Analogue crisis,digital renewal? Current dilemmas of peacebuilding

ABSTRACT

The international architecture of peacebuilding and statebuilding, with the United Nations’ efforts central among them, is currently responding to a shift from ‘analogue’ to ‘digital’ approaches in international relations. This is affecting intervention, peacebuilding and development. This article analyses the potential that these new digital forms of international relations offer for the reform of peacebuilding – namely, the enhancement of critical agency across networks and scales, the expansion of claims for rights and the mitigation of obstacles posed by sovereignty, locality and territoriality. The article also addresses the parallel limitations of digital technologies, as well as the risk of co-optation by historical and analogue power structures, existing modi operandi and agendas of the United Nations, and other international actors. We conclude that though aspects of emerging digital approaches to peacebuilding are promising, they cannot yet bypass or resolve older, analogue conflict dynamics revolving around the state, territorialism, and state formation.     

Communication rights and disability online: Policy and technology after the World Summit on the Information Society

This paper reviews and analyses the topic of disability, communication rights, digital technology, and policy. In particular, it focusses on the new ways that the human right to communicate has been articulated via international law and policy – especially at the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS 2003–2005 and WSIS +10 in 2015) as well as the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.     

“Empowerment” as efficiency and participation: gender in responsible agricultural investment principles

Amidst global concern over the state of transnational large-scale agricultural investments, several efforts have been made to set global standards for “responsible agricultural investment.” While these efforts have received mixed reviews from the international community, very little attention has been paid to the gendered language of these principles. Through examining two separate sets of agricultural investment principles – one created by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, the International Fund for Agricultural Development and the World Bank, and the other by the United Nations Committee on World Food Security – this article finds that, despite different processes and participants in the creation of these principles, they nonetheless share a language of “empowerment” targeted at women and marginalized groups. However, in contrast to early feminist discourses of empowerment, these principles instead perpetuate the notion that empowerment is to be found through efficiency, productivity and participation in land and labor markets. This article takes a critical look at this language of economic empowerment in each set of principles, and points to the dangers of equating efficiency, productivity and participation with feminist empowerment. By not acknowledging the broader gender dynamics of agricultural governance and markets, these discourses risk deepening existing inequalities rather than moving toward meaningful social change.     

The Self-determination of Indigenous Peoples and the Limits of United Nations Advocacy in Guerrero,Mexico (1998-2000)

This essay examines the visit to Mexico in February 2000 by Erica-Irene Daes, then chairperson of the United Nations Working Group on Indigenous Populations. I use the occasion of this visit to analyze the relationship between a regional indigenous organization in the state of Guerrero, the Mexican national state, and the United Nations within the larger context of the development of international law. I argue that the persistence today of a centuries-old bias in international law that privileges the "nation-state" and a related individualistic bias in the conception of human rights make UN support for indigenous self-determination highly equivocal. I begin with an examination of the Consejo Guerrerense and how its experience helps to illustrate the issues confronted by the indigenous rights movement in Mexico today. Then I provide background to place this movement and the United Nations in the context of the development of international and human rights law. The discourse of international human rights and the ways in which these rights are defined and advocated by the UN has serious limitations for Indians in Mexico. This is a cautionary tale about the real possibilities for social change in our global world.     

Globalism's 'siren song': the United Nations and international law in Christian Right thought and prophecy

The role of the American Christian Right (CR) as an international social movement has perhaps received less attention than it is due. In this article, I explore the underlying global vision of the CR, and the ways in which this vision shapes the CR's international political activism. I focus on the CR's construction of the United Nations, examining various CR genres including movement publications, fiction, and prophecy writing. I also attempt to analyse the CR's ideological stance in light of the literature on 'religion and globalisation'.     

