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Abstract: The staggering human toll taken by tuberculosis and malnutrition as well as the devastation caused by wars in the Central African Republic (CAR), Sri Lanka, and Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), are among the "Top Ten" Most Underreported Humanitarian Stories of 2006, according to this year-end list compiled by Doctors Without Borders.
Abstract: What happens to women whose lives are transformed by human rights violations? What happens to the voices of victimized women once they have their day in court or in front of a truth commission? Women face a double marginalization under authoritarian regimes and during and after violent conflicts. Nonetheless, reparations programs are rarely designed to address the needs of women victims. What Happened to the Women? Gender and Reparations for Human Rights Violations, argues for the introduction of a gender dimension into reparations programs. The volume explores gender and reparations policies in Guatemala, Peru, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, South Africa, and Timor-Leste.
Abstract: The present report is submitted pursuant to paragraphs 6, 13 and 16 of Security
Council resolution 1556 (2004), paragraph 15 of resolution 1564 (2004), paragraph
17 of resolution 1574 (2004) and paragraph 12 of resolution 1590 (2005). It covers
the period from 1 October to 10 December 2006.
Abstract: At the request of Senator Kent Conrad, Chairman of the Senate Committee on the
Budget, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has estimated the possible costs
to the United States of maintaining a long-term military presence in Iraq similar to
the U.S. forces in the Republic of Korea and the Northeast Asia region. The nature
and pace of operations of such a presence, if any, in Iraq for one or more decades
into the future are uncertain.
Abstract: This field manual addresses the use of contractors as an added resource for
the commander to consider when planning support for an operation. Its purpose is to
define the role of contractors, describe their relationship to the combatant commanders
and the Army service component commanders, and present their mission of augmenting
operations and weapon systems support. This manual is intended for commanders and
their staff at all echelons, program executive officers/program managers, and others
involved in the planning, management, and use of contractors in an area of operations. It
is also a guide for Army contracting professionals and contractors in implementing
planning decisions and understanding how contractors will be managed and supported by
the military forces they augment.
Abstract: This report presents difficult-to-find statistics regarding U.S. military casualties in
Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) and Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF, Afghanistan),
including those concerning medical evacuations, amputations, and the demographics of
casualties. Some of these statistics are publically available at the Department of
Defense's (DOD's) website, while others have been obtained through contact with
experts at DOD.
Abstract: United Nations (UN) Security Council Resolution 1308 of July 2000 draws attention to the link between HIV/AIDS and international peace and security - specifically, the link between HIV/AIDS, UN Peacekeeping Forces (PKFs) and peace and security. What evidence is there to support this link? This report by the London School of Economics AIDS argues that whilst there has been an increasing amount of literature on the subject of AIDS and security, there is little hard evidence and the knowledge base is of variable quality. It is premature to generalise about the dynamic of the relationship between uniformed forces and the spread of HIV.
Abstract: The project on Country Profiles on the Status of the CRC
Implementation is one of the core IBCR program activities. It involves
analysis and reporting on the status of implementation of the Convention
on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and its Optional Protocols. It particularly
aims to detect the existing challenges and gaps, highlight the progress
made and identify the commendable practices that are developed in the
area of children's rights by States parties. The overall objective is to fill the
disparities in monitoring children's rights at the national and regional
level, and facilitate the implementation of the CRC and its Optional
Protocols globally by providing Governments with successful international
practices that could be implemented in their respective countries.
The project has been attracting much interest on the part of Canadian
agencies as well as international partners worldwide. Within the framework
of this project, in August 2005 IBCR received funding from the
Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) to co#nduct a pilot
study of selected South-East Asian countries. That group included countries
where CIDA conducts its own projects and where the IBCR's country
profiles could provide added value for CIDA's activities, namely
Cambodia, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Timor Leste, and Viet Nam.
Abstract: The rise of China as a major power has triggered a new debate over the military balance in Asia,
but it is only one of the trends shaping regional military forces. Taiwan's faltering military
development has helped destabilize the Taiwan Straits. Japan is reasserting its strategic role in
the region, causing tension with both China and South Korea. North Korea's persistence in
creating nuclear forces is changing the balance on the Korean Peninsula, as are cuts in US forces.
The shift in US forces from Okinawa to Guam, and increased US reliance on long-range strike
forces is also affecting the balance.
