Suchergebnisse

The post Peace and Conflict Resolution in Rural Areas appeared first on Völkerrechtsblog.

Russia's full-scale invasion and war of aggression against Ukraine has impacted security perception in the European Eastern Neighbourhood and it has highlighted the need for the international community to pay increased attention to so-called 'frozen' conflicts. When such conflicts remain ignored and unresolved for too long, there is continuous danger of eruption and escalation.
The post Women's Leadership and Empowerment in the Transnistrian Conflict Resolution in Moldova appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

Since 2016, the Anglophone separatist movement in Cameroon has become characterised by political violence. Armed separatists have imposed boycotts on education, burned down schools and infrastructure, and abducted or killed civilians accused of collaborating with francophone authorities.

Mujib Jimoh (Duke University School of Law) has posted UN Resolutions as 'Hard-Law' in Armed Conflict (Vol. 51(1) Southern University Law Review, Forthcoming) on SSRN. Here is the abstract: The sources of international law, as codified in Article 38 of...

In the context of some of the most challenging times for peacebuilding, Kaleem Hussain outlines his newly published book, "Peace and Reconciliation in International and Islamic Law", which explores the relationship between International Humanitarian Law (IHL) and Islamic Law (IL) in conflict resolution. With the escalation of the conflict between Palestine and Israel rising to … Continued

In Waiting for Dignity: Legitimacy and Authority in Afghanistan, Florian Weigand examines the legitimacy of state power and other authorities in Afghanistan. Drawing on hundreds of interviews with Afghans, the book is an invaluable contribution to the understanding of politics and power in Afghanistan and to the broader field of conflict resolution studies, writes Hossein Mousavi. You can … Continued

Hamas's recent, brutal attacks on Israel have rightly drawn condemnation for their indiscriminate killing of hundreds of civilians while taking large numbers of hostages. Israel has sought to respond to these attacks. The question is what that response should entail. The response outlined by Israeli officials so far appears to be rapidly moving toward total war — not just air strikes but a potential ground invasion and a pledge to tighten the Israeli blockade of Gaza to cut off electricity and block the import of food and medicines. This approach is likely to result in the deaths of hundreds if not thousands of Palestinian civilians, while causing immense suffering for the rest of the territory's more than two million inhabitants. A response to the Hamas attacks is appropriate, but total war is not the answer — morally or strategically.As for the Biden administration, its position so far is to go "all in" in supporting the Israeli approach, including the deployment of a carrier group to the region and a pledge to expedite the supply of large quantities of weapons to Israel. This approach risks sparking a wider war that would destabilize the broader Middle East. At a minimum, the Biden administration should signal to the Netanyahu government that it must observe the laws of war in its response to the Hamas attack, including taking care to avoid killing civilians. Beyond that, the U.S. should coordinate with other players in the region to promote a ceasefire that would head off the potential deaths of thousands of Palestinians and more Israelis beyond the hundreds that have died already. In assessing the current war, it is important to take into account the context, including Israel's 16-year long blockade of Gaza, its disproportionate responses to past attacks that have resulted in the deaths of large numbers of Palestinian civilians, and its continued support for settlements in the West Bank that have undermined any hope of a two state solution to the conflict. None of this justifies the Hamas attacks or their consequences for hundreds of Israeli civilians, but no analysis of the roots of the war can ignore this historical background.Iran's historic role in providing weapons and training to Hamas has sparked calls in Washington and Tel Aviv for holding Tehran accountable, which may be not so subtle code for launching a military attack on Iran. Allegations that Iran directed or helped plan the Hamas attacks have not been proven, although the Biden administration has pledged to investigate whether that might have been the case.An attack on Iran would likely spur Tehran to attack U.S. and Israeli targets in the region, including U.S. troops in Syria and Iraq. That in turn could escalate any U.S. or Israeli attacks on Iran, in an upward spiral that could lead to a longer-term confrontation that would threaten the stability of the region for years to come — an outcome that would have decidedly negative consequences for U.S. interests.Israel has the right to defend itself, but the Biden administration is not obligated to endorse Tel Aviv's stated war aims, given the risks they pose of undermining any prospect of a resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as well as the possibility that they will drag the U.S. into yet another large war in the Middle East. It will be difficult to implement any of the above-mentioned measures in the immediate aftermath of the Hamas attacks, but they are essential preconditions for heading off another generation of war that could spread far beyond Israel and Palestine and put U.S. servicemen and women at risk.

