Author’s Note: All views in this piece are the author’s own and do not reflect her employer’s views or anyone else’s.

In 1996, the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) opened for signature. The CTBT is a multilateral treaty that bans all nuclear explosions on Earth. Its predecessor, the 1963 Partial Test Ban Treaty (PTBT), banned nuclear explosions except for underground testing. Between 1945 and 1996, over 2000 tests were conducted by the five NPT nuclear-weapon states. Since 1996, India, Pakistan and the DPRK have conducted around half a dozen tests. A ban on testing limits further development of nuclear explosive devices. Twenty years since the CTBT opened for signature, the Treaty has not yet entered into force given the pending necessary ratifications by eight Annex 2 states (China, the DPRK, Egypt, India, Iran, Israel, Pakistan and the United States).  Annex 2 states are the 44 states that participated in the negotiations of the CTBT and possessed nuclear power or research reactors at the time.

Marking the 20^th year of the CTBT, I attended the 2016 CTBTO Symposium, including several panel events on the treaty in Vienna, and organized a public panel event at the Vienna Center for Disarmament and Non-Proliferation (VCDNP). Last week, I attended a high-level CTBTO public discussion panel featuring the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, among other dignitaries. The following are a few reflections and musings on issues surrounding the CTBT at 20 to stimulate discussion. These include issues and questions which continue to irk me—an analyst—and which remain unanswered.

Trite but true: political will vs policy priorities

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon at the CTBTO Symposium. Image by the Official CTBTO Photostream via Flickr. 

Twenty years on, the bottom line ultimately remains languishing political will. Let’s be honest—the CTBT is not a priority for most states who have yet to sign or ratify this treaty. If this issue had been a policy priority for states, there would have been positive progress towards ratification by now, despite domestic hurdles. Some Annex 2 states may be increasingly perceived to be holding CTBT entry-into-force hostage to other regional issues and priorities.

Political will is again tested when those few windows of opportunity for exerting political leverage on other states vis-à-vis non-proliferation and disarmament are dismissed for more pressing policy objectives. In bilateral nuclear cooperation deals with India, NPT states who advocate routinely for the entry into force of the CTBT—including the US and Australia—could have used the negotiation of a bilateral commercial cooperation deal to include some requirement for India to progress on its CTBT status. More significantly, if the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) has to take a decision in the future on admitting India into the NSG as a participating government, then the pre-condition of adhering to nuclear non-proliferation conditions such as ratifying the CTBT could be pushed. Yet these small windows of opportunity for bilateral or multilateral leverage on non-proliferation priorities are squandered.

In a similar vein, one could wonder whether requiring Iran to ratify the CTBT was sacrificed early on in the negotiation process of the multilateral deal seeking to curtail Iran’s nuclear activities. Of course, more pressing objectives vis-à-vis Iran’s nuclear program were at stake. The CTBT and missile development issues were expendable.

If CTBT entry-into-force is indeed a priority for states of the international community, as oft heard in high-level declarations of support and urgency for this issue, political will and determination for the CTBT should align with policy priorities. It currently doesn’t and, as evidenced by bilateral nuclear cooperation agreements, securing trade policy objectives seem instead to be prioritized.

With the DPRK’s continued defiance of the nuclear testing moratorium, more than high-level statements of condemnation and expressions of regret need to take place following suspected nuclear tests and missile-related activities. China seems to be finally exerting some pressure on the DPRK in the UNSC and via bilateral channels after all these years of acquiescence. Concerted and united action by the international community and the UN Security Council needs to be taken against the DPRK. Such action should include curtailing bilateral trade relations with the DPRK. Again, this will require policy priorities—trade versus non-proliferation—to be assessed by governments.

CTBT: is it a disarmament, non-proliferation, or an arms control treaty?

Throughout the various sessions of the CTBTO Symposium, there were comments and unanswered questions posed by speakers on their views of how to categorize the CTBT. For example, is it a disarmament, non-proliferation or arms control treaty? Or possibly a hybrid of these? There was no clear consensus of views on this issue which was recurrently woven throughout sessions and presentations. An academic assessment of this issue would be useful and may have implications on practicalities.

During a session on the CTBT and nuclear security, I posed a politically sensitive question which remains unanswered. What are the prospects of the CTBT contributing to issues of the broader nuclear security agenda given the existing apprehension and political sensitivities by IAEA member states to link any aspects of nuclear disarmament in addressing nuclear security issues post the Nuclear Security Summit (NSS) process? The “d” word inside certain corridors of the Vienna International Center (VIC) seems to raise apprehension and discontent, with arguments voiced by member states of certain international organizations that nuclear disarmament is not covered by the mandates. Disarmament seems to traditionally not be a Vienna issue, and belongs to the enclave dialogue in the NPT and First Committee bubbles in Geneva and New York. Until, that is, 2017, when the NPT PrepCom is due to roll into town for the kick-off of the 2020 NPT review cycle. How states parties view the CTBT—as a disarmament, non-proliferation or arms control treaty—may have implications for this question on whether the CTBT can contribute towards the broader nuclear security priorities.

