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Kosovo: Four Futures

The recent opinion by the International Court of Justice on the legality of Kosovo’s declaration of independence has not provided a definitive answer to Kosovo’s status. The International community remains divided. For this reason, a political solution will need to be found. Possible scenarios for the future of Kosovo include continuation of the status quo; enforcing Pristina’s full authority across all of Kosovo; partition or partial territorial readjustment between Kosovo and Serbia; or some form of extended autonomy for northern Kosovo. While each of the models has its advantages and drawbacks, on balance the case for some form of extensive autonomy or a territorial readjustment remain the most compelling options for resolving the conflict in a manner most acceptable to Belgrade and Pristina, and which would open the way for Kosovo to gain wider, if not full, international acceptance.

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Seeking State Power: The Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist)

This report follows the history of the CPN (M) since its beginning in 1995, focusing on key turning points and analysing how the organisation constantly tried to adapt its strategy and tactics in relation to political developments inside and outside Nepal. For that purpose, exclusive interviews were carried out with Maoist leaders, most frequently with Dr. Baburam Bhattarai, who is one of the main policy makers of the CPN (M) and has been a key figure in successive peace negotiations with the state.

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Southeast European NGOs for the Stability Pact

This is a conference report. In May 2000, 25 representatives of Southeast European non-governmental organizations met in Romania to discuss the impact the Stability Pact for South Eastern Europe has on the region’s civil society and the potential for cross-border activities. This four-day meeting was organized by the Foundation for Democratic Change (Bucharest), and the Berghof Research Center for Constructive Conflict Management (Berlin) and took place in the picturesque mountains of Sinaia (Carpathian Mountains). During several working sessions held in a creative atmosphere the participants developed a list of recommendations concerning the support of civil society in the region.

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Context matters: interim stabilisation and second generation approaches to security promotion

The scale and ferocity of post-war violence regularly confounds the expectations of security and development specialists. When left unchecked, mutating violence can tip ‘fragile’ societies back into all out warfare. In the context of formal peace support operations, conventional security promotion efforts are routinely advanced to prevent this from happening. These include disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration (DDR) and wider security system/sector reform (SSR). There are also lesser known but no less important interventions to promote security that deviate from-but also potentially reinforce and enhance-DDR and SSR. Faced with dynamic post-war contexts, erstwhile warring parties, peace mediators and practitioners have crafted a host of innovative and experimental security promotion initiatives designed to mitigate risks and symptoms of post-war violence including interim stabilisation measures and second generation DDR. Drawing on a growing evidence base, the article sets out a host of contextual determinants that shape the character and effectiveness of security promotion on the ground. It then issues a typology of emergent practices-some that occur before, during and after DDR and SSR interventions. Taken together, they offer a fascinating new research agenda for those preoccupied with post-war security promotion.

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Security, development and the nation-building agenda in East Timor

State-building has been seen as the path to both security and development in East Timor. State-building, however, has been approached as an exercise in the transfer of key liberal institutions, with relatively little attention paid by either relevant international agencies or the East Timorese government to situating these institutions within a social context. In particular, there has been little effort on the part of central institutions to engage with local, community and customary governance. Building a state in which people do not feel at home and where they do not speak the language of governance threatens to marginalise the majority of the population and is not a recipe for nationhood, democracy or security. Nation-building, by contrast, could suggest a renewed emphasis on the vital connection between central government and people, in which legitimacy is embedded and active citizenship is possible. Thus conceived, nation-building requires processes of communication and exchange that effectively include rural people, their values, practices and concerns, as a nation of citizens requires some shared language and institutions of political community.

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Does Peacekeeping Keep Peace? International Intervention and the Duration of Peace After Civil War

This article examines international interventions in the aftermath of civil wars to see whether peace lasts longer when peacekeepers are present than when they are absent. Because peacekeeping is not applied to cases at random, I first address the question of where international personnel tend to be deployed. I then attempt to control for factors that might affect both the likelihood of peacekeepers being sent and the ease or difficulty of maintaining peace so as to avoid spurious findings. I find, in a nutshell, that peacekeeping after civil wars does indeed make an important contribution to the stability of peace.