It's easy to forget now, but the shocking and horrific violence that set off the current hostilities in the Middle East, where Hamas militants slaughtered and kidnapped innocent Israeli civilians, was predicted. Specifically, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security under Donald Trump warned in October 2020 that terrorist violence was set to be imminently inflamed.
Trump's DHS didn't claim it was because, in President Joe Biden words, of "sheer evil" from those who exist only "to kill Jews." Rather, it pointed to the Abraham Accords: the U.S.-led effort to normalize relations between Israel and its Arab neighbors, which Trump claimed would shift the course of Middle Eastern history from "decades of division and conflict" and which the Biden administration claimed would make the region "safer and more prosperous."
So how did we end up with the exact opposite?
For decades, the peaceful resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, meaning the provision of an independent state for the Palestinian people and the end of Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory, was central to the task of engineering peace between Israel and its Arab neighbors. This was a problem, since between successive Israeli governments steadily chipping away at the possibility of a two-state solution to the conflict and dwindling U.S. interest in pressuring the Israeli state to follow through on the commitment, that resolution started to look increasingly impossible.
But over time, the priorities of the Arab states shifted away from the Palestinians, too. Their largely authoritarian leadership became more preoccupied with matters like maintaining political control in the wake of the Arab Spring protests — for which support from an advanced military power like Israel might prove useful — and an increasingly assertive Iran, which then-newly appointed Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman called a "much more urgent and more important" issue.
This shift dovetailed with the Trump administration's ultra-Israel-friendly stance and its own goal of further isolating Iran in the region. The resulting Abraham Accords were, at least in the neoconservative world, considered a stroke of "genius." Rather than finding a solution to the seemingly intractable question of Palestinian statehood, it simply sidelined it.
The signers dropped this long-standing precondition as they re-established diplomatic relations and deepened security and economic cooperation with Israel, while Trump lavished them with rewards, like an arms deal for the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and U.S. recognition of the annexation of West Sahara for Morocco. It effectively supplanted the Saudi government's Arab Peace Initiative, which since its 2002 introduction had been the foundation of the Arab world's program for resolving the conflict, placing the Palestinians front and center.
The new normalization agreements' foundational and cynical assumption was that the plight of the Palestinians could and would be safely ignored and forgotten about by both the region's governments and the broader international community. Both the Trump administration and, reportedly, bin Salman, pressured Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to assent, while the states that signed continued paying lip service to the Palestinian cause, claiming this normalization push would halt Israel's annexation plans for its illegal West Bank settlements.
In reality, the text of the agreements barely mentioned Palestinians, outside of a few vague assurances to keep working toward a negotiated solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and that Morocco maintained a "coherent, constant and unchanged position" on the matter. This was, to put it mildly, far short of what both Palestinians and their supporters in the U.S. Congress demanded.
As Arab states began gradually deepening ties with Israel, they increasingly backed away from their historic positions. Bin Salman declared (and subsequently walked back) that Israelis "have the right to have their own land," effectively sanctioning the loss of what the Muslim world viewed as Palestinians' historic land. When violence broke out in April 2021 at the Al-Aqsa mosque, with Israeli forces raiding one of Islam's holiest sites, the UAE response was notably muted. That the normalization process continued despite what would earlier have been viewed as an unacceptable provocation against both Palestinians and Islam itself was celebrated by the accords' supporters, as proof that ongoing repression of Palestinians could indeed be safely ignored.
But the Palestinian issue could not simply be wished away, and the signing of the pacts created a set of contradictions that fueled the tensions that erupted October 7. The vast majority of the populations of Israel's Arab neighbors opposed the accords, as did some leaders, like Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, who charged that the signers had "lost their moral compass," and Jordan's King Abdullah, who declared that "no architecture for regional security and development can stand over the burning ashes of this conflict."
So did Palestinians themselves, across opinion surveys, with both the Palestinian Authority and Hamas calling it a "betrayal," a "treacherous stab," and "grave harm." Hamas also called for "an integrated plan to bring down normalization." Protests against the accords erupted in Morocco, one of the signers.
The signing of the Accords was particularly fraught in Saudi Arabia. The country's powerful clerics continued to oppose Israeli policy toward the Palestinians. But beyond that, the Saudi leadership's internal legitimacy and its standing as the region's leader of the Islamic continued to rest in part on its commitment to the Palestinians. Regional rival Iran quickly stepped in to fill this vacuum left by Saudi support for the deals, sharply criticizing the normalization effort as a "betrayal of Palestinian aspirations for freedom."
Meanwhile, Israeli policy didn't change as promised, and in fact, only hardened. Since 2020, when the accords were signed, illegal settlements have expanded and even ramped up alongside settler violence. The Netanyahu government has now advanced a record number of settler housing units, and transferred administration of the occupied territories from military to civilian hands, widely interpreted as signaling plans for annexation, even as figures like former Abbas adviser Ghaith al-Omari claimed the accords had "already delivered to the Palestinians" by stopping this policy. This past September, the UAE's ambassador to the United States admitted annexation hadn't actually stopped.
The Biden administration could have reversed Trump's efforts, and placed pressure on Israel to halt these plans, as well as end its settlement expansion while making good on its promises and obligations under the peace process. Instead, the president continued Trump's normalization efforts while breaking from presidential precedent and not even attempting to advance the peace process, all while issuing little to no criticism of the Israeli government's violations. He has in fact escalated the issue, pushing for an Israeli-Saudi normalization agreement, with the only concession to Palestinians the mere preservation of the possibility of Israeli-Palestinian peace — an agreement that would also entail further nuclear proliferation in the region and giving Saudi Arabia security assurances. Even so, Biden's secretary of state continues to claim that this could "be used to advance" such a peace.
So while Hamas had reportedly planned this operation for two years, and claimed it was motivated by years of violence at Al-Aqsa, its attack also can't be understood without the bipartisan push for Israeli-Arab normalization at the Palestinians' expense, and the outrage, anger, and despair it has inspired.What is clear — from Hamas's extraordinary violence, the wider regional war it threatens to spark, as well as the major pro-Palestinian protests across Arab countries in response to Israel's bombing campaign — is that almost every assumption that undergirded the Abraham Accords was disastrously wrong, not least the idea that dismissing the Palestinians would make for a more peaceful Middle East.