Is testing necessary?

During the CTBTO Symposium there was a very interesting panel discussion between scientists elaborating the technical rationale for why states conduct nuclear tests. One passing comment on the Vela Incident—a 1979 event which is believed to be a nuclear test conducted by Israel and South Africa over the ocean between the southern part of Africa and the Antarctic–prompted  me to think the unthinkable quietly to myself. Given the existing moratorium on testing (not including subcritical)—which only the DPRK defies–and based on the technical assessment that testing is not necessary for certain devices, would the potential sharing of nuclear test data amongst allies be a preferable solution to testing?

Although this would strictly not contravene the testing moratorium and the text of the CTBT, assisting proliferation and nuclear weapons advancement to NPT non-nuclear weapon states and non-NPT states would still contravene the NPT and the spirit of the CTBT. Although states could potentially avoid international condemnation by transgressing the established testing moratorium e.g. by relying on allies for the required testing data and expertise in relation to simple devices, this would still be contradictory to the spirit of the established non-proliferation treaties which underpin the broader nuclear non-proliferation regime. Moreover, some Annex 2 states seem to be debating domestically whether computer simulations, subcritical tests and activities not specifically prohibited by the CTBT are sufficient for the maintenance of their safe, secure and reliable nuclear arsenals. A comment by a Chinese Ambassador at this week’s recent CTBTO discussion panel, alludes to this debate as the National People’s Congress deliberate the Treaty.

Definitional issue: does nuclear testing constitute nuclear use?

There is a definitional issue which remains to be addressed adequately: does nuclear testing constitute nuclear use? Individuals affected by nuclear testing definitely consider the testing of nuclear explosives and devices as nuclear use. In his intervention at this week’s CTBTO discussion panel, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon argued that bringing the CTBT into force would honour the victims of nuclear testing. The Secretary-General noted that nuclear testing poisons water, causes cancers and pollutes the environment with radioactive fallout for generations.

Whilst most states, academics and analysts would consider the explosion of nuclear devices at Hiroshima and Nagasaki the two instances of nuclear use, many —including victims of nuclear testing— would argue that nuclear testing actually constitutes nuclear use. This is based on the detrimental effects and impact that nuclear testing has had on individuals, communities and the environment where these tests were conducted. In Australia, “nuclear nomads” from aboriginal communities have been forced to leave their spiritual lands. In the South Pacific, including the Marshall Islands, many communities are still living with the long-term reproductive health implications from the nuclear testing that was conducted on their territory.

During this year, marking the 20^th anniversary of the CTBT, it may therefore be fitting to have an honest conversation about whether the international community ought to start considering and reframing our understanding and discourse of what actually constitutes nuclear use. This wouldn’t be politically popular, given the many states who have conducted nuclear tests. Given the highly contentious discord and fractures in the multilateral nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament fora—the NPT review process,the UNGA First Committee and the Open Ended Working Group taking forward multilateral nuclear disarmament negotiations (OEWG)—in multilateral discussions of pathways towards nuclear disarmament and the humanitarian consequences of nuclear weapons, discussions of reframing the discourse on nuclear testing as nuclear use may add further contention. It could, however, also serve to discursively elevate the issue of nuclear testing, and strengthen the case for entry-into-force of the CTBT. Additionally, it would raise the political costs of future nuclear tests. It does however remain an issue—along with several others raised in this short piece—which ought to be assessed and adequately discussed, even if only in wonky academic circles.

Jenny Nielsen is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Vienna Center for Disarmament and Non-Proliferation (VCDNP). Previously she was a Visiting Scholar at the NATO Defence College (NDC), Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Queensland (UQ), Research Analyst at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), and Programme Manager for the Defence & Security Programme at Wilton Park.

This article was originally published on openSecurity’s monthly Sustainable Security column on 29 May, 2014. Every month, a rotating network of experts from Oxford Research Group’s Sustainable Security programme explores pertinent issues of global and regional insecurity.

First Lady Michelle Obama holding a sign with the hashtag “#bringbackourgirls” in support of the 2014 Chibok kidnapping. Posted to the FLOTUS Twitter account on May 7, 2014. Source: Wikipedia

The abduction of over 200 school girls from Chibok has radically changed not only the popular profile of the Boko Haram insurgency but also the narrative of the war in northeast Nigeria. This was probably not intended by the insurgents or the ham-fisted Nigerian government, neither of which seemed to recognise this apparent gear-shift in the insurgency. After this fumble, it was civil society, through the #BringBackOurGirls social media campaign that picked up and ran with the call for action. Now that the US and its allies have channelled this urge to “do something now” into security assistance, caution is due in monitoring how and why the energy from this new burst of liberal interventionism will be channelled.