The SDR Aid Link: It's Now or Never

The international community, in the form of the United Nations and, more recently, the G20, has committed itself to the Millennium Development Goals. The global financial crisis of 2008/9 served to increase the economic problems faced by low‐income countries, making it much less likely that the goals will be attained. At the same time, the decision has been made to reactivate the SDR scheme by making a new allocation of SDRs in order to create additional international liquidity. This article explores the idea of linking SDR creation with the provision of development assistance. Although the idea of a link is not original, contemporary global economic and political circumstances may generate an environment particularly conducive to the acceptance of the proposal.     

Trafficking in Women

This article examines the new United Nations "Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children', which opened for signature in December 2000. This article presents a feminist analysis of the Trafficking Protocol and of the feminist discourse involved in its development. I begin with an examination of the re-emergence in the 1980s and 1990s of significant feminist concerns about trafficking and prostitution. The two main theoretical positions advanced at this time are explored - radical feminism and sex work feminism. I argue that radical feminist approaches to prostitution and trafficking are fundamentally flawed and that a sex work feminist approach has significant discursive and practical usefulness in advancing the position of both sex workers and victims of trafficking. From this perspective, I then present a feminist critique of the United Nations Trafficking Protocol and conclude that it has some strengths but also some major weaknesses.     

Απόλιδας: an analysis of the international legal framework in the field of statelessness and the U.N.H.C.R.’s communication campaign

In her The Origins of Totalitarianism, Hannah Arendt described the condition of apolidia (statelessness) – through words that still resonate today – as that of persons who have lost their rights because they have fled their homeland. According to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (U.N.H.C.R.), there are about 10 million stateless persons worldwide, 600,000 of whom live in the European Union (E.U.). It seems impossible to imagine the concept of statelessness, which although it has a very specific definition in international law, remains a vague notion for the intellect and common sense. This paper will firstly focus on the historical evolution of the concept of nationality under international law. Secondly, it will deal with the international legal framework, and in particular the 1954 and 1961 Conventions on the improvement of the conditions of stateless persons and the prevention of statelessness. It will then turn to the U.N.H.C.R.’s mandate in relation to statelessness, and how this organization contributes to the promotion of an effective right to nationality. Finally, U.N.H.C.R.'s communication campaigns to end statelessness will be analyzed, in order to stress the positive impact of an effective communication strategy.     

From Monterrey to Doha: Taxation and Financing for Development

Ill‐conceived tax policies cost developing countries vast sums of public revenue, but this issue has received relatively little attention within the Financing for Development (FfD) process of the United Nations. The outcome documents of the FfD conferences in Monterrey (2002) and Doha (2008) largely neglect globalisation‐related tax issues such as under‐taxation of multinationals and capital flight to tax havens. This article analyses how this topic has been marginalised by powerful interests, ideas and institutional factors, but it also shows how a growing coalition of governments, international organisations and NGOs has recently succeeded in raising the issue much higher up the international agenda.     

A New Chilean Migration Act: an Approach to International Standards

The current Chilean Migration Act is the oldest in South America. It was created under the paradigm of national security, not human rights, and today does not adequately serve a participating democratic state, active within the international community. The Chilean government will soon be moving to discuss in congress a new migration act. We want to emphasize that the government should not forget the importance of incorporating international standards of migration policy into the national sphere. Chile is part of the United Nations system and, as a participating member, ratifies all core human rights treaties. Given that the United Nations Human Rights Bodies have made recommendations about migration policy, it is essential that this discussion be brought to the attention of our governing officials. This article reviews the UN recommendations as a concrete approach to the implementation of international standards in Chilean migrant policy.     

Defending Diversity,Sustaining Consensus: NGOs at the Beijing Women's Conference and Beyond

SUMMARY

This article discusses access to and involvement of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women held in Beijing, China, in September 1995. It also looks at the impact on consensus-building of the growing diversity of NGOs participating in these global UN events and at the effect on the international women's movement of the frustrations and difficulties faced in the follow up to Beijing as agreements have been reopened or rolled back. In this climate, women activists and feminist analysts are questioning the future viability of the United Nations as a political space for women's organizing, and under conditions of rapid globalization, are increasingly divided on strategies for implementation and activism.     

