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181. Report on the Democratic People's Republic of Korea

Publication Date:
04-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System
Abstract:
The people of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea or DPRK) are perhaps the least free on earth, barely surviving under a totalitarian regime that denies basic human dignity and lets them starve while pursuing military might and weapons of mass destruction. By all accounts, there are no personal freedoms of any kind in North Korea, and no protection for human rights. Religious freedom does not exist, and what little religious activity that is permitted by the government is apparently staged for foreign visitors.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Diplomacy, Human Rights, and Religion
Political Geography:
United States, Asia, North Korea, and Korea

182. From Promise to Practice: Strengthening UN Capacities for the Prevention of Violent Conflict

Author:
Chandra Lekha Sriram
Publication Date:
01-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
International Peace Institute
Abstract:
In the fall of 2000, the International Peace Academy commissioned a series of nine case studies examining the practice of preventive action. This study builds on earlier work by IPA identifying important issues for further examination in preventive practice. The cases examined were representative of the broad and increasing scope of preventive action geographically and in terms of approaches deployed—from structural prevention to post conflict peacebuilding as prevention. These cases were Kenya, Fiji, Tanzania (Zanzibar), Tajikistan, Burundi, Georgia (Javakheti), East Timor, Liberia, and Colombia. The cases are being edited and compiled for publication in a subsequent book; this report seeks to draw out central policy lessons for preventive action by the United Nations (UN). Important lessons can be drawn out with implications for each specific situation; more cross-cutting lessons for the UN and other preventive actors can also be derived from the collected cases.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Human Rights, International Law, International Organization, Migration, and United Nations
Political Geography:
United States

183. A Year of Loss: Reexamining Civil Liberties since September 11

Publication Date:
08-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Human Rights First
Abstract:
On the morning of September 11, men now believed to be members of the al Qaeda network forcibly took control of four commercial jetliners to attack the United States. Within minutes, 19 hijackers crashed two of those planes into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center, one into the Pentagon, and a fourth into a field in Pennsylvania, killing more than 3,000 people.
Topic:
Human Rights, International Law, and National Security
Political Geography:
United States and Pennsylvania

184. The Dominican Republic's 2000 Presidential Election: The U.S. Role in Supporting the Process

Author:
Kevin Michael O'Reilly
Publication Date:
04-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The North-South Center, University of Miami
Abstract:
Dominicans elected Rafael Hipólito Mejía Domínguez their president on May 16, 2000. He took office on August 16, 2000. Mejía, the candidate of the Dominican Revolutionary Party (Partido Revolucionario Dominicano — PRD), won 1,593,231 votes or 49.87 percent of the ballots cast in an essentially three-way race with Danilo Medina of the Party of Dominican Liberation (Partido de la Liberación Dominicana — PLD) and former President Joaquín Balaguer of the Social Christian Reformist Party (Partido Reformista Social Cristiano — PRSC). Medina won 24.94 percent of the vote (796,923) to finish second, with Balaguer only fractions of a percentage point behind, at 24.60 percent (785,926). Turnout, at just over 76 percent, was high by historical standards. Although two shooting deaths marred the campaign's closing days, relatively little violence accompanied the voting compared to previous Dominican elections. Since 1994, Dominican electoral law had called for a runoff between the top two vote winners if no candidate passed the 50-percent-plus-one mark, but Medina conceded on May 17, after Balaguer acknowledged that he could not deliver the entire PRSC vote to the PLD in a second round of voting. Balaguer announced, “For the good of the country, we waive our right to participate in a second round.” The country's Central Electoral Board (Junta Central Electoral — JCE) certified Mejía's victory on May 18, 2000.
Topic:
Government, Human Rights, and International Law
Political Geography:
United States, Latin America, and Caribbean

