Latest news
20 May 2014
On 17 May five West African countries agreed to a plan focusing on enhanced military cooperation and intelligence sharing with the purpose of combating the regional threat from Boko Haram, the extremist group which abducted more than 200 schoolgirls in northern Nigeria last month. The meeting was organised by French President Francois Hollande, at the request of Nigeria’s president, Goodluck Johnathan, and was also attended by the heads of state of Cameroon, Niger, Chad and Benin. Senior American, British and European diplomats were also present. (more…)
Source: The New York Times | West African Nations Set Aside Their Old Suspicions to Combat Boko Haram
20 May 2014
A report of the Office of Internal Oversight Services on the implementation of mandates to protect civilians in United Nations peacekeeping operations found that ‘peacekeeping missions with protection of civilians mandates focus on prevention and mitigation activities and force is almost never used to protect civilians under attack’. (para. 79) (more…)
Source: UNGA | UN Doc A/68/787 | Report on the activities of the Office of Internal Oversight Services | 7 March 2014
Source: Reuters | U.N. study finds peacekeepers avoid using force to protect civilians
19 May 2014
Following reports that armed groups have cut water supplies in Aleppo (Syria), leaving at least 2.5 million people with no access to safe water for drinking and sanitation for eight days, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon warned that such deliberate targeting of civilians is a ‘clear breach’ of international law. According to a statement, Mr. Ban ‘notes that preventing people’s access to safe water is a denial of a fundamental human right’, adding that deliberate targeting of civilians and depriving them of essential supplies is a clear breach of international humanitarian and human rights law. (more…)
Source: UN News Centre | Syria: Ban warns against targeting civilians after armed groups cut water supplies in Aleppo
19 May 2014
In a report released on 15 May, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) expressed its concern over the rising number of human rights violations by armed groups in eastern Ukraine. The report says that the actions and impunity of the armed groups ‘remain the major factor in causing a worsening situation for the protection of human rights’ and that ‘in most cases, local police did nothing to prevent violence, while in some cases it openly cooperated with the attackers.’ (more…)
Source: The New York Times | U.N. Finds Rising Human Rights Violations in Ukraine
Source: OHCHR | Report on the human rights situation in Ukraine | 15 May 2014
15 May 2014
On Lawfare, Sama’a Al-Hamdani posted an essay entitled The Foreign Policy Essay: Is Yemen’s Government Complicit with Al-Qaeda?, which discusses whether the Yemeni government is doing its best to combat terrorism. The essay poses various reasons for why the Yemeni government is not doing its best to combat terrorism, but rather may be complicit with terrorist groups. For example, Al-Hamdani discusses the frequency in which prison breaks occur, allowing detained terrorists to escape, and how these breakouts usually result with the help of prison guards either directly or indirectly. Moreover, Al-Hamdani suggests that some members of the security sector collaborate with terrorists and even some terrorists are able to infiltrate the Yemeni military and security services to carry out attacks. Al-Hamdani argues various reasons for this complicity, for example, that Yemeni military and security forces are simply scared to die at the hands of the terrorists and would rather cooperate to prevent such death, or that some military and security forces are bribed by terrorists to assist or look the other way while the terrorists operate. Furthermore, the Yemeni government’s lack of accountability and concern for these issues within its military leads to the conclusion that Yemen is complicit with terrorism.
Source: Lawfare | The Foreign Policy Essay: Is Yemen’s Government Complicit with Al-Qaeda?