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301. Armed Violence Report

Publication Date:
11-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
South Eastern Europe Clearinghouse for the Control of Small Arms and Light Weapons
Abstract:
Armed violence data gathering systems in countries in South Eastern Europe (SEE) vary in quality and coverage of the population. No single country embodies best practices by itself. The lack of continuous monitoring means that data has sometimes been generated by research that attempts to recover information on armed violence retrospectively. Different methods for doing this offer differing degrees of reliability; analysis of media reports and SALW Perceptions Surveys offer an important substitute for continuously gathered data, but are unreliable for a number of reasons. Other studies have been obliged to recover data from past records, which were not designed for storing data specifically on armed violence. In other cases, individual institutions have conducted their own data gathering, and have supplied useful fragments of a comprehensive picture of the problem.
Topic:
Security, Arms Control and Proliferation, and Crime
Political Geography:
Europe

302. International Regime Building in Southeast Asia: ASEAN Cooperation against the Illicit Trafficking and Abuse of Drugs

Author:
Ralf Emmers
Publication Date:
02-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for Non-Traditional Security Studies, S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies
Abstract:
The Working Paper analyses whether an international regime against the illicit trafficking and abuse of drugs has been established in Southeast Asia. Its objective is to consider the circumstances that could have led to its formation as well as the conditions under which it may operate. The Working Paper claims that the existing cooperative structures for drug control in ASEAN present most of the characteristics of an international regime, though a relatively weak one. The cooperative process is based on a multilateral, long-term and normative dimension as well as on a convergence of views and interest on the need to tackle the illicit production, trafficking and abuse of drugs. The process has also been translated into an institutional structure. The Working Paper starts by reviewing how international regimes are discussed theoretically. It then discusses efforts made by ASEAN since 1972 to address the illicit trafficking and abuse of drugs problem. Adopting a neoliberal institutionalist perspective, the final section examines the dynamics of the anti-drugs regime by analysing the existence of common interests, its institutional form, its geographic scope, its complementary approach to domestic efforts on drug control as well as its influence on states' behaviour.
Topic:
International Relations and Crime
Political Geography:
Asia

303. Non-Traditional Security Issues: Securitisation of Transnational Crime in Asia

Author:
James Laki
Publication Date:
01-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for Non-Traditional Security Studies, S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies
Abstract:
Transnational crime involving all forms of domestic crime that traverse the international boundary with another one or more states have become a concern amongst all peoples of the Asia Pacific region. Although there are many forms of transnational crime this paper focuses on Human and Drug Smuggling, as these have become existential threats affecting many people throughout the region.
Topic:
International Relations, Security, and Crime
Political Geography:
Asia

304. 'Justice on the Cheap' Revisited: The Failure of the Serious Crimes Trials in East Timor

Author:
David Cohen
Publication Date:
05-2006
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
East-West Center
Abstract:
From 2000 to 2005 a UN-sponsored tribunal in East Timor sought to achieve accountability for violence associated with the 1999 vote for independence from Indonesia. Despite criticism of the tribunal's performance the UN has maintained that it was a success. In fact the East Timor tribunal represents a virtual textbook case of how not to create, manage, and administer a hybrid justice process. It was handicapped from the beginning by a debilitating lack of resources, an unclear mandate, inadequate recruitment, ineffective management by a peacekeeping mission that had other priorities, and above all a lack of political will both at UN headquarters and at the mission level. Trial practices and jurisprudence were too often deeply flawed, in important respects did not meet international standards, and, in a significant number of cases, undermined the rights of the accused to a fair trial. Because the UN risks repeating some of the same mistakes in Cambodia it is particularly important now to assess the failings of the East Timor trials.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Crime, and Treaties and Agreements
Political Geography:
Israel and United Nations

305. Development, Democracy, and Mass Killings

Author:
William Easterly
Publication Date:
07-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Development
Abstract:
Using a newly assembled dataset spanning from 1820 to 1998, we study the relationship between the occurrence and cruelty of episodes of mass killing and the levels of development and democracy across countries and over time. We find that massacres are more likely at intermediate levels of income and less likely at very high levels of democracy, but we do not find evidence of a linear relationship between democracy and probability of mass killings. In the 20th century, discrete improvements in democracy are systematically associated with less cruel massacre episodes. Episodes at the highest levels of democracy and income involve relatively fewer victims.
Topic:
Civil Society, Crime, Democratization, and Development

306. Policing Iraq: Protecting Iraqis from Criminal Violence

Author:
Robert Perito
Publication Date:
06-2006
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
United States Institute of Peace
Abstract:
Public opinion surveys show that Iraqis feel the greatest security threat they face is not the insurgency or sectarian conflict but pervasive criminal violence. For a people accustomed to a stifling regime security presence under Saddam Hussein—and the correspondingly safe streets—the post-intervention upsurge in murder, home invasion robbery, kidnapping, carjacking, and rape is fundamentally disturbing.
Topic:
Security, Civil Society, and Crime
Political Geography:
Iraq and Middle East