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Strategic Environmental Policy Assessment FYR of Macedonia: A Review of Environmental Priorities for International Cooperation

The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia stands on the threshold of a new and decisive phase in its history as it looks to emerge from the turmoil of armed conflicts and to begin reconstruction and development. It is at this moment that the opportunity must be seized to base plans for economic growth on the principles of sustainable development. This means integrating environmental considerations into all policy areas at all levels to ensure that everyone living in the FYR of Macedonia can breathe clean air and drink clean water. It means provision of universal and affordable access to sanitation, and solid waste disposal, and it means the conservation of the country’s outstanding natural heritage. Above all, it means creating and maintaining the environmental conditions in which investment, employment, health and peace can flourish.
While this vision can only be achieved by the people and Government of FYR of Macedonia, the international community has a vital role to play. Not only in the provision of funding, capacity building and technical support, but also in pressing for environmental issues to be at the top of the development agenda. The United Nations occupies a special role within the donor community. While having access to a broad range of environmental knowledge and resources, the UN, at the same time, has the flexibility to adapt and pursue a policy agenda that closely reflects the immediate needs of the FYR of Macedonia. As a contribution towards the realisation of sustainable development in the FYR of Macedonia this report has been prepared by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), with the support of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) country office in the FYR of Macedonia. It presents the results of a Strategic Environmental Policy Assessment (SEPA) carried out in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia during September 2001. The SEPA was conducted by UNEP, in response to UNDP’s formal request for a comprehensive review of environmental policy in the country.

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Post-Conflict Administrations as Democracy-Building Instruments

The period that stretches from the end of the Cold War until today has weathered the emergence of a large number of new states. With each addition, the international community has striven to regulate statehood and rein in its most erratic and unpredictable manifestations. In particular, the international community has tried to affect what kind of political regimes are set up in these new states. To reach that goal, multi-dimensional administrations have been set up by States or International Organizations to (re)build governmental institutions in territories where the governments have floundered completely. This strategy, while costly, has not been unsuccessful. Through international administrations of territories, several states have been rebuilt or restored, all of them endowed with democratic institutions. It is the aim of this Article to analyze the use of international administrations of territories to create or to reconstruct democratic states. After briefly recalling the status of democracy in international law (Section I), the Article explains how modern administrations of territories have proven to be democracy-building machines (Section II). Finally, it offers a critical appraisal of the contemporary resolve of the international community to create democratic states (Section III).

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Kashmir: New Voices, New Approaches

Uniquely representing all sides in the conflict over Kashmir, this innovative new book provides a forum for discussion not only of existing proposals for ending the conflict, but also of possible new paths toward settlement. Contributors from India, Pakistan, and Kashmir explore the subnational and national dimensions of the ongoing hostilities, the role of the international community, and future prospects. The result is an informed overview of the present state of affairs – and a realistic examination of the potential for peaceful resolution.

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Grasping the Financing and Mobilization Cost of Armed Groups: A New Perspective on Conflict Dynamics

This paper approaches conflict financing as a combination of available revenue sources and the cost to start and maintain armed conflict. The paper therefore goes beyond conceptualizations of conflict financing that only look at the total available revenue of armed groups. Based on recent small arms research, the paper sketches a tool to estimate the mobilization cost of armed groups with the objective to establish data points for barriers to entry into armed conflict and the cost of competition during armed conflict. The paper argues that what matters in conflict financing is to identify the financing and mobilization costs together, and if an armed group can pay for the type of conflict required to reaching its objective. The paper contributes to an evolving literature on the feasibility of conflict and provides a new perspective on conflict dynamics with implications for peace processes, peacebuilding, and policy against conflict financing.

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Negotiating the Right of Return

Negotiating the right of return is a central issue in post-conflict societies aiming to resolve tensions between human rights issues and security concerns. Peace proposals often fail to carefully balance these tensions or to identify incentives and linkages that enable refugee return. To address this gap, the article puts forward an alternative arrangement in negotiating refugee rights currently being considered in the bilateral negotiations in Cyprus. Previous peace plans for the reunification of the island emphasized primarily Turkish Cypriot security and stipulated a maximum number of Greek Cypriot refugees eligible to return under future Turkish Cypriot administration. The authors’ alternative suggests a minimum threshold of Greek Cypriots refugees plus self-adjustable incentives for the Turkish Cypriot community to accept the rest. The article reviews different options including linking actual numbers of returnees with naturalizations for Turkish settlers or immigrants, Turkey’s EU-accession, and territorial re-adjustments across the federal border. In this proposed formula, the Greek Cypriot side would reserve concessions until refugee return takes place, while the Turkish Cypriot community would be demographically secure under all scenarios by means of re-adjustable naturalization and immigration quotas. Drawing parallels with comparable cases, the article emphasizes the importance of making reciprocity and linkages explicit in post-conflict societies.

