Failed states and the rule of law

The last decade has seen an emerging consensus that the rule of law is critical in both domestic and international affairs. ‘Failed’ states generate important issues for both the rule of law and, importantly, for their intersection or interaction. A ‘failed’ state almost inevitably involves a breakdown of the domestic rule of law. When international intervention occurs, it raises concerns over substantive issues. Among these is the application of international law and international norms, including among other, the conventions and treaties, the responsibility to protect and protection of civilians. Where international missions seek to assist the people of ‘failed’ states in rebuilding their nations, establishing the rule of law is often the primary or initial pursuit. Any such international assistance/intervention is more effective if it is clearly subject to the rule of law and provides an exemplar/demonstration of how power should be exercised

Netwar Geopolitics: Security, Failed States and Illicit Flows

Recent and emerging security policies and practices claim a mutual vulnerability that closely links human insecurity in failed states with the threat to powerful states from illicit flows. This article first examines this ‘emerging orthodoxy’ of transnational security issues that reinforces the securitisation of poverty and the poor. It then subjects this orthodoxy to theoretical and empirical critique. Theoretically it shows that this orthodoxy is formed as a ‘geopolitical imagination’ that associates and stabilises particular views of weak states and illicit flows in a ‘netwar imagination’ by reasserting and reconfiguring traditional assumptions of the spatiality and nature of threats. A final empirical section, focusing on drug production and nuclear smuggling, argues that those assumptions and their assemblage are a partial, incomplete and often self-referential reading of illicit flows.

Development in fragile states and situations: theory and critique

This chapter examines the evolution of ‘fragile’ and ‘failed’ state terminology noting the background to the ideas and examining the theorisation around the concepts, before surveying the literature on development in ‘fragile’ and ‘failed’ states in some depth. The OECD Principles for Good International Engagement in Fragile States and Situations are examined in particular, together with the follow-up OECD fragile state evaluations and related literature, as the primary and often normative guidance on development in ‘fragile’ or ‘failed’ states. A range of alternatives and critiques are explored. This chapter, therefore, sets the literature and theory in place as a backdrop for the diversity of case studies presented in Part II of this volume.

The Mirage of the State: Why the West has failed in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Mali and Central African Republic? Jean Monnet/Robert Schuman Paper Series Vol. 14 No. 15, July 2014

The state still matters. However, the members of the Euro-Atlantic community may be misinterpreting this crucial baseline prior launching their military interventions since 2001. The latest violence and collapse of the state of Iraq after the invasion of Northern Iraq by a radical Sunni Muslim terrorist group, so-called Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), demonstrate once again the centrality and requirement of a functioning state in order to maintain violent forces to disrupt domestic and regional stability. Since 2001, the US and its European allies have waged wars against failed-states in order to increase this security and national interests, and then have been involved in some type of state-building.1 This has been the case in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Mali, and Central African Republic (CAR). France went into Mali (2012) and CAR (2013), which preceded two European Union military and civilian Common Security and Defense Policy missions (CSDP), in order to avoid the collapse of these two states. The threat of the collapse of both states was a concern for the members of the Euro-Atlantic community as it could have spread to the region and causing even greater instabilities. In Mali, the country was under radical Islamic pressures coming from the North after the collapse of Libya ensuing the 2011 Western intervention, while in CAR it was mainly an ethno-religious crisis. Failed states are a real concern, as they can rapidly become training grounds for radical groups and permitting all types of smuggling and trafficking.2 In Mali, France wanted to protect its large French population and avoid the fall of Mali in the hands of radical Islamic groups directly or indirectly linked to Al-Qaeda. A fallen Mali could have destabilized the region of the Sahel and ultimately affected the stability of Southern European borders. France wanted to avoid the development of a safe haven across the Sahel where movements of people and goods are uncontrolled and illegal.3 Since the end of the Cold War, Western powers have been involved in stabilizing neighborhoods and regions, like the Balkans, Africa, and Middle East, which at the exceptions of the Balkans, have led to failed policies. 9/11 changes everything. The US, under President George W. Bush, started to wage war against terrorism and all states link to it. This started a period of continuous Western interventions in this post-9/11 era in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Mali and CAR. If history has demonstrated one thing, the members of the Euro-Atlantic community are struggling and will continue to struggle to stabilize Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Mali and Central African Republic (CAR) for one simple reason: no clear endgame. Is it the creation of a state à la Westphalian in order to permit these states to operate as the sole guarantor of security? Or is the reestablishment of status quo in these countries permitting to exit and end Western operations? This article seeks to analyze Western interventions in these five countries in order to reflect on the concept of the state and the erroneous starting point for each intervention.4 In the first part, the political status of each country is analyzed in order to understand the internal and regional crisis. In a second time, the concept of the state, framed into the Buzanian trinity, is discussed and applied to the cases. In the last part the European and American civilian-military doctrines are examined in accordance with their latest military interventions and in their broader spectrum.

