Resolving armed conflict： The Acehnese experience of mediation

A growing number of armed conflicts are ending in negotiated and mediated settlements. While mediation has been acknowledged as an effective means of dispute resolution in many areas, such as family law, medical law and commercial law, it has only quite recently been employed for the resolution of armed conflicts. It is the aim of this article to analyze how mediation was successfully employed in resolving conflicts in the region of Aceh in Indonesia. After 25 years of armed conflict, a peace deal was signed in 2005 between the government of Indonesia and an armed Acehnese group, the Gerekan Aceh Merdeka（GAM）. This article will detail the history of the conflict and the mediation process, focusing on the mediation strategies and characteristics.     

Conclusion: regional parliaments – a distinct role in the EU?

ABSTRACT

Regional parliaments can shape EU policy-making via a range of domestic and European channels. In the context of a renewed interest in the subnational level, this article aims to address three core questions: have regional parliaments really been empowered by the early warning system provisions? Which factors explain differences in strength and mobilisation? Finally, what kind of a role do regional parliaments play in EU policy-making today, now that they have had several years to react to the trend towards multilevel parliamentarism? The authors argue that regional parliaments do indeed have the potential to contribute a distinct perspective to EU policy-making, even if their current level of activity is still low. Their distinctive territorial focus sets them apart from national parliaments. Their level of activity still varies greatly between parliaments depending on a number of factors.     

伊拉克战争对国际法治的冲击和影响

美英发动的伊拉克战争对国际社会提出了一系列值得认真思考的国际法问题。本文着重探讨这场战争对国际法基础的冲击以及违反联合国宪章规定非法使用武力问题 ,探讨在国际武装冲突中实施国际人道法面临的困境。在此基础上 ,作者提出了加强国际法治的若干建议。     

Community mobilisation and HIV activism in Zimbabwe

ABSTRACT

Community mobilisation and activism is thought to encourage HIV testing and treatment and assist patient recovery. This article draws on interviews conducted with 60 people living with, and affected by HIV, in four marginalised areas of Harare, Zimbabwe. The lenses of civil society and social movements are used to analyse how people living with HIV draw on, and construct, systems of support based on the ways in which their communities know and understand the epidemic. I consider how neighbourhoods negotiate and assert community and individual needs in relation to HIV and how such systems can develop into community networks and wider coalitions. The article concludes by positing that, by interrogating official responses to the epidemic, HIV-related activism and social movements can help to domesticate formal commitments to international health protocols and compliance, particularly in terms of the intent, as well as the participatory rhetoric, of health based rights.     

We do negotiate with terrorists: navigating liberal and illiberal norms in peace mediation

The normative framework in mediation processes is growing. Mediators are increasingly expected by their mandate-givers to incorporate liberal norms such as inclusivity into their overall strategy. However, in the wake of the terrorist attacks that took place on 11 September 2001, and the policy shifts that accompanied the “Global War on Terror”, mediators find themselves simultaneously pressured to design mediation processes actively excluding armed groups proscribed as terrorists and consequently incorporating this illiberal norm of “exclusivity”, barring proscribed groups’ access to negotiations. This article asks what consequences this development has on the normative agency of mediators, based on if and how they incorporate proscribed armed groups into their mediation strategies. It argues that the dichotomy between liberal and illiberal norms has important consequences on a mediator’s normative agency. First, the dichotomy constrains mediators to a single normative standard, rendering only liberal and illiberal views possible. Second, the assumption that liberal norms are “good” and illiberal norms are “bad” engenders a double dichotomy that greatly constrains a mediator’s normative agency. Third, these constraints on a mediator engender new mediation practices such as outsourcing and risk-sharing in an attempt to salvage normative agency. The article contributes to scholarship on norms, terrorism and mediation through providing a more nuanced view of normative parameters in mediation practice.     

试论军事统帅权及其配置——以军队领导指挥体制为视角

军队领导指挥体制在军队体制中地位极其重要,历来对军队体制的总体调整往往从其领导指挥体制开始。通过对军队领导指挥体制的构成与运行的法律审视,找出其与军事统帅权的内在逻辑关联,并尝试对信息化战争条件下的军事统帅权及其配置进行初步探讨,对于廓清军事法学研究进路,深化军事权研究具有重要意义。同时,对军事统帅权及其配置的探讨,也有利于推动军队领导指挥体制的调整与改革,并确保这一调整变革始终处于法治轨道上,从而为适应信息化战争、构建信息化军队提供法律保障。     

Afghanistan’s Taliban – Legitimate Jihadists or Coercive Extremists?

ABSTRACT

The military intervention in Afghanistan in 2001 was portrayed as a fight to oust the extremist Taliban. But the Taliban have long been regaining influence, with the military victory of the Afghan government and its foreign allies now seeming less likely than ever. In light of these developments, this article investigates what the affected people – rather than the foreign interveners – think about the Taliban, and whether they perceive them as coercive or legitimate. Building on a conceptual understanding of legitimacy that has been adjusted to the dynamics of conflict-torn spaces, the article suggests that people judge the Taliban on the basis of how their day-to-day behaviour is perceived. While the Taliban are a coercive threat in urban centres and other areas where they launch attacks, they nonetheless manage to construct legitimacy in some of the places which they control or can access easily. A major source of their legitimacy in these areas is the way in which they provide services – such as conflict resolution – which some people consider to be faster and fairer than the state’s practices.     

Precipitating state failure: do civil wars and violent non-state actors create failed states?

This article examines whether the incidence of civil wars and the presence of violent non-state actors have an effect on state failure. Research on failed states has thus far prioritised armed conflicts as one of the key causes of state failure. This study challenges that claim and posits that civil war incidence has limited impact on the transition from fragility to failure. Global quantitative analysis of state failure processes from 1995 to 2014 shows that although armed conflicts are widespread in failed states, civil violence does not lead to state failure and large numbers of failed states become engulfed by civil war only after the failure occurs. By contrast, this study demonstrates a direct link between the presence of violent non-state actors and state failure.     

Situating soldiers’ demands: mutinies and protests in Burkina Faso

In Burkina Faso in 2011 military mutinies followed widespread civilian protests, indicating a crisis of confidence in President Compaoré. Through an in-depth examination of the events, this article encourages an understanding of military revolts that extends beyond the military. Although the mutineers never united with the demonstrators, their grievances mirrored those of the civilians. The article puts the revolts into a historic context and shows a pattern of interconnectedness between military revolts and civilian demonstrations in Burkina Faso. The work draws on interviews conducted with military personnel and civilians involved in the widespread protests.     

Child soldiers as peace-builders in Colombian peace talks between the government and the FARC–EP

Children, especially girls, are considered victims in armed conflicts. Children who participate in conflicts, as combatants, sexual servants, spies, informants and messengers, may be considered perpetrators of atrocities. These two classifications of children in armed conflicts do not consider their roles as agents who may also participate in peace-building efforts. This paper analyses how children involved in armed conflicts are classified and represented in the current peace agreement between the Colombian government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia – People’s Army (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia – Ejército del Pueblo). We aim to understand if children are recognised in this peace process as participants and, in some capacity, as peace-builders. Dialoguing with the literature on critical security studies and childhood studies, we conduct a critical discourse analysis of the peace agreement documents. The study of the Colombian case enables an empirical analysis in which child soldiers are categorised as victims with the possibility of participating in peace-building and, at the same time, as potential challengers to the peace process.