Search

Begin New Search Topic Humanitarian Intervention Publication Year within 25 Years

71. Stabilizing and Reconstructing Iraq: A Challenging Path Ahead

Author:
Michael Pregent and Jonas Parello-Plesner
Publication Date:
02-2018
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Hudson Institute
Abstract:
Iraq has militarily defeated the terrorist organization ISIS. This is the good news, which was also underlined at the recent Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS meeting in Kuwait on 13 February 2018 held in conjunction with the Kuwaiti Reconstruction Conference for Iraq. Yet the task ahead is as daunting as any military campaign. Now Iraq needs to rebuild and to heal its communities to foster an inclusive national identity. Challenges remain, from funding continuing stabilization efforts to the even larger resources needed for reconstruction over the coming years. According to announcements made at the Iraqi reconstruction conference in Kuwait, donors have pledged a decent amount, around $30 billion, although $88 billion was touted as the desired amount by the Iraqi Government. The Gulf countries and Turkey are becoming new large donors. The private sector also showed significant interest, although corruption is still a major concern, which the Iraqi government seeks to address. Continued stabilization is making it possible and desirable for internally displaced persons (IDPs) to return to their homes. Over 3 million Iraqis have returned, but more await in camps or temporary accommodations. Equally important is reconciliation. The UN is working with the Iraqi government to implement this at the national level. Baghdad and Erbil should pursue continued dialogue and concrete steps forward, including on the thorny issue of Kirkuk, in accordance with the Iraqi Constitution. Inclusiveness for Sunnis is important, both during reconstruction and before and after elections, as their disenfranchisement helped produce fertile soil for ISIS. Yet reconciliation should not be only top-down, and local community efforts undertaken by Iraqi civil society organizations are essential. Reconstruction funding should be tied to government reforms and more importantly, to tangible progress on reconciliation and political accommodation efforts. A novel aspect of the conference was the US administration’s new approach to burden-sharing in the aftermath of the ISIS presence in Iraq. President Trump wants to build infrastructure at home in the US and has tweeted dismissively about the $7 trillion the US has already spent in the Middle East. The United States will not disburse public funding for reconstruction, which is seen as nation-building, although it remains among the top contributors to humanitarian and stabilization assistance and will provide loans to private companies. Yet even such investments could pose additional risk for American companies because of sanctions against Iran, whose economic presence is felt in several important sectors. Instead, the US encouraged international institutions and others to step up, and Saudi Arabia, for example, contributed $1.5 billion. Leading up to the conference, the US facilitated a diplomatic reconciliation process between Iraq and Saudi Arabia for outstanding debts owed to Riyadh. The conference also gave Prime Minister Haider al Abadi a strong platform for brandishing his vision of a united Iraq, although some areas, particularly in the Sunni parts of the country, still feel excluded from reconstruction planning. Still, it is an open question whether that positive vision is enough to bring him another governing coalition following the Iraqi parliamentary elections in May. The continued presence of American military forces is increasingly a topic of contention in the elections.
Topic:
International Relations, Humanitarian Aid, Terrorism, Reconstruction, Radicalization, Islamic State, Humanitarian Intervention, and Reconciliation
Political Geography:
Iraq, Middle East, Kuwait, and United States of America

72. TWAIL and the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) as a New Instrument of Domination: the Case of Libya

Author:
Tuğçe Kelleci and Marella Bodur Ün
Publication Date:
01-2018
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Uluslararasi Iliskiler
Institution:
International Relations Council of Turkey (UİK-IRCT)
Abstract:
Third World Approaches to International Law (TWAIL) points to the interactions between international law and colonial legacy and problematizes the concepts of humanitarian intervention and the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) within this framework. Humanitarian intervention is usually discussed in relation to its legitimacy in international law and the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolutions. TWAIL, however, analyzes those interventions that are constructed through discourses of human rights and democracy, highlighting the importance of issues other than legality and legitimacy. A historical reading of the Libyan case through the prism of TWAIL not only provides us with an opportunity to assess TWAIL’s assumptions in relation to international law, humanitarian intervention and R2P but also reveals how international law and R2P are used to legitimize interventions of the West into the Third World.
Topic:
International Law, Humanitarian Intervention, Responsibility to Protect (R2P), and UN Security Council
Political Geography:
Libya and North Africa

