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41. Illicit Americas: Historical Dynamics of Smuggling in U.S. Relations with Its Neighbors

Author:
Peter Andreas
Publication Date:
09-2013
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University
Abstract:
The proliferation of illicit cross-border flows in the Americas—ranging from unauthorized migrant workers and psychoactive substances to arms and dirty money—is often portrayed as an alarming and unprecedented challenge to borders and government authority in the region.1 Policing such border flows has also become an increasingly prominent (and sometimes highly divisive) issue in U.S. relations with its neighbors, as Washington has pushed for tighter border controls and more intensive crackdowns on smuggling.
Topic:
Security, Arms Control and Proliferation, Crime, Migration, Narcotics Trafficking, and Border Control
Political Geography:
United States, America, Washington, Latin America, and North America

42. Dialogue of the Deaf: Scholars, Practitioners, and the Drug War in U.S. Foreign Relations

Author:
Peter Andreas
Publication Date:
09-2013
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University
Abstract:
The oft-lamented divide between academia and the policy world is nowhere more starkly evident than in the U.S.-led international "war on drugs." Indeed, it is difficult to find an issue in U.S. foreign relations where there is a greater disconnect between scholarship and policy practice.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Crime, War on Drugs, Narcotics Trafficking, Governance, and Border Control
Political Geography:
United States

43. Parallel Paths to Enforcement: Private Compliance, Public Regulation, and Labor Standards in the Brazilian Sugar Sector

Author:
Richard M. Locke and Salo V. Coslovsky
Publication Date:
08-2013
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University
Abstract:
In recent years, global corporations and national governments have been enacting a growing number of codes of conduct and public regulations to combat dangerous and degrading work conditions in global supply chains. At the receiving end of this activity, local producers must contend with multiple regulatory regimes, but it is unclear how these regimes interact and what results, if any, they produce. This paper examines this dynamic in the sugar sector in Brazil. It finds that although private and public agents rarely communicate, let alone coordinate with one another they nevertheless reinforce each other's actions. Public regulators use their legal powers to outlaw extreme forms of outsourcing. Private auditors use the trust they command as company insiders to instigate a process of workplace transformation that facilitates compliance. Together, their parallel actions block the low road and guide targeted firms to a higher road in which improved labor standards are not only possible but even desirable.
Topic:
Agriculture, Human Rights, International Law, International Trade and Finance, and Labor Issues
Political Geography:
Latin America

44. Democracy in Post-Invasion Iraq

Author:
Melani Cammett
Publication Date:
02-2013
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University
Abstract:
In the decade since the U.S. invasion in 2003, procedural democracy was established in Iraq. A new constitution was adopted, creating a federal parliamentary democratic system, and multiple rounds of national and provincial elections have been held. The existence of institutional forms of democracy, however, is not enough to ensure the quality of democracy. This paper evaluates the quality of Iraqi democracy, using indicators ranging from corruption levels to living conditions and political freedoms. Compared to the era of Ba'ath Party rule under Saddam Hussein, Iraqis enjoy greater civic and political liberties and multiple political factions compete for power. However, the democracy that has emerged is limited in significant ways, and it has not brought peace and prosperity to much of the population.
Political Geography:
United States and Iraq

45. Conduct and Discipline in Un Peacekeeping Operations: Culture, Political Economy and Gender

Author:
Catherine Lutz, Matthew C. Gutmann, and Keith Brown
Publication Date:
10-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University
Abstract:
Systematic patterns of sexual exploitation and abuse (SEA) have emerged around UN peacekeeping missions over the course of many years.1 Reports of abuse by peacekeepers in Cambodia and the Balkans in the 1990s were followed by news of similar problems in West African missions in 2001 and 2002. The Secretary General subsequently issued a 2003 Bulletin outlining a zero-tolerance policy, but the abuse continued. In 2004, peacekeeper misconduct became widely known through mainstream media reports that UN personnel in MONUC, the UN Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo, had been engaging in sexual exploitation and abuse (SEA) of local women and children. The SEA included, most egregiously, peacekeepers' exchange of UN food supplies or money for sex with young girls and sometimes boys. SEA has been a particular problem in mission areas where extreme poverty and conflict or post-conflict trauma and social dislocation drive local people to sell their bodies, but it has occurred in more developed contexts as well, such as Cyprus and Kosovo. The UN response to these problems has been to establish, in 2005, a Conduct and Discipline Unit with offices in New York and mission areas, charged with addressing the problem in a variety of ways. SEA continues to occur since then, with serious incidents revealed in Sudan, Liberia, Haiti, Cote d'Ivoire, and again in the Congo.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Corruption, Crime, Gender Issues, Sex Trafficking, and Peacekeeping
Political Geography:
United States, New York, Sudan, Kosovo, Cambodia, Haiti, Liberia, West Africa, and Cyprus

