Despite being strictly prohibited in international humanitarian law, child soldiering remains a serious global problem. How effective has the international community’s response to this phenomenon been?

Constituting one of the most egregious child rights violations, many children are currently actively involved in violent conflict as members of armed organizations, states and non-state actors. They can be found on every continent, but sub-Saharan Africa is the epicenter of the phenomenon. These recruited children perform a range of different tasks; they participate in combat, lay mines and explosives, are scouting, spying, and acting as decoys, couriers or guards. Others are used for logistics and supporting functions such as cooking and cleaning.

The 1977 Additional Protocols to the Geneva Conventions were the first international treaties to try and tackle the problem of child soldiering. They prohibit the recruitment and participation in hostilities of children under the age of 15. The 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child, which has achieved almost universal ratification, also included the 15 age limit. An optional protocol to this Convention, in May 2000, lifted the age to 18. It insisted that armed groups should not use children under 18 in any circumstances and called on states to criminalize such practices. However, although the use of children by armed groups is prohibited and defined as a war crime, child soldiering remains a pressing global issue.

A “time bomb”?

Child soldiers in Ethiopia. Image by Vittorio Bianchi via Flickr.

The most commonly cited figure for the number of children involved in conflicts is 300,000. This estimate is, however, not necessarily the most accurate one as information on child soldier usage is difficult to obtain. Children are often employed in remote conflict zones away from public view and the media, no record is kept of their number and ages, and those who employ them often deny their existence or claim that these were isolated cases. Besides, they often ‘vanish’ after the conflict ends; they are rarely as visible among the demobilised troops as they were among the combatants at the height of hostilities.

The number of children active in armed groups is clearly nominal when compared to the millions of children who do not participate directly as soldiers but are profoundly affected by war. Nonetheless, this group is a tangible, visible, and dramatic example of the deprivation of the human rights of children. It has been empirical proven that using children as active participants in armed conflict has severe consequences not only for the child and their family, but also for society in general. For instance, at a recent Paris conference on child soldiering, the keynote speaker, the former French foreign minister Philippe Douste-Blazy, warned that the use of child soldiers is “a time bomb that threatens stability and growth in Africa and beyond.” They are “lost children,” he argued, “lost for peace and lost for the development of their countries”. Also, a New York Times editorial stated: “They are walking ghosts, damaged, uneducated pariahs.” Ultimately, if subscribing to these statements, child soldiering may be thought to contribute to the well-known ‘conflict trap’, i.e. they might increase the likelihood that conflict recurs.

There are at least two avenues that link former child soldiers to conflict recurrence. First, it is argued that former child soldiers have often limited skills besides killing and being able to fieldstrip weapons after the conflict has ceased. This is primarily due to the fact that they experience little to no education while being in the bush. This lack of education impedes their labour market success: they earn less and are less likely to be engaged in skilled work in comparison to those that were not recruited by armed groups. This may significantly raise the willingness to rejoin armed groups again, which might assure them of at least the basic necessities, such as food and perhaps even a bit of money.

Second, although child soldiers are far from the only ones who are affected as a result of their experiences in war, they suffer the most and have the least capacity to recover. Typically former child soldiers have witnessed, experienced and/or perpetrated shocking and disturbing violent actions during their time with the armed group. This can create great difficulties both for the children and their interface with society. It can lead to both physical symptoms, such as headaches, stomach pains, sleep disorders, and mental symptoms, like depression, anxiety, and extreme levels of pessimism.

One of the most worrying symptoms connected to children’s war participation is a supposed increase in the child’s level of aggression. Due to the fact that they often do not have the capacities and experiences to disengage themselves from these violent and aggressive behavioral norms established during their time in the armed groups, difficulties arise when peace is restored. For instance, they often display on-going aggressiveness within their families and communities: they also often use physical violence to resolve conflicts, reflecting an absence of adequate social skills.

These skills are not easily acquired by former child soldiers since they often encounter broken families once they are back that could have provided a better regulation of the use of violence. Hence, some scholars have argued that the phenomenon of child soldiers feeds upon itself: each round of fighting creates a new cohort, traumatized by the war and bereft of economical skills, who then become a potential pool and catalyst for the next spate of violence. Or as Wessells describes it: “A society that mobilizes and trains its young for war weaves violence into the fabric of life, increasing the likelihood that violence and war will be its future. Children who have been robbed of education and taught to kill often contribute to further militarization, lawlessness, and violence”.

International response

The response of the international community to counter child recruitment falls usually in two categories: (1) punishing perpetrators by ‘naming and shaming’ practices and by prosecution; and (2) mitigating some of the damage done to children once they leave the armed group by implementing child-centred Disarmament Demobilization and Reintegration (DDR) programs.

Concerning the ‘naming and shaming’ policies, the United Nations often publishes reports mentioning particular governments and non-state actors that use children. Some have argued that this has an effect, especially on governments, although there is little empirical evidence to back this up. The largest degree of child recruitment is, however, carried out by non-state actors and it seems that media exposure, public pressure, and pressure of international organizations and governments have little to no effect, with perhaps the exception of rebel groups who strive for secession.

Besides ‘naming and shaming’ campaigns, the international community has also started to shift its focus to the criminalization of child soldier recruitment. Thomas Lubanga Dyilo, a warlord from the Democratic Republic of the Congo who led the Union of Congolese Patriots, was the first rebel leader convicted by the International Criminal Court for the use of children in military operations. More recently, Charles Taylor, the former president of Liberia, was found guilty of conscripting and enlisting children. It is, however, unclear whether this criminalization has a deterrent effect on child soldier recruitment.

Once children are out of the armed groups, the international community attempts to mitigate the damage done to them and the potential consequences for society by implementing DDR programs. Initially children were often excluded from these programs, as it was argued that they did not pose a post-conflict threat. Moreover, since children cannot be legally recruited, child-centered DDR program elements were not viewed as a routine component of peacemaking. Fortunately, this has changed in recent times, and most DDR programs now have their own imperatives focused on rehabilitating former child soldiers. Usually these programs consist of three components.