Responding to Chibok

Boko Haram has a long and undiscriminating record of terrorist violence. My analysis of data compiled by Nigeria Watch suggests that about 9,000 Nigerians (including combatants) have died in related violence since 2009, most of them since the federal government declared a localised state of emergency a year ago. That rate has been rising fast; 1,043 were recorded killed in March 2014 alone. Nevertheless, the 14 April Chibok mass abduction and Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau’s subsequent threat to forcibly marry pre-teen girls to his supporters or sell them into slavery were extraordinary, crossing multiple red lines around protection of civilians, girls’ right to education and sexual violence.

The #BringBackOurGirls campaign has tapped into a social movement last and best exploited through the Stop Kony 2012 viral video campaign. That campaign influenced the African Union to establish its Regional Cooperation Initiative for the Elimination of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) in April 2012 and was a major driver of post-facto public support for the Obama administration’s October 2011 commitment of US special forces to Uganda and central Africa to hunt LRA leader Joseph Kony. Those troops remain in four countries and haverecently been reinforced. Kony has not been caught but the LRA menace to children, women and other civilians has been contained and reduced.

The state-level response to Chibok has been belated but even stronger. Since 7 May, the US, UK, France, China and Israel have all sent teams to Nigeria to help search for and rescue the abducted girls, and France has hosted a summit of Nigeria, its four neighbours and the US, UK and EU. In fact, all these states already played a role in training, equipping or supporting Nigerian forces against Boko Haram. However, they were reluctant about going public with a counter-insurgency campaign previously linked to the increasingly unpopular and divisive ‘war on terror’, the toxic human rights reputation of the Nigerian security forces, and an entirely reasonable confusion over the political nature and linkages of the ostensibly Islamist rebellion.

Response and replication

Whether this foreign assistance is useful in the search for the missing girls is both highly questionable and a moot point. The US certainly has formidable aerial, satellite and signals reconnaissance technology to employ but it is struggling to coordinate with Nigeria, and unwilling to share raw data with the Nigerian security agencies. Other countries’ contributions probably only replicate Nigerian and US capabilities, and risk over-complicating the search.

French President Francois Hollande greets Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan. Source: France Diplomatie (Flickr)

The French summit on 17 May was a classic case of replicating initiatives in order to bolster perceptions of French concern, consultation and action. Nigeria, which desperately wants to revel in its new status as Africa’s economic superpower, was humiliated that Paris – Abuja’s great rival for influence in West Africa – assumed its regional leadership role. The summit outcome commitments to bolster security cooperation in the Lake Chad basin replicated those that Nigeria and its neighbours had already made. Those sanctioning Boko Haram replicated UN-led measures.

The Elysée Summit was more useful in redirecting attention to the gendered aspects of Boko Haram’s campaign of violence, issues of particular importance to the EU and the UK, whose Global Summit to End Sexual Violence in Conflictconvenes on 10 June. Both sides of the conflict have made tactical use of abducting and (separately) raping women and children linked to the other side as a means of exerting pressure or retaliation. Nigerian security forces and their civilian allies increasingly harass local women suspected of working for the militants. Boko Haram is accused of abducting girls and women to marry to its young, poor male combatants. Shekau has put his view on video record that girls above puberty should not be educated. This may be the most convincing explanation for the Chibok kidnapping: women as an economic and sexual resource.

Intervention narratives

The goal of securing the safe release of the abducted girls – and the security of their peers – must be paramount at this time. But, if the foreign assistance being pledged and provided makes little impact on this task, we must ask whether there are other goals motivating western governments to cooperate with Nigerian forces. Clearly, the political urge to assuage activists by responding with action is one of these, although we should not doubt that the Obama or Cameron families share the revulsion of other families around the world united behind #BringBackOurGirls.

The social media shaming of the Nigerian and foreign governments’ inactivity and inability to resolve the crisis has propelled foreign military forces across the rubicon. US, and perhaps British, French, Canadian, Israeli and other states’, special forces and reconnaissance aircraft and drones may stay on in Nigeria well beyond the current abduction crisis; this should not be surprising.

French forces are currently consolidating their redeployment from coastal Africa to a string of remote bases in Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger and Chad. Their main base in N’djamena is just 40 km from Boko Haram’s stronghold in northeast Nigeria. US special and private military forces operate covertly in most countries of the Sahel-Sahara belt. Until this month, Nigeria appeared to be the exception.