Economic sanctions —an increasingly popular tool for policymakers in Washington — can hinder peacemaking efforts, according to a report published on Monday by the International Crisis Group.


The key questions of when to impose sanctions, how to use them as leverage, and when to lift them have never been as salient, after the U.S. and the West imposed the harshest global embargoes on Russia in history after it invaded Ukraine in February 2022 — yet an end to the war, much less a diplomatic course, is as elusive as ever.


A review of U.S. sanctions policy, released by the Treasury Department in October 2021, showed that over the last two decades, the use of sanctions by Washington had increased by 933 percent. As the Crisis Group report notes, the rationale for implementing these sanctions typically includes cutting off adversaries' resources, punishing individuals or governments for human rights abuses, or trying to push warring parties toward negotiations.


Yet, the report finds, "sanctions sometimes hinder conflict resolution efforts. They can inhibit peace processes and post-conflict recovery, constrain peace organisations, undercut negotiations and entrench divisions between conflict parties."


Criticism of Washington's use of sanctions is nothing new. But past critiques have often focused on the humanitarian consequences of this kind of economic warfare and its unsatisfactory track record when it comes to altering the behavior of targeted individuals or governments.


The report, which adds to the growing critique, is based on three years worth of interviews with officials, foreign diplomats, members of civil society, conflict parties, and individuals in countries affected by sanctions, like Afghanistan, Colombia, Syria and elsewhere.


"While sanctions have found favour as a tool that allows the U.S. government to pursue policy objectives in conflict settings without the blood and treasure required for military campaigns, these tools are not cost-free," the report reads. "Some of the downsides manifest themselves as impediments to peacemaking priorities, including Washington's own."