First, former child soldiers are gathered at pick-up points, moved to disarmaments sites, and, whenever necessary, disarmed. During the demobilization part of the program, eligibility for the DDR program is determined through a screening process in which they receive identity and discharge documents. Reintegration is the third component of the DDR program, which starts at care centers – transit facilities which help prepare former child soldiers for going home and give non-governmental organizations time for the preparation of families and communities to receive the children. During their time at the center, emphasis is placed on educational activities, recreational activities, psychological support and counselling, and several different life skills trainings. Once the parents or extended family members are traced, the children will be taken home to their family and will join an appropriate educational program.

The effectiveness of these programs in reducing recidivism and establishing post-conflict stability is, however, not always affirmed. Some scholars conclude that these programs are generally inefficient at disarming ex-combatants, reducing the likelihood of recidivism, and addressing their economic and security concerns. This lack of supporting evidence might be due to conceptual and operational problems with defining the outcome of these programs (and how to measure this), and a lack of information on the existing DDR programs (money, personnel, mission statements, etc.). But it might also be due to the content of these programs and how they approach child soldiering. Many of these child-centered DDR programs, for instance, are put in place under enormous time pressure, are often disconnected from the perception of local communities, and are based on a one approach fits all children principle. Consequently, some scholars have called for more flexibility within these programs to enhance is effectiveness. Only then can efforts to promote social reconstruction bear its fruits.

Roos Haer (PhD, University of Konstanz, Germany) is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Konstanz at the chair of International Relations and Conflict Management. Her current research interests include the role of children in conflict, child soldier recruitment by state and non-state actors, Disarmament Demobilisation and Reintegration programs, and survey methodology in less developed (conflict) countries. Her research is often based on quantitative field research conducted in Africa. She has published in (a.o) the European Journal of International Relations, Conflict Management and Peace Science, Third World Quarterly, and has published a book with Routledge publisher.

This article is part of the Remote Control Warfare series, a collaboration with Remote Control, a project of the Network for Social Change hosted by Oxford Research Group.

Following a recent Remote Control Project briefing paper, Mass surveillance: security by ‘remote control’ – consequences and effectiveness, this piece explores the hidden costs of government mass surveillance programmes.

Last week the new UN privacy chief said UK surveillance was “worse than [George Orwell’s novel] 1984”. In the two years since the Snowden leaks revealed the existence of bulk internet and phone surveillance by US intelligence services and their partners, including the UK, the British government continues to engage in the mass collection of citizens’ communications data.

Image Credit: https://pixabay.com/en/camera-cameras-traffic-watching-19223/

Whilst the US Congress barred the National Security Agency (NSA) from collecting US phone data in bulk in June this year after the US court of appeals ruled it to be unlawful, in the UK the mass collection of communications data was found by both the parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee and David Anderson QC, who is responsible for reviewing UK terrorism legislation, to be legal and should be maintained. Furthermore, the Investigatory Powers Bill, dubbed the “Snooper’s Charter”, which was blocked by the Liberal Democrats party three years ago, has re-emerged under the Conservative majority government. Now firmly back on the agenda, it would move to strengthen the security services’ powers for the bulk interception of communications data.

To date, the debate around mass communications surveillance has focused primarily on the infringement of privacy it entails. But, beyond privacy implications, government mass surveillance programmes come at further costs.

Proliferation, public trust and internet security

A major concern with the development of mass surveillance tools is that they can be used by authoritarian regimes to suppress freedom of information and expression and track down political opponents.  There is evidence that this is already happening: Privacy International’s publicly available database on the private surveillance sector has found that surveillance companies are selling powerful and invasive surveillance technologies, with the potential for the mass interception of communications, to a number of authoritarian regimes globally, including Bahrain, Ethiopia, Libya and Pakistan. Much of this technology is at pace with the capabilities of the NSA and its UK equivalent, GCHQ, which is having clearly visible consequences. In Ethiopia, for example, mass surveillance technology was found to be used to regularly arrest and detain citizens, in particular as a tool to silence dissenting voices, targeting the ethnic Oromo population. The widespread use of torture and other ill-treatment against political detainees in Ethiopian detention centre makes the use of these technologies even more troubling.

Another cost of mass surveillance is the weakening of public trust in national governments. An erosion of public trust in government in general (see this report from President Obama’s own Review Group on Intelligence and Communications), coupled with a weakening of trust in governments for citizens online security in particular, was found to have occurred since the Snowden leaks. The steep increase in the use of Tor (an open source network that allows users to obscure their online activity) which went from 500,000 daily users worldwide to more than 4 million following the Snowden leaks, as well as an increase in other internet privacy platforms since the leaks seem to confirm this.

Furthermore, the weakening of internet security is another cost of mass surveillance programmes. These programmes rely on creating and maintaining vulnerabilities in communications networks that undermine the communications infrastructures that we all rely on (see this report from The Council of Europe). The creation of “back doors”, for example, along with other weaknesses in security standards and implementation could easily be exploited by non-state groups.

In May this year, a group of tech companies, including Facebook, Google and Yahoo (as well as civil society groups and academics) signed a letter to President Obama urging him to oppose efforts that would force companies to build in ways for law enforcement to access products and services protected by encryption. The letter warned that introducing intentional vulnerabilities into secure products for the government’s use will make those products “less secure against other attackers”, including street and computer criminals, repressive or dangerous regimes and foreign intelligence agencies.

Is mass surveillance stopping terror attacks?

Beyond the risk of proliferation, the weakening of government trust and the threat to internet security, the UK government’s reliance on mass surveillance could also come at a cost to its citizens’ physical security. The use of data-mining and automated data-analysis techniques used to filter down the vast amounts of data acquired in mass surveillance programmes comes with a high risk of false positives. It has been suggested that data-mining for counter-terrorism in particular comes with a higher risk of false positives than when used in other settings (such as credit card fraud detection) due to the quality of data available and the rarity of terror attacks. This high number of false positives associated with counter-terrorism will, in turn, cause an overload of data, swamping analysts and thus taking resources and attention away from more appropriate counter-terrorism methods.[1]

Recent evidence suggests that mass surveillance may not be an effective tool for foiling terror plots. A number of reports from the US, including a declassified 2009 report from the US government and a report from a review group appointed by President Obama, have shed doubt on the supposed effectiveness of mass surveillance programmes. One in particular, from Washington based think-tank New America Foundation, found traditional investigative methods played a far greater role than mass surveillance in initiating investigations into the majority of terror cases reviewed. In one case (a 2009 plot to attack the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten), the US government was found to have exaggerated the role mass surveillance played in thwarting the plot.

