Friction or flows? The translation of Resolution 1325 into practice in Rwanda

ABSTRACT

After almost 20 years with Resolution 1325 and the ‘women, peace and security’ agenda, the results achieved seem rather disappointing. This article analyses how the global gender norms laid out in Resolution 1325 have been translated into practice in a local post-conflict setting – Rwanda as a ‘best-case’ scenario on gender equality. Drawing on the theoretical literature on norm translation and the concepts of friction and flows, together with fieldwork-based research, the article analyses how international and national actors in Rwanda have reshaped and adapted the principles laid out in Resolution 1325. The main argument is that the processes of norm translation in Rwanda are characterised less by flows and more by friction and uneven processes of translation. The article concludes that the predominant successes are the inclusion of women in decision-making and at the lower levels in the security sector. However, women are still excluded, and gender issues marginalised, in the ‘big’ negotiations on peace and security, and high levels of violence against women persist.     

Reaching Inside the State: International Law and Superior Liability

With the creation of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY), the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) and the International Criminal Court (ICC), the international community has taken the most decisive steps yet to reach inside the state to protect individuals from and prosecute individuals for violations of international humanitarian law. After outlining the key developments in international law on this subject, I turn to the heart of the paper—an analysis of how these developments in international law should affect theory and research in international relations and comparative politics. To what extent should we expect that the international community would hold individuals accountable? Will individual leaders comply with international law? Most importantly, what factors will influence the level of enforcement of and compliance with international law? I conclude with suggestions as to how research on international law on individual liability should advance.     

Moral Agency and Moral Responsibility in Humanitarian Intervention

This paper sets out a preliminary taxonomy of potential collective moral agents in humanitarian intervention, based on six recent cases involving international organisations. The settings for the cases are Northern Iraq, Somalia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Haiti, Rwanda, and Kosovo. Attributing moral responsibility to a group actor requires first discovering whether its characteristics are enough like an individual moral agent's to support an analogy. Groups in humanitarian intervention that appear to choose between one course of action and another, and have a clear structure of leadership and a capacity to control their collective activities, meet criteria that characterise individual moral agents. If they can also distinguish between policies using the language of morality we can call them collective moral agents, and hence subject to some moral responsibilities.     

Forgotten Conflicts: Need versus Political Priority in the Allocation of Humanitarian Aid across Conflict Areas

Despite a principled commitment to assist people in need equally, the allocation of humanitarian assistance across conflict and post-conflict states shows remarkable variation that is not easily explained by differences in the level of recipient-need. This paper attempts to explain these “forgotten conflicts“ by analyzing the determinants of humanitarian aid to civil war and post-civil war states. Using cross-national panel data on humanitarian aid provisions, I show that the most important determinants of international humanitarian assistance are not always demand-side factors measuring humanitarian need – as the principals of humanitarian action would dictate – but often strategic factors that reflect donors’ political interests in providing humanitarian assistance. Although humanitarian aid to ongoing civil wars appears to be substantially more humanitarian than strategic in its allocation, humanitarian aid provided to post-conflict states in the aftermath of civil war tends to go to conflicts where donors perceive important strategic and political interests. These results suggest that one important explanation for why some conflicts are essentially ignored or gradually neglected over time is that strategic interests of donors can dominate humanitarian concerns over time.     

From humanitarian action to development aid in northern Uganda and the formation of a humanitarian-development nexus

The instituted order of humanitarianism is both changing and challenged. This article addresses the transition between humanitarian action and development aid in northern Uganda, which was driven by the government’s ambition to reassert its humanitarian sovereignty by discursively recasting the situation from one of crisis to one of recovery and development, regardless of the persistent humanitarian needs. In response, humanitarian actors either withdrew or moved into development aid. This bourgeoning humanitarian–development nexus questions the nature and future of humanitarianism and whether there is a hierarchy – or contradiction – between the humanitarian mandate and pragmatic approaches to save lives and protect civilians.     

