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1. Europe’s Return to UN Peacekeeping in Africa? Lessons from Mali

Author:
John Karlsrud and Adam C. Smith
Publication Date:
07-2015
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
International Peace Institute
Abstract:
In a break from recent tradition, European member states are currently contributing significant military capabilities to a United Nations (UN) peacekeeping operation in Africa. Europeans are providing more than 1,000 troops to the UN Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA) by staffing a wide range of operations including an intelligence fusion cell, transport and attack aircraft, and special forces. Yet for European troop-contributing countries (TCCs) that have spent several years working in North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) operations in Afghanistan, participating in a UN mission has been a process of learning and adaptation. For the UN, the contributions of key capabilities by European countries have pushed the UN system to adjust to the higher expectations of the new European TCCs, which has proved difficult in Mali’s complicated operating environment and political situation.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Regional Cooperation, International Security, and Peacekeeping
Political Geography:
Africa and Mali

2. Reimagining Peacemaking: Women’s Roles in Peace Processes

Author:
Marie O'Reilly, Andrea Ó Súilleabháin, and Thania Paffenholz
Publication Date:
06-2015
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
International Peace Institute
Abstract:
Peace and political transition processes provide key opportunities to transform institutions, structures, and relationships in societies affected by conflict or crises. Despite these wide-ranging implications, women’s participation in formal peacemaking remains low. And empirical evidence regarding the impact of women’s participation on peace has been lacking. The International Peace Institute’s new report, “Reimagining Peacemaking: Women’s Roles in Peace Processes” examines the challenges and opportunities presented by women’s participation in peace and transition processes. It shares new quantitative and qualitative evidence on the impact of this participation and explores models and strategies for strengthening women’s influence throughout mediated processes. Based on research carried out at the International Peace Institute in New York and the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva, the new report shows how the lag in women’s participation is linked to broader dilemmas in the peacemaking landscape today. Drawing on a comparative study of forty peace and transition processes from the Broadening Participation Project, it demonstrates that when women are able to effectively influence a peace process, a peace agreement is almost always reached and the agreement is more likely to be implemented. The report also features a case study on two distinct peace processes in the Philippines, where an unprecedented level of women’s participation offers lessons on their influence
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, United Nations, Peacekeeping, and Women
Political Geography:
Global Focus

3. Silencing the Guns: Strengthening Governance to Prevent, Manage, and Resolve Conflicts in Africa

Author:
Gilbert Khadiagala
Publication Date:
05-2015
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
International Peace Institute
Abstract:
Since independence, African states and organizations have made significant investments in conflict management and resolution tools. So why do some African states and regions remain saddled by conflict and instability? How can African states leverage democratic governance to end wars? The new report Silencing the Guns suggests that the key to ending conflict in Africa lies in fostering effective governance and creating political and economic institutions that can effectively prevent, manage, and resolve conflicts. Author Gilbert Khadiagala unpacks how and why democratic governance is linked to conflict prevention and management, and provides an overview of landmark trends that have influenced governance in Africa since the 1950s. He shows that not all forms of democratic governance reduce conflicts and examines the ways in which “developmental dictatorships,” corruption, and the privatization of security are posing obstacles for governance and peace today.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Conflict Prevention, Democratization, and Governance
Political Geography:
Africa

4. Europe’s Return to UN Peacekeeping in Africa? Lessons from Mali

Author:
John Karlsrud and Adam C. Smith
Publication Date:
07-2015
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
International Peace Institute
Abstract:
In a break from recent tradition, European member states are currently contributing significant military capabilities to a United Nations (UN) peacekeeping operation in Africa. Europeans are providing more than 1,000 troops to the UN Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA) by staffing a wide range of operations including an intelligence fusion cell, transport and attack aircraft, and special forces. Yet for European troop-contributing countries (TCCs) that have spent several years working in North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) operations in Afghanistan, participating in a UN mission has been a process of learning and adaptation. For the UN, the contributions of key capabilities by European countries have pushed the UN system to adjust to the higher expectations of the new European TCCs, which has proved difficult in Mali’s complicated operating environment and political situation.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, NATO, United Nations, and Peacekeeping
Political Geography:
Africa and Europe

5. Terminating Security Council Sanctions

Author:
Kristen E. Boon
Publication Date:
04-2014
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
International Peace Institute
Abstract:
This report assesses the United Nations Security Council's current approach to drawing down sanctions in intrastate war situations. After examining broader questions surrounding the UN's authority to impose sanctions and the corresponding limits on these powers, this report assesses criteria used by the council to terminate sanctions. It observes that multilateral sanctions under the UN Security Council tend to last substantially longer than sanctions by regional organizations, such as the African Union and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS); and it argues that short sanctions periods are preferable to long sanctions periods.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, International Relations, International Trade and Finance, and Sanctions
Political Geography:
Africa and United Nations