Recent terror attacks have further exposed the limits of surveillance. In the Boston Marathon bombing in 2013, for example, it was revealed that the failure to foil the bomb plot was due to a failure in sharing and coordination of information between departments, rather than the bombers being unknown to intelligence agencies prior to the attack. Similarly, the 2014 Charlie Hebdo and French grocery store attackers in Paris were not only known to French and US authorities but one had a prior terrorism conviction and another was monitored for years by French authorities. In both cases the attackers were known to authorities and had been under surveillance.

Security by ‘remote control’

The use of mass surveillance programmes by government must not be seen in isolation but should be viewed as part of the trend towards maintaining security by ‘remote control’, the global shift towards countering threats at a distance without the need to deploy large military force. As technological advances have increased governments’ digital intelligence gathering capabilities, mass surveillance techniques demonstrate the interdependence between intelligence and surveillance and the growing relationship between intelligence, technology and modern combat.

Like the use of drones, special forces and private military companies, the secretive nature of mass surveillance programmes means they operate in an accountability vacuum, with little transparency or oversight, rendering the public unable not only to hold government to account, but to assess these techniques’ perceived effectiveness. In the UK, recent Anderson, ISC and RUSI reports all stressed the need for greater transparency and oversight with regards to government mass surveillance programmes.

Like other remote control methods, mass surveillance of citizens’ communications data is appealing as it is perceived as cost-free and plays to Western states’ technological strengths. The perceived ease of remote control has, however, blinded policy makers from considering its broader and long term implications. There is a need for greater transparency and accountability with regards to government mass surveillance in the UK, along with a robust regulatory framework for private security companies which are trading surveillance technologies globally. As well as this, far more consideration must be given to the unforeseen and long-term costs of mass surveillance in order to evaluate its utility for long-term sustainable peace and security.

The Remote Control project recently published a briefing paper “Mass surveillance: security by ‘remote control’ – consequences and effectiveness”, read it here.

[1] For more information please see report by the Committee on Technical and Privacy Dimensions of Information for Terrorism Prevention and Other National Goals, National Research Council, “Protecting Individual Privacy in the Struggle Against Terrorists: A framework for program assessment”, William Binney in “NSA Struggles to Make Sense of Flood of Surveillance Data”, Wall Street Journal, December 2015 http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702304202204579252022823658850, and Bruce Schneier, “Why Mass Surveillance Can’t, Won’t, And Never Has Stopped A Terrorist”, digg, March 2015 http://digg.com/2015/why-mass-surveillance-cant-wont-and-never-has-stopped-a-terrorist

Esther Kersley is the Research and Communications Officer for the Remote Control project. Prior to joining ORG, Esther worked in Berlin for the anti-corruption NGO Transparency International as an editorial and online communications officer. She has a particular interest in counter-terrorism and conflict resolution in the Middle East, having previously worked with the Quilliam Foundation and IPCRI (Israel/Palestine Center for Research and Information), a Jerusalem based think tank.

It should come as no surprise that David Cameron and the campaign for the UK to remain in the EU have argued that Britain’s continued membership of the EU will benefit the UK’s security. Britain’s EU membership has always had a security side to it. Membership has never been entirely about trade or jobs. And whatever the result of the referendum, the security relationship with the EU will remain vital for the UK.

Those campaigning for the UK to leave the EU do not dispute that relations with the EU, along with European security in general, are not of central concern for the UK. For them, however, not only does the EU make the UK and Europe less safe (for example by allowing free movement of criminals and terrorists), but putting international relations ahead of domestic politics, especially economic and democratic needs, weakens Europe’s nation states and their ability to combat the full range of problems facing them.

The UK government itself is clear that traditional security threats to the UK do not figure as highly as they once did, although they have certainly not disappeared. As successive national security strategies and strategic security and defence reviews have made clear, security challenges to the UK range from nuclear war to environmental disasters, with many not recognising the borders of nation states. While British governments are often reticent to admit to the EU playing a positive role in security cooperation, or admit that the UK has led in such cooperation, there is no denying that tacking these security challenges has been an important part in UK-EU relations.

From the start, European integration has had a security side to it, whether this be about managing the reintegration into Europe of West Germany and later a united Germany, or integrating former Eastern European Communist or Southern European Fascist states into a liberal European mainstream. The EU itself has not been sufficient to keep the peace. The argument by some Eurosceptics that it has been NATO that has kept the peace in Europe is as selective a reading of history as any pro-European that claims it has all been down to the EU. Nevertheless, for successive British governments, especially at the height of Britain’s retreat from empire in the 1960s, Britain’s declining ability to shape the world and the security challenges it posed meant membership of the European Economic Community and later EU was a necessary step for both British, European and transatlantic security cooperation.

Today, Cameron and others in the Remain campaign trumpet Britain’s ability to use the EU to boost Britain’s still substantial but reduced economic and military capabilities to give it the full range of tools and opportunities to face the full range of security challenges. Whether in facing a newly assertive Russia, dealing with Iran or tacking climate change, the UK’s EU membership has been cited as crucial to allowing the UK to shape its security. This is not to argue that EU cooperation is without its problems. Finding consensus amongst 28 states is never easy, even when you have the institutions and familiarity that EU membership offers.

Image by Djevdet via Flickr.

The referendum poses the question of what options the UK has beyond working through or with the EU. Talk of the UK rebuilding the Commonwealth is often oblivious to how strategically marginal that organisation can appear to most of its members. Britain’s NATO membership will remain important to it and Europe. NATO, however, is not the whole story when it comes to European security and the UK should not bet on the alliance being as solid as it was once. Close bilateral relations with the likes of the USA or France will remain, not least in the military fields. But this should not blind us to how the US and European states will continue to cooperate through a range of EU-US forums and that this could leave Britain outside the EU as something of an awkward in-betweener in the transatlantic relationship.