46. Humanitarian Action: The Conflict Connection

Author:
S. Neil MacFarlane
Publication Date:
01-2001
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University
Abstract:
This monograph considers the impact of humanitarian action on recent armed conflicts. The proposition that humanitarian initiatives fuel conflict has been an important element of the critique of international responses to war-related need, constituting indeed a fundamental challenge to the humanitarian imperative. Concern about exacerbating conflict through humanitarian action may also reduce the flow of resources from donors to aid agencies. But the connection can also be positive. The view that humanitarian action can and should be designed to promote peace has influenced the programs of agencies operating in complex emergencies.
Topic:
Security, Human Rights, and International Organization

47. Targeted Financial Sanctions: A Manual for Design and Implementation

Author:
Thomas J. Biersteker, Sue Eckert, Natalie Reid, and Peter Romaniuk
Publication Date:
01-2001
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University
Abstract:
In recent years, the concept and strategy of targeted sanctions imposed by the United Nations Security Council under Chapter VII of the Charter of the United Nations, have been receiving increased attention. Practitioners and analysts generally agree that better targeting of such measures on the individuals responsible for the policies condemned by the international community, and the elites who benefit from and support them, would increase the effectiveness of sanctions, while minimizing the negative impact on the civilian population. The considerable interest in the development of targeted sanctions regimes has focused primarily on financial sanctions, travel and aviation bans, and embargoes on specific commodities such as arms or diamonds.
Topic:
Security, Foreign Policy, Human Rights, and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
United Nations

48. When Needs are Rights: An Overview of UN Efforts to Integrate Human Rights in Humanitarian Action

Author:
Karen Kenny
Publication Date:
01-2000
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University
Abstract:
Integration of human rights throughout the United Nations system is, and always has been, a legal imperative flowing from the UN Charter. More recently, how- ever, it has also become stated policy of the organization and its component parts. The commitment to integration expressed by the Secretary-General in his reform program of July 1997 builds on the directions in the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action, to which 171 states agreed in 1993.
Topic:
Human Rights, International Organization, and United Nations

49. Integration and Disintegration in the Former Soviet Union: Implications for Regional and Global Security

Author:
P. Terrence Hopmann, Stephen D. Shenfield, and Dominique Arel
Publication Date:
01-2000
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University
Abstract:
Since the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991, cross-pressures toward integration and disintegration have influenced relations among the 15 newly independent states that appeared on the territory formerly occupied by the Soviet Union. Centrifugal tendencies continue to be manifest as some of these states try to achieve even greater independence from one another. Distinct regions within many of these states have also sought varying degrees of sovereignty and independence. These trends are countered in part by centripetal tendencies. The costs of independence within this previously highly integrated region have become increasingly apparent, especially for the economies of the newly independent states.
Political Geography:
Russia, United States, Ukraine, and Soviet Union

50. The Dynamics of Coordination

Author:
Marc Sommers
Publication Date:
01-2000
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University
Abstract:
This study takes a fresh look at coordination dynamics by exploring two situations that were noteworthy both for the difficult challenges humanitarian organizations faced and for their innovative responses. The cases shed light on coordination in general and two contexts in particular: coordination for a country (Sierra Leone in the 1990s) and coordination for refugee camps (Rwandan refugees in Ngara District, Tanzania).
Topic:
International Relations, Human Rights, and International Organization
Political Geography:
Tanzania and Rwanda