Power,capital, and immigration detention rights: making networked markets in global detention governance at UNHCR

With the expanded use of immigration detention and migration management practices worldwide, detention has emerged as a key issue for United Nations and international human rights institutions. A growing international rights movement seeks to make the practice fairer and more humane, leading to the dominance of a mainstream detention rights agenda and counter‐hegemonic system of governance. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Geneva and elsewhere, this article examines the capital, knowledge, and technological expertise that went into the construction of UNHCR's Global Detention Strategy. I highlight the rational calculation undergirding this global detention rights agenda, including the transnational policy networks of NGOs, INGOs, and academics that facilitate the movement's moral authority and capitalist growth. Their practices have become powerful neoliberal development tools, which give veracity to human rights agendas and attract oppositionally‐figured abolitionist praxis.     

Cosmopolitan Justice and the Globalization of Capitalism: The UNDP and ILO Proposals

Abstract

Recently several proposals for more effective, democratic and just forms of global governance have been put forward. In this paper I compare the proposals by the United Nations Development Programme, the International Labour Organization and cosmopolitan democrats like David Held. I assess to what extent they are in accordance with cosmopolitan views of global justice and I critically evaluate to what extent they may be feasible interim steps. The conclusion is that even though some proposals are more radical than others, they all leave in place the current institutions of an international order based on sovereign nation-states, global capitalism and its resulting inequality, and models of development as based on maximizing economic growth. If cosmopolis is to replace empire in the international system, then these certainties need to be open for discussion, too.     

Human Rights: What the United States Might Learn from the Rest of the World and,Yes, from American Sociology

The U.S. Constitution includes civil and political rights—as individual rights—but does not include what is internationally understood to be “human rights,” namely rights we enjoy as equals, including economic, social, and cultural rights, and protections for vulnerable persons, such as children, minorities, mothers, and refugees. The United States has not ratified any international (United Nations) or regional (Organization of American States) human rights treaty, is not a party to the Rome Statute that established the International Criminal Court, and is no longer a member of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization. It might be concluded that Americans do not know what human rights are. It is more complicated than that. While opinion polls show that Americans often endorse individual rights—e. g., the rights of women—they do not frame them as being interdependent or being within the purview of government. Can we conclude that human rights have no place in the United States? Not at all. This article concludes by showing that many U.S. institutions of higher learning have programs in human rights and that some academic associations, including the American Sociological Association, recognize human rights.     

Housing reconstruction in Kosovo

Housing reconstruction is one of the first steps towards environmental and economic recovery and development after a ‘complex emergency’.This paper presents the main aspects and experience of the Housing Reconstruction Programme (HRP) in Kosovo since its beginning in 1999 until 2001. The special reference to the Peja/Pec (Peja is the Kosovar name of the most western municipality in Kosovo whose Serbian name is Pec. In the paper both names (Peja and Pec) appear because of the uncertain political status of the country at the time at which the paper was written.) region helps to contextualise the case-study, giving concrete images of the HRP.Kosovo has been a special case because the United Nations has managed the entire reconstruction process since soon after the NATO bombing. A great many economic and human resources have been deployed, since the United Nations, the European Union and many international organisations have been thoroughly involved. This has created high expectations both in terms of quality and quantity of results and duration required to stabilise the tremendous hotbed represented by the Balkans.The previous deep involvement of the international community in Bosnia a few years before and in the same area of the Balkans has also created mutatis mutandis a comparable antecedent. The literature on the subject, in terms of manuals and articles, supports the analysis and criticism.The reconstruction process analysed ranges from damage assessment to housing reconstruction management and implementation, where implementation is not only intended as the physical reconstruction of the country but also the institutional and capacity building that the UN, the most important international organisation, has been creating in Kosovo.In spite of the bulk investment, not all the strategies and actions implemented can be considered successful. Certainly, some could even be considered best practices and hence are replicable. Among these is the Municipal Housing Committee (MHC), which has the lion's share of the institutional bodies set up by the UN temporary government to manage housing reconstruction.Apparently the MHC has dealt with only the selection of beneficiaries. In fact the MHC has created an adequate peaceful and democratic environment in which housing reconstruction has taken place, as well as the allocation of housing assistance to minority families. Within the HRP the role of the NGOs has been crucial as always, but limited to a much more sectoral-specific involvement, contrary to the Bosnia experience. This has impeded the adoption of appropriate building technologies, a real participatory and integrated approach, and post emergency local development where housing and people (ethnics included) were pivotal. However today in Kosovo, the games have already been played, the decisions have been taken and development is somehow in progress.     