73. Is Use of Cyber-Based Technology in Humanitarian Operations Leading to the Reduction of Humanitarian Independence?

Author:
Martin Stanley Searle
Publication Date:
06-2018
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for Non-Traditional Security Studies, S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies
Abstract:
Technologies of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) are being tested and adopted at a significant rate in humanitarian emergency response. However, the crossing of physical, biological, and cyber domains that characterises these technologies threatens the independence of humanitarian organisations. This is occurring in an environment in which the value and purpose of independence is already seriously questioned, both in practice, and in principle. This paper argues that the loss of independence stems from two related trends. First, several 4IR technologies are improving the capacity of humanitarian organisations to gather, synthesise, and analyse data, resulting in the production of information of increasingly strategic, political or military value. Second, the cyber component of these technologies simultaneously renders that information more vulnerable to unauthorised access by third parties with relevant political, military or economic agendas. This parallels the “capability/ vulnerability paradox” identified in literature discussing cybersecurity in relation to the military or so-called “smart cities”. In conflict and disaster settings, this paradox increases the likelihood of humanitarian actors functioning as appendages of other organisations. This loss of independence potentially has operational implications relating to access, and material impact on the ongoing debate around the importance of independence in humanitarian work.
Topic:
Science and Technology, Cybersecurity, Humanitarian Intervention, and Independence
Political Geography:
Global Focus

74. Europe Is the Key Player in Syria: An Alternative Template for Transition

Author:
Bassma Kodmani
Publication Date:
10-2018
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Arab Reform Initiative (ARI)
Abstract:
As long as military means prevailed in deciding the fate of Syria, the European Union could not alone induce any decisive change in the dynamics of the conflict, and Assad was vindictively seeking to prove that the European Union’s ability to influence the conflict was nil. Assad’s luck was that Putin was determined to prevent his fall and threw his full weight behind him to maintain his rule. When the guns finally fall silent, should the key countries of Europe and the EU itself simply accept as “a sad reality” the fact that the Syrian regime is back in full control of the country? Will they channel funds for humanitarian, post-emergency and early recovery purposes through the State’s financial system knowing full well that European tax payers’ money might be massively diverted to end in the pockets of Assad’s family and the kleptocracy around him,1 and serve to pursue his sectarian scheme of changing the demographics of Syria along religious and ethnic lines? Framing the discussion in terms of accepting Assad and rehabilitating him or not is disempowering for the EU. It assumes that military force alone is what determines the outcome of the conflict and the political fate of the country. If it follows this rationale, Europe would be annihilating everything it stands for; it would serve as a helping hand in Assad’s strategy to bury the civil society groups it helped organize and silence the democratic forces and all those within the different sectors of society who want a Syria that resembles Europe in terms of its values and its political system on the other side of the Mediterranean. The EU’s declared position that there will be no reconstruction without political transition in Syria is an honorable one, but this position still needs to be operationalized if the EU is to turn it into a policy and use its full clout to shape the resolution of the conflict.
Topic:
Europe Union, Humanitarian Intervention, Military Intervention, and Economic Policy
Political Geography:
Africa, Russia, Europe, and Syria

