Publications by Year: 2006

2006
Vincenzo Bollettino. 10/2006. Designing Security.Abstract

Humanitarian organizations operate in increasingly hostile environments. Although authoritative statistics are scarce, anecdotal evidence suggests that aid workers face life-threatening risks that are exacerbated by the growing number of humanitarian organizations operating in the field with varying mandates, without common professional security standards and with limited success with inter-agency security coordination. The ability of humanitarian organizations to fulfill their mandates in the future will depend in part on their individual success in improving internal security management practices and in finding ways to coordinate their efforts on building common security standards and security coordination across agencies. To meet this challenge, humanitarian organizations must implement improved security management methods and find ways to coordinate their security operations and planning. Despite broad acceptance of the need to develop better security management and coordination, many humanitarian organizations remain ambivalent about coordinating their security activities and few have instituted robust measures for improving their own security management practices. Further, efforts to improve security management practices are hampered by a critical lack of basic empirical knowledge about the field security environment. In discussions about humanitarian staff safety and security, the least common denominator continues to be cumulative anecdotal evidence provided by the many security personnel working for humanitarian organizations in the field. This policy brief reviews the literature on humanitarian organization security management, highlighting common misconceptions about the field security environment, reviews the main structural and procedural issues impeding more effective security management, and illustrates why current initiatives to improve security management practices will remain only partial successes if they do not include a serious effort to replace anecdotal reporting on the field security environment with systematic collection and analysis of field security data. It argues that staff security requires a common professional approach based on sound security expertise adapted to meet the operational needs of humanitarian organizations. A model is developed for creating a network of security professionals responsible for guiding the design and implementation of common security standards and security information sharing protocol.

designingsecurity.pdf
Allan G. Hill, Cari Jo Clark, Ismail Lubbad, and Claude Bruderlein. 10/2006. “Hope and Despair over Health in Gaza.” BMJ, 333.Abstract

The Israeli re-invasion of Gaza this July has redrawn the world’s attention to the dire straits of the population living in the Gaza Strip. There, within an area the size of the Isle of Wight, 1.4 million people live without free access to the outside world. Contrary to international hopes, the Israeli decision to withdraw from Gaza in September 2005 has led to increasingly tight control over the movement of goods and people. The destruction of the Gaza power station in addition to the damage to bridges, roads, and other infrastructure can only worsen the plight of Gazans in the coming months.

bmj_hope_despair_gaza.pdf
Harvard Humanitarian Initiative. 9/2006. 2006 Humanitarian Health Conference Report. hhc-conference-report-2006.pdf
Ismail Lubbad, Allan Hill, and Cari Jo Clark. 6/2006. Population Projections for Socioeconomic Development in the Gaza Strip.Abstract

By all accounts, demographic pressures in the Gaza Strip — in terms of population density, age structure, and growth rate — are extraordinarily high compared to neighboring countries and regions. This population pressure, combined with limited resources and territorial isolation, places immense strain on public services, social and political institutions, and the natural environment. At the same time, insecurity resulting from a deteriorating political context leads to further poverty and unemployment. Together these conditions require both immediate attention and long-term development planning, both of which are, admittedly, difficult in an environment of continuing political uncertainties. Since September 2000, the Gaza population has suffered periods of protracted closure imposed by the Israeli authorities. This has had deleterious consequences on the socioeconomic situation in the Gaza Strip. Currently, 30.3% of the Gazan workforce is unemployed. Concomitantly, poverty is rampant. As of 2004, 37.2% of Gazan families were below the poverty line, 26.0% of whom experienced extreme poverty suggesting that the majority of poor households in Gaza are unable to meet their most basic needs. These challenges to human security are exacerbated by the fact that approximately 64% of the Gaza population are refugees , approximately half of whom still reside in camps.

hpcr_working_paper_no1_demography.pdf
Laurel E. Fletcher, Phuong Pham, Eric Stover, and Patrick Vinck. 6/2006. Rebuilding After Katrina: A Population-Based Study of Labor and Human Rights in New Orleans.Abstract

In August 2005, Hurricane Katrina swept through New Orleans and the surrounding communities, inflicting massive destruction and displacing hundreds of thousands. In the wake of the disaster, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security lifted minimum wage restrictions, thus creating an environment ripe for exploitation of both documented and undocumented workers by their employers. This study presents the experiences of laborers in the construction industry following Hurricane Katrina, and makes recommendations for how federal, state, and local authorities may protect Gulf Coast laborers against exploitation and unfair treatment.

rebuilding-after-katrina.pdf
Claude Bruderlein and Pierre Gassmann. 5/2006. Managing Security Risks in Hazardous Missions: The Challenges of Securing United Nations Access to Vulnerable Groups.Abstract

