June 1, 2011
Crisis States Research Centre Working Papers // London School of Economics // Destin Development Studies Institute

Abstract:

The author examines the city as a site in which the provision of public goods and services for citizens is demanded and provided through the transfer of central state revenues. The relationship between state and citizens is not conceived simply in the relatively passive and limiting terms of welfare delivery, but rather within the broader arena of social rights, understood as a core component of substantive citizenship – an important characteristic of developmental states. The focus of the paper is derived from the recognition that social rights, notably access to land and housing, are of particular importance in cities. Conflicts over the appropriate use of land are more likely to arise in urban areas, and the high value of land combined with its potential to contribute to economic development mean that the state almost inevitably becomes involved in these conflicts. This paper's examination of the spatial aspects of social rights in urban areas gives rise to a discussion of the 'right to the city', and how the denial of this right can create increased tension and destabilisation in the cities of fragile states. The author outlines the theoretical basis for the paper with an examination of social rights and substantive citizenship, illustrated through the case of a housing movement of the urban poor in São Paulo, Brazil. The paper then develops the discussion of the link between social rights and state stability through a reading of a selection of CSRC case studies of cities in fragile states....

February 9, 2011
The International Journal of Transitional Justice

Abstract:

Most studies of truth commissions assert their positive role in improving human rights. A firstwave of researchmade these claims based on qualitative analysis of a single truth commission or a small number of cases. Thirty years of experience with truth commissions and dozens of examples allow cross-national statistical studies to assess these findings. Two recent studies undertake that project. Their findings, which are summarized in this article, challenge the prevailing view that truth commissions foster human rights, showing instead that commissions, when used alone, tend to have a negative impact on human rights. Truth commissions have a positive impact, however, when used in combination with trials and amnesties. This article extends the question of whether truth commissions improve human rights to how, when and why they succeed or fail in doing so. It presents a ‘justice balance’ explanation, whereby commissions, incapable of promoting stability and accountability on their own, contribute to human rights improvements when they complement and enhance amnesties and prosecutions. The article draws on experiences in Brazil, Chile, Nepal, South Korea and South Africa to illustrate the central argument....

April 22, 2008
Centre for Policy Studies

Abstract:

This paper aims to advance discussions on human security and how the concept serves as a tool for approaching new (and longstanding) issues of internal and external security in the Latin American context, more specifically in the Brazilian context. It begins by examining the concept of human security, considering its links and practical applications to the problem of violence. It is argued in this paper that human security is more than a normative framework and must be reformulated into an operational and analytical tool. Human security-oriented analysis needs to be more clearly focused on armed violence, a growing phenomenon in Latin America and other parts of the Southern hemisphere. A short review of the current problems in Brazil is undertaken and a case study of Viva Rio, a NGO that works within the human security framework, is discussed. Finally, the paper provides some recommendations for increased cooperation among organizations of civil society, government and private enterprise within and among southern nations. It also makes recommendations for the consolidation of a common international agenda....

March 26, 2008
Annual Convention of the International Studies Association // Penn State University

Abstract:

Paralleling the upward trend in global FDI flows to developing countries, Kimberly-Clark quadrupled its equity holdings in Brazilian and Mexican affiliates over the past decade. Concurrently, Kimberly-Clark made sizable investments in Colombia while this country was facing high levels of civil conflict. The firm’s latter decision is unexpected, given the conventional wisdom that ongoing conflict in the host translates into high costs for any investor. However, Kimberly-Clark is not alone in exposing some of its foreign affiliates to political violence risk, which raises the question: Why do certain investors avoid conflict countries while others continue to select these locations? Previous research assumes homogeneity in investors’ reactions to political violence risk and does not solve this puzzle. I recognize that firms are heterogeneous and identify the attributes that increase firms’ sensitivity to political violence. Firms with investments that rely preponderantly on physical assets, have higher costs for exit, and serve non-host markets perceive higher threats from political violence. Data from a new survey of foreign investors, which includes questions about attitudes towards political violence, support my predictions....