The US in particular is aware of the wider implications of a Brexit for Europe’s geopolitics. As Condoleezza Rice, former Bush Administration Secretary of State and National Security Advisor, told Chatham House: ‘It is a very different Europe if it is a continental one’. Accusations that the UK is a US ‘Trojan Horse’, sent to weaken EU cooperation from within, display an ignorance of how the USA – a European power since 1945 – has had a hand in European integration and security from the very start and doesn’t wholly depend on the UK for relations with the rest of the EU.

Britain’s departure from the EU could change the Union in any number of ways, with far-reaching geopolitical implications that will shape Europe’s security. That some Leave campaigners such as Michael Gove have spoken of Britain setting an example that could lead other states to follow gives a hint to the wider geopolitical changes to Europe some Eurosceptics hope a Brexit will bring about.

Such disintegration or radical reconfiguration of the EU has not been set out or anlaysed in any document or strategy. As such this half-baked approach risks a dangerous case of strategic overreach by the UK. Any changes to Europe would rely less on Britain’s willingness to offer the ways and means of managing such changes and more on encouraging a collapse of the EU. Losing control of such a development should not be overlooked. An uncontrolled collapse of the Eurozone, for example, would inflict significant costs on the UK, Europe, the USA and the wider world economy. As HM the Queen warned in June 2015 during a state visit to Germany, Europe’s division is in nobody’s interests.

It is possible that a Brexit will cause the opposite reaction, with an EU rid of ‘an awkward partner’ going forward by unifying further. One of Britain’s longest standing international aims has been to prevent any single power dominating Europe. The EU would be a benign power compared to previous attempts, but such an outcome warrants careful consideration by the UK. Whatever the outcome, the EU’s status quo is unsustainable. The question for those concerned with Europe’s security is whether changes – whether triggered by Brexit of not – can happen in a stable, cooperative way or bring about a collapse into nationalism and parochialism.

The best hope for UK and EU security is that whatever the result of the referendum both sides seek ways of cooperating, if only to rebuild trust. The initiative here will rest with the UK whose recent approach to the EU in the eyes of many elsewhere in Europe has been an unwanted distraction from the many other challenges facing the EU. A UK in search of cooperation with its European neighbours will find it can offer little to help with the problems in the Eurozone or Schengen. Instead, whether in or out of the EU, it will find itself playing its only trump card: security and defence cooperation.

Whether in facing a resurgent Russia – and therefore the continued relevance of hard power in European and international relations – or the more nuanced but potentially far more catastrophic global environmental challenges, the UK and EU could find common ways forward that help both sides realise their mutual interdependence. The UK and the rest of the EU must appreciate that instability or division in Europe limits their options to shape security in the wider world.

Last, but not least, we should not overlook that if the first priority of any state is its own survival then alarm bells should be ringing about how the referendum could lead to the end or weakening of the UK itself. The vote could throw into doubt the place in the Union of Scotland and Northern Ireland, both bringing with them a host of traditional security concerns whether they be terrorist related or the future of the UK’s nuclear weapons. Tensions within England should not be overlooked. Immigration and economic changes have made London the UK’s undiscovered country, much to the chagrin of some elsewhere in England and Britain who feel a Europeanised and globalised capital city has left them behind. Arguments over identity, immigration, radicalisation, race, equality and standards of living rumble beneath the surface of the EU referendum. A reminder, if any were needed, of how sustaining the UK’s own stability and security will be no easy challenge after the 23 June.

Dr Tim Oliver is the Dahrendorf Fellow for Europe–North American relations at the London School of Economics and Political Science. He is also a non-resident fellow at the Center for Transatlantic Relations of the Johns Hopkins University Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, Washington DC. He has worked in the House of Lords, the European Parliament, the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP), RAND Corporation, and taught at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, the London School of Economics and University College London. 

The beginning of the Arab Awakening and its mass-based social and political mobilizations has spurred a dynamic debate about whether and how the international community should support and back the revolutions across the Middle East and North Africa region. An especially thorny and controversial issue has been that of armed intervention: are there circumstances under which external parties should become militarily involved on the ground? If yes; with what goal? Debates over the legitimacy of direct external intervention have been widely discussed in the past few years; often with a specific reference to the emerging ‘responsibility to protect’ (R2P) norm.

The concept itself began to be employed in the early 2000s as a term of reference to replace the more ambiguous and controversial ‘humanitarian intervention’ framework. The idea of R2P broadly posits that sovereignty, beyond rights, also encompasses duties; and specifically the obligation for each state to guarantee the safety and protection of its citizens. If the state is unable or unwilling to do so, the international community has a responsibility to assist it, and if these efforts also fail, outside intervention—including but by no means limited to military action—can become justifiable. Since the endorsement of the concept within the international community, first by the United Nations General Assembly and then by the UN Security Council (UNSC), the principle of R2P has been used to both stress individual countries’ obligations towards their own people, as well as to argue in favor of international intervention to uphold the principle.

In this context, the UNSC’s authorization of the use of force in Libya is often cited as a watershed moment in the development of R2P. But did military intervention in Libya assist or hinder in the strengthening of a global ‘responsibility to protect’ norm?

Image of RAF Typhoon pilot climbing into the cockpit before a mission over Libya by Defence Images via Flickr.

To some observers, the Libyan intervention gave R2P the boost it needed. They argue that the principle itself was invoked to support external military intervention. Accordingly, this gave R2P ‘teeth’ whilst showing its growing international legitimacy and acceptance. Yet, a closer reading of the international community’s reliance on R2P in the weeks preceding Operation Unified Protector may lead to lesser enthusiastic evaluation. On the one hand, it is true that both UNSC 1970 (2011) and 1973 (2011) urged the government of Libya ‘to meet its responsibility to protect its population’ thus openly referring to R2P. On the other hand, when it came to justifying the use of force, the UN Security Council grounded its authorization on Chapter VII of the UN Charter, after labeling the violence taking place in Libya a threat to international peace and security.

