Justice for all

Thanks to Running Chicken, I found an excellent new article by Hunjoon Kim and Kathryn Sikkink: Explaining the Deterrence Effect of Human Rights Prosecutions for Transitional Countries. The article basically concludes that:

We find that human rights prosecutions after transition lead to improvements in human rights protection, and that human rights prosecutions have a deterrence impact beyond the confines of the single country. We also explore the mechanisms through which prosecutions lead to improvements in human rights. We argue that impact of prosecutions is the result of both normative pressures and material punishment and provide support for this argument with a comparison of the impact of prosecutions and truth commissions, which do not involve material punishment.

If the article’s findings are correct and the statistical methodology is sound, then this is a great finding and can really help international justice move forward more confidently in the future. I am especially impressed by the finding that the normative impact of prosecutions has actually resulted in deterrence, since many have argued that international justice has not been communicated well on the ground, thus resulting in little impact on deterrence. More quantitative studies should be done on this particular question to further confirm these conclusions.

One of the questions that I had when I first read this was whether there would be a difference between post-conflict transitional justice and justice during conflict - such as the intervention of the ICC. Certainly, post-conflict transitional justice is often undertaken by regimes that are willing to prosecute members of a previous regime, and it would be understandable for those countries to ultimately have a better human rights record. However, the same cannot be said for international bodies undertaking prosecutions during a conflict, as indicted war criminals could simply exacerbate repression and continue to flout international law.

However, they addressed these questions as well, finding that prosecutions under civil wars do not have a different impact on repression than those in peace; indeed, prosecutions during civil wars may even lead to greater improvements on human rights records than prosecutions during peacetime. This is an incredible and truly groundbreaking finding, because it has applied statistical methods to the peace v. justice argument that has thus far been based on mostly qualitative case studies.

Indeed, I do think that many people are coming to the conclusion that the peace versus justice is a false dichotomy. While there was at first much backlash regarding cases in Uganda and Sudan, ultimately those who are indicted are responsible for massive human rights violations; while “peace” might depend on them temporarily, it would probably be best in the long-run if those responsible are simply taken out of the picture. I think the question now shouldn’t be whether we should wait to indict a war criminal or not, but should be about the enforcement of these arrest warrants. Faster and more efficient ways of apprehending war criminals would not only contribute to the deterrence effect, but it would also reduce the possibility of an indicted perpetrator continuing to wield power and exacerbate conflict at home.  Certainly, the challenges are numerous — but I really do think the next step should be to innovate better ways to arrest war criminals and gain international cooperation for their work, rather than to continue the debates about peace versus justice.

Recently, I wrote a post about the injustice of international justice – that war criminals are given decent living conditions and fair trials, while more petty criminals are denied the same. I ran across a very related argument in an excellent article: After Arusha: Gacaca Justice in Post-Genocide Rwanda by Alana Tiemessen. Here it is:

Local prisoner support for the ICTR is very low. The U.S.-based Internews Network has shown what are known as the “Arusha Tapes” in Rwandan prisons to give genocide suspects a view of what has been happening in the ICTR trials and to encourage debate on Rwanda’s own judicial process. Ironically, while the tapes are meant to generate support for the tribunal, they have had opposite effect on local prisoners. The reactions to the tapes have revealed concerns among the prisoners over the absence of the death penalty at the tribunal and the luxurious living conditions of the tribunal prisoners as compared to those of the Rwandan prisons. The issue of the death penalty is significant because it is used by the national courts in Rwanda but not at the international tribunal. One prisoner replied, “why is it that the tribunal gives them more lenient sentences than us, they are the ones who told us to kill on radio . . . how come we are paying the higher price?”

The objections and shock registered by the prisoners to the Arusha Tapes were reflected in their support of the Gacaca process as an appropriate and fair judicial process. Awareness and acceptance of the community courts is evidenced by the high and increasing number of confessions among the prisoners, numbering in the tens of thousands, and a willingness to provide testimony and evidence against other genocide suspects. (p. 62)

The above quote really highlights how those who are most responsible are often given luxurious situations in comparison to the rest of the perpetrators. However, the truth is that national justice sectors - especially in Rwanda - are simply not well equipped to try thousands of genocidiares in a relatively short time period. That is why more funding and assistance is necessary to immediately begin building up national justice sectors as well. If all the funding and attention goes to international tribunals, then national justice systems do not develop simultaneously as most people seem to hope - but simply continue to be underdeveloped and lack the resources needed to try massive numbers of perpetrators.