The quiet reinforcement of these several thousand French and US troops across the western Sahel since 2012 – linking up to similar strings of mostly US bases in the eastern Sahel and Horn –is justified through the on-going international campaign against al-Qaida. US African Command openly uses the Operation Enduring Freedom tag for its operations in the Horn and Trans-Sahara. In Mali, Niger and Mauritania, French forces have joined battle against the al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), an Algerian-origin group with regional aspirations. Yet Boko Haram is rather different. While it professes a common Salafism, it is not an al-Qaida affiliate and appears uninterested in controlling territory or attacking state assets outside of Nigeria.

This matters in the Nigerian context for two reasons. The first is in the way that the humanitarian impulse of #BringBackOurGirls – which diplomats can recognise as Protection of Civilians, Responsibility to Protect, or Ending Sexual Violence – shades into the realities of the war on terror. I would count four or five distinct narratives used to justify foreign military interventions in the last 15-20 years:

1. Liberal interventionism – following the ostensibly humanitarian urge to protect civilians and uphold human rights, notably in Kosovo and Sierra Leone.
2. The War on Drugs – an old idea reinvigorated with Plan Colombia in 1999.
3. The War on Terror – the idea that homeland security begins abroad, notably in Afghanistan, but lately in Yemen, Somalia, Pakistan, Mali and elsewhere.
4. Proliferation of WMDs – actively in Iraq, and as a threat to Iran, Syria and others.
5. Protection of civilians – controversial used to pursue regime change in Libya, less so in pursuit of Kony thereafter.

George W. Bush and Tony Blair at the White House, July 2003. Blair’s enthusiasm for foreign military intervention changed in tone after the 9/11 attacks on the US. Source: White House (via Wikipedia)

Clearly, there are overlaps; the Bush administration’s Axis of Evil concept linked state sponsors of terrorism and WMD. ‘Narco-terrorism’ links the wars on drugs and terrorism. Whatever their muddy political and religious ideologies, Kony and Shekau do lead terrorist movements. With the failed war on terror increasingly unpopular among a cynical and war-weary populace, the post-2011 shift back to humanitarian criteria completes the circle back to liberal interventionism.

While applauding the global public’s shift from retribution to humanitarianism, we should be wary of politicians’ and generals’ intent in getting involved in northern Nigeria. The signs are that future ‘humanitarian’ interventions will be fought with the tactics of the war on terror, minus its rhetoric. Perhaps we should call these ‘Protection from Terror’ operations?

Self-fulfilling prophecy

If this shift in narrative represents the new Anglo-American take on intervention, the second reason for concern about the international fallout from Chibok is the Nigerian and French imperative to rebrand Boko Haram as part of al-Qaida. Nigeria’s successful addition of Boko Haram to the UN Security Council’s Al-Qaida Sanctions Committee list on 22 May was a step in this direction. For Abuja, this may help to isolate Boko Haram and justify the disastrous escalation of the war since France pushed AQIM and its allies out of Mali in early 2013. For France, it creates a common bond and removes a potentially powerful voice of dissent in the AU and regional organisations about its own military presence in the Sahel.

Yet al-Qaida, for all its strategic interest in Nigeria’s 90 million Muslims, has shown little interest in Boko Haram and its use of indiscriminate violence against mostly Muslim civilians. Boko Haram has, in rhetoric and action, showed limited interest in a wider struggle beyond Islamicising Nigeria. It almost certainly has links to AQIM and splinter groups in Mali and Niger but these are not obviously strong. Al-Qaida and Boko Haram are not natural bedfellows, but post-Chibok dynamics, including US and Israeli military in northern Nigeria, are pushing them together, potentially consolidating a regional insurgency that is as much anti-western as anti-Nigerian.

Richard Reeve is the Director of Oxford Research Group’s Sustainable Security programme. He has researched African peace and security issues since 2000, including work with ECOWAS and the AU. His most recent security briefing ‘The Internationalisation of Nigeria’s Boko Haram Campaign’ is available here. 

This article by Chiara Oriti Niosi and Maud Farrugia originally appeared on openDemocracy on 19 December 2014.

A spate of violence against women in the eastern DRC shows that there is still a long way to go on effective implementation of the UN Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security, 14 years after its adoption.

There are very few roads accessible by car in the South Kivu province of the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). One of these is around Bukavu, the provincial capital. The road is used daily by locals, government officials, non-governmental organisations and United Nations agencies, including the United Nations Stabilization Mission for the DRC (MONUSCO), the world’s largest peacekeeping mission.

In this area, over a few months in 2013, at least 40 women were reportedly attacked, sexually assaulted and robbed of all their goods while taking shortcuts on their way to markets. As often happens, such incidents went unreported for a long time, mainly because survivors feared being stigmatised as victims, and had little faith that their assailants would be prosecuted.