Abstract: This report sets forth the broad contours of the international human rights regime as it
concerns indigenous peoples and thus the Republic of Congo-Brazzaville's
responsibilities under international law, in the context of the current initiative to develop
legislative protection for the Congolese Baka "Pygmy" peoples. The report first provides
an overview and synthesis of the relevant provisions of applicable treaties, other
international instruments, interpretive decisions by international human rights bodies, and
the practice of state and other actors engaged in multilateral discussions about the rights
of indigenous peoples. It then describes the domestic legal developments of several
countries, including select francophone countries in Africa. Finally, the report
summarizes the content of international norms concerning indigenous peoples, including
norms of customary international law that establish obligations for states in addition to
their treaty-based obligations.
Abstract: On 26 and 27 May 2005, United Nations Dialogue with the Global South and the Department of International Relations at University of the Witwatersrand co-hosted a consultation and workshop on the regional dynamics of human security. Participants in the meeting included some 30 researchers, academics and policy makers from South Africa, particularly the greater Johannesburg area, and academics from selected universities in China, Egypt, India and Mexico. (See Addendum 1 for a list of participants.) The purpose of the meeting was to engage the academic and research communities in a discussion of the concept of human security and its relationship to current proposals for United Nations reform. The meeting, generously supported by the United Nations Trust Fund for Human Security, also provided an opportunity for participants to explore regional differences in human security concerns and to identify priority issues for further research. United Nations Dialogue with the Global South is a three year pilot project that was initiated by the United Nations in 2004 with support from the United Nations Foundation. The goal of the project is to establish research links and ongoing collaboration between the three United Nations departments directly responsible for peace and security issues and partner universities located in the Global South. The partner universities include the American University in Cairo, Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, the National University of Mexico, Tsinghua University in China and the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) in Johannesburg. This meeting, generously hosted by Wits, provided the first opportunity for representatives of the partner universities to meet and discuss their further collaboration. The discussions during the two-day meeting were facilitated by the proposals contained in three high profile reports: Human Security Now: Protecting and Empowering People; by the Commission on Human Security; the United Nations Secretary-General's High Level Panel report, A More Secure World: Our Shared Responsibility; and the United Nations Secretary-General's report, In Larger Freedom: Towards Development, Security and Human Rights for All.
Abstract: Targeting Ammunition features contributions by experts who identify and examine
gaps and challenges in current policies and programmes, and highlight
opportunities to enhance national and international controls on ammunition.
Abstract: This report is submitted in compliance with the request of the Security Council
contained in the statement issued by its President on 26 September 2001
(S/PRST/2001/25), whereby the Council members requested me to keep them
regularly informed about the situation in the Central African Republic and the
activities of the United Nations Peacebuilding Support Office in the Central African
Republic (BONUCA). This regular report covers the period from January to June
2006.
Abstract: Amnesty International is deeply concerned about the escalating number of "disappearances" occurring in Nepal. These are taking place in the context of counter-insurgency operations by the security forces, in their response to the "people's war" being fought by the Communist Party of Nepal (CPN) (Maoist) since 1996. Amnesty International has recorded 622 cases of "disappearance" in Nepal since 1998, over half of which have occurred since the breakdown of the most recent ceasefire on 27 August 2003. This represents an alarming increase in the scale of the problem, with an average of more than one case reported to Amnesty International each day since the ceasefire ended.
Abstract: The present report has been prepared in accordance with the provisions of
Security Council resolution 1612 (2005). It is presented to the Council and its
Working Group on Children and Armed Conflict as the first country report emanating
from the monitoring and reporting mechanism referred to in paragraph 3 of that#r
resolution. The report covers the period from 1 January 2006 to 15 March 2007. It
provides information on grave violations being committed against children in
situations affected by armed conflict in Somalia.
Abstract: The present report has been prepared in accordance with the provisions of
Security Council resolution 1612 (2005). It is presented to the Council and its
Working Group on Children and Armed Conflict as the first country report on
Uganda from the monitoring and reporting mechanism referred to in paragraph 3 of
that resolution.
The report, which covers the period from 8 June 2006 to 15 March 2007,
specifies incidents of grave children's rights violations and abuses, indicative of their
nature and trends in Uganda.
Abstract: The nation has difficult trade-offs in facing calls on Army forces for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. This report describes the effects of large deployments on the Army's ability to provide forces for other contingencies, to ensure that soldiers are trained, and to continue to recruit and retain soldiers. The authors found that Army plans for transformation and employing reserves at reasonable rates still fall short. Steps to improve the situation all involve high risks or costs. Unless requirements recede, the nation faces an Army stretched thin, with no quick fix or easy solution.