307. International Criminal Accountability and Children's Rights

Author:
Vesselin Popovski and Karen Arts
Publication Date:
07-2006
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
It is common knowledge that children suffer from armed conflicts—both directly, as victims of atrocities, and indirectly, as their childhood, education, family life and expectations are ruined. According to UNICEF, during the last decade more than two million children died as a direct result of armed conflicts, and more than three times that number of children were permanently disabled or seriously injured. An estimated 20 million children have been forced to flee their homes and more than one million have been orphaned or separated from their families. Some 300,000 child soldiers, boys and girls under the age of 18, are involved in more than 30 conflicts worldwide.
Topic:
Crime, Human Rights, and International Law
Political Geography:
United Nations

308. Comprehensive Services for Survivors of Human Trafficking: Findings from Clients in Three Communities

Author:
Laudan Y. Aron, Janine M. Zweig, and Lisa C. Newmark
Publication Date:
06-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Urban Institute
Abstract:
Humans are trafficked across international borders for the purposes of labor exploitation (e.g., domestic servitude, sweatshops) or sexual exploitation (e.g., forced prostitution) and the victims are subjected to coercion, fraud, abuse, or some other form of deception on the part of the traffickers. The Department of State (2004, 2006) estimates that 600,000 to 800,000 people—adults and children—are trafficked across international borders around the world annually. About 90 percent of these victims are females and over half of all those trafficked each year are believed to be trafficked for sexual exploitation. Among those trafficked, about 14,500 to 17,500 are trafficked into the United States each year. Recent data show that victims are often trafficked by perpetrators of the same nationality (Free the Slaves and Human Rights Center 2004).
Topic:
Crime, Gender Issues, Human Rights, and Human Welfare
Political Geography:
United States

309. Temporary Courts, Permanent Records

Author:
Trudy Huskamp Peterson
Publication Date:
08-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United States Institute of Peace
Abstract:
Temporary international criminal courts create voluminous records of tremendous and lasting significance to victims, scholars, and legal practitioners, and arrangements must be made for their permanent protection, storage, and use. A conceptual framework is offered for creating a central international judicial archives under UN auspices and for standards to select, preserve, and manage the records of temporary international criminal courts. The closure of these courts makes a decision on the disposition of their records urgent: the Timor Leste Special Panels and Serious Crimes Unit closed in May 2005; the status talks on Kosovo are currently under way; the Sierra Leone court is to close in mid-2007; and the ICTY and ICTR are to complete all proceedings by 2010. A survey of the five courts reveals substantial differences among them because of the varied roles played by the United Nations in their establishment and operations. These differences in turn lead to differences in the potential disposition of the records. When the ICTY and ICTR close, their records will become the responsibility of the United Nations Archives and Records Management Section. The legal responsibility for the Sierra Leone court records is to be negotiated between the United Nations and the government of Sierra Leone. The management of the copies of the East Timor records held by the United Nations is controlled by an agreement between that government and the United Nations. The records of the UN mission in Kosovo relating to the Kosovo internationalized courts will be divided among the government and the three organizations currently comprising the UN mission. Records of the tribunals are key research resources for victims, civic activists, academics, journalists, educators, and successors to current court officials. Potential users of the tribunal records urge officials to place the records where research will be fostered. Preservation requires active intervention to ensure that records can be used; if records are simply stored they will deteriorate, and electronic and audiovisual records will deteriorate irretrievably The ICTY, ICTR, and the Special Court for Sierra Leone must establish basic access rules for their records before closing; they should make every attempt to harmonize their access provisions. The United Nations should explore constructing and staffing an international judicial archives in The Hague and should begin providing copies of publicly available court records to institutions in the countries affected by the court proceedings. Governments and donors should actively encourage and support the United Nations in these efforts.
Topic:
Crime, Government, International Law, and United Nations
Political Geography:
Kosovo and Sierra Leone

310. Mexico Is Becoming the Next Colombia

Author:
Ted Galen Carpenter
Publication Date:
11-2005
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Cato Institute
Abstract:
Mexico is a major source of heroin, marijuana, and methamphetamine for the U.S. market as well as the principal transit and distribution point for cocaine coming in from South America. For years, people both inside and outside Mexico have worried that the country might descend into the maelstrom of corruption and violence that has long plagued the chief drug-source country in the Western Hemisphere, Colombia. There are growing signs that the “Colombianization” of Mexico is now becoming a reality.
Topic:
Crime and Health
Political Geography:
Colombia, South America, Central America, and Mexico