What was happening? Too poor to afford basic transportation, heavily burdened Congolese women walk long distances to reach markets to sell their products. Congolese Armed Forces had obstructed the road to Bukavu with illegal barriers, forcing women who lacked the money to pay the tolls to choose the forest by-ways, risking attack.

MONUSCO patrol, South Kivu. Source: Flickr | MONUSCO

But even if unreported, the risk of incidents should have been detected. The presence of illegal barriers was well known, but despite some on-going efforts to stop them, almost no peacekeepers from the government, non-governmental organisations or MONUSCO noticed the absence of women transporting goods along the road. This should have been striking considering how common it is to see women carrying large loads on their shoulders everywhere in this area of the DRC.The presence of illegal barriers was well known, but despite some on-going efforts to stop them, almost no peacekeepers from the government, non-governmental organisations or MONUSCO noticed the absence of women transporting goods along the road.

This indicates not only a terrible gap in recognising and preventing sexual violence, but also a lack of attention to women’s roles in society, and to women’s potential contributions to security, early warning and early response, and peacemaking. In other words, a lack of concern for what is stated in UN Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security, which acknowledges the vital role women can and should play in conflict management, conflict resolution and sustainable peace.

Losing direction: the gaps in adopting a gender perspective

In spite of growing efforts to raise awareness and knowledge of Resolution 1325 among international actors and national institutions, many peacebuilders are not yet used to applying a gender perspective. On one hand, the importance of gender is underestimated, and its potential to influence peace and conflict is not recognized. This is partly because gender is so rooted in each society’s behaviour that it is often confused with culture, or not even perceived at all–neither in the local peacekeeping environment, nor in the environment of origin of peaceworkers. Peaceworkers take great trouble not to ‘interfere’ with the culture of local people.

The difficulties associated with discussing gender norms, while remaining sensitive to the cultural autonomy of the local population, end up being used to justify not working with gender at all. On the other hand, those difficulties have also created the perception that working with gender is the exclusive responsibility of specialized experts, with a specific budget. While this can be true for the implementation of gender programs, it is not true for adopting a gender perspective. The transversal nature of gender necessitates acting with a gender perspective.

What dominates is a misinterpretation of ‘gender’, which for most practitioners is largely linked to reducing sexual violence. A shallow interpretation of gender inhibits this aspect of peacework. Although most strategies of civilian protection take into account threats, vulnerabilities, profiles of aggressors and attacks, and even indicators of conflict-related sexual violence, few consider the social roles assigned through gender alongside these other key elements. For example, if collecting water is a role traditionally taken on by women, and (male) armed actors have a record of sexual violence against women, it is crucial that local water points are secured away from them.

But understandings of gender are not only about reducing sexual violence; they are crucial to every aspect of peace and conflict life. The transversal nature of gender, just like peace and conflict, means that gender influences women’s and men’s roles and behaviours in practical ways, from the level of the family to the institution. The daily activities conducted by men and women are frequently determined by gender, and can sway and be swayed by conflict and peace contexts.

For instance, women’s and men’s daily activities will expose them to different knowledge. Where women are tasked with collecting water and wood, cultivating fields, childcare or visiting markets, while men maintain a breadwinner role, they will have access to different kinds of information which can be essential to recognize conflict patterns; information about a particular community’s needs, specific security threats, and local power brokers. Humanitarian situations can also challenge gender norms. It has been widely reported amongst Syrian refugees that, because men have been uncomfortable asking for assistance, women have added to their traditional responsibilities by looking for humanitarian aid outside of the home. Acquiring this breadwinner status has left some women on the receiving end of frustrations of their male partners, expressed through violence.The transversal nature of gender, just like peace and conflict, means that gender influences women’s and men’s roles and behaviours in practical ways, from the level of the family to the institution.

In other cases, working with women directly can be crucial to achieving a sustainable peace. In reintegration programs especially, working with ex-combatants’ wives can be very helpful. Social connections with the host community, which are crucial for a sustainable reintegration, are often created by women via childcare, visits to the market and so on. In all these senses, a gender perspective can provide opportunities to drive positive changes towards peace and gender equality.

Yet gender often is not included in peacekeepers’ observations. Why? One explanation is that in conflict situations, “hard issues”, such as armed attacks or massive destruction, are much more visible, easier to monitor and with immediate measurable impact, and so are more easily included in protection strategies. In contrast, gender issues come across as “soft issues”, and are often confined to the domain of “women’s issues”. Gender issues are not seen as priorities that must be considered for stepping towards peace; rather, they are considered ‘consequences’ of the conflict to which provide assistance.