January 11, 2008
International Journal on Human Rights

Abstract:

Since the early 1990s, as part of the process of globalization, we have witnessed the increasing transnationalization of legal institutions and of legal mobilization, two sides of a phenomenon legal scholars refer to as “global judicialization” and “transnational litigation”. The objective of this paper is to reflect on the relationship between transnational legal mobilization and the State through an analysis of the increased use, by local and transnational human rights NGOs, of international legal instruments for the recognition and protection of human rights. Drawing on cases against Brazil in the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (hereafter, IACHR), the paper attempts to offer theoretical tools for reflecting on the strategies and limitations of what I call “transnational legal activism” vis-à-vis the responses given by the State....

September 25, 2009
Frontline // Public Broadcasting Service

Abstract:

Should food be genetically modified or grown from heirloom seeds? Produced on large industrial farms or organic community-owned lots? These questions lie at the heart of many, sometimes fierce, debates -- in political committees, on university campuses, and in cafes and homes. But I have never heard of anyone being killed during these disputes in the U.S. In Brazil, matters are different. When I first learned about a double homicide on a farm in Santa Teresa in Southern Brazil in October 2007 in a dispute over land use, I wanted to understand how conflicts like these could lead to violence and deaths. In Brazil, 1 percent of the population owns about 45 percent of the land; reforms have been promised by many, including President Luiz Inacio "Lula" da Silva, but progress has been slow. Inequalities persist and clashes between those who want land and those who have land seem unavoidable. To find out why two men lost their lives, I traveled to the state of Parana, a hot spot for land conflicts, in Southern Brazil, about 600 miles southwest of Sao Paulo....

February 6, 2006
Public Broadcasting Service

Abstract:

Mining is illegal on all of Brazil's lands. But after the discovery of diamonds in the late 1990's, a black market developed...and a rise in violence. This time the federal police have been called in to investigate charges that the Cinta Larga massacred 29 miners.

December 10, 2008
New America Foundation

Abstract:

This table is part of the larger "U.S. Weapons at War 2008" report. For the full document, please see http://www.humansecuritygateway.info/showRecord.php?RecordId=27517

October 24, 2005
British Broadcasting Corporation

Abstract:

Brazilians are holding a referendum on 23 October on whether to ban the sale of firearms and ammunition to civilians. The authorities say it is the world's first nationwide vote on guns, and that it could set a precedent for campaigns in other countries. The BBC News website looks at some of the key issues surrounding the referendum.

October 5, 2005
Globalsecurity.org

Abstract:

If corporatism was the hallmark of the 1930s and 1940s in Brazil, populism, nationalism, and developmentalism characterized the 1950s and early 1960s. Each of these contributed to the crisis that gripped Brazil and resulted in the authoritarian regime after 1964. At the core of the crisis was the continued unwillingness of the elite to share the benefits of Brazil's wealth with the majority of the people. By the early 1960s, the crisis was boiling in reverse, from the top down. The crisis had much more to do with elite fears of a mass uprising, supposedly instigated by international communism, than with the reality of social revolution. They, rather than the masses,# believed the fiery rhetoric of leftist-populist politicians. What elites elsewhere might have seen as popular democratic mobilization, the Brazilian elites saw as revolutionary change that threatened their well-being. Because they portrayed their well-being as the same as the national well-being, and because they controlled the state and the instruments of power, they responded with a counterrevolution, what historian Joseph Page labeled "the revolution that never was."...

April 23, 2005
United States Institute of Peace

Abstract:

Generally, truth commissions are bodies established to research and report on human rights abuses over a certain period of time in a particular country or in relation to a particular conflict. Truth commissions allow victims, their relatives and perpetrators to give evidence of human rights abuses, providing an official forum for their accounts. In most instances, truth commissions are also required by their mandate to provide r#ecommendations on steps to prevent a recurrence of such abuses.

