Search

Begin New Search Political Geography Uganda Publication Year within 25 Years

91. Deterrence, Democracy, and the Pursuit of International Justice

Author:
Leslie Vinjamuri
Publication Date:
06-2010
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
Carnegie Council
Abstract:
In recent years efforts to hold the perpetrators of mass atrocities accountable have become increasingly normalized, and building capacity in this area has become central to the strategies of numerous advocacy groups, international organizations, and governments engaged in rebuilding and reconstructing states. The indictment of sitting heads of state and rebel leaders engaged in ongoing conflicts, however, has been more exceptional than normal, but is nonetheless radically altering how we think about, debate, and practice justice. Arrest warrants for Sudanese president Omar Hassan Ahmad al-Bashir, Liberian president Charles Taylor, and the leader of the Lord's Resistance Army in Uganda, Joseph Kony, have not only galvanized attention around the role of international justice in conflict but are fundamentally altering the terms of debate. While a principled commitment continues to underpin advocacy for justice, several court documents and high-profile reports by leading advocacy organizations stress the capacity of international justice to deliver peace, the rule of law, and stability to transitional states. Such an approach presents a stark contrast to rationales for prosecution that claim that there is a moral obligation or a legal duty to prosecute the perpetrators of genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. Instead, recent arguments have emphasized the instrumental purposes of justice, essentially recasting justice as a tool of peacebuilding and encouraging proponents and critics alike to evaluate justice on the basis of its effects.
Topic:
Crime, Genocide, Government, and War
Political Geography:
Uganda and Sudan

92. The International Criminal Court in Africa: challenges and opportunities

Author:
Makau Mutua
Publication Date:
09-2010
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Norwegian Centre for Conflict Resolution
Abstract:
Norway's five-year experience as the lead nation of the Provincial Reconstruction Team This policy paper is a practically-oriented comparative analysis of the work of the International Criminal Court in Kenya, Uganda, Sudan, and the Central African Republic, and the policy implications for its work for Norway, States Parties, civil society, and key states. The paper argues that all actors, including Norway, should more seriously engage these African states – and key stakeholders within them – to facilitate the work of the ICC to stem impunity. Without such support, the paper concludes, the ICC's objectives in Africa will not be realised.
Topic:
Crime, Genocide, Human Rights, International Law, and Law
Political Geography:
Uganda, Kenya, Africa, Sudan, and Norway

93. Ethnic Party Bans in East Africa from a Comparative Perspective

Author:
Anika Moroff
Publication Date:
04-2010
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
German Institute of Global and Area Studies
Abstract:
Since 1990 the banning of ethnic and other identity-based parties has become the norm in sub-Saharan Africa. This article focuses on Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda as three East African countries that have opted for different ways of dealing with such parties. Using case studies, it traces the origins of the party bans in Tanzania and Uganda and explores the reasons for the absence of a ban in Kenya. The analysis shows that the laws on particularistic parties have actually been implemented by the appropriate institutions. However, these laws have only marginally influenced the character of the political parties in the three countries: A comparison of regional voting patterns suggests that bans on particularistic parties have not ensured the emergence of aggregative parties with a national following in Tanzania and Uganda. In Kenya on the other hand, where such a ban was nonexistent until 2008, parties have not proven to be more regional.
Topic:
Democratization, Ethnic Conflict, and Politics
Political Geography:
Uganda, Kenya, Africa, and Tanzania

94. 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

95. Ghosts of Christmas Past: Protecting civilians from the LRA

Author:
Ellie Kemp and Verity Johnson
Publication Date:
12-2010
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Oxfam Publishing
Abstract:
On Christmas Eve 2008 and over the following three weeks, 865 women, men and children were savagely beaten to death and hundreds more abducted by the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) in a remote corner in the north-east of Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and in southern Sudan. The attack was a murderous backlash in response to Operation “Lightning Thunder”, a military offensive launched some 10 days before against the LRA by Uganda, DRC and southern Sudan. Less than a year later, between 14 and 17 December 2009, LRA commanders oversaw the killing of more than 300 people, again shattering communities in a remote corner of northern DRC.
Topic:
Terrorism, Armed Struggle, and Counterinsurgency
Political Geography:
Uganda, Africa, and Sudan