Commonly, gender is very much associated with women, rather than the gendered roles of women and men; women in conflict situations are mostly seen as vulnerable objects of peacekeeping initiatives. This understanding of gender relegates women to passive victimhood–rather than to persons that are not vulnerable per se, but are in a condition of vulnerability. This misinterpretation is very costly: not only reducing peace operations’ capacity to prevent violence, but also the participation of key active elements able to promote a sustainable peace.

The implementation of Resolution 1325 suffers from this bias: it is often treated as an appendix to weightier matters, rather than being integral to conflict resolution or sustainable peace. The titular focus of Resolution 1325 on Women (rather than Gender), Peace and Security may itself be problematic. It risks being misinterpreted as advocating that the security of women be dealt with differently (and separately) from that of men; stressing the need to promote protection and participation of women, rather than highlighting the interdependence of women’s and men’s security for lasting peace. The existence of specific security threats towards a targeted group, for example the frequency with which sexual violence is directed against women and girls, or the forced recruitment into armed groups of children, does not mean that consequences will affect only that part of the population. Nor does it follow that the strategies of prevention should focus only on the ‘at risk’ group.

Rather, the consequences of violations affect the population as a whole, at all levels of society. Attacks against women on routes to market have not only consequences for the victim personally, but on family relationships, where the victim suffers discrimination, and the husbands frustration. The socio-economic stability of the community itself is put at risk when the markets are closed due to declining participation. Consequently, such attacks have consequences also at a regional and national level. Indeed, security does not mean only protection against threats, but the creation of a protected environment at all levels: domestic, community, institutional, and international. Each man and each woman has a role to play in all those levels of security.

Gender equality has further implications for security. If men and women do not have the same access to opportunities and rights, the security and peace of the society at large is compromised. An imbalance of rights and participation at the family level can have repercussions nationwide. What is essential is the interaction and participation of women and men together to build peace and prevent conflict.

The greater aim of Resolution 1325 to integrate a gender perspective into all aspects of conflict prevention and resolution is thus missed in many efforts to implement it. Indeed, this tendency to dissociate, as opposed to integrate, gender into security and conflict resolution strategies also risks feeding the idea that the security and protection of women can only be provided for by women as security actors. This is only part of the picture. Training all mission personnel in operating with a gender perspective is more important.

Indian peacekeepers in UNMIL. Source: Wikigender

It is true that there is an immediate need to increase the number of women (military, police and civilian) deployed in peace support operations and to elevate their roles to those of their male counterparts. Female peacekeepers can play crucial roles in certain areas, including women’s protection: assisting women victims of violence, and patrols and community engagement in contexts where social norms restrict contacts between women and men. Female peacekeepers challenge broad conceptions around women’s–and men’s–roles in security. For instance, a Uruguayan female helicopter pilot with MONUSCO has aroused enormous interest among Congolese women, which has supported the mission’s engagement with local people. In Liberia, Indian female peacekeepers in the UN Mission in Liberia (UNMIL) have assumed a very high profile role guarding the President’s office. The percentage of women enrolling in the Liberian National Police rose from 13 percent in 2008 to 15 percent in 2009. The tendency to dissociate, as opposed to integrate, gender into security and conflict resolution strategies also risks feeding the idea that the security and protection of women can only be provided for by women as security actors.

However, the presence of female peacekeepers is often the sole emblem of the UNSC resolution. While this is indeed part of the solution, the key is for each actor–male or female, military or civilian–to learn and to act with a gender perspective in all situations. In order to achieve this, a gender perspective needs to be taught, continuously cultivated and practiced before, during and after peace operations.

Getting it right: South-South collaboration

Sharing similar experiences and lessons learned between regions is an excellent way to gradually adopt the gender perspective. Latin America and Africa, for example, are regions that share a number of structural characteristics and face comparable challenges: post-colonial states, corruption, insecurity, inequality, young governments, histories of long-lasting internal conflicts, and post-dictatorial contexts. South-South collaborations between these regions enables a thoughtful approach based on the experiences countries have acquired over the years. Such collaborations, moreover, are all the more pertinent as many Troop Contributing Countries to peace operations deployed in Africa are from Latin American countries. Currently, 12 Latin American and Caribbean states contribute over 1,500 peacekeepers to UN missions in Africa, with the Uruguayan and Guatemalan commitments to MONUSCO being the largest.

Resolution 1325 was originally neglected at the Latin American level. Since 2007, RESDAL’s investigations on women in the armed forces across the Latin American region have revealed a number of issues, including a lack of data on the subject, and a lack of discussion of gender issues within peace operations. The research papers promote collaboration between civil, military and police actors to improve gender equality within democratic institutions, and are an important resource for Latin American practitioners. As a result of such efforts, Resolution 1325 and related material were incorporated into the regional agenda within three years, notably in the IX Conference of Defense Ministers of the Americas.

