Learning in Peacebuilding – Mission Impossible?

ABSTRACT

A common recommendation in the peacebuilding literature is that missions must learn from experiences on the local ground. Yet, if often remains unclear who has the authority to propose and diffuse new or critical knowledge. The article argues that peacebuilding can be understood as a socio-professional field in which education and professional careers condition the legitimacy to author new or critical insights. Hence, peacebuilding privileges knowledge that has been produced and is diffused in OECD-country research and academic institutions and the business world, most notably in strategic management consulting. Inversely, local knowledge is disparaged and, hence, unlikely to be promoted.     

CITES,wild plants,and opportunities for crime

The illegal trade in endangered plants damages both the environment and local communities by threatening and destroying numerous species and important natural resources. There is very little research which systematically addresses this issue by identifying specific opportunities for crime. This article presents the results of an interdisciplinary study which brings together criminological and conservation science expertise to identify criminal opportunities in the illegal wild plant trade and suggest strategies in order to prevent and mitigate the problem. Methodologically, the study adapts a crime proofing of legislation approach to the UN Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora and is based on documentary and interview data. Situational crime prevention is used as a framework to provide points for effective intervention.     

Homicide-suicide and other violent deaths: an international comparison

Homicides followed by the suicide of the perpetrator constitute a serious form of interpersonal violence. Until now no study has directly compared homicide-suicides to other violent deaths from multiple countries, allowing for a better understanding of the nature of these violent acts. Using country-specific data, this study describes and compares the incidence and patterns of homicide-suicide as well as the relationship between homicide-suicide, homicide, suicide and domestic homicide in the Netherlands, Switzerland and the United States. The results indicate that cross-nationally, homicide-suicides are more likely than other types of lethal violence to involve a female victim, multiple victims, take place in a residential setting and to be committed by a firearm. Although homicide-suicides display many similarities across the different countries, differences exist regarding age and the use of firearms in the offence. This study indicates that homicides followed by suicides differ from both homicides and suicides in similar ways internationally. Cross-national differences in the availability of firearms may explain the international variation of homicide-suicide rates and patterns.     

Utilization of paw prints for species identification in the Canidae family

In this report, the bodies of six skinned animals were submitted to the Oklahoma Animal Disease Diagnostic Laboratory for necropsy examination as authorities were concerned these animals were domestic dogs. Given the condition of the animals, identification of the animal species could not be based on traditional physical characteristics such as size, fur characteristics, and ear characteristics. The paw prints from these animals were characterized based on size, heel pad architecture, and claw characteristics. The length of the forepaws measured 3-3.25 in., four toes were observed and only the claws of digits 3 and 4 were identified, and the heel pad had a pronounced three-lobed rear margin. The rear margin of the heel pad of the hind foot was of circular shape with two slightly forward-pointing crescents laterally. Based on the features of the paw print it was determined that the animals necropsied were coyotes.     

Accuracy and reliability of cone beam computed tomography of the jaws for comparative forensic identification: a preliminary study

Conventional computed tomography is an emerging modality in forensic identification but is not sufficiently accurate for use in dental identification primarily because of problems with metallic dental restoration-induced streak artifact. In this study, the accuracy and reliability of recording forensic information from cone beam computed tomography (CBCT) scans of the jaws when compared to conventional panoramic radiographs has been analyzed under experimental conditions. Information could be recorded with near-perfect repeatability and reproducibility. Information could also be recorded accurately, the sensitivity being 96.6% (95% CI, 95.1-98.1) and specificity being 98.4% (95% CI, 96.2-100). The metal dental restoration-induced streak artifact was at a level that permitted, in most cases, accurate observations. This is considered an important step in validating CBCT as a tool in comparative dental identification of bodies. It may have a role in mass fatalities and in chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear incidents, but further studies are required to assess the feasibility of this.     

Reducing intimate and paying partner violence against women who exchange sex in Mongolia: results from a randomized clinical trial

