Cultural Beliefs,Human Rights Violations,and Female Genital Cutting

ABSTRACT

Female genital cutting (FGC) or as it is sometimes erroneously called, female circumcision, has been performed on over 173 million girls worldwide. Yearly, there are at least 2–3 million girls who experience this procedure. The physical, psychological and long-term health-care effects are only recently being recognized. Health care practitioners and social workers need to understand and address the complex and multi-dynamic cultural issues as well as the healthcare dilemmas for these women. Community networking, education, assistance in accessing the medical system, and reducing language barriers are interventions that should be delivered with cultural sensitivity and an understanding of the long term outcomes on health.     

Foreign Fighters and the Case of Chechnya: A Critical Assessment

The aim of this article is to explore and analyze the role of foreign fighters in the recent episodes of Russo–Chechen violence in the North Caucasus. The article begins by offering a preliminary theoretical consideration of foreign fighters, indicating how the events in Afghanistan combined with the development of a Salafi-Jihadist movement that would shape subsequent conflicts in the North Caucasus throughout the 1990s. The article will then move on to identify the role of Arab foreign fighters in Chechnya, demonstrating how a complex local and global social networks enable and motivate volunteers.     

Ideology and Disengagement: A Case Study of Nationalists and Islamists in Chechnya

Abstract

Disengagement from militant groups has often been explained in individual terms such as battle fatigue or the desire to rejoin family and friends. We seek to examine empirically which other factors, beyond individual-level determinants, have influenced disengagement processes among militants belonging to different types of Chechen militant organisations. Drawing empirical insights from unique in-depth interviews with former members of the Chechen insurgency, their relatives, eyewitnesses to the Chechen wars and experts with first-hand knowledge of the researched phenomena, this study examines disengagement among jihadist and nationalist Chechen militants. Focusing on group-level factors, such as the capacity to resist external pressures, the use of violence, in-group social bonds and group cohesion, this article demonstrates that disengagement has been a less viable course of action for Chechen jihadists than for nationalist militants.     

The State and Human Rights: Governance and Sustainable Human Development in Yemen

International Relations theory has had difficulty explaining the global spread of human rights norms, and in particular the spread of human rights norms in the non-Western world. An exploration of Yemen's integration of human rights-based approaches to economic development into its policymaking gives the empirical foundation to examine the interplay of both norms and self-interest and external and internal pressures in framing such policies. In the case of Yemen, at least, each of these contrasting pairs is to a large degree mutually constituted. Conceptualizing norms and self-interest and external and internal pressures as mutually constitutive differs from the usual contrasts painted between these pairs in international relations theory, but is an important step in moving beyond an impasse among realist, liberal, and constructivist theories and toward a usefully integrative approach.     

How to Attract Donations: The Case of US NGOs in International Development

We assess the determinants of private donations across a large sample of US based NGOs with foreign aid activities. Our results show that donations do not depend in the expected way on publicly available information on NGO characteristics that reveal an efficient and targeted use of funds, notably the efficiency price of NGO aid and the degree of specialisation. Private donors rather rely on the frequently offered option to designate donations to preferred purposes – even though this is unlikely to tie the NGOs' hands.     

The Struggle for Human Rights in Africa

This article seeks to explore the recent changes that have occurred in Africa’s human rights landscape. It argues that struggles for, recognition of, and the practice of human rights have grown and expanded in recent years in the midst of continuing challenges and widespread human rights violations by both state and civil society actors. The complex and contradictory tapestry and trajectory of human rights is analyzed in the shifting contexts of democratization, globalization, regionalization, and militarization, which collectively have structured African political economies since the 1990s. The question of human rights discourse in Africa is also examined by revisiting some of the debates about the generations and hierarchy of rights. Furthermore, the article looks at the role of the state and society in developing or undermining human rights norms.     

‘Selective Affinities’: The Reactions of the Council of Europe and the European Union to the Second Armed Conflict in Chechnya (1999 – 2006)

This article aims to compare how the main bodies of the European Union and the Council of Europe reacted to the issues raised by the armed conflict in Chechnya: human rights violations; the necessity (or otherwise) of political negotiations between the Chechens and the Russians; and Chechen terrorism. While the requests for political negotiations were quickly dropped by nearly all organs of the Council of Europe (CoE) and European Union (EU), the issue of human rights abuses uncovered a chasm between the legislative and decision-making bodies. The terrorist acts had no impact on either the EU's or the CoE's definition of the conflict in Chechnya, but they did influence EU policy. In sum, this comparison suggests the presence of ‘selective affinities’ between the CoE and EU bodies depending on the issue involved.     

Obstacles to peace in Chechnya: What scope for international involvement?

Recognising the failure of both internal and external parties to achieve a peaceful resolution of the Russo – Chechen war, this article seeks to establish what scope remains for international involvement to end the violence in Chechnya. By applying theories from the disciplines of conflict resolution and counterinsurgency to the confrontation, distinctions are drawn between opportunities of peacekeeping, peacemaking and peacebuilding, as well as between legitimate ‘need’ and exploitative ‘greed’ at a time of ‘violent’ politics. Key findings include the scope for international assistance in addressing the root contradictions of the conflict and for curtailing the influence of the ‘entrepreneurs of violence’.     

The Impact of Jihadist Foreign Fighters on Indigenous Secular-Nationalist Causes: Contrasting Chechnya and Syria

Jihadist foreign fighters have become common in civil conflicts in Muslim countries. While research exists on the impact they have upon returning home, less attention has been given to their influence on the opposition cause that they mobilize in support of. This article looks at the impact that jihadist foreign fighters on the Chechen and Syrian resistance causes, evaluating their influence on oppositional cohesion and ideology, domestic and international perceptions of the movements, and on governmental narratives regarding the conflicts the foreign fighters engage in. It is concluded that foreign fighters have overwhelmingly damaged the Chechen and Syrian opposition movements, making the likelihood of opposition success more remote.     

Back to Basics: Human Rights and Power Politics in the New Moral Realism

The end of the Cold War offered unprecedented opportunities for human rights diplomacy, but was also the triumphant moment of neoliberal globalism. For four decades the realist suppression of idealism had been justified in terms of Cold War exigencies. Now, once again, liberal basics were expelled in the name of a specious realism. Less doctrinaire realists, however, are starting to integrate human rights and power politics in accord with Joseph Nye's concept of soft power. To sacrifice this moral realism on the altar of neoliberalism would be, in soft power terms, to lose the world by conquering it.     

The Europeanisation of International Development Policies: The Case of Central and Eastern European States

This article examines the EU's role in the emergence of international development policy in the 10 member states from Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). Development policy provides useful insights into policy making as it is a key way that states operationalise their foreign policy. Thus, development policy gives us insights into the foreign policy priorities of the new member states. This article reviews the emergence and elaboration of policy relating to international development in the new member states and explores how far we have witnessed the Europeanisation of development cooperation in CEE states.