Yearly Archives: 2004
The Use of Sustained Coercive Air Power in Humanitarian Interventions
ABSTRACT
This paper aims to contribute to the discussion of the conditions under which a military intervention should be undertaken in order to avert, or at least limit, a humanitarian catastrophe. It identifies a number of criteria which render such a conflict-induced catastrophe conducive to a solution centered around the use of an airpower oriented peace enforcement strategy. By highlighting the ability of sustained coercive airpower (SCAP) to act as a force multiplier and drastically reduce the number of troops as well as the field time needed for large-scale humanitarian operations, the paper goes on to directly challenge the daunting implications of Quinlivan’s theory. It also sought to describe the conduct and requirements of a military intervention relying on such a strategy. Two case studies are used, Iraq and Sudan, to highlight the importance of a number of factors for the success of a SCAP strategy.
Locally-led Advance Mobile Aid
ABSTRACT
Civilians face increasingly dangerous trends in the nature of war and the notion of asylum. Aid workers face evermore-drastic trends in diminishing access, security and resources. Thus it is increasingly hard for endangered civilians to get out-and for aid workers to get in. Therefore, this paper is about an archetypal organization for delivering a new form of emergency aid. Locally Led Advance Mobile Aid (LLAMA) is to be deployed when civilians trapped in conflict are dying and the chance of reaching them in time with conventional relief and protection is unlikely. The mission of this aid is to help teams of locals return home with an increased capacity to aid their own people. This article details how LLAMA is designed, how teams are formed and trained, and how accountability is increased by using this model. Additionally, an overview of critiques is provided.
You Say You Want a Devolution: Prospects for Remodeling Humanitarian Assistance
ABSTRACT
International assistance organizations continually evolve, make serious efforts at improving planning, and recently some have jointly endeavored to look beyond the typically short-term horizon of relief operations into what their field might look like in future decades. None of these initiatives, however, have seriously taken up the question of how the northern-based aid community might begin to effect an actual “indigenization” of humanitarian response, devolving it to the level where the countries and regions most often on the receiving end of humanitarian assistance would assume the leading roles for designing and managing it. This article looks at some of the arguments for, and formidable obstacles to, a true devolution in the international humanitarian system.
Legalising a Contemporary ‘War of Peace’: A Case For Humanitarian Intervention in the Sudan
ABSTRACT
This paper deals with the legal and politico-legal aspects of humanitarian intervention in the Sudan- an issue elucidating the pressing need for the international community to determine lawful criteria by which the authorization of the use of force to protect the human rights of the vulnerable and the neglected might be made use of as a humanitarian option of last resort. The paper determines a six point legal test that might be used to justify any such intervention, and, in accordance with international human and human rights law, has recommended a series of short, medium and long-term enforcement strategies and military option which respect Sudan’s national security concerns while better protecting the rights and livelihoods of the people of Darfur.
The Human Rights Dimensions of International Peace and Security: Humanitarian Intervention After 9/11
ABSTRACT
This paper looks at the impact Human Rights notions have on international peace and security. It discusses how human rights and international peace and security are interrelated and interdependent and that the fostering of one promotes the enhancement of the other and that the needs for universal respects for Human Rights and Peace respectively can be reconciled under international law, if the use of force remains the last resort in the problems of human rights. It also incorporates a step by step procedure for the enforcement of human rights under international law.
Post-Conflict Policing: Lessons from Uganda 18 Years On
ABSTRACT
This article examines the east African country of Uganda which suffered a lengthy civil war in the late 1980s as a result of the authoritarian and abusive rule of President Obote. It is now 18 years since the National Resistance Army seized power and brought the war to an end – long enough to review the effectiveness of the regime’s experiments with policing. On the one hand it offers examples of what can be positively achieved and sustained in the local community in a post-conflict situation. On the other there are negative lessons to learn from how it has responded to anxieties about regional security and organized crime. Based on field research in Uganda between February to April 2004, this paper draws out some of the lessons gained as they relate to post-conflict policing.
Military – Humanitarian Relationships and the Invasion of Iraq (2003): Reforging Certainties?
ABSTRACT
Relationships between the humanitarian and military communities have tended to be difficult. Nevertheless, during the 1990s a fragile and rather patchy consensus emerged on the norms, expectations and institutional arrangements underpinning that relationship. This article examines the model that emerged through the 1990s and considers the impact of the Global War on Terror (GWOT) in general and the invasion of Iraq in particular.