On balance, while the period leading up to NATO’s Operation Unified Protector did show a growing role and relevance for the R2P norm in the international arena; still it would be an exaggeration to say that military intervention was grounded solely (or even predominantly) on R2P. This is the case even though it is possible to justify Operation Unified Protector according the ‘R2P’ criteria: the intervention came in response to the Qaddafi government’s manifest brutality and unwillingness to halt targeting of its population and it was encouraged not only by prominent internal defections but also backed by significant regional support. The use of force was also directly authorized by the UNSC, though Resolution 1973 (2011). Finally, the official mandate of the operation, which included employing all ‘necessary means’ to protect ‘civilians and civilian populated areas under threat of attack’ was—despite being quite broad in its scope—was similarly in line with the R2P framework.

But whether it would be correct to state that R2P was revitalized in the discussions leading up to the beginning of Operation Unified Protector, it is important to look at both the conduct and the legacy of the intervention to make a more long term assessment of its impact on R2P.

Here the record is decidedly mixed. Operation Unified Protector’s mandate was about civilian protection, while explicitly excluding a military occupation of Libya and reiterating the international community’s commitment to ‘Libya’s ‘sovereignty, independence, territorial integrity and national unity.’ Yet in its actual military operations it is possible to see how the military mandate was gradually stretched beyond the original (or intended) boundaries, leading to the de facto pursuing of regime change in Libya. By the spring of 2011, military sorties against the regime’s military and communication gradually went beyond merely disabling the government’s capacity to harm the civilian population and directly focused on weakening the regime’s military capabilities, in turn key to shifting the balance of power against Qaddafi. This is especially the case as NATO’s military operations, including air-cover provision for opposition forces, went hand-in-hand with coalition members, like France or the UK, active train and equip programs of rebel groups.

While these actions were not blatantly disregarding UNSC Resolution 1973—they indeed be seen as necessary to prevent and halt targeting of the civilian population—still they certainly stretched the mandate to ‘the absolute limit’—as argued by Gareth Evans. While such ‘mission creep might have been inevitable and dictated by the changing realities on the ground, still in NATO’s gradual expansion of its operations went de facto well beyond the UNSC 1973.

In turn, this fueled criticism from countries like Russia or China, states that were already skeptical about the merits of the R2P framework and championing a much stricter interpretation of state sovereignty and the right to non-interference. Put simply, the ‘generous’ interpretation of the mandate in Libya contributed to further curb the international enthusiasm for the emerging R2P norm. It allowed countries like China to become even more skeptical and reluctant to authorize future ‘R2P’ operations, citing the risk that the limited mandate will be then extra-judicially expanded to pursue regime change. Criticism has also come from countries lacking a strong pro-state sovereignty stance. For example, Brazil has argued for the creation of stricter guidelines and monitoring mechanisms to prevent future unauthorized expansion of the norm.

In this context, the Libyan experience has certainly not helped making the case for R2P or strengthening its popularity on the global stage. The general skepticism towards R2P in Libya undermined the level of international consensus for the R2P norm and laid the basis for the reluctance to authorize a similar mission in Syria. At the same time, it is important not to over-emphasize the link between Libya and Syria. Geopolitics explains the lack of R2P intervention and UNSC agreement on Syria better than international law. Here factors like the Syrian regime’s better air-defense system and military apparatus, the strong economic and political interests of countries like Russia in supporting the Assad regime, the more fractionalized nature of the anti-Assad opposition, and the far less prominent direct national interests of NATO member countries in Syria all help understanding the lack of agreement and decisive strategy to deal with the protracted and blood conflict.

Still, Operation Unified Protector did not strengthen the overall stance of R2P on the global arena, while underlining some of the pre-existing dilemma related to humanitarian intervention, including how to prevent its politicization (or whether that is possible at all); how to ensure strict adherence to the mandate and how to remain engaged in the ‘day after’—another key shortcoming of the Libyan intervention.

Dr. Benedetta Berti is a foreign policy and security researcher, analyst, consultant, author and lecturer. Her work focuses on human security and internal conflicts, as well as on post-conflict stabilization (specifically integration of armed groups, democracy/governance and crisis management and prevention) and peacebuilding. Dr. Berti is the author of three books, including Armed Political Organizations. From Conflict to Integration (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2013) and her work and research have appeared, among others, in Al-Jazeera, Foreign Policy, Foreign Affairs, the Wall Street Journal and The New York Times. She is a fellow at INSS, a TED Senior Fellow, a FPRI Senior fellow, a Young Atlanticist Fellow, a Körber Foundation’s Munich Young Leader and a member of the UN Alliance of Civilizations “Global Experts.” In 2015 the Italian government awarded her the Order of the Star of Italy (order of Knighthood).

 (This piece was originally published by Channel 4 News on  January 22, 2013 and is the first of two parts by Anna Alissa Hitzemann and Ben Zala)

Britain is on standby and the US is already transporting French troops into Mali. But a new paper says the west is “betting on the wrong horse” by intervening in the region.

Climate change and human migration are often presented as threats to national and international security. But what is the actual link between these phenomena and conflict?

Author’s Note: This commentary presents key arguments from the articles Christiane J. Fröhlich (2016) Climate migrants as protestors? Dispelling misconceptions about global environmental change in pre-revolutionary Syria, Contemporary Levant, 1:1, 38-50, DOI: 10.1080/20581831.2016.1149355 (available online here), and Michael Brzoska & Christiane Fröhlich (2015): Climate change, migration and violent conflict: vulnerabilities, pathways and adaptation strategies , Migration and Development, DOI: 10.1080/21632324.2015.1022973 (available online here).

Climate Change and Conflict

Photo by Martine Perret/UNMIT via Flickr.

Today, climate change is often perceived predominantly as a security risk. The most common argument behind this train of thought is that many societies’ adaptive capacities will be overstretched by the effects of global warming within the short- to midterm, potentially leading to destabilization and violence, and jeopardizing national and international security in a way that is unprecedented (see WBGU, 2007; UNSC, 2007; UNGA, 2009). One additional concern is that, should the international community fail to adopt an effective and globally coordinated climate policy, climate change may deepen pre-existing lines of conflict on the local, national, inter- and transnational levels. Another worry are conflicts over natural resources, since reduced availability and changes in the distribution of water, food and arable land are considered by some to potentially trigger violent conflicts (Hsiang et al., 2013; Burke et al., 2009). Other hypothesized pathways from climate change to the onset of violent conflict are a deterioration of the governance capacities of formal and informal institutions as well as the increase in horizontal inequality among groups (see Gleditsch, 2012; Scheffran et al., 2012).