185. The U.S. Engagement with Colombia: Legitimate State Authority and Human Rights

Author:
Gabriel Marcella
Publication Date:
03-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The North-South Center, University of Miami
Abstract:
September 11, 2001, reshaped international relations and had a profound impact on the strategic equation in Colombia. The challenge of what U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld called “draining the swamp” of terrorism with global links resonated deeply in Bogotá and among the insurgent forces: the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia — FARC), the National Liberation Army (Ejército de Liberación Nacional — ELN), and the paramilitaries, among them, the United Self- defense Forces of Colombia (Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia — AUC). Though these groups already appeared on the U.S. State Department's list of terrorist organizations, as of 9/11 they formed part of a broader international threat assessment. Two weeks into 2002, an ill-conceived “peace process,” initiated by President Andrés Pastrana with the FARC in 1999, was r esuscitated at the last minute before an impending military offensive by the government against the FARC was started. President Pastrana, “risking all for peace,” had extended himself, his negotiators, and his government's credibility as far as he could for three years — with nothing to show for such extensive efforts other than his administration's and the Colombian citizens' frustration and virtual surrender to the FARC of national sovereignty over a demilitarized zone ( despeje ) the size of Switzerland, located in San Vicente del Caguán, an area south of Bogotá.
Topic:
Government, Human Rights, and International Law
Political Geography:
United States, Colombia, South America, and Latin America

186. The Dominican Diaspora Revisited: Dominicans and Dominican-Americans in a New Century

Author:
Max J. Castro and Thomas D. Boswell
Publication Date:
01-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The North-South Center, University of Miami
Abstract:
The economy has been growing rapidly in recent years. Democracy is increasingly consolidated. The rate of birth has dropped significantly, and the level of education has risen.
Topic:
Human Rights and Migration
Political Geography:
United States, Latin America, and Caribbean

187. Continuity as the Path to Change: Institutional Innovation in the 1976 British Race Relations Act

Author:
Erik Bleich
Publication Date:
03-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
Abstract:
Institutional innovation can, paradoxically, be a product of institutional continuity. New institutions often emerge in a bifurcated manner in which formal institutions (such as laws and written rules) are accompanied by informal institutions (such as ideas that motivate and help determine the precise nature of specific policies). When informal institutions include ideas that track policy developments in other spheres or other countries, they can influence innovations in formal institutions. The development of the 1976 British Race Relations Act illustrates this dynamic. When British race institutions were established in the 1960s, they reflected the prevailing idea that British policies should incorporate lessons learned from North America. When Britain revisited its anti-racism provisions in 1976, policy experts looked again to North America and found that much had changed there in the interim. They subsequently altered Britain's formal institutions to include U.S.-inspired “race-conscious” measures.
Topic:
Government and Human Rights
Political Geography:
United States, United Kingdom, Europe, and North America

188. Human Rights Defenders on the Frontlines of Freedom: Protecting Human Rights in the Context of the War on Terror

Publication Date:
05-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Carter Center
Abstract:
The Carter Center's decision to bring together human rights and pro-democracy activists from all regions of the world was based on the idea that it would be valuable to generate a picture of the state of global democracy and human rights movements. The late U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, Sergio Vieira de Mello agreed that in order to determine how the United Nations could support democratization and improvement in human rights conditions at the national level, he wanted to hear the views of those who are close to the action, those who work on the “frontlines of freedom.” Though situations differ according to local circumstances, it is important to watch for trends and assess progress as well as challenges that lie ahead. In the pages that follow are a selection of the pressing concerns of some of the world's most dedicated individuals who are truly betting their lives on the idea that universal freedom can be built law by law, case by case, community by community.
Topic:
Security, Human Rights, Terrorism, and War
Political Geography:
United States and United Nations

189. Conference-Workshop on the Northern European Initiative

Author:
Denise M. Horn
Publication Date:
06-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Security and Democracy
Abstract:
Heather Conley began the session with a report regarding the current plans for US policy in the region. Generally NEI is considered a success story, thus the US is now retooling its policies by asking where the US should go in a post-enlargement world, and asking how to use this policy elsewhere.
Topic:
Gender Issues, Genocide, and Human Rights
Political Geography:
United States and Europe

190. Onward, Liberal Soldiers? The Crusading Logic of Bush's Grand Strategy and What Is Wrong with It

Author:
Edward Rhodes
Publication Date:
06-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Security and Democracy
Abstract:
As pressures mount to strike before summer weather forecloses military options for the year, the debate whether the United States should undertake a preventive war against Iraq moves inexorably toward the center of the American political stage, despite the understandable reluctance of many Americans to think about the difficult trade-offs and troubling questions such a war would raise. Proponents of the war focus on the dangers of leaving Saddam Hussein in power. Opponents focus on the morality, military risks, and international political costs of undertaking a preventive war, on the possibilities of containing Saddam Hussein's influence and deterring his use of weapons of mass destruction without resort to war, and on the difficulties of building stable political institutions in the region after a victory.
Topic:
Gender Issues, Genocide, and Human Rights
Political Geography:
United States and Europe