Over the last decade, the United Nations (“U.N.”) has taken a central role in the international community’s response to the consequences of disasters and armed conflicts. Increasingly, international strategies to cope with instability and armed conflicts rely on the deployment of the staff of U.N. agencies in the midst of armed hostilities to provide urgently needed humanitarian assistance to threatened populations. Furthermore, reconstruction and development activities traditionally undertaken in peaceful environments have also become an integral part of stabilization efforts in situations that are far from secure.

managing_security_risks.pdf
Naz Modirzadeh. 5/2006. Taking Islamic Law Seriously: INGOs and the Battle for Muslim Hearts and Minds.Abstract

Behind the doors of the most influential human rights organizations in the world, a crisis has been forming. It is a crisis that has become more acute with the increased global media, military, and economic focus on the Middle East/Muslim world since the September 11, 2001, attacks. The Middle East has long been considered a desert of non-compliance within the human rights community, often depicted as the region of the world least interested in international human rights law. The Middle East is, in fact, seen by some as the most rights-abusing region in the world. The growing sense in the West that something must be done about human rights in the Muslim world has pushed the region to the top of the priority list for major human rights organizations. At the same time, there is a sense within many international non-governmental organizations (“INGOs”) that the human rights movement’s response to recent events in the Middle East has been reactive, responding to an agenda set largely by the Bush administration and subject to the whims of global media attention. For many, it seems that human rights organizations are following the U.S. military into the Muslim world. Many also feel that the human rights movement’s rhetoric uncomfortably echoes that of the Bush administration, proclaiming disturbingly similar ends while espousing different means. Aside from making individual human rights professionals uncomfortable, this situation has brought a long-simmering dilemma within the Western-based human rights movement to the surface. This dilemma, yet to be openly addressed, concerns how the human rights movement should deal with Islamic law. 

nkm-ingosheartsandminds.pdf
HPCR. 4/2006. Transnationality, War and the Law - Roundtable Report.Abstract

On October 30, 2005, the Program on Humanitarian Policy and Conflict Research at Harvard University (HPCR) brought together a select group of international experts for a discussion on the theme of “The Transformation of Warfare, International Law, and the Role of Transnational Armed Groups.” The meeting was hosted by the Geneva Center for Security Policy in their offices in Geneva, Switzerland. This project grew out of a research interest identified at the High-Level Informal Expert Meeting on International Humanitarian Law at Harvard University in June 2004 which gathered representatives of twenty-eight governments and international organizations, as well as distinguished scholars, to examine the legal and policy challenges faced by international humanitarian law (IHL). The purpose of the meeting in Geneva was to explore the changed landscape of transnational wars and the prominent geopolitical role played by transnational non-state armed groups as well as their impact on interpretations and responses of international law to the new warfare. Built around three pillars of changing war, changing actors, and static law, the discussion in Geneva was organized along sessions on the transformation of war, the regulation of new conflicts, the current gaps and limitations of international humanitarian law, and the challenge of compliance and protection in the new environment. Starting from the decolonization wars of the twentieth century, armed conflicts have been departing gradually from the classical, state-centered paradigm embodied in the Geneva Convention of 1949 to the current framework in which non-state actors have acquired a larger, if not yet central, role. That fluctuation constitutes a bending of the traditional tactics of war brought about by the rise of comparatively weaker non-state actors and a modification in the space taken up by the new wars. Participants to the Geneva meeting stressed that non-state actors have been fighting states throughout the history of the state. However, in previous eras they fit more clearly into the realm of domestic law enforcement, as states sought to quell “internal disturbances.” The new conflicts are driven across state borders and represent a true challenge in terms of regulating the behaviors of both transnational non-state armed groups and the corresponding territorial and extraterritorial response of states.

hpcr_-_transnationality_roundtable_-_april_2006.pdf
Marco Sassòli. 2/2006. Transnational Armed Groups and International Humanitarian Law.Abstract