A humanitarian mission in line with human rights? Assessing Sophia,the EU’s naval response to the migration crisis

This article adds to our understanding of the role of norms in the European Union’s (EU) response to the migration crisis by conducting a critical assessment of the EU’s anti-smuggling naval mission “Sophia”. Is Sophia in line with the normative standards the EU has set for itself in its foreign policies? Conducting the analysis in two steps in line with the main criteria of a humanitarian foreign policy model – first exploring Sophia’s launch and then assessing Sophia’s in theatre behaviour – findings suggest that although concerns for migrants at sea mobilised the initial launch of the mission, the mission is not conducted in line with key human rights principles. As the operation mandate is amended and updated with new tasks, and as the EU-NATO in theatre cooperation increases, the EU is moving further away from what one would expect of a humanitarian foreign policy actor.     

Beyond the “Norm Entrepreneur” Model: Rwanda,Darfur, and Social Sanction among UN Diplomats

When investigating why state decision makers opt for intervention in the heart of armed violence abroad, many scholars refer to new humanitarian norms appearing among state officers, particularly within the UN. In these approaches, “norm entrepreneurs”, and the high risks of public opprobrium they are supposed to induce, stand at the front stage of normative change. Compliance with newly promoted normative ideas seems totally bereft of professional risks, though. This paper intends to bring back in a dimension of norms that is central in sociology: social sanction. Investigating how social sanctions are practically enacted among diplomats at the United Nations precisely provides useful data to detect the many norms that prosper beyond—and before—normative enterprises, and to assess why the humanitarian idea and the recent “responsibility to protect” still have weak normative effects, practically speaking. The international failures in Rwanda and more recently in Darfur deserve re-examination in this prospect.     

Non-neutral humanitarianism: Ngos and the Rwanda crisis

NGOs play an increasingly important role in humanitarian work, and the impact of their activities is often non-neutral in relation to the conflicts which underlie crises. This was the case in the Rwanda crisis, during which some NGOs lent support to the forces of the genocidal Rwandan regime through their choice of where to work; the type and organisation of support offered; and some of the public statements made by NGO representatives. This article documents how this process occurred, and concludes with recommendations for avoiding such problems in the future.     

Sustainable investments: Women's contributions to natural resource management projects in Africa

Can prospects for improving livelihood security and building sustainable environments in Africa be increased if women have greater influence in decisions about how to manage resources? Anecdotal evidence suggests that this question should be answered in the affirmative, yet few development agencies perform systematic evaluations with gender-disaggregated data despite nearly two decades of development literature describing the pitfalls of failing to do so. This paper explores this question through analysis of cases from Kenya, Nigeria, Malawi, The Gambia, and Rwanda gleaned from a literature search of more than 50 natural resource management projects across Africa. It highlights enabling conditions which facilitate effective involvement of both men and women in natural resource management, and develops indicators to clarify progress in terms of impact, process, and sustainability.     

Democratic states,aid agencies and world society: What's the name of the game?

This article discusses some aspects of the changing structure and dynamics of the global humanitarian system with particular reference to non-governmental agencies and their increasingly diverse organisational philosophies and modes of intervention. The article has two goals. First, an analytical framework is proposed, based on game-theoretical concepts, which allows us broadly to classify different forms of non-governmental humanitarian action and their relations with states. Second, crucial changes regarding constraints and orientations which have reshaped the interactions between humanitarians and states in global society are explored – changes which cannot be understood without a closer look both at the interpretive cultures of specific aid agencies in different countries and at the operational arenas in which these agencies find themselves today.     

Overcoming poverty and inequality: Rwanda's progress towards the MDGs

Despite the 1994 genocide there has been annual growth in Rwanda every year since 2000. Poverty has decreased; while the MDG target of 23.8% is unlikely to be met by 2015, the future looks hopeful. The goal of reducing hunger is measured by underweight children – already down to target – and extreme poverty – likely to hit the target. Key to success is reducing dependency on the land, but a majority of the population still depend on their farm or plot. However, hitting targets for reducing poverty is not the same thing as abolishing it, and achieving targets does not necessarily solve problems.     