Bringing Migration in

Very much the same is true for human mobility: Large migration movements have frequently been presented as a threat to national and international security, particularly when crossing into the United States and Europe (see Huysmans 2000; Ceccirulli & Labanca, 2014; Adamson, 2006; Alexseev, 2006; Waever, Buzan, Kelstrup, & Lemaitre, 1993). The underlying assumption is that in a globalised world, states enjoy growing benefits and opportunities stemming from increasing human mobility, but are also threatened by an unknown and equally growing potential for crime, trafficking, drugs and terrorism within these new migratory flows. Therefore, human mobility is framed as a matter of security, leading to what has become known as the ‘migration-security nexus’.

“Climate Migration”

With global warming well under way, climate change-induced migration has come to the forefront of such risk assessments (see Myers 1998; Myers 2005; Myers and Kent 1995; Brown 2008; Barnett 2003, Smith and Vivekananda 2007; Boano 2008; Hummel et al. 2012; Warner et al. 2013). The underlying assumed causality is that climate change will engender or exacerbate resource scarcities, which in turn might drive migration as well as conflict. In its first assessment report, for instance, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) warned as early as 1990: ‘the gravest effects of climate change may be those on human migration as millions are displaced by shoreline erosion, coastal flooding and severe drought’. This was the basis for predictions of major conflict in receiving regions both within countries suffering from climate change and internationally. In 2008, the European Commission and the EU’s High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy released a report on climate change and international security in which they stressed that as a result of climate change, ‘Europe must expect substantially increased migratory pressure’.

But reality is much less linear and simple, and empirical data is scant. The underlying imaginaire, which assumes linear causality between global environmental change and conflict via environmentally-induced migration, contains several misconceptions. Firstly, migration decisions are complex and not determined by environmental factors alone. Scholarship has identified five main drivers for (internal and international) human mobility, namely economic, political, demographic, social and environmental factors, which are deeply interconnected and mediated through socially, politically and economically determined institutions and structures. Secondly, chain migration and migration networks need to be taken into account as factors that guide migration streams in certain directions and not others. Thirdly, there are few systematic studies researching the assumed causality between climate change and migration (Reuveny 2007, 2008; Raleigh, 2010; Raleigh et al., 2010) or between (climate) migration movements and (violent) conflict. In fact, there is very limited evidence for both propositions. Fourthly, it remains disputed how many people will leave their habitat due to climate change: So-called maximalists assume a simple, direct relationship between migration and climate change and thus project comparatively large numbers of environmental migrants. Estimates reach from some 200 million up to 1 billion refugees globally by 2050 (Jacobson 1988; Myers 1997, 2002; Stern 2006). Minimalists, on the other hand, underscore the complex nature of migration decisions and stress the respective society’s vulnerability and adaptive capacity as a major factor for reducing the expected number of climate migrants (Suhrke 1994; Castles 2002; Morrissey 2009; Gemenne 2011, Morrissey 2012 gives a good overview). Fifthly, migration has been identified as a potentially powerful adaptation mechanism with regard to global warming, a view which is not reflected by the simple causality cited above. In a nutshell, the theoretical foundation and empirical support for propositions of a causal linearity between climate change, human mobility and conflict are thin. This does not mean that climate change will be irrelevant for future patterns of migration, including migration that may be linked to conflict. But the links are complex and defy simple and sensationalist conclusions.

Case Study Syria: A Climate War?

One case in point is Syria. The Syrian Arab Republic, as most of the Middle East and North Africa, has been suffering from long-term environmental changes linked to anthropogenic climate change. In recent years, a particularly long drought period immediately preceding the beginning of the Syrian uprising has negatively impacted what used to be the breadbasket of the Fertile Crescent, with consecutive crop failures in parts of the country, loss of livestock, the demise of whole villages and a distinct increase in internal migration. This has lead an increasing number of commentators to believe that this “century drought” was at least partly responsible for the timing and intensity of social upheaval in Syria (Werrell, Femia, and Sternberg 2015; Kelley et al. 2015, as well as numerous media contributions, for instance in The Independent and The New York Times. From the United States government to the European Union, from American to European think tanks, this powerful supposed ‘pre-story’ of the Syrian revolution is continuously gaining traction and has even been introduced into the overall discussion of the migration flows to Europe by assuming that the timing and magnitude of the current migration flows from the Middle East to Europe was at least partly environmentally motivated.

However, the existing studies of this link, while having received a lot of public attention, do not present authoritative evidence on the issue. On the contrary, they overstress environmental drivers of migration while tuning out other factors that influence migration decisions. For instance, the Syrian state only created around 36,000 new jobs per year between 2001 and 2007, with the agricultural sector losing 69,000 per annum, making (un)employment a very serious issue in the Syrian economy and powerful driver of migration long before the drought began. Modernisation, rapid de-peasantisation and slow replacement of agricultural employment with waged work in industry or services in the formal sector had taken their toll on both rural and urban environments before the drought even began.

Also, macro-economic policies of the Syrian government, which had for decades regulated agricultural crops, worked as economic push factor, too. The state-led system which had been imposed on the agricultural sector in the mid-20^th century was characterised by subsidies for farm inputs and fuels, especially for strategic crops such as wheat, cotton and barley. These state-led structures introduced strong dependencies into the agricultural sector that became liabilities when Bashar al-Assad started to deregulate the Syrian economy into what the 10^th five-year-plan calls “an open competitive economy”. Parallel to his reforms, an economy that had been based on rents from the oil sector started to give way to demographic pressures, a decrease in oil-production, depleting oil reserves and economic stagnation.

Socio-political drivers for migration also played a role in pre-revolutionary Syria. The rule of law was ambivalent, state institutions were characterized by manipulation and poor performance, the business environment was extremely fragile, corruption abounded, and Syrian citizens had little to no avenue to participate in political decision-making processes. Power and wealth were being distributed along highly informal but extremely resilient patronage networks. But the decade-old strategy of repressing those who advocated taghyir (change), while at the same time attempting to bind those advocating islah (reform) in patronage networks, began to crumble.