The concept of ‘transnational armed groups’ has been used increasingly since September 11, 2001 by those who consider the ‘war on terror’ to be an armed conflict and who wish to apply the laws of armed conflict, called international humanitarian law (IHL), to that conflict (rather than human rights domestic legislation and international law on cooperation in criminal matters). In this debate, it is often claimed that IHL, as it stands, is inadequate to cover such a conflict and such ‘transnational armed groups’. This paper discusses, firstly, when IHL applies to transnational armed groups. Concretely, this involves the question of whether, and to what extent, the ‘war’ against Al Qaeda can be classified as an armed conflict. It is argued, that under international humanitarian law, the ‘war on terror’ must be split into different components. In some cases, the law of international armed conflicts applies. In others, the law of non‐international armed conflicts applies. In most situations of the ‘war on terror’, IHL does not apply at all. Secondly, this paper looks at the related issue of what determines the existence of an armed group as an addressee of IHL of non‐international armed conflicts. According to what criteria can Al Qaeda be considered an armed group for the purpose of making IHL applicable? When are members of such a group covered by IHL, even though said group is not fulfilling those identified criteria? Thirdly, the rules of IHL covering an armed conflict between a transnational armed group and a state are summarized, in particular the status and treatment of members of such groups. Most importantly, this paper examines whether and how the existing rules of IHL should or could be adapted to (more) adequately cover transnational armed groups. In this context, few concrete proposals suggesting which rules should be adapted, and in what sense, were found. Nevertheless, as a fourth issue, this paper tries to identify certain areas where the existing IHL of non‐international armed conflicts is not entirely adequate because of the extraterritorial character of the fight against transnational armed groups. Fifth, skepticism is expressed about the possibility of extending IHL and of applying it beyond armed conflicts as currently defined when transnational groups are involved. Sixth, as for the mechanisms of implementation, several proposals are brought forward regarding ways by which respect for existing (or any new rules of) IHL by transnational or any other armed groups can be improved. It is argued, centrally, that if armed groups are addressees of IHL, it is indispensable to involve them in the development and implementation of the rules. Finally, the article explores ways, obstacles, and the risks of developing new rules and mechanisms of IHL specific to armed conflicts with transnational armed groups. The author remains skeptical about the realism and utility of any attempt to develop specific rules for such conflicts.

occasionalpaper6.pdf
ATHA. 1/2006. “ATHA: Security of Humanitarian Staff”.Abstract

Humanitarian organizations operate in increasingly hostile environments. Although authoritative statistics are scarce, anecdotal evidence suggests that aid workers face life-threatening risks that are exacerbated by the growing number of humanitarian organizations operating in the field with varying mandates, without common professional security standards and with limited success with inter-agency security coordination. The ability of humanitarian organizations to fulfill their mandates in the future, will be depend in part on their individual success in improving internal security management practices and in finding ways to coordinate their efforts on building common security standards and security coordination across agencies. To meet this challenge, humanitarian organizations must implement improved security management methods and finds ways to coordinate their security operations and planning. Despite broad acceptance of the need to develop better security management and coordination, many humanitarian organizations remain ambivalent about coordinating their security activities and few have instituted robust measures for improving their own security management practices. Further, efforts to improve security management practices are hampered by a critical lack of basic empirical knowledge about the field security environment. In discussions about humanitarian staff safety and security, the least common denominator continues to be cumulative anecdotal evidence provided by the many security personnel working for humanitarian organizations in the field. This policy brief reviews the literature on humanitarian organization security management, highlighting common misconceptions about the field security environment, reviews the main structural and procedural issues impeding more effective security management, and illustrates why current initiatives to improve security management practices will remain only partial successes if they do not include a serious effort to replace anecdotal reporting on the field security environment with systematic collection and analysis of field security data. It argues that staff security requires a common professional approach based on sound security expertise adapted to meet the operational needs of humanitarian organizations. A model is developed for creating a network of security professionals responsible for guiding the design and implementation of common security standards and security information sharing protocol. 

atha_thematic_brief_security_of_humanitarian_staff.pdf
Claude Bruderlein. 2006. Towards a Common Security Framework: Securing Access and Managing Risks in Hazardous Missions.Abstract

International agencies are facing increasing levels of threats against their staff and activities in many of their operations. Since the end of the Cold War, these agencies, intergovernmental and non-governmental alike, have been called to work more intensely in conflict areas.1 These areas have become singularly more dangerous in recent years, exposing staff to greater risks. The threats of attack, as well as recurring levels of criminal violence, are now part of the daily life of international agencies’ workers in many of these situations, hindering their work and limiting their access to people in need. Although significant resources have been invested recently in building the security capabilities of international agencies, the escalation in security threats has not been matched with the development of corresponding institutional strategies to mitigate operational risks and reduce the exposure of international agencies. Despite serious flaws in existing security systems, international agencies have been inclined to expand their security capacity at a technical level rather than reviewing the relevance of their security strategies. As a response to the attacks against United Nations (UN) headquarters in Baghdad and other field missions, the United Nations is planning to expand significantly the capacity of the UN security system by creating a Directorate of Security, which will centralize all UN security systems, and by adding a number of staff and layers of technical responsibilities to an already bureaucratic and over-procedural security apparatus. While most operational managers agree that the security environment of UN agencies has evolved considerably over the recent years, this significant expansion in security capabilities is being considered without a clear and proper understanding of the types or sources of threats the UN will face in the coming decades.2 There are few discussions on global and local threats against UN operations or the role that agencies can play to mitigate exposure to risks. Similarly, other agencies, such as the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) or Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), are increasingly tying their security response to conservative interpretations of their mission — relying significantly, in the process, on the neutral character of their activities and the acceptance of the communities. Many organizations, however, fail to acknowledge the changing perceptions of international assistance in some areas of the world and the changing profile of the security threats that endanger not only their operators but the recipient communities as well. For these agencies, the current security developments represent a major challenge 

commonsecurityframework.pdf