Women who exchange sex for money or other goods, that is, female sex workers, are at increased risk of experiencing physical and sexual violence from both paying and intimate partners. Exposure to violence can be exacerbated by alcohol use and HIV/STI risk. The purpose of this study is to examine the efficacy of a HIV/STI risk reduction and enhanced HIV/STI risk reduction intervention at decreasing paying and intimate partner violence against Mongolian women who exchange sex and engage in harmful alcohol use. Women are recruited and randomized to either (a) four sessions of a relationship-based HIV/STI risk reduction intervention (n = 49), (b) the same HIV/STI risk reduction intervention plus two additional motivational interviewing sessions (n = 58), or (c) a four session control condition focused on wellness promotion (n = 59). All the respondents complete assessments at baseline (preintervention) as well as at immediate posttest, 3 and 6 months postintervention. A multilevel logistic model finds that women who participated in the HIV/STI risk reduction group (OR = 0.14, p < .00), HIV/STI risk reduction and motivational interview group (OR = 0.46, p = .02), and wellness (OR = 0.20, p < .00) group reduced their exposure to physical and sexual violence in the past 90 days. No significant differences in effects are observed between conditions. This study demonstrates the efficacy of a relationship-based HIV/STI risk reduction intervention, a relationship-based HIV/STI risk reduction intervention combined with motivational interviewing, and a wellness promotion intervention in reducing intimate and paying partner violence against women who exchange sex in Mongolia. The findings have significant implications for the impact of minimal intervention and the potential role of peer networks and social support in reducing women's experiences of violence in resource poor settings.     

Protection orders protect against assault and injury: a longitudinal study of police-involved women victims of intimate partner violence

The objective of this study was to measure the efficacy of protection orders (POs) in reducing assault and injury-related outcomes using a matched comparison group and tracking outcomes over time. This study was a retrospective review of police, emergency department, family court, and prosecutor administrative records for a cohort of police-involved female IPV victims; all events over a 4-year study period were abstracted. Victims who obtained POs were compared with a propensity-score-based match group without POs over three time periods: Before, During, and After the issuance of a PO. Having a PO in place was associated with significantly more calls to police for nonassaultive incidents and more police charging requests that were of multiple-count and felony-level. Comparing outcomes, PO victims had police incident rates that were more than double the matched group prior to the PO but dropped to the level of the matched group during and after the order. ED visits dropped over time for both groups. This study confirmed the protective effect of POs, which are associated with reduced police incidents and emergency department visits both during and after the order and reduced police incidents compared with a matched comparison group.     

“I Didn’t Want To Put Them Through That”: The Influence Of Children on Victim Decision-making in Intimate Partner Violence Cases

For mothers, intimate partner violence (IPV) presents a concern not only for their own well-being but also for that of their children who are exposed to the violence and its aftermath. In focus groups with adult women (N = 39) across three jurisdictions who had experienced legal system intervention for IPV victimization, mothers raised unsolicited concerns about the negative effects of IPV exposure on their children. These comments were not prompted by the facilitator but were raised by women in all seven of the focus groups during discussions about motivations and barriers to participation in prosecution of their abusive partners. The overall message was that victims with children felt very conflicted. Children both facilitate and inhibit leaving the abusive relationship. Mothers wanted to spare their children from harmful effects of violence but also wanted to keep their families together and protect their children from potential agitation and instability caused by legal system involvement. Participants described how fears and threats of involvement from child protective services inhibited help-seeking while simultaneously voicing a desire for services that would help their children. More research is needed to help service providers understand the quagmire mothers who are victims of IPV encounter regarding their children’s wellbeing.     

A Manner of Speaking: Declaration,Critique and the Trope of Interrogation

In this paper I will argue for the ethical and political virtue of a form of critique associated with the work of Michel Foucault. Foucault’s tryptich of essays on critique—namely ‘What is Critique?’ ‘What is Revolution?’ and ‘What is Enlightenment?’—develop a formulation of critique understood as an attitude or disposition, a kind of relation that one bears to oneself and to the actuality of the present. I suggest that this critical attitude goes hand in hand with a mode of intellectual practice realized rhetorically in the form of the interrogative and methodologically in ‘problematology’. But, in addition to highlighting the habitus of critique suggested by Foucault, I also want to consider the entanglement of this critical enterprise in the conditions of the present that it attempts to diagnose. Specifically, I ask, in what way is a critical enterprise in the interrogative mood itself imbricated in the trope of interrogation that fills so much of our current political and public landscape?     

Forced Marriage as a Harm in Domestic and International Law

This article reports on our analysis of 120 refugee cases from Australia, Canada, and Britain where an actual or threatened forced marriage was part of the claim for protection. We found that forced marriage was rarely considered by refugee decision makers to be a harm in and of itself. This finding contributes to understanding how gender and sexuality are analysed within refugee law, because the harm of forced marriage is experienced differently by lesbians, gay men and heterosexual women. We contrast our findings in the refugee case law with domestic initiatives in Europe aimed at protecting nationals from forced marriages both within Europe and elsewhere. We pay particular attention to British initiatives because they are in many ways the most far-reaching and innovative, and thus the contrast with the response of British refugee law is all the more stark.