Finally, the assumed causality between climate change induced migration and social unrest is based on the idea that the migrants were the driving force behind the Syrian uprising. However, orchestrating popular protest requires social networks built on trust and at least some kind of organizational structure (McAdam, McCarthy, and Zald 1996; Tarrow 1998; Diani and McAdam 2003; Chesters and Welsh 2011). There is no evidence that new migrants, who were often living below the poverty line, could initiate large-scale, long-lasting popular uprisings, especially in repressive autocratic regimes like Syria.

Christiane Fröhlich is Mercator-IPC-Fellow at the Istanbul Policy Center of Sabanci University and Research Fellow at the Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy at Hamburg University. Her research focuses on reasons for migration, with a particular focus on environmental drivers. She has done extensive ethnographic field research on the impact of a prolonged and climate change-related drought period in Syria which immediately preceded the Syrian war. Moreover, she inquires into the role of the Global North for current migration movements from the Global South from a Postcolonial Perspective. In the past, she has worked extensively on water conflicts on the international, national and local levels, as well as on the Israeli-Palestinian core conflict and its role for Middle Eastern geopolitics. She holds a PhD from the Center for Conflict Studies at Marburg University, and a Master in Peace Research and Security Policy from Hamburg University. More information is available at www.christianefroehlich.de

Introduction

The acknowledgement of gender issues through the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda marked a watershed moment for women’s rights. Despite this, the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) framework remains gender-blind. I argue that R2P and the WPS agenda share overlapping commitments and mutually beneficial and reinforcing protection mandates. Through three intersecting commitments – prevention and early warning systems, gender protection in peacekeeping, and women’s participation in post-conflict reconstruction – careful alignment between R2P and the WPS agenda could overcome this silence and move towards achieving more sustainable security.

The Responsibility to Protect and Women Peace and Security

Systematic human rights atrocities perpetrated against individuals based on their ethnicity, gender, and race have framed contemporary political discourses. With the international community’s inability to collectively respond to prevent mass atrocities and other severe humanitarian emergencies, former United Nations (UN) Secretary-General Kofi Annan spearheaded the challenge to create a norm permitting states to intervene in another sovereign state in the event of ‘gross and systematic violations of human rights that affect every precept of our common humanity’. Spurred on by  failures of the international community to prevent genocides in Rwanda (1994) and Srebrenica (1995), the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS) was established in September 2000 to address how and when the international community should act to prevent genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. The report entitled “The Responsibility to Protect” (R2P) was released in December 2001. The unanimous adoption of R2P at the World Summit in 2005 established its prominence as a normative framework within the international community. The use of R2P as rhetorical backdrop to the Libyan intervention in 2011 via UNSC Resolutions 1970 and 1973 and the inaction in responding to the crisis in Syria demonstrates the prevalence of R2P in international discourse. Furthermore, R2P is interwoven with existing international principles, obligations, and peacebuilding initiatives. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon asserts that R2P rests upon three interrelated, central pillars – responsibilities of the state to protect its population from mass atrocities; international capacity building to ensure states meet their protection responsibilities and prevent mass atrocities; and collective and timely responses through diplomatic, humanitarian and political means with coercive military action as a last resort.

Female United Nations police officers of the United Nations Mission in Timor-Leste (UNMIT). Image by UN photo via Flickr.

The Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda gained traction on the international peace and security platform following the adoption of UN Security Council Resolution 1325 in October 2000. The WPS agenda is the most comprehensive articulation of women’s rights and gender issues in international peace and security. It establishes a nexus between conflict prevention and women’s rights, highlighting the relationship between gender inequality and conflict. Resulting from the Fourth World Conference on Women in 1995 in Beijing, and the pivotal Beijing Platform for Action which named ‘Women and Armed Conflict’ as one of twelve areas of critical concern, the NGO Working Group on Women, Peace and Security was formed to advocate a UNSC Resolution focused on women’s unique contribution and experiences of conflict. Through lobbying and advocacy, the NGO Working Group played a vital role in drafting the resolution and through UN Resolution 1325 successfully complicated the popular narratives that stereotyped women as either victims or inclusive peacebuilders. UN Resolution 1325 directs policymakers to consider all of women’s experiences in conflict and links women’s rights to international peace and security. The adoption of an additional seven resolutions builds upon 1325 and make up the WPS agenda. It rests upon a four-pillar mandate; prevention of violence and derogation of rights; protection from violence; participation in peacebuilding and post-conflict reconstruction; and relief and recovery. Laura Shepherd and Jacqui True broaden ‘relief and recovery’, to include identifying the structural social, political and economic conditions required for sustainable and lasting peace. Specifically the WPS agenda addresses sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) in conflict, measures to ensure women’s participation in decision-making processes and post-conflict programs, gender mainstreaming in UN activities and peacekeeping operations, and gender-sensitive prevention frameworks. The WPS agenda provides basis for international engagement with gender issues. With R2P, the WPS shares a commitment to improve human security and revealing and preventing women’s human rights abuses through international engagement. Disappointingly, despite both frameworks emerging sharing similar underpinnings, R2P and its community continue to fail to address gender issues encompassed within the WPS agenda.

R2P did not embrace the central messages of Resolution 1325 nor were points of synergies explored where there was a lack of dialogue and acknowledgement towards gender issues. From the outset, gender was excluded from the original formulation of R2P with only one of the 12 commissioners being a woman and only seven of 2000 sources consulted including gender. Women within the original R2P document were framed in terms of vulnerable populations in need of protection. ‘Women’ were mentioned three times only in reference to ‘rape and sexual violence’, which was mentioned seven times, where SGBV falls under crimes against humanity, war crimes and ethnic cleansing. No reference was made of women being active participants and agents in conflict prevention, protection and post-conflict reconstruction. This is despite the transformative possibilities of including aspects of the WPS agenda. R2P disregards WPS as a paradigm for conflict prevention and its centrality to peace and security. Here, as discussed below, three common intersecting commitments could overcome this disconnect.