75. Atrocity Prevention Under the Obama Administration: What We Learned and the Path Ahead

Author:
Stephen Pomper
Publication Date:
02-2018
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
Simon-Skjodt Center for the Prevention of Genocide, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Abstract:
This report is intended to provide an insider’s view on where the Obama administration’s efforts to prevent mass atrocities succeeded, where they did not, and where future policy makers who wrestle with the challenge of prevention might find useful lessons in the administration’s experience, both positive and negative. The first part of the report summarizes the intellectual roots of the Obama administration’s atrocityprevention policy, identifying the goals and expectations created by two key works—Samantha Power’s “A Problem from Hell”: America in the Age of Genocide1 and the report of a bipartisan task force on genocide prevention led by former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and former Secretary of Defense William Cohen.2 The second part of the report describes how the administration translated those goals and expectations into policy and summarizes the administration’s record on atrocity prevention. It focuses in particular on situations in which policy changes and innovations appear to have had a positive effect, however modest, and on efforts to develop new capabilities under the policy. The third part looks at the two most prominent situations in which the policy was unsuccessful —Libya and Syria. The fourth part offers an “after action” assessment of the administration’s atrocity-prevention policy, drawing from interviews with former senior officials to identify both the strengths and contributions of the policy and its most pronounced shortcomings. The fifth part offers recommendations for future executive-branch officials, legislators and staff, and civil society partners for ways in which they could help the United States improve its performance on atrocity prevention going forward. The report is in many respects a hotwash exercise. The bulk of it was written in the first six months following the end of the Obama administration, drawing from the author’s reflections on his recent tenure as senior director for African Affairs, Multilateral Affairs and Human Rights on the staff of the Obama administration’s National Security Council, as well as his experience as chairman of the Atrocities Prevention Board. The report also draws extensively from interviews with more than 30 former senior Obama administration officials and others with insight on the administration’s atrocity-prevention efforts.3 Finally, this report owes a significant debt to earlier reports that have also sought to evaluate the administration’s atrocity-prevention record.4 Given the brevity of the report relative to the scope of its topic, both the analysis and recommendations herein are relatively skeletal. The report is offered with humility and as an effort to add one group of recollections and perspectives to a growing historical record. It is hoped that as this record continues to develop, it will provide the next generation of atrocity-prevention proponents new and better options to confront the challenges of the future, having profited as fully as possible from the lessons of the past.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Humanitarian Intervention, Barack Obama, and Atrocity Prevention
Political Geography:
Middle East, Libya, Syria, North America, and United States of America

76. Where Fools Rush In: Why Armed Intervention Failed to Create Political Reconciliation in Somalia

Author:
Joseph P. Alessi
Publication Date:
03-2018
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Studies of Changing Societies Journal (SCS)
Institution:
Studies of Changing Societies Journal (SCS)
Abstract:
To be successful in today's world, leaders must understand the idea of culture. When the word culture is associated with leadership, many might first think of the culture that leadership creates within the framework of an organization. But for leaders who must operate in a tumultuous world connected by modern media, the word literally refers to the understanding of the people and places where they intend to inject themselves. Where Fools Rush In is a study of the failed U.N. and U.S. interventions to create stability and political reconciliation in Somalia from 1992 to 1995, due to the cultural misunderstanding of U.N. and U.S. leaders that created flawed mission objectives. World leaders must make difficult decisions when intervening in the political and social strife of nations when faced with the reality of human catastrophe and genocide. The questions will always remain as to if, how much, and what kind of intervention must occur. The choices are simple: standby, do nothing and watch, or intervene. What international leaders must understand is that, regardless of the boundaries and governmental systems implanted in former colonial and Cold War territories, the people developed their own systems of social organization and governance that predated European or U.S intrusion. When chaos erupts in these areas and the vestiges of these former systems collapse, the indigenous people more often than not return to their deeply entrenched cultural systems to create stability in these regions. Therefore, it is paramount for intervening parties to fully understand these cultural systems and implications if they hope to achieve any level of success. Ultimately, U.N. and U.S. leaders failed in Somalia because they failed to understand the people and their culture. Rather, they ignored it and viewed the situation from purely an ethnocentric western political perspective.
Topic:
International Law, United Nations, Humanitarian Intervention, Conflict, and Violence
Political Geography:
Africa, Europe, North America, Somalia, and United States of America

77. Rapid Protection, Food Security and Market Assessment: Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, November 2017

Author:
Floriane Echegut and Corrie Sissons
Publication Date:
11-2017
Content Type:
Case Study
Institution:
Oxfam Publishing
Abstract:
Since 25 August 2017, the Cox’s Bazar and Bandarban districts in the south-east of Bangladesh have seen a mass influx of Rohingya refugees fleeing violence in Rakhine State in Myanmar. To inform programming and the wider humanitarian response, Oxfam undertook a rapid food security, markets and protection assessment in November 2017. This was done to complement a large-scale WASH response launched in early September 2017 at the onset of the displacement from Myanmar.
Topic:
Food Security, Displacement, Humanitarian Intervention, Conflict, and Protected People
Political Geography:
Bangladesh and Asia