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Establishing Law and Order After Conflict

This study contains the results of research on reconstructing internal security institutions during nation-building missions. It analyzes the activities of the United States and other countries in building viable police, internal security forces, and justice structures. This study examines in detail the reconstruction efforts in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Kosovo, three of the most important instances in the post-Cold War era in which the United States and its allies have attempted to reconstruct security institutions. It then compares these cases with six others in the post-Cold War era: Panama, El Salvador, Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, and East Timor. Finally, the study draws conclusions from the case studies and analysis, and derives recommendations to help the United States and other international actors improve their performance in the delivery of post-conflict security. The results should be of interest to a broad audience of policymakers and academics concerned with the successes and shortcomings of past security efforts. Although the study is not intended to be a detailed analysis of U.S. or allied military doctrine regarding stability operations, we believe it provides a useful set of guidelines and recommendations for a wide range of military, civilian, and other practitioners.

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Securing Health: Lessons from Nation-Building Missions

We define nation-building as efforts carried out after major combat to underpin a transition to peace and democracy. Nationbuilding involves the deployment of military forces, as well as comprehensive efforts to rebuild the health, security, economic, political, and other sectors. The research we conducted focused on one aspect of nation-building-efforts to rebuild the public health and health care delivery systems after major combat. We looked at seven cases- Germany, Japan, Somalia, Haiti, Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Iraq. These are some of the most important cases since World War II in which international institutions, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and countries such as the United States have taken part in efforts to rebuild the health sector. These missions also have important health components. To date, a significant amount of academic and policy-relevant work has been devoted to efforts to rebuild such areas as police and military forces. Little comprehensive work has examined efforts to rebuild public health and health care delivery systems, however. The work that has been done on health tends to focus on immediate humanitarian and relief efforts rather than long-term health reconstruction. The goal of our research was to fill this void.

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Fixing Failed States: A Framework for Rebuilding a Fractured World

The international community has struggled without much success to remedy the problem of failed states. Meanwhile, 40 or 50 countries around the world — from Sudan and Somalia to Kosovo and East Timor — remain in a crisis of governance. In this impressive book, Ghani, a former Afghan finance minister, and Lockhart, who has worked at the World Bank and the United Nations, assess the missteps and offer a new framework for coordinated action. They argue that international responses have failed because they have been piecemeal and have proceeded with little understanding of what states need to do in the modern world system to connect citizens to global flows. They advocate a “citizen-based approach.” State-building strategies would be organized around a “double compact”: between country leaders and the international community, on the one hand, and country leaders and citizens, on the other. The book also proposes methods for the generation of comparative data on state capacity — a “sovereignty index” — to be annually reported to the UN and the World Bank. Ultimately, this study offers a surprisingly optimistic vision. The fact that so many disadvantaged countries have made dramatic economic and political transitions over the last decade suggests that developmental pathways do exist — if only the lessons and practical knowledge of local circumstances can be matched to coordinated and sustained international efforts. The authors provide a practical framework for achieving these ends, supporting their case with first-hand examples of struggling territories such as Afghanistan, Sudan, Kosovo and Nepal as well as the world’s success stories–Singapore, Ireland, and even the American South.

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Winning the Peace: Principles for Post-Conflict Operations

In Iraq and Afghanistan, the United States has relearned painful lessons on how to win the peace. Institutionalizing these lessons requires establishing a common national strategic concept for post-conflict operations. Post-conflict operations are among the most difficult to plan and execute, even under the best of circumstances. Expectations that post-conflict activities will be smooth, uncomplicated, frictionless, and nonviolent are unrealistic, as is the assumption that grievous policy errors or strategic misjudgments cause all difficulties. The Administration and Congress must adopt policies that ensure effective interagency operations and unity of effort. Successful post-conflict operations cannot be planned effectively in Foggy Bottom or the Pentagon. Planning and implementation must be done in theater, in concert with the military combatant commands.

