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 8, 2010
European Coalition of Oil in Sudan // Fatal Transactions
Abstract:
From 1983 to 2005, Sudan was torn apart by a civil war
between the Government and Southern armed groups.
Oil was a factor in the outbreak and exacerbated war
from the mid-1990s. This report is concerned with the
injustice perpetrated on victims and the role of oil companies
and their home governments during the oil wars. Between 1997 and 2003, international crimes
were committed on a large scale in what was essentially
a military campaign by the Government of Sudan to
secure and take control of the oil fields in Block 5A. As
documented in this report, they included indiscriminate
attacks and intentional targeting of civilians, burning
of shelters, pillage, destruction of objects necessary
for survival, unlawful killing of civilians, rape of women,
abduction of children, torture, and forced displacement.
Thousands of people died and almost two hundred
thousand were violently displaced. Satellite pictures
taken between 1994 and 2003 show that the Lundin
Consortium’s activities in Block 5A coincided with a
spectacular drop in agricultural land use.
The actual perpetrators of the reported crimes were the
armed forces of the Government of Sudan and a variety
of local armed groups that were either allied to the
Government or its main opponent, the Sudan People’s
Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A). Nonetheless, the
evidence presented in this report calls into question the
role played by the oil industry in these events. ECOS believes that Lundin, Petronas and OMV, as a
matter of international law, may have been complicit in
the commission of war crimes and crimes against humanity....
September 5, 2008
Congressional Research Service
Abstract:
U.S. policymakers have made securing and maintaining foreign contributions
to the stabilization and reconstruction of Iraq a major priority since the preparation
period for the launch of Operation Iraqi Freedom in March 2003. This report
highlights and discusses important changes in financial and personnel contributions
from foreign governments to Iraq since 2003.
To date, foreign donors have pledged an estimated $16.4 billion in grants and
loans for Iraq reconstruction, with most major pledges originating at a major donors'
conference in Madrid, Spain, in October 2003. However, only a small part of the
pledges have been committed or disbursed to the World Bank and United Nations
Development Group Trust Funds for Iraq. The largest non-U.S. pledges of grants
have come from Japan, the European Commission, the United Kingdom, Canada,
South Korea, and the United Arab Emirates. The World Bank, the International
Monetary Fund, Japan, and Saudi Arabia have pledged the most loans and export
credits.
Currently, 33 countries including the United States have some level of troops
on the ground in Iraq or supporting Iraq operations from nearby locations. Those
forces are working under the rubric of one of several organizations — the
Multi-National Force-Iraq (MNF-I), the NATO Training Mission-Iraq (NTM-I); or
the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI). Currently, the largest
troop contributors, in addition to the United States, are the United Kingdom, Georgia,
Australia, South Korea, and Poland. Some of these key contributors have announced
their intention to reduce or withdraw their forces from Iraq during 2008. The total
number of non-U.S. coalition troop contributions has declined since the early
stabilization efforts, as other countries have withdrawn their contingents or
substantially reduced their size....
June 8, 2006
International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights
Abstract:
The human rights situation deteriorated in numerous former Soviet republics. Independent
human rights monitoring groups, including several affiliates of the IHF, came under
attack. The Russian Federation, Belarus, and the Central Asian regimes promulgated
new legislation or changed their practices to allow these states arbitrarily to restrict the activities
of nongovernmental organizations. The leaders of the Belarusian Helsinki Committee
faced fabricated criminal charges, and in January 2006, state-controlled Russian media
falsely implicated the Moscow Helsinki Group in espionage....
June 7, 2006
Council of Europe
Abstract:
The United States has progressively woven a clandestine "spider's web" of disappearances, secret detentions and unlawful inter-state transfers - spun with the collaboration or tolerance of Council of Europe member states, the Legal Affairs Committee of the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly (PACE) said today. In a draft resolution adopted at a meeting in Paris, based on a report by Dick Marty (Switzerland, ALDE), the committee said hundreds of persons had become entrapped in this web - in some cases when they were merely suspected of sympathising with a presumed terrorist organisation. The parliamentarians said this knowing collusion of member states took several different forms, including secretly detaining a person on European territory, capturing a person and handing them over to the US or permitting unlawful "renditions" through their airspace or across their territory. "It# has now been demonstrated incontestably, by numerous well-documented and convergent facts, that secret detentions and unlawful inter-state transfers involving European countries have taken place, such as to require in-depth inquiries and urgent responses by the executive and legislative branches of all the countries concerned," the committee said. The committee called on Council of Europe member states to review bilateral agreements signed with the United States, particularly those on the status of US forces stationed in Europe, to ensure they conformed fully to international human rights norms. The report is due for debate by the plenary Assembly - which brings together 630 parliamentarians from the 46 Council of Europe member states - in Strasbourg on 27 June 2006....
Austria 