Development in difficult sociopolitical contexts fragile, failed, pariah preface

This edited volume explores development in the so-called 'fragile', 'failed' and 'pariah' states. It examines the literature on both fragile states and their development, and offers eleven case studies on countries ranking in the 'very high alert' and 'very high warning' categories in the Fund for Peace Failed States Index.

Regulating the Ocean: Piracy and Protection along the East African Coast

From 2008-2012, a dramatic upsurge in incidents of maritime piracy in the Western Indian Ocean led to renewed global attention to this region: including the deployment of multi national naval patrols, attempts to prosecute suspected pirates, and the development of financial interdiction systems to track and stop the flow of piracy ransoms. Largely seen as the maritime ripple effect of anarchy on land, piracy has been slotted into narratives of state failure and problems of governance and criminality in this region.

This view fails to account for a number of factors that were crucial in making possible the unprecedented rise of Somali piracy and its contemporary transformation. Instead of an emphasis on failed states and crises of governance, my dissertation approaches maritime piracy within a historical and regional configuration of actors and relationships that precede this round of piracy and will outlive it. The story I tell in this work begins before the contemporary upsurge of piracy and closes with a foretaste of the itineraries beyond piracy that are being crafted along the East African coast.

Beginning in the world of port cities in the long nineteenth century, my dissertation locates piracy and the relationship between trade, plunder, and state formation within worlds of exchange, including European incursions into this oceanic space. Scholars of long distance trade have emphasized the sociality engendered through commerce and the centrality of idioms of trust and kinship in structuring mercantile relationships across oceanic divides. To complement this scholarship, my work brings into view the idiom of protection: as a claim to surety, a form of tax, and a moral claim to authority in trans-regional commerce.

To build this theory of protection, my work combines archival sources with a sustained ethnographic engagement in coastal East Africa, including the pirate ports of Northern Somalia, and focuses on the interaction between land-based pastoral economies and maritime trade. This connection between land and sea calls attention to two distinct visions of the ocean: one built around trade and mobility and the other built on the ocean as a space of extraction and sovereignty. Moving between historical encounters over trade and piracy and the development of a national maritime economy during the height of the Somali state, I link the contemporary upsurge of maritime piracy to the confluence of these two conceptualizations of the ocean and the ideas of capture, exchange, and redistribution embedded within them.

The second section of my dissertation reframes piracy as an economy of protection and a form of labor implicated within other legal and illegal economies in the Indian Ocean. Based on extensive field research, including interviews with self-identified pirates, I emphasize the forms of labor, value, and risk that characterize piracy as an economy of protection. The final section of my dissertation focuses on the diverse international, regional, and local responses to maritime piracy. This section locates the response to piracy within a post-Cold War and post-9/11 global order and longer attempts to regulate and assuage the risks of maritime trade. Through an ethnographic focus on maritime insurance markets, navies, and private security contractors, I analyze the centrality of protection as a calculation of risk and profit in the contemporary economy of counter-piracy.

Through this focus on longer histories of trade, empire, and regulation my dissertation reframes maritime piracy as an economy of protection straddling boundaries of land and sea, legality and illegality, law and economy, and history and anthropology.

L’attribution au Liban du comportement du Hezbollah selon le droit international de la responsabilité de l’État

La guerre de 33 jours qui s’est déroulée au Liban en juillet-août 2006 a donné lieu à une panoplie de questions sur la légitimité du recours à l’usage de la force dont a fait preuve Israël au nom de son droit à la légitime défense. La problématique découlait surtout du fait que l’attaque initiale ayant déclenché cette guerre, en date du 12 juillet 2006, avait été menée par le Hezbollah, un groupe armé dont le statut étatique ou non étatique demeure difficile à cerner. Cette étude propose d’analyser si le Liban doit être tenu responsable pour le comportement du Hezbollah. Un survol de l’histoire du Liban et de la création du Hezbollah illustrera que la relation existant entre ces deux acteurs est d’une rare complexité, faisant en sorte que le rôle du Hezbollah au Liban est contesté de toutes parts. Ce débat aura une incidence certaine sur la question à savoir si le comportement du Hezbollah est attribuable à l’État libanais. Une étude approfondie des règles internationales régissant l’acte « d’attribution », notion centrale au droit de la responsabilité internationale des États, démontrera que la détermination de la nature du lien existant entre un État et une entité dont le comportement est contesté est d’une importance fondamentale. Dans une ère où les acteurs non étatiques sont devenus omniprésents sur la scène internationale et dans le cas du Hezbollah au Liban – une milice armée opérant au sein d’un État particulièrement à souveraineté limitée – le concept de l’attribution lui-même deviendra peut-être obsolète.

