Humanitarian crises and peace operations: a personal view of UN reforms during Kofi Annan's first term

Editorial Note: The editors, starting with this issue, will occasionally publish personal reflections of prominent practitioners in the Conflict, Security and Development field. These will appear in lieu of the Resources section of the journal. This first reflection is written by Martin Barber, who served as UN Humanitarian Co-ordinator in Afghanistan in 1995–96, as Deputy Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General in Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1996–98 and as Chief of the Policy and Advocacy Branch of the UN Office for Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs from 1998 to 2000. He was Director of the UN Mine Action Service from 2000 until his retirement in 2005. Martin is an Honorary Fellow in the School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Edinburgh.     

Intimate partner violence against women. Does violence decrease after the entry of the alleged offender into the criminal justice system?

Intimate partner violence(IPV)is simultaneously assumed as a serious crime and a major public health issue,having recurrences as one of its main characteristics and,consequently,re-entries of some alleged offenders in the criminal justice system(CJS).The main goal of this study is to assess if in cases of female victims of IPV,violence decreases after the first entry of the alleged offender in the CJS.A retrospective study was performed based on the analysis of police reports of alleged cases of IPV during a 4-year period.The final sample(n=1488)was divided into two groups according to the number of entries in the CJS(single or multiple)followed by a comparative approach.Results suggest that violence decreases after the first entry of alleged offenders in the CJS.Re-entries were found in only 15.5%of the cases but they were accountable for 3.3 times more crimes on average.Besides,victims of recidivism presented more injuries and required more medical care.Thus,a small group of alleged offenders seems to be more violent and accountable for most of the IPV crimes registered in the CJS suggesting that regardless of legal sanctions aiming to deter violence,these measures may not be enough for a certain group of offenders.This study sustains the need for a predictive model to quantify the risk of repeated IPV cases within the Portuguese population.     

What Makes Diets Political? Moral Foundations and the Left-Wing-Vegan Connection

Social Justice Research - Though meat-consumption is known to be a key factor in environmental damage, veganism and vegetarianism are still perceived to be left-wing-phenomena, ironically not...