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Security and Development in the Pacific Islands: Social Resilience in Emerging States

Reflecting a growing awareness of the need to integrate security and development agendas in the field of conflict management, the authors of this original volume focus on the case of the Pacific Islands. In the process, they also reveal the sociopolitical diversity, cultural richness, and social resilience of a little-known region. Their work not only offers insight into the societies discussed, but also speaks to the realities of political community and statebuilding efforts throughout the developing world.

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The Role of Private Sector Actors in Post-conflict Recovery

Countries need active, equitable and profitable private sectors if they are to graduate from conflict and from post-conflict aid-dependency. However, in the immediate aftermath of war, both domestic and international investment tends to be slower than might be hoped. Moreover, there are complex inter-linkages between economic development and conflict: in the worst case private sector activity may exacerbate the risks of conflict rather than alleviating them. This paper calls for a nuanced view of the many different kinds of private sector actor, including their approaches to risk, the ways that they interact and their various contributions to economic recovery. Policy-makers need to understand how different kinds of companies assess risk and opportunity. At the same time, business leaders should take a broader view of risk. Rather than focusing solely on commercial risks and external threats such as terrorism, they also need to take greater account of their own impacts on host societies. Meanwhile, all parties require a hard sense of realism. Skilful economic initiatives can support-but not replace-the political process.

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Building Peace After War

Author addresses the widespread practice of intervention by outside actors aimed at building ‘sustainable peace’ within societies ravaged by war, examining the record of interventions from Cambodia in the early 1990s to contemporary efforts in Afghanistan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The book analyses the nature of the modern peacebuilding environment, in particular the historical and psychological conditions that shape it, and addresses the key tasks faced by outside forces in the early and ciritical ‘post-conflict’ phase of an intervention.

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The Evolution of Post-conflict Recovery

Recent history has been marked by the rise of post-conflict intervention as a component of military and foreign policy, as a form of humanitarianism and as a challenge to Westphalian notions of state sovereignty. The terms of debate, the history of the discipline and the evolution of scholarship and practice remain relatively under-examined, particularly in the post-9/11 period in which post-conflict recovery came to be construed as an extension of conflict and as a domain concerned principally with the national security of predominantly Western countries. The subsequent politicisation of post-conflict recovery and entry of post-conflict assistance into the political economy of conflict have fundamentally changed policy making and practice. The authors argue that research into post-conflict recovery, which must become increasingly rigorous and theoretically grounded, should detach itself from the myriad political agendas which have sought to impose themselves upon war-torn countries. The de-politicisation of post-conflict recovery, the authors conclude, may benefit from an increasingly structured “architecture of integrated, directed recovery.”

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When Good Fences Make Bad Neighbors: Fixed Borders, State Weakness, and International Conflict

Since the end of World War II, the norm of fixed borders-the proscription against foreign conquest and annexation of homeland territory-has gained prevalence in world politics. Although the norm seeks to make the world a more peaceful place, it may instead cause it to become more conflict prone. Among sociopolitically weak states-states that lack legitimate and effective governmental institutions-fixed borders can actually increase instability and conflict. Adherence to the norm of fixed borders can lead to the perpetuation and exacerbation of weakness in states that are already weak or that have just gained independence. It does so by depriving states of what was traditionally the most potent incentive to increase efforts of state building: territorial pressures. By creating conditions that are rife for the spillover of civil wars and by supplying opportunities for foreign predation, sociopolitically weak states in a world of fixed borders have become a major source of interstate conflict in much of the developing world. Investigation into one case, the war in Congo, reveals the plausibility and the potential force of this argument. Good fences indeed can make bad neighbors.

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Natural Law, Agents and Patients and Minority Rights

This is a theoretical paper on the individual and group rights in the context of conflict transformation. Excerpt from conclusion: The discourse on group rights is committed to explore, protect and strengthen individual and collective identities. One must see group rights as a component of the larger system of rights. The central issue is to make individuals and groups compatible and thereby avoid contradiction.