Download or read book Death Squads or Self Defense Forces written by Julie Mazzei and published by Univ of North Carolina Press. This book was released on 2009-09-01 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In an era when the global community is confronted with challenges posed by violent nonstate organizations--from FARC in Colombia to the Taliban in Afghanistan--our understanding of the nature and emergence of these groups takes on heightened importance. Julie Mazzei's timely study offers a comprehensive analysis of the dynamics that facilitate the organization and mobilization of one of the most virulent types of these organizations, paramilitary groups (PMGs). Mazzei reconstructs in rich historical context the organization of PMGs in Colombia, El Salvador, and Mexico, identifying the variables that together create a triad of factors enabling paramilitary emergence: ambivalent state officials, powerful military personnel, and privileged members of the economic elite. Nations embroiled in domestic conflicts often find themselves stuck between a rock and a hard place when global demands for human rights contradict internal expectations and demands for political stability. Mazzei elucidates the importance of such circumstances in the emergence of PMGs, exploring the roles played by interests and policies at both the domestic and international levels. By offering an explanatory model of paramilitary emergence, Mazzei provides a framework to facilitate more effective policy making aimed at mitigating and undermining the political potency of these dangerous forces.

Download or read book The War Report written by Stuart Casey-Maslen and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2013-12-05 with total page 592 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a comprehensive Report on every armed conflict which took place during 2012. It is the first of a new series of annual reports on armed conflicts across the globe, offering an unprecedented overview of the nature, range, and impact of these conflicts and the legal issues they create. In Part I the Report describes its criteria for the identification and classification of armed conflicts under international law, and the legal consequences that flow from this classification. It sets out a list of armed conflicts in 2012, categorising each as international, non-international, or a military occupation, with estimates of civilian and military casualties. In Part II, each of these conflicts are examined in more detail, with an overview of the belligerents, means and methods of warfare, the applicable treaties and rules, and any prosecutions for, investigations into, or robust allegations of war crimes. Part III of the Report provides detailed thematic analysis of key legal developments which arose in the context of these conflicts, allowing for a more in-depth reflection on cross-cutting questions and controversies. The topics under investigation in this Report include drone strikes, the use of explosive weapons, small arms, forced displacement of civilians, detention at Guantanamo Bay, and the enforcement of international humanitarian and criminal law in both national and international courts. The Report gives a full and accessible overview of armed conflicts in 2012. It should be the first port of call for everyone working in the field.

Download or read book Colombia A Country Study written by Rex A. Hudson and published by Government Printing Office. This book was released on 2010-09-08 with total page 544 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Treats in concise and objective manner the dominant historical, social, political, economic, and national security aspects of contemporary Colombia. Chapter bibliographies appear at the end of the book.

Download or read book From Terrorism to Politics written by Anisseh Van Engeland and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-04-22 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How do terrorists become politicians? This book embraces a series of comparative case studies in order to examine important issues regarding the relationship between terrorism and political processes. It identifies the characteristics necessary for the transition from a 'terrorist' organization to a political party and situates this within broader debates about substantive ethical concerns motivating the distinction between legitimate politics and illegitimate violence. The volume offers a presentation of how some terrorist groups see the world in which they live. It also provides an understanding of how established democracies such as the US react to the phenomenon of the terrorist-politician transition. This is a useful resource for students and scholars of international relations, political ethics and comparative politics.

Download or read book Colombia written by Virginia Marie Bouvier and published by US Institute of Peace Press. This book was released on 2009 with total page 516 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Documents and analyzes the vast array of peace initiatives that have emerged in Colombia. This title explores how local and regional initiatives relate to national efforts and identifies possible synergies. It examines the multiple roles of civil society and the international community in the country's complex search for peace.

Download or read book Local Peacebuilding and National Peace written by Christopher R. Mitchell and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2012-05-03 with total page 201 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Local Peacebuilding and National Peace is a collection of essays that examines the effects of local peacebuilding efforts on national peace initiatives. The book looks at violent and protracted struggles in which local people have sought to make their own peace with local combatants in a variety of ways, and how such initiatives have affected and have been affected by national level strategies. Chapters on theories of local and national peacemaking are combined with chapters on recent efforts to carry out such processes in warn torn societies such as Africa, Asia, and South America, with essays contributed by experts who were actually actively involved in the peacemaking process. With its unique focus on the interaction of peacemaking at local and national levels, the book will fill a gap in the literature. It will be of interest to students and researchers in such fields as peace studies, conflict resolution, international relations, postwar recovery and development.

