Throughout the past 50 years there has been an increase in the attention given to transitional justice in the after math of violent conflicts. It is important to note that transitional justice developed not only as a result of state or government action, but also gradually through the growing relevance of civil society organizations. Civil society can be defined as encompassing, amongst other things, trade unions, religious organizations, foundations, political parties, and Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs). Under the umbrella of civil society, NGOs have become a central part of the transition process that attempts to enable stability and strengthen ties within war torn societies. This synopsis will cover the growing relevance of NGOs …show more content…
At end of the 20th Century, globalization began to change dynamics and include new significant actors such as NGOs and human rights groups. The increase in transitional justice actors developed as a result of limitations of the afore mentioned actors, these include the time constraints of UN missions and state unwillingness to allow the international community to make decisions for them. NGOs are able to address some of these constraints because they are non-political and can include both citizens of the state and international workers to achieve their goals. They typically do not have mandates, allowing them to provide assistance for as long as it is deemed necessary, and their focus is more society and victim based. This is not to say that NGOs should be seen as a replacement of other transitional justice actors, rather it shows the capabilities they have if allowed to work properly and can be a useful tool to work alongside other …show more content…
In Kosovo, the process of post-conflict rebuilding included NGO legal reforms from the very outset and gave these organizations a certain level of independence, this allowed for a relatively successful attempt to assist in development and improving civil society. Afghanistan on the other hand was slow to reform its controlling Taliban era NGO laws and mostly left NGO contributing proposals out of legal processes, resulting in mistrust and refusal of participation from citizens. The current situation in Kosovo is that NGOs continue to contribute to the peace processes due to their initial role in developing law for improving transition, Afghanistan has become the most dangerous place for aid workers to reside and still has not made entirely clear the functions of NGOs. These observations show the impact it can have of how NGOs are established within a state and why their participation in legal processes should not be disregarded. An NGO can either reaffirm transitional justice norms or weaken a civil society from appropriately dealing with transitional justice
Genocide is a pressing issue with a multitude of questions and debates surrounding it. It is the opinion of many people that the United Nations should not get involved with or try to stop ongoing genocide because of costs or impositions on the rights of a country, but what about the rights of an individual? The UN should get involved in human rights crimes that may lead to genocide to prevent millions of deaths, save money on humanitarian aid and clean up, and fulfill their responsibilities to stop such crimes. It is preferable to stop genocide before it occurs through diplomacy, but if necessary, military force may be used as a last resort. Navi Pillay, Human Rights High Commissioner, stated, “Concerted efforts by the international community at critical moments in time could prevent the escalation of violence into genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity or ethnic cleansing.”
How much more do we need to do before we start responding to these legacies? Works Cited United Human Rights Council. United Human Rights Council. N.p., n.d. Web. The Web.
"Peacekeeping and Peacemaking." Reading and Remembrance . N.p., n.d. Web. 12 Jan. 2014. . (tags: none | edit tags)
There have been many humanitarians that strive to help countries suffering with human right abuses. People think that the help from IGOs and NGOs will be enough to stop human rights violations. However, it hasn’t been effective. Every day, more and more human rights violations happen. The problem is escalating. People, including children, are still being forced to work to death, innocent civilians are still suffering the consequences of war, and families are struggling to stay firm together. Despite the efforts from the people, IGOs, and NGOs, In the year 2100, human rights abuse will not end.
Political violence is action taken to achieve political goals that may include armed revolution, civil strife, terrorism, war or other such activities that could result in injury, loss of property or loss of life. Political violence often occurs as a result of groups or individuals believing that the current political systems or anti-democratic leadership, often being dictatorial in nature, will not respond to their political ambitions or demands, nor accept their political objectives or recognize their grievances. Formally organized groups, Non-Government Organizations (NGOs), businesses and collectives of individual citizens are non-state actors, that being that they are not locally, nationally or internationally recognized legitimate civilian or military authorities. The Cotonou Agreement of 2000 defines non-state actors as being those parties belonging to the private sector, economic and social partners and civil society in all its forms according to national characteristics. Historical observation shows that nation states with political institutions that are not capable of, or that are resistant to recognizing and addressing societies issues and grievances are more likely to see political violence manifest as a result of disparity amongst the population. This essay will examine why non-state political violence occurs including root and trigger causes by looking at the motivations that inspire groups and individuals to resort to non-conforming behaviors that manifest as occurrences of non-state political violence. Using terrorism and Islamic militancy on the one side, and human rights and basic freedoms on the other as examples, it will look at these two primary kinds of political violence that are most prevalent in the world ...