Análisis de los dispositivos y políticas de la Unión Europea en materia de gestión de crisis y resolución de conflictos. Caso de estudio: República Democrática del Congo (2003-2008)

El conflicto desatado en la República Democrática del Congo desde mediados de la década de los noventa, representa una de las crisis más profundas del continente africano debido a una compleja dinámica interna y regional. Así, las acciones de respuesta a las crisis y prevención y gestión de conflictos llevadas a cabo por la Unión Europea en la RDC representan las primeras operaciones autónomas y fuera de Europa, en un país altamente frágil que constituye una fuente de inestabilidad regional, convirtiéndolo así en un caso de investigación idoneo para examinar los exitos y desafios que se han presentado al concretar la política Europea de Seguridad y Defensa.

Discusión de las teorías de estado fallido: ilustración Colombia durante la administración del presidente Álvaro Uribe Vélez (2002- 2010)

Dicho trabajo pretende evaluar la pertinencia del Indice de Estados Fallidos de la Organización Fondo por la Paz y la Revista Foreign Policy, bajo dos aspectos, por un lado el sutento teórico sobre el concepto de Estado de Robert Rotberg, Charles Tilly y Michael Mann, y por otro lado observar la pertinencia metodológica usando como ejemplo el caso colombiano en el periodo 2002-2010.

Análisis de la construcción del concepto teórico de Estado fallido y su vinculación con la agenda política estadounidense como forma de legitimar la acción política internacional

La cuestión de los Estados fallidos se ha ido constituyendo como uno de los principales temas de seguridad en el sistema internacional. Ello se debe a que se asume que las principales amenazas para la paz y la estabilidad internacional como el terrorismo, el crimen organizado o la proliferación de armas de destrucción masiva surgen de aquellos Estados considerados como débiles o fallidos. Este discurso es el resultado de la vinculación de una agenda académica con la agenda política de los Estados Unidos y va a ser el marco en el cual se suscribe el presente trabajo.

Comprendiendo la política de seguridad internacional de Canadá: tras las huellas de los discursos liberales y realistas de una potencia media (1993-2008)

Esta investigación pretende contribuir a la comprensión de la política de seguridad internacional de Canadá. Para cumplir con dicho objetivo, esta investigación plantea dos propósitos específicos: a) ofrecer una revisión crítica del estado de conocimiento sobre esta política; y b) interpretar los discursos realistas y liberales que configuraron la política canadiense de seguridad internacional durante los gobiernos de Jean Chrétien (1993-2003), Paul Martin (2003-2006) y Stephen Harper (2006-2008). Los discursos liberales son entendidos aquí como complejos de creencias que precisan la obligación moral de comprometerse con proyectos cosmopolitas, tales como la promoción de los derechos humanos, la estabilización de los denominados Estados frágiles y fallidos o la contribución a los valores democrático-liberales. Los discursos realistas son entendidos como complejos de creencias derivados del espíritu de la realpolitik. Estas creencias señalan que los Estados deben buscar sus intereses nacionales independientemente de consideraciones morales.

La debilidad del Estado como factor explicativo de los conflictos armados en África subsahariana en el período de la pos Guerra Fría

La presente disertación aborda la correlación circular entre la debilidad estatal y el surgimiento de los actores armados que postulan autores como Robert Rotberg o William Reno, para el análisis de los conflictos armados en África Subsahariana en el período de la pos Guerra Fría. Durante este período, en esta región diferentes conflictos estallaron —entre esos Liberia, Sierra Leona, Somalia, Ruanda o Sudán— además de ser una de las partes del mundo que sufre por el elevado nivel de precariedad estatal. Este trabajo desarrolla entonces ambos aspectos de dicha correlación circular, a saber la incidencia de la debilidad estatal en el surgimiento de los grupos armados y, en segundo lugar, el fomento de la debilidad por parte de los grupos armados ¬–denominados por varios autores como señores de la Guerra–. Por último, esta disertación sugiere unas limitaciones al alcance explicativo de la relación interactiva entre la debilidad del Estado y los actores armados, para finalmente discutir el postulado planteado por algunos autores como Béatrice Hibou o Roland Marchal, que propone que la existencia de grupos armados pueden llevar al redespliegue del poder estatal en el largo plazo.

La zona de distensión del Caguán: un análisis de los factores económicos, políticos y sociales a partir del concepto de Estado Fallido

La presente Monografía pretende describir los diferentes sucesos que se dieron al interior de la zona de distensión del Caguán, durante el gobierno de Andrés Pastrana (1998-2002). Cabe mencionar, que ésta era la primera vez en la cual se despejaba una parte del territorio nacional, para que un grupo al margen de la ley se acentuara allí. A raíz de esto, se establecerá porque la zona de distensión puede considerarse como un Estado al interior de Colombia si ésta nunca lo llegó a ser. Finalmente, se describirá la administración realizada por las FARC en dicha zona, teniendo como base el concepto de Estado fallido, y se determinará si la gestión llevada a cabo por los guerrilleros puede considerarse como fallida.