Contemporary issues in humanitarianism: selected resources

As Tony Vaux points out in his Guest Editorial in this issue, the concept of humanitarianism applies to both war and general disaster, and is based on the principle that ‘in extreme cases of human suffering external agents may offer assistance to people in need, and in doing so should be accorded respect and even “rights” in carrying out their functions’. However, policy makers in humanitarian agencies, and aid workers on the ground, face a bewilderingly complex set of challenges in determining such ‘rights’. Gone are any comfortable certainties about what in the commercial sector is known as ‘the licence to operate’, and claims to the moral high ground of ‘neutrality’ have an increasingly hollow ring. Perhaps more to the point, such assumptions are of little practical use to frontline workers who may risk ambush, abduction, deportation, or even their lives as the result of their professional activities. Nor do outdated road maps help relief agencies to orient their decisions on whether to withdraw or continue providing material assistance in the knowledge that a proportion of it is fuelling the violence or lining the pockets of conflict profiteers. There are no standard ‘off-the-peg’ answers, because each situation must be considered on its own merits. And of course no aid agencies share an identical mandate, or have precisely the same expertise or history of involvement with the affected population – all factors that must be weighed up in deciding what is the appropriate course of action.

For reasons of space, we have not sought to cover the areas of early warning, prevention, and mitigation associated with ‘natural’ disasters, although of course the two are always linked, as became very clear in wake of the Asian tsunami in Aceh and Sri Lanka. It has long been recognised that since catastrophic events disproportionately affect the poor and marginalised, they expose and may intensify existing social divides and structural injustice. For instance, in his seminal work on the 1943 Bengal famine, Poverty and Famines: An Essay on Entitlement and Deprivation (OUP, 1984) Amartya K Sen argued that such food shortages do not occur in functioning democracies. Similarly, Roger Plant's, Guatemala: Unnatural Disaster (Latin America Bureau, 1978) showed how the 1974 earthquake triggered an intensification in state violence that was to result in the death or disappearance of 200,000 Guatemalans and create ‘a nation of widows and orphans’.

In accordance with the focus of this issue, we have given priority to publications and organisations that reflect on some direct involvement in humanitarian endeavour, rather than giving priority to more policy-oriented or scholarly works or academic institutions. We have included literature on the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, since this was such a defining event for humanitarianism; and some recent publications concerning the US-led invasions of Afghanistan in October 2001 (‘Operation Enduring Freedom’) and Iraq in March 2003 (‘Operation Iraqi Freedom’), since these have significantly redefined the global landscape of policy and practice within which humanitarian agencies operate. Inevitably we can offer only a glimpse of the growing literature in these fields, but we hope in so doing that readers, and particularly those directly involved in humanitarian endeavours, will be encouraged to explore the issues further.     

The unhealthy divide: how the secular-faith binary potentially limits GBV prevention and response

ABSTRACT

While progress has been made in creating conversations between the secular and faith actors involved in developmental issues, a distinct binary still exists. This could potentially be limiting a holistic response to gender-based violence, a global public health, development, humanitarian, and human rights issue. This article explores how perceptions of this binary – faith versus secular – are understood to impact GBV prevention and response efforts. Drawing on interviews conducted during a scoping study, the opinions and experiences of actors from faith-based organisations and academic institutions are used to shed light on how the faith-secular binary is being upheld and challenged, and how it is perceived to be impacting holistic GBV prevention and response.     

The Responsibility to Protect at Ten: Glass Half Empty or Half Full?

Abstract

Far from having faded away, ten years after its formal adoption, the responsibility to protect (R2P), is arguably more relevant than ever. In the current overall context of protection crises, heightened in severity by the emergence of violent extremists, R2P has changed the way in which the international community characterises situations that involve protection failures, and has raised expectations about what should occur when atrocity crimes have been committed or are imminent. UN member states now agree that prevention is at the core of R2P, that international action should employ the full range of diplomatic, political and humanitarian measures, and that military force should only be considered as a measure of last resort. While there is continued contestation about particular aspects of R2P – as there is over much older normative advancements, such as human rights – R2P has helped to forge political consensus and build new institutional capacity to prevent and respond to atrocity crimes.     