Intersecting Commitments

• Prevention and early warning systems

The inclusion of gender issues into existing early-warning frameworks and systems may illuminate potential and/or existing R2P situations. Studying macro- and micro-level changes to women’s lives reveals the escalation of violence and derogation of individual rights in hyper-masculinised and militarised societies. Gender-sensitive indicators include average levels of female education, impunity towards SGBV, increased kidnappings, sex work, female heads of households and domestic violence. Moreover, gender-sensitive indicators are not synonymous with women-sensitive indicators, but can monitor aggression and militarisation within a society, such as the persecution of men that do not take up arms. UN Women implemented several context-specific programs that have resulted in a comprehensive how-to guide of 85 gender-sensitive indicators that provide a holistic early warning system. Furthermore, through empirical analysis Sara Davies and Jacqui True found strong connections between systemic gender inequality and discrimination and the use of SGBV in conflict and non-conflict settings.

Despite the benefits of including gender-sensitive indicators, gaps in women’s participation in early-warning initiatives have not been overcome. The UN Office of the Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide and the Responsibility to Protect have not addressed the role of gender inequality or gendered violence in early warning systems. A recent framework of analysis on the prevention of R2P crimes continues to situate women in the narrative of ‘vulnerable population’ with children and the elderly, and in regards to sexual violence and reproductive rights. This is despite, as Davies and True argue, systemic and structural gender inequality is a potential early warning factor for preventing mass SGBV.

Since gender inequality increases the likelihood of R2P crimes any strategy of prevention must address gender norms that oppress and marginalise women. Gender-sensitive indicators highlight structural political, economic and social inequalities that maintain gender inequality in a given society that impacts post-conflict reconstruction and conflict protection.

• Gender-sensitive Protection in Peacekeeping Operations

The protection pillar of WPS stresses the full involvement and participation of women in the maintenance and promotion of international peace and security. This includes gender mainstreaming in all peacekeeping missions and the addition of gender units and advisers. Providing an official female presence in conflict areas, refugee and Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) camps is essential to improve access and support for local women to communicate in an official capacity. Women can approach each other more easily in female-only settings where women may be prohibited to talk to male strangers. Moreover, SGBV is more likely to be reported between women. However, as of February 2016, only 3.34 per cent of military and 9 per cent of police were female. Although there is at least one female in every peacekeeping force, the number varies from 1 woman out of 17 deployed in the UN mission in Afghanistan to 799 women out of 17,453 deployed in the UN-African Union Mission in Darfur. Of 105,315 deployed peacekeepers, women only comprise 4.05 per cent. Although numbers have improved since the adoption of UN Resolution 1325, increases have been marginal and reflect the low number of women included in UN peace building efforts.

Furthermore, implementation of gender-sensitive protection needs to move beyond the ‘add women and stir’ policy. Rather, WPS knowledge needs to be utilised in peacekeeping operations and wider UN peacebuilding efforts. For instance, the assumption that men are heads of households and therefore assistance being distributed to mainly men does not reflect post-conflict realities. Women are often widowed during and after conflict and adopt non-traditional roles such as heads of households. Since post-conflict programs and assistance does not recognise this, women are forced to take drastic measures to support their family and may take part in exploitive aspects of peacekeeping economies, like the sex industry. The misconception could be countered through gender units, gender-awareness training on more than an ad hoc basis and extensive comprehension of WPS.

• Women’s participation in post-conflict reconstruction.

The post-conflict phase is complex with many overlaps where the WPS agenda would assist states and the international community in post-conflict responsibilities. However, here I will focus on women’s participation in peace processes. Women’s involvement in peace processes is mentioned in every resolution of the WPS agenda. Evidence suggests that the inclusion of women at the peace table as witnesses, signatories, negotiators and mediators makes it 35 per cent more likely a peace agreement will last. Nevertheless, women’s quality participation in official capacities remains insufficient. Women and gender provisions have slowly started to be incorporated into peace agreements with a textual increase since the passing of Resolution 1325.

However, by essentialising women as mothers, caregivers and victims, women are excluded from peace negotiations where, ironically, the cessation of hostilities is reliant on those who took up arms. I am not arguing that women are better peacemakers, but that their participation is vital to ensure that their experiences of conflict are acknowledged. Around the world, women lobby for participation to ensure their needs and security concerns are addressed. In Somalia, the Sixth Clan was formed in response to the five traditional Somali clans failure to include women in negotiating teams. Asha Hagi Elmi became the representative of the Sixth Clan in 2000 and in peace talks in 2002, becoming the first female signatory to a peace agreement in 2004. Peace processes must include women as more than lip service to inclusivity.

Conflict transition provides a chance to create a more equal society by transforming the gendered relationships and identities that contributed to the production of violence. Women’s participation is essential to represent half the population during peace negotiations, to ensure explicit inclusion of women’s rights and gender provisions, and could have major implications for women’s social, political and economic status, and involvement in wider post-conflict initiatives. It is imperative that women are involved during that critical post-conflict transition to be enabled to affect positive changes.

Conclusion

Despite these areas of common engagement, R2P remains silent towards analysis and discourse surrounding the WPS platform. Both frameworks emerged at similar times and share central tenets of prevention, participation and protection, however women’s involvement in R2P has been grossly deficient. I have briefly demonstrated here, and examine in depth elsewhere, three areas of common engagement between R2P and the WPS agenda. I identify three common intersecting commitments – prevention and early warning frameworks, protection and gender-sensitive peacekeeping, and women’s participation in peace processes. Implementing gender-sensitive policies, legislations and programs will highlight the different lived experiences of men and women and the insecurities that arise during conflict and post-conflict reconstruction. R2P has much to gain from the WPS agenda and vice versa, where alliance with R2P and its community could aid the WPS agenda in addressing major gaps in its implementation. Alignment, both practical and normative, could provide an inclusive and holistic protection platform and encourage sustainable peace.

Sarah Hewitt is a PhD candidate at Monash University, Australia with the Monash Gender, Peace and Security Centre. Her article,  ‘Overcoming the Gender gap: The Possibilities of Alignment between the Responsibility to Protect and the Women, Peace and Security Agenda’, was recently published in the Global Responsibility to Protect Journal. Sarah has also posted on Protection Gateway.