November 30, 2004
Minorities at Risk Project // Center for International Development and Conflict Management // University of Maryland

Abstract:

Most Brazilian indigenous peoples live in the Amazonian and central regions of the country, in the states of Amazonas, Roraima, Acre, Rondonia, Tocantins, Goias, Mato Grosso, and Mato Grosso Do Sul State. Indigenous people are only 0.2% of the population and are very isolated from the rest of Brazilian society. Highly dependent on the land and environment of the Amazon for their way of life, culture, and traditions, they live in mineral-rich areas which are being developed by non-indigenous people for gold mining, timber production, oil production, and agriculture. Though much of the land is designated as reservation land, over 100 Yanomami have been killed and many more have died from diseases introduced since the discovery of oil. Violent conflict has been increasing since the mid to late-1980s and it appears that it will persist due to the lack of enforcement of laws which prohibit movement into (or development within) indigenous reserves. Indians are not considered full Brazilian citizens, which has allowed non-indigenous people to discriminate against them as "less than full people." Such social prejudices have contributed to violence between the two groups. Violence against the indigenous appears likely to persist, as does indigenous mobilization against ranchers and settlers on their territories. Likewise, non-indigenous people are mobilizing against the Indians in these areas....

January 31, 2008
Comunidad Segura

Abstract:

Promised a life of riches and full of options, thousands of Brazilians leave their homes every year armed only with dreams and hopes of a better future. Hundreds of them, however, on their way to a nightmare in a foreign tongue. Considered a modern version of slavery, human trafficking preys especially on women in Brazil, and among them, on young, unmarried women with little schooling. They are tricked by older men into living as hostages of international prostitution networks. And none of these victims denounce their oppressors. They are often left without their papers, do not speak the local language and are forced into a market worth 7 to 9 billion US dollars a year, according to estimates by the United Nations Office for Drug Control UNODC....

October 18, 2007
Al Jazeera

Abstract:

Brazilian police say 12 people have been killed, including an officer and a four-year-old boy, during a raid on drug gangs in western Rio de Janeiro shanty towns.

August 8, 2007
British Broadcasting Corporation

Abstract:

Brazilian police have arrested a man alleged to be one of Colombia's most wanted traffickers, officials say.

June 14, 2007
Al-Jazeera

Abstract:

Brazil's elite military forces have been deployed in one of Rio de Janeiro's most violent slum areas. About 450 soldiers occupied the main entrances to the area that groups more than 20 slums in the north of the city on Wednesday.

February 5, 2007


Abstract:

This Brazilian website tracks violent deaths in Rio.

May 4, 2005


Abstract:

The Global Justice Center is a non-profit organization dedicated to the promotion of human rights in Brazil through rigorous factfinding, documentation and reporting, as well as the use of international mechanisms for the protection of human rights. The Global Justice Center (Centro de Justixc3xa7a Global, or JG) is the petitioner of several matters before the Inter-American system and has registered more than 100 complaints with the United Nations special mechanisms for the protection of human rights. The first resolution of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights against Brazil, passed on June 2002, refers to a petition filled by the Global Justice Center. JG supports the increased use of international mechanisms through intensive courses, on-site training and joint actions at an international level, with local partner Brazilian NGOs and with social movements. ...

May 4, 2005


Abstract:

In 1993, fear and indignation gripped residents of Rio de Janeiro. Amidst political tensions, economic losses and social crisis, the population was profoundly shaken by a series of kidnappings, the murder of eight street children in front of the Candelaria church, and the wholesale killing of 21 people in the Vigario Geral favela. In response to these shocking events, residents of Rio organized a city-wide demonstration for peace. At 12:00 p.m. on December 17th of that same year, thousands of people dressed in white and paused for two minutes in a silent call for peace. On this day Viva Rio, a non-governmental non-profit organization, was created to stimulate individuals, associations and companies to build a more democratic and just society. ...

June 7, 2011
Geneva Centre for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces

Abstract:

The Examples from the Ground are concrete illustrations of ways in which a gender perspective has been integrated in different security sector institutions around the world. They range from measures to counter human trafficking in Kosovo, to women’s organisations’ involvement with security institutions in Nepal, to female parliamentarians’ contribution to post-conflict reconstruction in Rwanda. These examples can help policymakers, trainers and educators better understand and demonstrate the linkages between gender and SSR.

