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When the Calderon Administration escalated anti-drug efforts in 2006, drug-related violence in Mexico reached unprecedented levels. The growing intensity of drug-related violence has led to uncertainty over how to classify the violence spreading across Mexico. Much of the public rhetoric argues that Mexico's drug-related violence has surpassed that which typically characterizes the drug trade and is instead more similar to armed conflict. Due to the changing landscape of Mexican drug violence, an assessment of whether or not the conflict meets the requisite conditions for a non-international armed conflict (NIAC) is needed to determine if the application of international humanitarian law is appropriate. This paper argues that Mexico's Drug War meets the conditions for NIAC status and application of IHL is appropriate. The question of how to respond to drug-related violence is becoming increasingly relevant as the effects of such violence extends to a more diverse geographic area within Mexico. NIAC status plays a central role in the future of anti-drug policy and has the potential to prompt significant changes in the handling of drug-related violence in Mexico. This paper attempts to provide a comprehensive answer to this question and identify the potential implications that recognition as a NIAC will have on Mexican anti-drug policy.

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The United Nations (U.N.) General Assembly defines conflict diamonds as rough diamonds used by rebel movements to finance their military activities, including attempts to undermine or overthrow legitimate governments. The United States and much of the international community are trying to sever the link between conflict and diamonds while ensuring that no harm is done to the legitimate diamond industry, which is economically important in many countries. The principal international effort to address these objectives, known as the Kimberley Process, aims to develop and implement an international diamond certification scheme that will deter conflict diamonds from entering the legitimate market. The nature of diamonds and the operations of the international diamond industry create opportunities for illicit trade, including trade in conflict diamonds. Diamonds are mined in remote areas around the world and are virtually untraceable back to their original source once mixed and polished. The United States cannot detect diamonds that might come from conflict sources because the current diamond import control system does not require certification of the country of extraction. At present, there is no international system to certify the source of extraction. The Kimberley Process proposal for an international diamond certification scheme does not contain the elements necessary to provide reasonable assurance that the scheme will be effective in deterring the flow of conflict diamonds."

International interventions in conflict-ridden societies have left a trail of debacles behind. The limited military intervention and the civilian follow-up in Albania after the chaos in 1997 is a positive exception. Peacekeeping in Albania and Kosovo explores the concerted efforts to rebuild and modernize a society marked by its communist past, the failed coup attempt of 1998, and the influx of Kosovan refugees in 1999. In Kosovo, the UN-led international rule and its efforts to rebuild a society from scratch were complicated by many restraining political, financial and administrative factors. This book describes how former political advisories agreed to work together, how a successful multi-ethnic police force was built, how a remarkable demilitarization of former guerrillas was achieved and how political factions came to accept the outcome of the first democratic elections.