Download or read book Violence in Colombia 1990 2000 written by Charles Bergquist and published by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. This book was released on 2001-03-01 with total page 329 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Violence In Colombia provides students with a deeper understanding of the crisis facing Colombia today. The book focuses on the 1990s, a decade that witnessed a strengthening of the oldest and largest guerrilla insurgency in the Americas and the emergence of a powerful paramilitary right. The decade also saw a dramatic rise in homicide, kidnapping, and human rights violations that made Colombia by far the most violent nation in the hemisphere. But the 1990s was also about negotiating peace. The decade began with negotiations between the government and some of the guerrilla groups that led to their demobilization and to the important reforms codified in the Constitution of 1991. It ended with another serious attempt at negotiating peace, a historic agreement between the government and the largest and most powerful of the guerrilla groups to put a range of social and economic reforms on the negotiating table. For many, the crisis in Colombia is understood in terms of the drug trade. To be sure, the drug trade is implicated in every aspect of the crisis. And despite (or because of?) escalating efforts by the Colombian and U.S. governments to curb the trade, Colombia's role as the leading supplier of cocaine, and increasingly of heroin, to the U.S. market continues to expand. But the drug trade, by itself, cannot explain the crisis. If it could, why have other Latin American drug-producing and trafficking nations not experienced a fate like Colombia's? To answer this question, the book presents some of the best recent work by Colombian scholars on the crisis facing the nation. Violence in Colombia also includes a large section devoted to primary documents, which enables students to get a feel for the views of the protagonists in the conflict and judge for themselves the meaning of what they say. Examples include the negotiating positions of the government, the guerrillas, and the paramilitary right; testimony by kidnap victims and human rights lawyers; and assessments by U.S. officials and Colo

Download or read book Death Squads Security Forces and Private Justice Organizations written by Julie M. Mazzei and published by . This book was released on 2006 with total page 648 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Peace Democracy and Human Rights in Colombia written by Christopher Welna and published by University of Notre Dame Press. This book was released on 2007 with total page 476 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why has Colombia's internal war become so entrenched? Why have peace efforts failed to produce durable agreements? Why has Colombia's long-standing democracy experienced such glaring failures? This book addresses these questions and delves into the underlying politics of these issues.

Download or read book Plan Colombia written by John Lindsay-Poland and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 2018-10-04 with total page 261 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For more than fifty years, the United States supported the Colombian military in a war that cost over 200,000 lives. During a single period of heightened U.S. assistance known as Plan Colombia, the Colombian military killed more than 5,000 civilians. In Plan Colombia John Lindsay-Poland narrates a 2005 massacre in the San José de Apartadó Peace Community and the subsequent investigation, official cover-up, and response from the international community. He examines how the multibillion-dollar U.S. military aid and official indifference contributed to the Colombian military's atrocities. Drawing on his human rights activism and interviews with military officers, community members, and human rights defenders, Lindsay-Poland describes grassroots initiatives in Colombia and the United States that resisted militarized policy and created alternatives to war. Although they had few resources, these initiatives offered models for constructing just and peaceful relationships between the United States and other nations. Yet, despite the civilian death toll and documented atrocities, Washington, DC, considered Plan Colombia's counterinsurgency campaign to be so successful that it became the dominant blueprint for U.S. military intervention around the world.

Download or read book Forensic Archaeology written by W. J. Mike Groen and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2015-02-17 with total page 615 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Forensic archaeology is mostly defined as the use of archaeological methods and principles within a legal context. However, such a definition only covers one aspect of forensic archaeology and misses the full potential this discipline has to offer. This volume is unique in that it contains 57 chapters from experienced forensic archaeological practitioners working in different countries, intergovernmental organisations or NGO’s. It shows that the practice of forensic archaeology varies worldwide as a result of diverse historical, educational, legal and judicial backgrounds. The chapters in this volume will be an invaluable reference to (forensic) archaeologists, forensic anthropologists, humanitarian and human rights workers, forensic scientists, police officers, professionals working in criminal justice systems and all other individuals who are interested in the potential forensic archaeology has to offer at scenes of crime or places of incident. This volume promotes the development of forensic archaeology worldwide. In addition, it proposes an interpretative framework that is grounded in archaeological theory and methodology, integrating affiliated behavioural and forensic sciences.

Download or read book Human Trafficking in Conflict written by Julia Muraszkiewicz and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2020-07-02 with total page 349 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This edited book ​examines the different forms of human trafficking that manifest in conflict and post-conflict settings and considers how the military may help to address or even facilitate it. It explores how conflict can facilitate human trafficking, how it can manifest through a variety of case studies, followed by a discussion of the reasons why the military should include a stronger consideration of human trafficking within their strategic planning given the multiple scenarios in which military forces come into contact with victims of human trafficking, and how this ought to be done. Human Trafficking in Conflict draws on the expertise of scholars and practitioners to develop the existing conversations and to offer multiple perspectives. It includes a discussion of existing frameworks and perspectives including legal and policy, and whether they are configured to address human trafficking in conflict.

Download or read book Inter American Yearbook on Human Rights Anuario Interamericano de Derechos Humanos Volume 33 2017 written by Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2022-11-28 with total page 796 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The print edition is available as a set of two volumes (9789004327955).

