Do they Really Care? Protection of Civilians and the Veto Powers

Posted by & filed under Humanitarianism

It was not until the advances of IS in Syria and Iraq turned into an international security threat that a military intervention was launched in September 2014. A horrendous civil war had then killed tens of thousands Syrian civilians and displaced millions without provoking any similar reaction. In this blog post I reflect on what this tells us about the commitment of major powers to the principle of protecting civilians across borders. Do they really care? And do they agree on its meaning and implications?

Civilians flee from fighting after Syrian army tanks entered the northwestern city of Idlib, Syria in 2012. Photo: Nasser Nouiri via Flickr

A report of the UN Human Rights Commission from 13 August this year describes the humanitarian situation in Syria as follows:

With 6.5 million internally displaced persons and 2.9 million registered refugees, Syria has become the world’s worst humanitarian catastrophe. According to UN agencies, 10.8 million Syrians are in need of urgent humanitarian assistance inside the country, 241,000 people still live under siege and 4.7 million reside in hard-to-reach areas.

Yet, the veto powers of the UN Security Council have not been able to agree on any effective response. This ‘failure’ seems to contradict their repeated statements in the Council on their commitment to the Protection of Civilians in armed conflict (PoC).

Read more at the blog of the Norwegian Centre for Humanitarian Studies.

Whither UNMISS?

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The recent renewal of the mandate and the six-month extension of the UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) warrants a broader discussion of its current state of affairs and future strategy. Not only has the political context of the mission changed significantly since the onset of war, but the nature of the operation has also… Read more »

Where is My Home?

Posted by & filed under Migration

Considerations about return are a persistent dimension of identity work in migrant populations. The question of where and what constitutes ‘home’ for migrants is central to understanding processes of integration in settlement contexts. Simultaneously, where and what constitutes ‘home’ sheds light on motivations for sustained transnational ties, but also on return considerations, ranging from planning and actually returning, to an ongoing myth of future return, or a decision of staying put.

Photo: Holger Detje

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This Week in South Sudan – Week 48

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Monday 24 November The National Assembly in South Sudan’s capital Juba did not go for recess as previously planned, but instead remains on call to be briefed on the status of the peace talks in Ethiopia. Unity state authorities praised the SPLA-in-Opposition for their recent move to open humanitarian corridors in the state and allowing… Read more »

With Ukraine going strong, Putin becomes lost in the fog of hybrid war

Posted by & filed under Regions and Powers

Jens Stoltenberg and Dalia Grybauskaite are not amused with Russian military activities in the Baltic.

Last weekend (November 21), Ukraine marked the first anniversary of the EuroMaidan—the public protests in Kyiv that lasted through the hard winter of discontent and brought down the corrupt regime of Viktor Yanukovych on February 21. As its war for state survival continues to rage, the country is in no mood for street festivities. Nevertheless, the EuroMaidan clearly still drives Ukraine’s policy, as was illustrated by the formation of a broad governing coalition pledging to restore the country’s territorial integrity and deepen its pro-Western orientation, including the goal of joining the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) (Gazeta.ru, November 21). United States Vice President Joe Biden was in Kyiv to express full support for reforms and to warn Russia against further violations of Ukraine’s sovereignty, which would be punished by new sanctions (Lenta.ru, November 21). This warning was reinforced by NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, who checked the deployment of new military assets in Lithuania and confirmed that the Alliance was carefully monitoring the movements of Russian troops and heavy weapons in eastern Ukraine (Newsru.com, November 21).

Read the article in Eurasia Daily Monitor, 24 November 2014.

This Week in South Sudan – Week 47

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Monday 17 November Human rights and policy organizations criticized the continued failure to count victims of South Sudan’s conflict – in particular the number of war dead – calling it a ‘scandal’ and ‘dishonor.’ Uganda’s president, Yoweri Museveni, hosted reconciliation talks in Kampala, with South Sudan’s president, Salva Kiir, and the SPLM-G10, led by John… Read more »

An Independent Iraqi Kurdistan?

Posted by & filed under Regions and Powers

A change of prime minister will not resolve Iraq’s structural problems, and while a dysfunctional Iraqi state is reeling from onslaughts by Islamic extremists, the Iraqi Kurds in the north of the country have never been stronger. Even so, we are very unlikely to see an independent Iraqi Kurdistan in the immediate future.

Behind the recent flood of news reports from Iraq, about the brutal efficiency of the Islamic extremists, ethnic cleansing, and Western intervention, there is another, deeper question that deserves more attention: Now that the Iraqi state is so weak, will the Kurds in the north of the country take the opportunity to break free?

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Research Under Fire: Researcher Trauma and Conflict Studies

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Political scientists debate whether the world is getting more violent or less. Regardless of where you situate yourself in this discussion, it does seem that social scientists are putting themselves into more violent situations than ever before.

Researchers during an interview in Deheishe refugee camp in the West Bank. Photo: Benny Brunner

Especially within the field of political violence and conflict studies, students and scholars travel to active conflict and post-conflict areas, interview and interact with people who experienced high levels of violence, witness violence and potentially experience violence targeted at them. In addition to direct experiences with violence, many of us spend hours, often alone in our offices, reading genocide perpetrator testimonies, personal stories of sexual violence, or State Department reports cataloging years of crime and abuse.

These are all experiences capable of producing psychological trauma, yet as a field we rarely engage with the implications of this trauma for our work or ourselves. Many of us have preconceived ideas about what trauma is and remain doggedly convinced that what we study isn’t that bad, that what we’ve experienced isn’t as distressing as what others have, or that what we are feeling is nothing really. Yet, the evidence suggests otherwise.

Read more at Political Violence @ a Glance, where the full text was published 30 October 2014.