (through increased greenhouse gas emissions). Most research on the resource curse has focused on the institutions of exporting countries. This essay focuses instead on importing countries, especially those in North America and Europe. I survey how the resource curse impedes core interests of importing states. I then discuss how the policies of importing states drive the resource curse, and how these policies violate their existing international commitments. The second half of the paper describes a policy framework for importing states that can improve international trade in resources for both importers and exporters.
Topic:
Economics
Political Geography:
Africa, Europe, Sudan, Libya, Algeria, Burma, North America, Nigeria, and Angola

218. Justice Beyond The Hague: Supporting the Prosecution of International Crimes in National Courts

Author:
David A. Kaye
Publication Date:
06-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:
For nearly two decades, the United Nations has created international criminal tribunals to punish those responsible for war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide. Since the early 1990s the United States has strongly supported the UN tribunals for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia and hybrid UN/national courts for Sierra Leone and Cambodia. The era of court-building culminated in the 1998 adoption, over U.S. objections, of a treaty to establish a permanent International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague. These international courts have brought dozens of perpetrators to justice, and the UN Security Council's requests that the ICC investigate the situations in Sudan (2005) and Libya (2011) show that policymakers across the spectrum, in the United States and abroad, believe that accountability-that is, bringing individuals to justice for committing atrocities-can be an important tool to combat war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide. Yet as important as these courts are, atrocities occur in places beyond their reach, and even where international courts investigate and prosecute, they lack the capacity to try all but a handful of the thousands of perpetrators of the worst international crimes.
Topic:
Crime, Genocide, International Cooperation, and International Law
Political Geography:
United States, Sudan, Libya, Yugoslavia, and Cambodia

219. Sudan's Aspirational Army: A History of the Joint Integrated Units

Author:
Aly Verjee
Publication Date:
05-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI)
Abstract:
Southern Sudan's vote for secession in January 2011 effectively terminates the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) between northern and Southern Sudan. A principal objective of the CPA, which ended the civil war between the north and south, was to maintain the government's Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) based in the south, as two independent armies. The CPA also set out the provisions to form jointly managed and integrated armed units that would become the foundation of a new national army — the Joint Integrated Units (JIUs).
Topic:
Security, Civil War, Treaties and Agreements, and Territorial Disputes
Political Geography:
Africa, Sudan, and South Sudan

220. The Borders of Islam: Exploring Samuel Huntingtons's Faultlines, from Al-Andalus to the Virtual Ummah

Author:
Numan Telci
Publication Date:
04-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Insight Turkey
Institution:
SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
Abstract:
The Borders of Islam gives an insider's view of the so-called “Islam's bloody borders” through an examination of the countries that straddle two cultures/civilizations from across various regions. The book makes an enormous contribution to debates on “clash of civilizations” by critically examining various cases of war and conflict, which is one of the key elements of the thesis formulated by Samuel Huntington and popularized by the media. Hansen, Mesoy and Kardas take on Huntington's main thesis with an aim to falsify it. The book stands out as one of the strongest counter-arguments to the main premises of the clash of civilizations thesis. It does so by arguing that the clash sometimes is constructed, as is the case of various internal and external conflicts taking place in and around Iraq, or it neglects the division within the Islamic civilization, as is the case with Lebanon where the Sunnis have a different agenda than the Shiite Muslims, or that the clash between Muslims and Christians is not necessarily religiously-driven in Nigeria, Ethiopia or Sudan. While laying out this argument, the book sets out to understand whether religion could be considered as the most tangible source of conflicts involving groups that hold different religious faiths.
Political Geography:
Sudan, Lebanon, Ethiopia, and Nigeria