The unclear parameters when sanctions are imposed, and the uncertainty over the conditions under which they will be lifted or eased can impair Washington's leverage in conflict resolution. "The U.S. does not always make clear what parties can do that will lead to sanctions relief. In some cases, Washington has not laid out any such steps or it has outlined steps that are unrealistic," writes the Crisis Group. The report continues:



"In others, the U.S. was never willing to lift sanctions in the first place. Elsewhere, Washington's communication on sanctions has been vague, leaving targets in the dark about what might lead to reversal. (...) Without clarity on why they were sanctioned and what they can do to be delisted, targets have little incentive to make concessions in exchange for relief. For U.S. officials, negotiating without the ability to lift sanctions is, according to one diplomat, like 'playing poker with someone else's money.'"



Another problem is that due to bureaucratic inertia, fear of being labeled "weak," or other considerations, Washington is slow to lift or ease sanctions. In Colombia, for example, Crisis Group found, "[s]ome former combatants who had laid down their weapons were so disillusioned by the daily hurdles they faced in integrating into civilian life that, in the words of a former FARC commander, they 'decided to go to war again.'" This happened because, even after signing a peace deal with Colombian authorities, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) were still subject to U.S. sanctions, making it difficult for former rebels to integrate back into Colombian society.


The most ambitious of Washington's current sanction projects are those currently placed on Russia, which the Biden administration has consistently referred to as "unprecedented." The report points out that these are a large part of why, despite early signs that his administration was aware of the shortcomings of sanctions, "in his second year in office, President Biden designated nearly 2,500 new groups and individuals, almost double the listings the Trump administration had made at the peak in 2018 (1,474)."


The goal of these sanctions was to punish the Putin government in Moscow for its invasion and to make it rethink its its aggressive military goals in Ukraine by starving it of money and resources. Washington and the West have also gone after oligarchs in hopes of threatening Putin's backdoor access to funds and elite support. It hasn't exactly worked out that way, a clear example of what Crisis Group warns about in its report today, says QI's Director of Strategy George Beebe.


"The Biden administration has hoped that sanctions would force Putin to recognize that the costs of invading Ukraine outweigh the benefits," Beebe says.


"But this hope was based on the mistaken belief that Putin saw the invasion as an ambition rather than as something vital to protecting Russia from NATO encirclement. Sanctions rarely dissuade states from defending what they regard as their vital interests regardless of the costs," he added. "They could in principle be useful as leverage in negotiating an end to the war in Ukraine, but Washington has given the Russians little reason to believe it would lift or ease sanctions even if Putin were to end the invasion tomorrow."

The UN Charter commits all member states to urgently pursue a peaceful resolution to armed conflicts. At this holy time for three great religions, let us reassert our common humanity and redouble our peacemaking efforts.

"In liberal society individuals aren't tools for maximizing the performance of the economy. So the conflict should be resolved in favor of allowing collusion even though this resolution diminishes the marvelousness of markets. Individual rights trump economic efficiency." ~ Donald J. Boudreaux

Our focused look today is on Ukraine and the UN principle calling for the peaceful resolution of conflicts. We also contrast Chinese progress on reaching its climate change goals with Canada's lagging record, update the foreign interference saga and consider the race against time to halt the horror in Sudan.

We examine why the UN Security Council failed to pass a resolution addressing the horrific Gaza conflict, the success of the UN General Assembly in calling for an immediate humanitarian truce and the urgent need for western countries, including Canada, to stop shielding Israel from its ongoing grave breaches of international law.

In an analysis of Kenya's history, Wairimu Gathimba draws parallels between Kenya's struggle for independence and Palestine's ongoing fight for sovereignty. Gathimba criticizes the West's support for Israeli settlers while labeling Palestinian resistance as terrorism. She argues that, just as Kenya achieved independence through resistance, decolonization and democratic rule is the only resolution to the Palestine conflict.
The post Until Everyone is Free appeared first on ROAPE.

“As we approach nearly two months of violent internal conflict in Sudan, the chances of a peaceful resolution seem increasingly remote. For many Americans, Sudan may ring a distant bell as the location of the atrocities of the early 2000s — but with so many international crises competing for our attention, this latest development may well fail to capture […]
The post Why Sudan Matters To Us All appeared first on International Republican Institute.