Download or read book Profits Security and Human Rights in Developing Countries written by James Rochlin and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-06-19 with total page 217 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The extractive sector is a particular area of expertise for Canada and more than half of Canada’s mining assets abroad are located in Latin America, specifically in Brazil, Peru, Chile, and Colombia. The Canada-Colombia accord was the first free-trade agreement in the world to include annual Human Rights Impact Assessments (HRIA), and also includes a labour side accord where abuse complaints can be formally registered. Using Colombia as a case study, James Rochlin and his international and multidisciplinary line up of Canadian and Colombian scholars, and activists working in the area of human rights, and the judiciary explore: What is the best way to identify and operationalize for mutual benefit the concentric space between the interests of extractive corporations in profit and security, on the one hand, and the interests of the host communities in the promotion of human rights and human security, on the other? What can the four emblematic and diverse cases in Colombia (Meta, Sergovia, Marmato, and Bolivar/La Guajira) tell us about how to fine tune and improve a newly implemented governmental HRIA to render it an increasingly useful global instrument to promote simultaneously corporate security and human security for host communities? What is the most efficient and effective way to design and implement Corporate Social Responsibility Programs in a manner that promotes simultaneously corporate security and community human security? Written in a clear and accessible style, Profits, Security, and Human Rights presents practical lessons on how to promote both corporate security and human security in communities where the extractive sector operates in the Global South.

Download or read book Fighting Monsters in the Abyss written by Harvey F. Kline and published by University of Alabama Press. This book was released on 2015-12-15 with total page 269 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Studies the complex constraints and trade-offs the second administration of Colombian President Uribe (2006–2010) encountered as it attempted to resolve that nation’s violent Marxist insurrection and to have a more efficient judicial system Fighting Monsters in the Abyss offers a deeply insightful analysis of the efforts by the second administration of Colombian President Álvaro Uribe Vélez (2006–2010) to resolve a decades-long Marxist insurgency in one of Latin America’s most important nations. Continuing work from his prior books about earlier Colombian presidents and yet written as a stand-alone study, Colombia expert Harvey F. Kline illuminates the surprising successes and setbacks in Uribe’s response to this existential threat. In State Building and Conflict Resolution in Colombia, 1986–1994, Kline documented and explained the limited successes of Presidents Virgilio Barco and César Gaviria in putting down the revolutionaries while also confronting challenges from drug dealers and paramilitary groups. The following president Andrés Pastrana then boldly changed course and attempted resolution through negotiations, an effort whose failure Kline examines in Chronicle of a Failure Foretold. In his third book, Showing Teeth to the Dragons, Kline shows how in his first term President Álvaro Uribe Vélez more successfully quelled the insurrection through a combination of negotiated demobilization of paramilitary groups and using US backing to mount more effective military campaigns. Kline opens Fighting Monsters in the Abyss with a recap of Colombia’s complex political history, the development of Marxist rebels and paramilitary groups and their respective relationships to the narcotics trade, and the attempts of successive Colombian presidents to resolve the crisis. Kline next examines the ability of the Colombian government to reimpose rule in rebel-controlled territories as well as the challenges of administering justice. He recounts the difficulties in the enforcement of the landmark Law of Justice and Peace as well as two significant government scandals, that of the “false positives” (“falsos positivos”) in which innocent civilians were killed by the military to inflate the body counts of dead insurgents and a second scandal related to illegal wiretapping. In tracing Uribe’s choices, strategies, successes, and failures, Kline also uses the example of Colombia to explore a dimension quite unique in the literature about state building: what happens when some members of a government resort to breaking rules or betraying their societies’ values in well-intentioned efforts to build a stronger state?

Download or read book Transitional Justice in the Twenty First Century written by Naomi Roht-Arriaza and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2006-09-14 with total page 317 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Dealing with the aftermath of civil conflict or the fall of a repressive government continues to trouble countries throughout the world. Whereas much of the 1990s was occupied with debates concerning the relative merits of criminal prosecutions and truth commissions, by the end of the decade a consensus emerged that this either/or approach was inappropriate and unnecessary. A second generation of transitional justice experiences have stressed both truth and justice and recognize that a single method may inadequately serve societies rebuilding after conflict or dictatorship. Based on studies in ten countries, this book analyzes how some combine multiple institutions, others experiment with community-level initiatives that draw on traditional law and culture, whilst others combine internal actions with transnational or international ones. The authors argue that transitional justice efforts must also consider the challenges to legitimacy and local ownership emerging after external military intervention or occupation.

Download or read book The Protection and Promotion of Civic Space Strengthening Alignment with International Standards and Guidance written by OECD and published by OECD Publishing. This book was released on 2022-12-16 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The past decade has seen increasing international recognition of civic space as a cornerstone of functioning democracies, alongside efforts to promote and protect it. Countries that foster civic space are better placed to reap the many benefits of higher levels of citizen engagement, strengthened transparency and accountability, and empowered citizens and civil society. In the longer term, a vibrant civic space can help to improve government effectiveness and responsiveness, contribute to more citizen-centred policies, and boost social cohesion.