The examples are organised around the following nine themes, for which a short introduction is provided:

• Police Reform and Gender
• Defence Reform and Gender
• Justice Reform and Gender
• Penal Reform and Gender
• Border Management and Gender
• Parliamentary Oversight of the Security Sector and Gender
• National Security Policy-Making and Gender
• Civil Society Oversight of the Security Sector and Gender
• SSR Assessment, Monitoring and Evaluation and Gender

Individual examples can also be downloaded individually, in English or in French, at:
http://gssrtraining.ch/index.php?option=com_content&view;=article&id;=4&Itemid;=131⟨=en...

June 1, 2011
The Committee to Protect Journalists

Abstract:

Russia and Mexico, two of the world’s most murderous countries for the press, are heading in different directions in combating deadly anti-press violence, the Committee to Protect Journalists has found in its newly updated Impunity Index. The index, which calculates unsolved journalist murders as a percentage of each country’s population, found improvement in Russia as journalist murders ebbed and prosecutors obtained two high-profile convictions. But deadly anti-press violence continued to climb in Mexico, where authorities appear powerless in bringing killers to justice.

Colombia continued a years-long pattern of improvement, CPJ’s index found, while conditions in Bangladesh reflected a slight upturn. But the countries at the top of the index—Iraq, Somalia, and the Philippines—showed either no improvement or even worsening records. Iraq, with an impunity rating three times worse than that of any other nation, is ranked first for the fourth straight year. Although crossfire and other conflict-related deaths have dropped in Iraq in recent years, the targeted killings of journalists spiked in 2010.

“The findings of the 2011 Impunity Index lay bare the stark choices that governments face: Either address the issue of violence against journalists head-on or see murders continue and self-censorship spread,” said CPJ Executive Director Joel Simon. “Convictions in Russia are a hopeful sign after years of indifference and denial. But Mexico’s situation is deeply troubling, with violence spiking as the government promises action but fails to deliver.”

CPJ’s annual Impunity Index, first published in 2008, identifies countries where journalists are murdered regularly and governments fail to solve the crimes. For this latest index, CPJ examined journalist murders that occurred between January 1, 2001 through December 31, 2010, and that remain unsolved. Only the 13 nations with five or more unsolved cases are included on the index. Cases are considered unsolved when no convictions have been obtained.

Impunity is a key indicator in assessing levels of press freedom and free expression in nations worldwide. CPJ research shows that deadly, unpunished violence against journalists often leads to vast self-censorship in the rest of the press corps. From Somalia to Mexico, CPJ has found that journalists avoid sensitive topics, leave the profession, or flee their homeland to escape violent retribution....

April 27, 2011
Royal Institute for International Relations // Egmont

Abstract:

This Security Policy Brief looks at the vote on the UNSC resolution on Libya and tries to see in it some signs of the new international order in the making. Why did the BRIC countries abstain? Why was the US so shy? What does it all mean for the EU?

April 20, 2011
International Relations and Security Network // Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich

Abstract:

Rio de Janeiro's new Police Pacification Units, designed to take back the city's favelas from drug dealers, represent a doctrinal and operational revolution away from police business as usual. The widely praised program, however, is not without its critics, who worry that it will turn each newly pacified neighborhood into a quasi-police state.

February 28, 2011
Institute of Development Studies

Abstract:

How does violence affect the everyday lives of citizens in countries, regions and cities of the global South? This has been the central theme of five years’ work in the Violence, Participation and Citizenship (VPC) group of the Development Research Centre (DRC) on Citizenship, Participation and Accountability, an international research partnership coordinated by IDS from 2000–2010. While other DRC researchers studied new forms of citizenship that could help make rights real, the VPC group undertook projects in four countries to examine how violence affects the exercise of meaningful citizenship and how efforts to open space for citizenship in such contexts affect the use of violence.

VPC set out to explore these dynamics in partnership with organisations and community members in Brazil (Rio de Janeiro), Jamaica (Kingston), Mexico (Chiapas and Guerrero States) and Nigeria (Kaduna, Kano and Plateau States). Our investigative frame, developed as a group, was a set of questions about the scope for participatory social action, the exercise of citizenship, and processes of peaceful social transformation in contexts of violence....