96. Conflict and Post-Conflict Governance: The Stakeholder Perspective

Author:
Jacleen Mowery, Demis Yanco, and Ryan McClanahan
Publication Date:
12-2010
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
United States Institute of Peace
Abstract:
Post-conflict governance requires simultaneous and complementary action on three levels. national governance, local governance, and civil society. Norbert Mao, a parliamentary leader from Uganda, offered this progression for managing the trade-off between short-term stabilization and long-term capacity building: "In the emergency phase, you should do it for us. In the reconstruction phase, you should do it with us. And in the development phase, you should do it through us." Efforts to develop the capacity of local governments to deliver services may be more responsive to external assistance than programs aimed at overcoming systemic dysfunctions in the central government, in part because municipal officials are more accountable to their communities. Civil society should be a prominent player in transitioning to “local ownership,” which may erroneously be conceived in terms of ownership by national and perhaps local governments. Building the capacity of civil society entails connectivity with international partners and ideas, not just financing. There are trade-offs involved among the three stakeholders. Among the most salient, when a legacy of abuse of power by the national government and repression of opposition groups must be confronted, an active civil society is essential. An invigorated civil society can fundamentally challenge illicit structures of power that profited from conflict.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Civil Society, Government, Peace Studies, War, Governance, and Peacekeeping
Political Geography:
Uganda

97. Doing Justice to the Political: The International Criminal Court in Uganda and Sudan

Author:
Sarah M.H. Nouwen and Wouter G. Werner
Publication Date:
11-2010
Content Type:
Journal Article
Abstract:
International criminal justice has become a weapon in political struggles in Uganda and Sudan. In this light, this article discusses the political meaning of the International Criminal Court's judicial interventions. It argues that the ICC, presented by its advocates as a legal bastion immune from politics, is inherently political by making a distinction between the friends and enemies of the international community which it purports to represent. Using original empirical data, the article demonstrates how in both Uganda and Sudan warring parties have used the ICC's intervention to brand opponents as hostis humani generis, or enemies of mankind, and to present themselves as friends of the ICC, and thus friends of the international community. The ICC Prosecutor has at times encouraged this friend–enemy dichotomy. These observations do not result in a denunciation of the Court as a 'political institution'. On the contrary: they underline that a sound normative evaluation of the Court's activities can be made only when its political dimensions are acknowledged and understood.
Political Geography:
Uganda and Sudan

98. The New Poverty Agenda in Uganda

Author:
Anne Mette Kjaer and Fred Muhumuza
Publication Date:
09-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Danish Institute for International Studies
Abstract:
This paper explores the poverty agenda in Uganda, its drivers and its effects. We show that transforming the economy by increasing productivity was initially considered more important than to reduce poverty through redistributive policies. However, as a consequence of the 1996 elections a consensus on poverty eradication through health and education emerged. The Poverty Eradication Action Plan (PEAP) had a shopping list nature and it is therefore difficult to establish whether it was implemented. Growth and poverty reduction during the PEAP period was mainly due to a continuation of macro-economic policies that were introduced prior to the PEAP. Around the multi-party elections in 2006, policy priorities changed towards more focus on agricultural production, agro-business and infrastructure. The government now has a two-edged focus: poverty reduction through economic transformation and poverty reduction through social services. However, there is also a political agenda about remaining in power which threatens to undermine the results achieved so far.
Topic:
Education, Health, and Poverty
Political Geography:
Uganda and Africa

99. Security Sector Reform Provisions in Peace Agreements

Author:
Eboe Hutchful
Publication Date:
01-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Global Facilitation Network for Security Sector Reform
Abstract:
The experience of the United Nations in mediating peace agreements has demonstrated the importance of addressing security issues at the outset. Early arrangements, for example with regard to composition and roles of security forces, can have significant impact on peace implementation. Failure to address the requirements of effective and accountable security can sow the seeds for future conflict, as earlier peace processes in Sierra Leone demonstrated, or lead to large, economically unsustainable forces, as Uganda has addressed. Failure to take into account the security needs of marginalized and socially excluded groups, such as women and children, can create new security problems, as alarmingly high rates of sexual violence in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo demonstrate.
Topic:
Security and Peace Studies
Political Geography:
Uganda, Africa, Latin America, and Sierra Leone

100. From Uganda to the Congo and Beyond: Pursuing the Lord's Resistance Army

Author:
Ronald R. Atkinson
Publication Date:
11-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
International Peace Institute
Abstract:
This paper begins by providing the historical context for “Operation Lightning Thunder,” the Ugandan military's December 2008 incursion into neighboring Democratic Republic of the Congo in pursuit of the northern Ugandan rebel group, the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA). The paper first presents (1) a historical background to the northern Uganda war that produced the LRA; (2) an overview of that war, which began in 1986; and (3) an analysis of the Juba peace process initiated in 2005 and its unraveling over the course of 2008.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Arms Control and Proliferation, War, and Armed Struggle
Political Geography:
Uganda, Africa, and Democratic Republic of the Congo