6. Mediating Transition in Yemen: Achievements and Lessons

Author:
Steven A. Zyck
Publication Date:
10-2014
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
International Peace Institute
Abstract:
Yemen remains the only site of an Arab Spring uprising that has ended in a negotiated agreement and a structured, internationally supported transition process. As Jamal Benomar, the United Nations Special Adviser to the Secretary-General on Yemen, stated, “Yemen was definitely heading towards a Syria-type scenario” before international actors, including the United Nations (UN), helped to shepherd a complex transition process, which continues at the time of writing. Benomar, with support from a wide array of stakeholders, helped avert an escalating conflict in Yemen by stepping in to offer the good offices of the UN secretarygeneral without waiting for the UN Security Council or the embattled Yemeni regime to demand UN action. Benomar's interventions— including bringing Yemen's major political parties together amid the uprising—helped ensure that the country did not devolve into civil war when President Ali Abdullah Saleh stepped down after thirty-three years in power. That is, the UN opened a space for dialogue where none had previously been considered possible.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Democratization, Treaties and Agreements, and Popular Revolt
Political Geography:
Middle East, Arabia, and Syria

7. A Dangerous Nexus: Crime, Conflict, and Terrorism in Failing States

Author:
Walter Kemp, Mara Pfneisl, and Maximilian Meduna
Publication Date:
11-2013
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
International Peace Institute
Abstract:
In his introductory remarks, IPI President Terje Rød-Larsen noted that when the United Nations was established after the Second World War, organized crime had almost nothing to do with international peace and security. It was a problem in a few big cities and isolated regions, but it was not a topic of international relations. In the 1980s, the situation began to change. The collapse of Communism opened new markets, and criminals began to take advantage of instability in conflict zones and fragile states. Globalization created new opportunities for illicit activities to flourish thanks to new technologies, new markets, and greater openness. Increases in trade, financial transactions, and communications made it easier for criminals to do business around the world and to launder money. Criminal groups also exploited unstable regions. As a result, by the beginning of the twenty-first century, organized crime had gone global, reaching macroeconomic proportions and posing a threat to international peace and security.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Arms Control and Proliferation, Crime, Globalization, Terrorism, Counterinsurgency, and Narcotics Trafficking
Political Geography:
United Nations

8. Peacekeeping Reimbursements-Key Topics for the Next COE Working Group

Author:
Bianca Selway
Publication Date:
01-2013
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
International Peace Institute
Abstract:
With UN peacekeeping operating in more complex environments and taking on new tasks, peacekeepers need appropriate equipment to carry out their mandates. A central aspect to equipping peacekeepers is ensuring that member states are appropriately reimbursed for their contributions under a equipment reimbursement system, called the Contingent-Owned Equipment System(COE). Every three years the United Nations conducts a meeting to negotiate the terms and conditions of the financial reimbursements paid to member states for the equipment they provide to UN peacekeeping operations. Preparations and briefings to member states are already underway in New York for the next COE Working Group meeting, to be held January 20-31, 2014. With 98,311 military and police deployed with their related equipment in seventeen missions around the world, the financial implications of these tri-annual discussions can be significant. In MONUSCO alone, the mission's annual budget for reimbursements to troop-contributing and police-contributing countries for major equipment and self-sustainment in the fiscal years 2008/09, 2009/10, and 2010/11 were $144million, $160million, and$180million, respectively.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Conflict Prevention, Security, Development, Armed Struggle, and Fragile/Failed State
Political Geography:
United Nations

9. When Do Civil-War Parties Heed the UN? Findings from the IPI Security Council Compliance Database

Author:
Christoph Mikulaschek and Chris Perry
Publication Date:
12-2013
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
International Peace Institute
Abstract:
The end of the Cold War brought an unprecedented surge in United Nations Security Council efforts to prevent, manage, and resolve internal armed conflict. But the sheer time and resources devoted to civil wars begs the question: to what extent and under which circumstances do civil-war parties actually implement the substance of Security Council resolutions? When and how often do civil-war parties comply with the Security Council's demands? To what extent do they respond to the council's offers of negative and positive incentives to cease hostilities and pursue a political settlement? Which factors most influence compliance with these demands? These are the questions that the International Peace Institute's Understanding Compliance with UN Security Council Resolutions in Civil Wars project aims to answer.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Peace Studies, Treaties and Agreements, War, and Peacekeeping
Political Geography:
United Nations

10. New Report Plans Ahead for a Postconflict Syria:Lessons from Iraq, Lebanon, and Yemen

Author:
Christina Bennett
Publication Date:
12-2013
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
International Peace Institute
Abstract:
Though the violent conflict in Syria shows few signs of abating and scenarios for any post conflict solution are numerous and vague, renewed interest in peace talks presents an important opportunity to discuss the parameters of peace and reconstruction in Syria.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Security, and Peace Studies
Political Geography:
Iraq, Middle East, Yemen, Arabia, Lebanon, and Syria