That’s why, in Rwanda, Gacaca seems to offer a promising alternative which requires much less funding since it is based at the community-level. However, Gacaca suffers from it’s own problems - most dangerously that it is fueled by the same ethnic tensions that resulted in the genocide, lacks due process and does not always provide ‘fair’ trials to the accused, and can result in another form of “victor’s justice.” This isn’t necessarily the most promising route to take in the long run, and the international community shouldn’t forget about national justice sectors while looking at alternative mechanisms like Gacaca.

Still, the idea of communities trying those responsible for the genocide and then reintegrating the perpetrators into their societies is indeed powerful - and can seem a more fair alternative to allowing perpetrators to languish indefinitely in national prisons. It is certainly a step forward, but is by no means a panacea.

Also, happy new year to all!

In “Our Turn to Eat,” Michaela Wrong writes about Kenya:

Kenya’s foreign partners failed to grasp that a system of rule based on the ‘Our Turn to Eat’ principle was explicitly designed to prevent the trickle-down upon which they counted for progress. The better Kenya’s economy fared, the more unstable the country actually became, because public awareness of inequality - sociologists call the phenomenon ‘invidious comparison’ - deepened a notch.

It was a poor bet for the donors to make, for nothing sabotages development programmes more dramatically than violence. Decades of work on school-building, AIDS prevention and gender-awareness-raising are wiped out in a moment when the first shamba goes up in flames and its terrified family hits the road. Convinced they grasped the big picture, the donors somehow managed to miss the approaching near-collapse of an African state.

And:

As for the Western tendency to turn a blind eye to blatant graft and routine human rights abuse in the eagerness to save ‘the poorest of the poor’, it is a feature of donor relations across the continent.

And finally:

If they only set foot on the continent, idealistic Westerners would be astonished to hear how often, and how fiercely, politically engaged Africans…call for aid to be cut, conditionalities sharpened. Kenyan journalist Kwanchetsi Makokha is not alone in detecting an incipient racism, rather than altruism, in our lack of discrimination. ‘Fundamentally the West doesn’t care enough about Africa to pay too much attention to how its money is spent. It wants to be seen to do the right thing, and that’s as far as the interest goes.’

While I haven’t had the chance to read the whole book yet, I’ve read a few chapters through one of my classes. I find her quotes fascinating - that donors and aid agencies are so focused on helping the poor that sometimes they forget to think about the broader context in which their work is operating. It seems to me that donors are generally less willing to support more “abstract” projects such as human rights monitoring or anti-corruption initiatives, because they want “direct” results and want their money to directly go to the poor through education, healthcare, microfinance loans, etc. But being aware of this broader context is, as Wrong indicates, absolutely vital if genuine change is going to occur. The ultimate goal of NGOs should not be simply to provide aid but also to contribute to the creation of a capable, efficient state that itself can provide these public goods to its people.

This definitely requires a more holistic outlook, taking into account human rights violations and corruption as part of the context in which people live. There is a problem today where “human rights” and “development” are looked at as two separate areas. But they really need to be integrated in order to generate the best outcomes.

Also, I find it interesting that she (like Dambisa Moyo) is pushing for increased governance conditionalities, and for aid to be cut until governments change their corrupt practices. I definitely see the value in governance conditionalities but would shy away from advocating a complete cut in aid. I like Kristof’s balanced take on the issue, where he emphasizes that aid has its shortcomings but has also seen some successes. We need to find a middle ground between aid and trade (or some way to include both), and perhaps one way to do so is to begin with governance conditionalities.