Scrambling for contact: The determinants of inter-NGO cooperation in non-Western countries

When do non-governmental organizations (NGOs) cooperate with each other? Even with much touting of the positive effects of inter-NGO cooperation on humanitarian outcomes, the extant literature offers us few insights into the determinants of this cooperation, especially in a cross-national framework. Drawing on both the current NGO literature and the larger cross-disciplinary literature on inter-organizational cooperation, I argue that both trust and opportunity are needed for inter-NGO cooperation. Trust in other organizations is highly dependent on governance structures within the state. Similarly, in the uncertain situation of humanitarian disasters and development work in non-Western states, security concerns and a lack of a coordinating leadership body can limit the opportunities of NGOs to collaborate. The presence of humanitarian state interveners can act to mitigate these concerns and provide NGOs with more opportunities to collaborate. Using a novel measure of NGO to NGO cooperation in non-Western countries, empirical results of this project largely support the hypotheses derived from this trust and opportunity framework.     

试析德国对卢旺达的发展援助

发展援助是德国外交政策的一极,既是推动和实现德国对非洲外交目标的重要工具,也强烈地塑造了德国的对非洲政策。作为世界最不发达国家之一,卢旺达在德国对非洲发展援助中占据了特殊的位置。20世纪60年代以来,德国对卢旺达发展援助主要经历了4个发展阶段,目前呈现出快速发展的势头。德国主要通过财政援助和技术援助促进卢旺达在医疗卫生、种族和解、政治发展以及经济改革等领域的建设。德国对卢旺达的援助,既有其显著的特点和优势,也存在明显的缺陷。中、德两国对卢旺达的援助存在很大差异。     

The Power of Local Ties: Popular Participation in the Rwandan Genocide

How do ordinary people come to commit genocide against their neighbors? Ethnicity-based approaches cannot explain the different pathways that lead to mass violence or the different forms that participation takes over time and place. In Rwanda, different processes and mechanisms led some to join in the carnage while others resisted. Utilizing Mark Granovetter's concept of “social embeddedness,” this article argues that social ties and immediate social context better explain the processes through which ordinary people came to commit mass murder in Rwanda. Leaders used family ties to target male relatives for recruitment into the killing groups, which were responsible for carrying out the genocide. Ties among members of the killing groups helped to initiate reluctant or hesitant members into committing violence with the group. Finally, ties of friendship attenuated murderous actions, leading killers to help save Tutsi in specific contexts. Which ties became salient depended on the context. In the presence of the killing group or authority(ies), low-level participants (a group I call “Joiners”) tended to go along with the violence. Alone, Joiners often made different choices. The findings in this article are based on data collected during nine months of fieldwork in two rural communities and two central prisons in Rwanda.     

‘Humanicrats’: the social production of compassion,indifference, and hostility in long-term camps

Why do front-line workers not always display humanitarian compassion towards people living in camps? In seeking an answer, this article conceptualises the ‘humanicrat’: a front-line worker who is part humanitarian and part bureaucrat, each with typological emotions. Case studies from NGO teams in long-term camps in northern Ugandan illustrate the social production of emotions. The two teams work in differing contexts of organisational arrangements and discourses: conditions which result in predominant emotions of compassion and indifference in one team, and hostility in another. The article ends by asking what, if anything, can be done to curb the ill-treatment of displaced people.     

Failed aid: how development agencies are neglecting and marginalising Rwandan genocide survivors

This Viewpoint argues that international development aid agencies have failed adequately to address the rights and needs of genocide survivors in Rwanda. It illustrates that genocide survivors remain impoverished and marginalised, and that development aid agencies only tangentially, if at all, acknowledge their vulnerability and take steps to empower them to realise their rights. It provides examples of aid programmes that are reaching genocide survivors and urges development aid agencies in Rwanda to design and implement programmes explicitly for genocide survivors.