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1. Women in Afghanistan: A Human Rights Tragedy Ten Years after 9/11

Author:
Hayat Alvi
Publication Date:
11-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Human Rights Human Welfare (University of Denver)
Abstract:
Ten years after the September 11th attacks in the United States and the military campaign in Afghanistan, there is some good news, but unfortunately still much bad news pertaining to women in Afghanistan. The patterns of politics, security/military operations, religious fanaticism, heavily patriarchal structures and practices, and ongoing insurgent violence continue to threaten girls and women in the most insidious ways. Although women's rights and freedoms in Afghanistan have finally entered the radar screen of the international community's consciousness, they still linger in the margins in many respects.
Topic:
Security, Gender Issues, Human Rights, Human Welfare, War, and Counterinsurgency
Political Geography:
Afghanistan and United States

2. The Principled Case for Employing Private Military and Security Companies in Humanitarian Interventions and Peacekeeping

Author:
James Pattison and Deane-Peter Baker
Publication Date:
02-2010
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Human Rights Human Welfare (University of Denver)
Abstract:
The possibility of using private military and security companies to bolster the capacity to undertake humanitarian intervention has been increasingly debated. The focus of such discussions has, however, largely been on practical issues and the contingent problems posed by private force. By contrast, this paper considers the principled case for privatising humanitarian intervention. It focuses on two central issues. First, is there a case for preferring these firms to other, state-based agents of humanitarian intervention? In particular, given a state's duties to their own military personnel, should the use of private military and security contractors be preferred to regular soldiers for humanitarian intervention? Second, on the other hand, does outsourcing humanitarian intervention to private military and security companies pose some fundamental, deeper problems in this context, such as an abdication of a state's duties?
Topic:
Security, Political Violence, Human Rights, Human Welfare, Humanitarian Aid, and War
Political Geography:
United Nations

3. Teaching Notes: Rights and Rebuilding in El Salvador

Author:
Susan Waltz and Elaine K. Denny
Publication Date:
09-2010
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Human Rights Human Welfare (University of Denver)
Abstract:
We have prepared this two-part case study with two pedagogical purposes in mind: (1) To develop an understanding of the concept (and political meaning) of human rights. (2) To facilitate discussion about processes of reconciliation and reconstruction and the importance of holistic conceptions of rights and security for future stability. Instructor notes are organized around these two themes. For each theme, we have provided some background commentary and discussion questions that can accompany both parts of the case study.
Topic:
Civil War, Human Rights, Human Welfare, and War
Political Geography:
Latin America

4. Darfur: In Search of Peace

Author:
George Shepherd and Peter Van Arsdale
Publication Date:
01-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Human Rights Human Welfare (University of Denver)
Abstract:
Darfur is located in the Western part of Sudan and borders Libya to the north, and Chad and CentralAfrican Republic to the West. It had an estimated population of seven million (prior to refugee and IDPdisplacements), representing more than 70 tribes, and is potentially rich in natural resources includingoil, copper, and uranium, as well as reservoirs of subsurface "Pleistocene water."
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Civil War, Human Rights, Human Welfare, Humanitarian Aid, Poverty, and War
Political Geography:
Africa and Libya