Abstract: JSMP's "Women in the Formal Justice Sector" (released in March 2004) was based on two months of court monitoring of women-related cases in Dili District Court. The study arose from recognition that women in Timor encounter particular difficulties in accessing and receiving justice. The report found that more attention should be given to the issue of female victims' (of domestic violence, sexual assault and rape) access to the formal justice system. JSMP's Women's Justice Unit (WJU) was set up in April 2004 to help implement some of the recommendations in the report and to perpetuate its focus on issues facing women. The central goals of the WJU are to use JSMP's expertise in the justice sector in Timor to assess and report on the status of women in the formal justice sector, to provide policy advice regarding legal issues affecting women in the formal justice sector, and to develop and provide resource support for issues impacting women's access to formal justice. Under the Technical Cooperation programme of the UNHCHR, the UNMISET's Human Rights Unit contracted JSMP's WJU to do an Access to Justice for Victims Project with an emphasis on gender in May 2004. The Human Rights Unit is very interested in the issue of access to justice. Until now, most of the work of donors and the UN in relation to justice in East Timor has been devoted to build the capacity of the justice system. Such institutional building is of course very important, but as JSMP's report "Women in the Formal Justice Sector" showed, there is clearly a need for further attention to be given to increasing access to justice, the role of the law and lawyers in facilitating this access, and the human rights implications of access to justice.
Abstract: The 59th session of the United Nations
General Assembly opened on September
21, 2004 with a statement by Secretary-
General Kofi Annan. This was followed by a
two week period of general debates covering
a range of issues including security and
poverty and its relation to public health. In
the face of these global challenges, Member
States expressed support
for reform of the United
Nations.
Abstract: In November 2003, the IUSSP Working Group on the Demography of Conflict and Violence, with
financial and other support from IUSSP, the Research Council of Norway, Statistics Norway and
the Centre for the Study of Civil War at the International Peace Research Institute, Oslo (PRIO),
convened a seminar for researchers in demography, history, sociology, social anthropology, and political
science to consider the relationship between demographic factors and the incidence of violence.
Being one of the first seminars on such issues, the main goal was to get an overview of the
scientific activities in this field. Thirty-five papers were presented over the course of the seminar,
out of more than 90 submitted to the working group. The sessions covered demographic causes of
conflict and violence; impacts of conflict on mortality, fertility and reproductive health, and migration;
questions of ethnicity and genocide; as well as methodology and the ethics of population research.
In this highly diverse discussion, the relationships between human conflict and human populations
that emerged were neither simple nor consistent, and elective human behaviors and cultural
and political institutions shape those relationships in often surprising ways.
Abstract: An international panel of leading experts on terrorism (see appendix) met in Oslo to discuss root causes of terrorism. The main purpose was to provide inputs from the research community to a high-level conference on "Fighting Terrorism for Humanity" to be held in New York on 22 September 2003. The findings described in this report are conclusions drawn by the chairman on the basis of presentations and discussions.
Abstract: This report is the third that comprehensively details findings from the State
Failure Task Force, a group formed in response to a request from senior
US policymakers to identify factors associated with serious internal
political crises.
This report is the culmination of a five-year effort to identify measurable
characteristics of countries around the world that affect the risk of serious
political instability, which we term "state failure." Events such as the
Islamic revolutions in Iran and Afghanistan, the ethnic wars in Somalia and
former Yugoslavia, the collapse of the Soviet Union, the genocide in
Rwanda, and the complex combination of ethnic and revolutionary
conflicts in places such as Sierra Leone, Indonesia, and the Democratic
Republic of the Congo, are all examples of the kinds of state failure this
effort addresses.
Abstract: This study argues that new military technology and tactics can be used to increase the effectiveness and reduce the costs and risks of forcible humanitarian interventions. If such operations can be made more effective and less costly, the political barriers to undertaking them should be lower, making it easier for individual countries and the UN to fulfill their responsibility to protect.
Abstract: The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (also known as the 9-11 Commission), an independent, bipartisan commission created by congressional legislation and the signature of President George W. Bush in late 2002, is chartered to prepare a full and complete account of the circumstances surrounding the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, including preparedness for and the immediate response to the attacks. The Commission is also mandated to provide recommendations designed to guard against future attacks.
Abstract: Our Common Responsibility: The Impact of a New War on Iraqi Children, a report by the
International Study Team assesses the vulnerability of Iraqi children today as compared
to 1991. The report comes as the United Nations Security Council meets to consider the
report of the United Nations weapons inspectors. As such, this report is directed to the
Security Council, to the government of Iraq, and to the international community as a
public document encouraging these entities to t#ake into account the plight of Iraqi
children when considering the alternatives of war and continued weapons inspections.