RESDAL has been uniquely positioned to use this regional advocacy experience to progress the Women, Peace and Security agenda in international peace operations. After conducting fieldwork in Haiti, DRC and Lebanon, where Latin American countries participate in United Nations peace operations, it became clear to RESDAL that it was necessary to carry out regular and pre-deployment training for military peacekeeping forces. To this end, RESDAL instigated a programme of classes on gender promotion in peacekeeping operations at various centers across Latin America that consider international legal frameworks and field experiences, as well as local understandings of gender.

The implementation of Resolution 1325 cannot take shortcuts: the path to adopt is that of a comprehensive, multi-actor and practical gender approach. The 15th anniversary of Resolution 1325 next year provides an opportunity to follow such a path, advocating for an approach based on fieldwork and South-South collaboration to work with women and men towards a lasting peace.

Chiara Oriti Niosi specializes in reducing sexual violence in conflict, with several years of experience at the United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in DRC (MONUSCO). She currently works at RESDAL in the Women, Peace and Security program.

Maud Farrugia holds a degree in Social Anthropology from the University of Cambridge. She is Assistant Researcher for the Women, Peace and Security program of RESDAL. 

Featured image: A MONUSCO vehicle on patrol in Beni, Democratic Republic of Congo. Source: Flickr | MONUSCO

Jobbik, described as a radical right-wing populist party, has enjoyed considerable success in Hungary’s elections. What accounts for the party’s popularity among certain segments of the Hungarian electorate?

Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and his FIDESZ party have consolidated their status as preponderant political actors in Hungary. Further along the right angle of the political spectrum, Jobbik (Movement for a Better Hungary) currently stands as the second most popular party in the country. This short piece sets in context the reasons behind Jobbik’s appeal to certain segments of the Hungarian electorate, including an overview of the party’s formation trajectory and a brief assessment of Jobbik’s prospects for the future.

Jobbik’s political origins and intra-party structure

Jobbik was made up by a variety of grass-roots nationalist groupings. At its early stage (2003-2004), the party had brought under its auspices initiatives as diverse as an aggregate of nationalist student groupings (the Jobboldali Ifjúsági Közösség, Right-Wing Students Association) and a nucleus of political activists that later evolved, at least partially, into the (unarmed) self-styled militia of the Magyar Gárda (‘Hungarian Guard’). From an instrumental perspective, Jobbik has been highly keen on political activism and the intensive mobilization of its popular bases of support. In particular, the party has been harshly criticized for its links with the Magyar Gárda and the ensuing implications for a more militant (occasionally violent) engagement into politics. By contrast to other far right parties across the ‘new’ Europe and the preponderant status of their leaders, the chairman Gábor Vona does not enjoy a status comparable to that of, say, Marian Kotleba in the ‘Our Slovakia’ party or Volen Siderov in Bulgaria’s Ataka. This more ‘horizontal’ and devolved arrangement has enabled Jobbik to approach a variety of target-groups within the frame of its political campaign.

Reaching out to the masses: Capitalizing on corruption and Hungary’s economic crisis

Image by Leigh Phillips/Flickr.

The period between 2006 and 2008 saw the delegitimization of the Socialists (MSZP), on charges of corruption. This resulted into MSZP’s rapid decline of popularity and the decisive restructuring of Hungary’s party landscape. For a start, Jobbik demanded that political crime is introduced to the Hungarian penal code as a separate legal category. In light of these developments and the subsequent outbreak of the economic crisis (2008), the absence of potent political forces on the left of the MSZP facilitated Jobbik’s campaign of artificial anti-capitalism. The party embedded the concept of so-called ‘Eco-social National Economics’ into its political programme (2010). In this platform, Jobbik has called for the renegotiation of Hungary’s foreign debt, the establishment of a banking system independent from the interference of multinational corporations, the state-ownership of sectors such as health and education and the long-term renationalization of various others. This campaign of artificial anti-capitalism enhanced Jobbik’s appeal to these segments of the society mostly imperiled by Hungary’s economic stagnation. Jobbik’s more concrete emphasis on social issues and adoption of an, ostensibly, leftist platform on the economy signified the major departure from MIÉP (Hungarian Justice and Life Party) and older initiatives of the Hungarian far right.

Appealing to the youth

Jobbik’s extensive involvement in social media such as Facebook serves as a rough indication of the party’s popularity among the Hungarian youth. Its leadership has been successful in orchestrating a fashionable youth sub-culture around the party with plenty of happenings and other infrastructure (e.g. nationalist rock-bands such as Hungarica and Kárpátia and Internet portals such as barikad.hu and kuruc.info, etc.). In addition to economic and social welfare anxieties, Jobbik has managed to take advantage of a rather common grievance among the younger generation in Hungary and throughout Central and Eastern Europe. This is, namely, the allegation that mainstream parties are either built upon nepotism or dominated by the older generation, leaving little space for the political representation of young people. By contrast, Jobbik’s links to the Magyar Gárda, and its political activism as a whole, have refrained pensioners and other elderly voters from opting for the party.