5. Intent: Ius In Bello Norms in Just War Theory The Case of the War in Gaza in 2009

Author:
Howard Adelman
Publication Date:
02-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Human Rights Human Welfare (University of Denver)
Abstract:
“I am sure they (the IDF soldiers) committed this crime.” I read these words just after I had finished the first draft of this paper on 1 February 2009. Oakland Ross, the Toronto Star journalist, was quoting Dr. Ezzeldeen Abu al-Aish who had trained at the Soroka hospital in Beersheba and the Tel Hashomer hospital in Tel Aviv. The interview was held at the latter Israeli hospital where another daughter was being treated for her injuries after the IDF opened the Ezer crossing to Gaza in a rare exception and allowed a Palestinian ambulance to meet up with an Israeli ambulance so the injured child could be transferred by IDF helicopter to the hospital. Dr. Abu al-Aish, a gynaecologist at Gaza's main Shifa Hospital, was a peace activist; his children attended peace camps with Israeli children. During the war, he had been heard frequently on Israel's Channel 10 TV station reporting in fluent Hebrew by cell phone via his friend, the Israeli journalist, Shlomi Eldar, to Israelis on the health problems resulting from the war that he had been witnessing in Gaza from his top floor apartment of a five-storey apartment building on Salahadin Street at the corner of Zino Rd. in Jebaliya just north of Gaza City. On Friday, 16 January 2009 less than 36 hours before the ceasefire went into effect in Gaza on Sunday, 18 January 2009, he was on the air when two shells from an Israeli tank parked a block away ploughed through his apartment and killed three of his daughters. 22-year-old Bisan, 15-year-old Mayer, 14-year old Ayan, and his 14-year-old niece, Nour Abu al- Aish.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Human Rights, and War
Political Geography:
Middle East, Israel, Arabia, and Gaza

6. A Human Rights-Oriented Approach to Military Operations

Author:
Federico Sperotto
Publication Date:
10-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Human Rights Human Welfare (University of Denver)
Abstract:
Counterinsurgency is the dominant aspect of US operations in Afghanistan, and since ISAF—the NATO-led security and assistance force—has assumed growing security responsibility throughout the country, it is also a mission for the Europeans. The frame in which military operations are conducted is irregular warfare, a form of conflict which differs from conventional operations in two main aspects. First, it is warfare among and within the people. Second, it is warfare in which insurgents avoid a direct military confrontation, using instead unconventional methods and terrorist tactics.
Topic:
Human Rights, Human Welfare, War, and Counterinsurgency
Political Geography:
Afghanistan and Asia

7. Law in Times of War: the Case of Chechnya

Author:
Federico Sperotto
Publication Date:
08-2007
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Human Rights Human Welfare (University of Denver)
Abstract:
In October 1999 “the second Chechen war” broke out. In December the Russian federal army started an operation to take control of Grozny. During the confrontation between the Federal forces and the Chechen separatists, serious human rights violations occurred. Several cases concerning violations of fundamental rights, in and around the city, have been brought before the European Court of Human Rights against Russia. The lawsuits concerned in particular physical integrity issues. This study provides some insights on the jurisprudence of the European Court on Human Rights in order to ascertain the adequacy of the mechanism of protection provided by the European Convention of 1950 in situations of armed conflict.
Topic:
Human Rights, Human Welfare, and War
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, Asia, and Chechnya

8. "I'm just talking about the law”: Guantánamo and the Lawyers

Author:
Marten Zwanenburg
Publication Date:
05-2007
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Human Rights Human Welfare (University of Denver)
Abstract:
“Because the legal advice was we could do what we wanted to them there” (22). This is how a top-level Pentagon official, in David Rose's Guantánamo: The War on Human Rights explains why detainees held by the United States have been detained at Guantanamo Bay. It is just one illustration of the important role that lawyers have played in the “War on Terror”—a role, along with factors that have or that may have influenced it, that forms the topic of this essay.
Topic:
Government, Human Rights, and War
Political Geography:
United States, Iraq, and Middle East

9. Making Sense of a Senseless War

Author:
J. Peter Pham
Publication Date:
04-2007
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Human Rights Human Welfare (University of Denver)
Abstract:
In a report on the United Nations-supervised disarmament process in Sierra Leone, veteran Washington Post correspondent Douglas Farah described the pathos of the ragged Revolutionary United Front (RUF) fighters: many were barely into their teens, straggling into a processing center in the diamond-rich eastern district of Kono with little more than ill-fitting rags draped over their emaciated bodies (Farah 2001). There was little evidence that these broken youths had, just a short while earlier, been part of one of the most brutal and effective insurgencies in the world, one whose strategy was predicated on terror in its most primordial expression. Farah's piece was headlined, “They Fought for Nothing, and That's What They Got,” a succinct description of a conflict that struck many as senseless, despite its heavy toll in lives and property.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, United Nations, and War
Political Geography:
Iraq and Middle East