The issue of human rights has arisen only in the post-cold war whereby it was addressed by an international institution that is the United Nation. In the United Nation’s preamble stated that human rights are given to all humans and that there is equality for everyone. There will not be any sovereign states to diminish its people from taking these rights. The globalization of capitalism after the Cold War makes the issue of human rights seems admirable as there were sufferings in other parts of the world. This is because it is perceived that the western states are the champion of democracy which therefore provides a perfect body to carry out human rights activities. Such human sufferings occur in a sovereign state humanitarian intervention led by the international institution will be carried out to end the menace.
There is some theoretical ambiguity in the meaning of Restorative Justice in spite of the many definitions and studies done on the subject. Restorative Justice has been defined as “an ethos with practical goals, among which to restore harm by including affected parties in a (direct or indirect) encounter and a process of understanding through voluntary and honest dialogue.” It is primarily concerned with the reinstatement of victims to life before the crime, restoration of the Offender to a well behaved and lawful life, restoration of the injury caused to the community and the creation of a better society in the present and the future.
I will like to apply my research to two aspects of restorative justice : offender suitability and offender-community participation in restorative justice programs. My proposed research seeks to explore the factors that determine an offender’s suitability for participation in restorative justice process, how important is the gender of the offender or nature of offence he/she committed in this regard? The study intends to examine the effects of these factors on the community’s participation in the restorative justice process, it also attempts to assess if participation in restorative justice programs may on enhance the trust of the community in the criminal justice system by reducing their
Justice Justice is defined as the maintenance or administration of what is just especially by the impartial adjustment of conflicting claims or the assignment of merited rewards or punishments. In the case of upholding the law, punishment is the usual assignment. The purposes of punishment include retribution, deterrence, rehabilitation, incapacitation, and restoration. Although, punishment concepts such as retribution, deterrence, and incapacitation have been around for a while, the concepts of rehabilitation and restoration are fairly new.
States ratify human right treaties to enter into agreements and commit each other to respect, protect and fulfill human rights obligations. However, the adherence to human rights treaties is not ensured by the same principle of reciprocity instead to ensure compliance, collective monitoring and enforcement mechanisms were introduced.8 International organizations and treaty ...
The complex issue of humanitarian intervention is widely argued and inherently controversial. Humanitarian intervention involves the coercive action of states intervening in areas for the sole purpose of preventing or halting the killing or suffering of the people there. (1, 9, 5) It is an issue argued fervently amongst restrictionists and counter-restrictionists, who debate over whether humanitarian intervention is a breach of international law or a moral requirement. (10) Restrictionists argue that Articles 2 (7) and 2 (4) of the United Nations (UN) Charter render forcible humanitarian intervention illegal. The only legitimate exception to this, they claim, is the right to self defence, as enshrined in Article 51 of the UN Charter. (1-472) This position is contested by counter-restrictionists, who insist that any and all nations have the right, and the responsibility, to prevent humanitarian disasters. (8-5) Despite the declaration of a ‘new world order’, the post-Cold war world has not been a more peaceful one: regional and ethnic conflicts have, in fact, proliferated. Between 1989 and 1993, for example, thirteen new peacekeeping operations were launched by th...
Magno, A., (2001) Human Rights in Times of Conflict: Humanitarian Intervention. Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs, 2 (5). [online] Available from: http://www.carnegiecouncil.org/resources/publications/dialogue/2_05/articles/883.html> [Accessed 2 March 2011] United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Human Development Report (2000) Human Rights and Human Development (New York) p.19
Outside if politics, there are also groups called NGOs: (Non-governmental Organizations) that are not run by state or local governments that operate as nonprofits organizations; these groups have created a web of global development networks in response to governmental decision making dominated by the core (e.g., WTO, IMF, World Bank). A main point of NGOs is to have undeveloped and developing countries participate. Unfortunately, this is sometimes seen as counter-hegemonic, which is where nations dominate other nations, both economically and politically.
After decades of war in Afghanistan in late 2001, first attempts have already been made by Afghans and international organizations to consult the Afghan people on how to build capacities in pace-building which was an encouraging sign. However, the people in general are still too reluctant to speak about their suffering during the war. Instead, their current priority is to struggle for economic survival in the highly competitive post-conflict reconstruction business with its emerging social injustice. This pragmatic attitude causes a basic problem. If the past is not addressed, efforts to build a lasting peace are endangered. As lessons from other post-conflict societies have shown, national reconciliation contributes to overcoming the past and reuniting a war-divided society (Schirch, Rafiee, & Sakhi, 2013). There are several ways to bring about peace, stability and harmony in Afghanistan. This paper reviews some issues crucial for discussing and designing a strategy of national reconciliation. Moreover, for narrowing the gap between the rival perceptions there is also a need for an Afghan peace process to prepare the ground for peace-building and a future reconciliation process and implementation of an Afghan mechanism of national reconciliation including the ‘’lessons learned’’ from the post-conflict societies.
The other kind of International Organization (IO) is the NGO which are primarily non-profit private organizations that engage in a variety of international activities (Pease, 2012 p. 4). They are able to particip...