Centering on unresolved problems

Jobbik has also capitalized on social grievances and unresolved problems that do not necessarily interweave with corruption and the economic crisis. In its political programme (2010), the party dedicates an entire section to ‘Gypsy Issues’. In its own words ‘. . . the coexistence of Magyar and Gypsy is one of the severest problems facing Hungarian society . . . a potential time-bomb’. ‘Gypsy crime’ is introduced as a separate category and the programme acknowledges that ‘. . . certain criminological phenomena are predominantly and overwhelmingly associated with this minority’. Further along the text, the party equates ‘Gypsy integration’ with ‘assimilation into society-at-large’ through ‘work and not welfare’.

Words have matched with deeds. Between 2007 and 2011, the Magyar Gárda performed a string of ‘patrolling operations’ in areas seen as threatened by ‘Gypsy crime’ and other activities such as blood-donation and charity work. These activities took place in impoverished localities across the Hungarian northeast (e.g. Miskolc and Debrecen). This is one of the least developed parts of the country, with a long record of friction between the local population and the Roma minority. In October 2011, the successful mobilization of the Magyar Gárda in the northeastern district of Gyöngyöspata resulted in the departure of the Roma community, the resignation of the local mayor and the Jobbik candidate’s victory in the elections that followed. The utilization of the Magyar Gárda undoubtedly brandished Jobbik’s image to these rural residents that consider themselves excluded by the remote, or even absent, state. Most importantly, Jobbik has managed to establish its electoral stronghold in the northeast.

An apparent shift?

The last few years have witnessed the more decisive turn of the ruling FIDESZ towards the right. In particular, Viktor Orbán has displayed a tough stance in regards to the refugee crisis and staunchly objected to the soft borders principle within the EU. Back in autumn 2015, the Hungarian Premier rushed to justify the erection of a razor-wire fence along the Serbian-Hungarian border on the basis that ‘European and Christian values must be safeguarded…Hungary must be free to defend its borders’. More recently, on October 2^nd, 2016, Orbán called an (unsuccessful) referendum on the EU refugee quotas for Hungary.

Until lately, the ruling party’s gradual shift towards the right also facilitated Jobbik’s political engagement. Nevertheless, now this seems to be evolving into a boomerang for Vona and his associates. Although it remains Hungary’s second most popular party in its own right, some of the latest opinion polls demonstrate that Orbán’s capitalization on public anxieties over the refugee crisis has cost a non-negligible percentage of voters to Jobbik. In this light, the party assumed a neutral stance during the latest referendum. Although he also objects to the refugee quotas arrangement, Vona refrained from granting his assent to what he dubbed ‘Viktor Orbán’s personal project’.

Consequently, the last months have witnessed an apparent shift on the part of Jobbik. In its programmatic statements, Jobbik’s leadership declares the party ‘non-Islamophobic’. Gábor Vona, Márton Gyöngyösi, and other high-rank affiliates have been networking extensively in countries such as Turkey and Kazakhstan. Moreover, Jobbik has been quick to strike a ’pro-Palestine’ outlook and castigate Israel not solely for its aggression against the Palestinians but also over the, allegedly, belligerent foreign policy towards other states in the Middle East (namely Iran). Nevertheless, the new realities of the refugee crisis and the wave of sexual assaults in Cologne on New Year’s Eve 2016, have demonstrated that the party can be situationally-adaptive in its outlooks on the Muslim world. Endorsing a body politics approach, Jobbik has recently become highly vocal over the necessity to safeguard Europe’s Christian pillars of identity and protect Hungarian and European women from the ‘rapacious Islamic invaders’.

Furthermore, the party has intensified its charges of corruption against FIDESZ and ostensibly watered down its rhetoric on ‘Gypsy crime’. The extent to which this new strategy may facilitate Jobbik to reclaim its lost voters from FIDESZ remains to be seen within the immediate future. Lastly, Gábor Vona’s decision to purge the more extremist elements from the party (April 2016) was interpreted by various commentators, in Hungary and abroad, as an early indication of Jobbik’s firmer shift towards the mainstream of Hungarian politics. Nevertheless, it is still rather precarious to jump to concrete conclusions; let alone presume that Jobbik might drastically antagonize FIDESZ’s predominance in the country’s political scene in the near future.

Vassilis Petsinis is a visiting researcher at Tartu University (Johan Skytte Institute of Political Studies). His specialisation is European politics and ethnopolitics with a regional focus on central and eastern Europe (including the Baltic States). He holds a PhD from the University of Birmingham. His personal profile on academia.edu can be accessed here.