This study gets to the heart of examining what counts as conflict-related gender violence under international law. Using empirical research from Liberia, Northern Ireland and Timor-Leste, the study specifically explores and explains variance beyond strategic sexualized violence employed in some conflicts, to analyze the ways that private individualistic violence is influenced by conflict across the three case studies. Proposing a set of variables as possible determinants of wide-ranging forms of violence, the study proposes that on a continuum of “political public violence” to “endemic private violence,” there are forms of violence that may sit somewhere “in-between.” The analysis queries where this “in-between”’ violence should fit in the thresholds provided by law and what consideration should be given to the political and private violence nexus that the research demonstrates.
Abstract‘Women, peace, security’ has now firmly emerged as a distinct category for attention by international law, international policy and programming approaches for governments and activists alike. UN Security Council Resolution 1325 is the pillar of this agenda and there is questionable evidence of whether the kind of reforms envisioned through SCR 1325 have truly taken place and whether progress, if any, has been made towards its implementation. High expectations are pinned to the more recent and related resolutions SCR1820 (2008), SCR1888 (2009) and SCR1889 (2009) recently adopted by the Security Council. Increasingly, the focus has been on the potential offered through the development of ‘action plans’ as possible ‘solutions’ to the current deficit. In this article action plans are examined and a snap-shot of the ways in which ‘National Action Plans for the implementation of SCR 1325’ are being developed and the increasing role they are playing in international debate on the theme of ‘women, peace and security’ is presented. The article argues that implementation of these resolutions requires reformist and radical interventions that create fundamental change. Factors affecting the potential of these plans to encompass this kind of approach are outlined, focusing on the process and content aspects of developing action plans. The article highlights that while action plans are generating positive incentives to compel states to act, caution is required before proclaiming them to be the ‘antidote’ to the existing gulf between the principles of the Resolution and effective policy response and implementation. Commentary on emerging trends and some suggestions on possible avenues for moving forward conclude the article.
Conflict-related violence against women and girls (VAWG) has drawn increasing attention, yet scholars, policymakers, and practitioners focussed on conflict-related VAWG and those focussed on post-conflict statebuilding and peacebuilding have largely worked separately. Less attention has been given to VAWG during post-conflict transitions than during conflict itself. This article makes three major contributions to guide researchers and policymakers in addressing VAWG in post-conflict contexts. First, it identifies critical gaps in understanding the intersection between VAWG and post-conflict statebuilding and peacebuilding processes. Second, it presents an ecological model to explore the drivers of VAWG during and after armed conflict. Third, it proposes a conceptual framework for analysing and addressing the intersections of VAWG with both post-conflict statebuilding and peacebuilding. The article concludes that application of this framework can help policymakers shape statebuilding and peacebuilding processes to more effectively institutionalise approaches to VAWG so that post-conflict transitions advance sustainable, positive peace.
Both reparations and conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV) have been marginal to the story of the Northern Ireland transition from conflict. CRSV has received little formal acknowledgement, reflecting more fundamental gender-blindness in harm documentation and transitional justice in the jurisdiction. Likewise, reparations provision has been scant and piecemeal. The article documents the highly partial and deeply inadequate approach to reparations for CRSV in Northern Ireland throughout and after the conflict. We contend that the inadequacies of this approach have been so deficient as to in fact obscure-rather than illuminate-the manifestation of CRSV in the jurisdiction, thus undercutting an essential basis for effective reparations design and delivery in the future. The article ameliorates the identified absence of documentation and understanding of gendered harm in Northern Ireland, by offering a preliminary mapping of CRSV in the conflict. The article concludes that a transformative approach to reparations for CRSV in Northern Ireland would be one that advances recognition of both gender analysis and reparations as essential components of post-conflict justice in the jurisdiction.
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