进入国际发展议程前沿的“青年”——概念、多元政策议题与优先关注目标

以往数十年，伴随当代青年发展问题的逐渐凸显和日益复杂化，国际发展议程中有关青年的政策议题和优先关注目标也处于流变之中。青年问题在国际主流发展界逐渐由边缘走向中心，而今已占据了重要的一席之地。作为在国际发展中执牛耳的政府间国际组织，联合国在倡导和推动涉及青年的国际发展战略、政策议程和干预举措上发挥了举足轻重的作用。自20世纪80年代中叶以来，国际社会有关青年发展的政策目标、议题和优先关注目标在不断拓展，这既反映了青年人及其问题的多元化和复杂化．也折射了国际决策界对这些问题认识和理解的日益深化。     

The convention on the rights of the child: A young legal regime for the world's youngest citizens

In November, 1989 the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Convention on the Rights of the Child. This international resolution seeks to safeguard the physical, social, cultural, and religious rights of children, and to establish a new legal regime for the protection of children's rights. This paper examines the legal foundations of the Convention relative to international law, the legal effect of a United Nations Convention upon nations, describes the main provisions of the Convention, and discusses the ratification and enforcement of the Convention.     

Filmic public relations for a global audience: The United Nations and The Blue Vanguard

The project investigates the use of documentary film as a public relations tool by the United Nations (UN) for worldwide promotion of its first peacekeeping intervention in response to the Suez crisis of 1956. Specifically, it undertakes a historical investigation into the communicative purpose of the 1957 documentary film, The Blue Vanguard, which was made by the UN Department of Public Information (UNDPI). Beyond the interest connected with the intervention in the Suez crisis, the film is significant in the history of the UN’s global public relations since it was one of the first films made for the UN by UK film director, Thorold Dickinson, who arrived as Chief of Film at the UN in October 1956.The author argues that Thorold Dickinson used the documentary to make a radical public information proposition to a global audience on behalf of the United Nations. Specifically, the public relations discourse and cinematicity in The Blue Vanguard reminded a global audience that achieving peace required a new level of cultural tolerance and global co-operation, involving codes of judgement beyond the nationalistically-determined registers of the time.     

Children are unbeatable

The European Court on Human Rights has recently held that the law in the United Kingdom, which allows reasonable corporal punishment to be administered by parents, gives insufficient protection to children. Is the answer to distinguish between inhuman or degrading punishment (for example, with an implement) and ordinary safe smacks or is it to outlaw corporal chastisement by parents altogether? The author argues for the latter which he shows is in line with developments in European jurisprudence. It is also argued that the United Kingdom law is in breach of a number of international law norms, including the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. And, far from this proposal leading to greater intervention into the family, it is argued that the removal of the parental right to smack will lead to less abuse and therefore less interference with parental autonomy. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Long-term immigration to the United States: new approaches to measurement

"The United Nations has recommended the measurement of types of international migration using demographic criteria, including length of stay and purpose of travel. Information systems at the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) have the potential to provide a basis for documenting these demographic characteristics, in particular, length of stay of temporary migrants to the United States. This article analyzes these characteristics of selected categories of nonimmigrant aliens. The results of the analysis are used to produce series of estimates of alien immigration that conform more closely to the U.N. recommended definitions and better represent demographic concepts of long-term immigration. A strategy for measuring emigration of aliens from the United States using INS information systems is also described."