Whither peacebuilding? A reflection on post-conflict African experiences

Peacebuilding is a key concept in efforts to reconstruct African states emerging from conflicts. At heart, it captures the whole array of activities associated with state-and nation-building in addition to building the foundations for local ownership of these processes. Popularised by the UN Secretary-General Boutros-Boutros Ghali in the early 1990s, peacebuilding has evolved alongside peacemaking and peacekeeping in the reconstruction repertoire. This article suggests that while there is considerable scepticism about the utility of peacebuilding in contemporary conflict resolution efforts, African experiences have, since the 1990s, provided solid lessons to both local and international actors on how to rebuild states, societies, polities, and economies.     

Latency – Time for lawyers to get up to speed?

While latency issues have always existed in IT systems, it is only in recent years that latency has become a significant focal point for both IT suppliers and customers. This paper will provide an overview as to how latency arises in IT systems, why latency is becoming important across a variety of business sectors and then explores some of the prominent legal issues inherent in contracting for low-latency solutions.     

Foreign Influences and Shifting Horizons: The Ongoing Evolution of al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb

This article details how prior to the establishment of al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AGIM), Meghrebis—that is, Algerians, Moroccans, Tunisians and others--made up a significant percentage of the foreign fighters in the al Qaeda-led insurgency in Iraq, thus helping to build the trust networks between al Qaeda central and the Maghreb-based groups, culminating in the the 2007 formal affiliation of the Groupe Salafiste pour la Predication et le Combat (GSPC) with al Qaeda. Since then, an emboldened AQIM has evolved significantly, both strategically and operationally.     

Links and copyright law

For at least 15 years, there have been question marks over the legal permissibility of connecting one web resource to another by means of links. The purpose of this paper is to assess where we stand in terms of the legal state on the threshold of the new decade. The substantive argument in this paper is that, fundamentally, there are only two sorts of links. ‘Normal’ links facilitate access to subject matter that has been made available to the public and are visible to users as ‘activatable’ references. ‘Embedding’ links, by contrast, automatically incorporate online material and cause it to become a part of the embedding document. On the grounds of the cumulative judicial custom in the member states of the European Union, this paper proposes that normal links as such should invariably be deemed not to create a state of interference with copyright law. Embedding links, however, may constitute an infringement of the exclusive right of alteration, communication or reproduction enjoyed by the copyright holder, depending on the facts and circumstances.     

Mired in a Quagmire: Popular Interpretations of the Vietnam War

For the war in Vietnam, real perspective can only come when we extricate ourselves from the historical quagmire and start evaluating the conflict as more than just a mistake that deserves our condemnation.     

Economic and Security Interests in Southeast Asia

Despite worries that ASEAN is becoming weak, the organization remains as strong as it ever was, given the parameters of its design. Its member countries still tightly embrace the organization's principles, the “ASEAN way.” But simple adherence to those principles can be problematic. ASEAN countries, whose national economic and political interests collide, often appeal to the same principles to back their positions. That tends to pull ASEAN in different directions. Great power policies, particularly those of China and the United States, now exacerbate the situation. At the same time, ASEAN's reliance on multilateral consensus has made it difficult to reconcile real differences among its member countries or develop unified regional responses. That can be seen in issues from the Xayaburi dam on the Mekong River to the South China Sea. The ease with which ASEAN's principles can come into conflict and its consensus-driven decision- making can become deadlocked clearly marks the limits of the “ASEAN way.”     

Al Shabaab's Foreign Threat to Somalia

This article focuses on the threat to Somalia by al Shabaab (The Youth), an extremist organization that controls most of southern and central Somalia. It learned its strategy and tactics from al Qaeda and the Taliban and relies heavily on a relatively small number of foreign fighters, most of whom are Somalis with foreign passports from the large Somali diaspora. The non-Somali contingent probably numbers only about 200 to 300, although it brings battlefield experience from Afghanistan and Iraq and provides al Shabaab with expertise in bomb making, remote-controlled explosions, suicide bombing and assassinations. Some of the foreigners occupy key positions in al Shabaab. The connection between al Shabaab and al Qaeda is growing stronger but has not yet reached the level of operational control by al Qaeda. Al Shabaab's draconian tactics, which are imported from outside and are anathema to most Somalis, and its foreign component may be its undoing.