78. Moral Obligation: UN Missions Should Not Abandon Vulnerable Civilians in Critical Times

Author:
Kofi Nsia- Pepra
Publication Date:
08-2017
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Global Peace Operations Review
Abstract:
United Nations (UN) missions’ inaction in response to civilian killings by government troops in Darfur, South Sudan, and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has precipitated international outcry and raised concerns on viability of UN missions in fulfilling their civilian protection mandates. In all these cases, peacekeepers are trapped in quagmires where violence is endemic and operations are flawed. The tragedy is that the principle of peacekeeping that requires host country consent has left the UN entangled in relationships with obstructionist governments guilty of civilian killings. Without the governments’ cooperation, peacekeepers have been reduced to bystanders and struggled to fulfill their protection mandates while civilians are killed. The UN has a dilemma when its peace operations are not working. Some suggest it should “walk away” from such failed missions, but the system is haunted by its failures to protect civilians in Rwanda and Srebrenica. The UN should think twice about withdrawing. Member states have a commitment to the “responsibility to protect” and “saving the next generation from the scourge of war”. Abandoning vulnerable civilians would be a moral failure, embolden spoilers, perpetuate the cycle of impunity, and implicitly condone conscience-shocking atrocities that undermine the organization’s credibility and legitimacy. A better way forward is to deepen the analysis of operational deficiencies that undermine the robustness of UN missions and strengthen their ability to protect civilians.
Topic:
United Nations, Humanitarian Intervention, Peace, Civilians, and Morality
Political Geography:
Africa, Darfur, South Sudan, and Democratic Republic of Congo

79. Yemen: drained, uncertain, and ignored – a series on Yemen, part 3

Author:
Mohamed Saleh
Publication Date:
01-2017
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Harvard Journal of Middle Eastern Politics and Policy
Institution:
The John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University
Abstract:
This is the third of a three-part series of essays on Yemen highlighting the magnitude and impact of the civil war on Yemenis. Yemen is located on the southern edge of the Arabian peninsula, with the Red Sea and Egypt to its west, the Gulf of Aden and the Horn of Africa to its south, Oman on its northeastern border, and Saudi Arabia along its northern border. Once benign representations of Yemen’s geography and sovereignty, those borders now symbolize nothing but profound anguish. The edges outlining a nation whose people remain imprisoned while waiting for life-saving aid which may not come. What at one point was a country grappling with the contradictions of 21st century development and economic growth has been bombed so viciously and blockaded so resolutely that close to a million of its inhabitants may die from a disease easily cured by oral rehydration therapy – a medical expression for treatment by purified water and modest amounts of sugar, salt, and zinc supplements. Condiments and a few bottles from a local pharmacy in any European country, and water. That is all. And yet the international community continues to watch in horror, its reaction anemic, its response stunted.
Topic:
Civil War, War, Arab Spring, Humanitarian Intervention, and International Community
Political Geography:
Iran, Middle East, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, United States of America, and Gulf Nations

80. The Responsibility to Protect beyond Borders in the Law of Nature and Nations

Author:
Luke Glanville
Publication Date:
10-2017
Content Type:
Journal Article
Abstract:
While histories of human rights have proliferated in recent decades, little attention has been given to the history of thinking about duties to protect these rights beyond sovereign borders. We have a good understanding of the history of duties of sovereign states to ensure the safety and well-being of their own citizens and of the right of other states to forcefully intervene when these duties are violated. But the story of the development of thinking about duties to assist and protect the vulnerable beyond borders remains to be told. This article defends the importance of excavating and examining past thinking about these duties. It then sketches key aspects of Western natural law thinking about such duties, from Francisco de Vitoria through to Immanuel Kant, claiming that such study holds the promise of exposing from where ideas that prevail in international law and politics have come and retrieving alternative ideas that have been long forgotten but that may reward renewed consideration. It concludes by briefly outlining how three such retrieved ideas might be of particular use for those seeking to push international law and politics in a more just direction today.
Topic:
Human Rights, International Law, Sovereignty, History, Humanitarian Intervention, and Philosophy
Political Geography:
Europe and Global Focus