It’s a widely believed theory that the Internet, social media and other online tools and technologies can serve to undermine authoritarian regimes and help to spread democracies. As I wrote before, technology represents the ‘democratization of information’ - by which regimes no longer have a monopoly on knowledge. By reaching people who might never have known of other possibilities, the Internet and technology is opening people’s eyes and putting power in the hands of the people via the dissemination of knowledge. For sure, this is a powerful theory. But even beyond this more ‘general’ effect, we’ve heard stories of how Twitter has facilitated protests and organization by the people against the state - in places like Iran and Moldova. Twitter is truly revolutionary - in more ways than one.

Yet, these success stories are - perhaps - isolated incidents, and most of the authoritarian countries of the world are much less amenable to the spread of social media. A brilliant article by Foreign Policy claims that Twitter barely exists in most autocracies - many of these countries have their own versions of microblogging or have their own social networks. In many parts of the world, Orkut is far more popular. More likely, Internet in these countries is not widespread enough nor fast enough for people to be constantly logged on to Twitter. Moreover, Twitter is likely to be used by people with knowledge of English and some international exposure - it doesn’t necessarily reach wide swathes of the population, many of whom may be poor and non-English speaking. It mostly reaches the educated and the elite.

Another problem described in the article relates to the lack of anonymity on Twitter - incidents in the past have shown that individuals can easily be tracked down by government forces for their actions on Twitter. This isn’t exactly conducive to starting a revolution. If I were living in an authoritarian country, I doubt I’d use Twitter, a public medium, to voice my criticisms of the regime or to publicize protests I was a part of - it seems too easy to get caught!

Twitter is also prone to misinformation. After all, how much detail can you put in a 140 character tweet? During the swine flu outbreak, there was certainly misinformation all around - sometimes certain issues or breaking news stories spread like wildfire, and just as likely these stories can cause mass hysteria. Twitter simply isn’t a tool meant for informing people completely, and it becomes even less useful when we begin dealing with complex political situations. That’s just not something you can easily break down on Twitter, and such sensitive information is prone to misunderstanding.

Ultimately, Twitter’s an excellent tool for many of us - it helps us keep up to date with the latest issues and debates, generates fantastic conversation, and helps drive traffic to our sites. It’s gaining a cultish following by some who understand it’s true power - it helps us create a network, an audience far greater than what we’d have otherwise. Some people claim that Twitter is stupid — I’ll be honest and say that it makes me smarter. And you know why? It’s because I follow smart people. There is intellectualism to be found on Twitter, and those who find it are hooked.

Despite all the hype, Twitter isn’t going to be spreading democracy anytime soon. Sure, it may facilitate protests in certain areas, but there are still many obstacles stopping Twitter from being embraced within authoritarian regimes, especially poor ones.

But I’ll still be holding on to some hope. And in the meantime, I’ll be tweeting.

Picture credit: here

A few days ago, I had the privilege of attending a lecture at LSE by Professor Paul Collier, author of The Bottom Billion. He talked about the topics in his new book: Wars, Guns, and Votes: Democracy in Dangerous Places. I haven’t read it yet, but am itching to get my hands on a copy as soon as possible - especially after hearing his amazing lecture.

In his talk, he spoke about the rampant poverty and instability of the “bottom billion” countries, and the links between this economic stagnation and political conflict. Essentially, he believes that governance in Africa is one of the main obstacles to economic development, and if Africa is to develop anytime soon we have to focus on helping African countries develop stable democracies elected through regular, free, and fair elections. This is political science 101: economic development and political stability are deeply intertwined.

He started off by stating the two essential functions of the state: to provide security and to be accountable to the people. These are essential public goods that foster economic growth and are necessary for the development of any society. In Europe, states emerged first as a solution to the problem of security. And due to the constant external warfare amongst countries, European states needed more money to fund war, and thus turend to taxation as a means of getting this money. Taxation leads to representation: these states had to become more accountable to the people in order to gain their tax money and support. Thus, war became a rallying point for accountability and national unity. The reason African states are in such dire condition right now, Collier asserts, is because they developed via a very different process that did not allow for security and accountability. African states didn’t emerge autonomously. Their boundaries were drawn arbitrarily by the colonial powers, and there was no sense of common national identity. Some states were too large to maintain internal unity, while some were too small to be effective. There was no external warfare, but lots of fighting amongst various groups within individual states. The countries had no way to mobilize taxation. Most African countries do not have truly free and fair elections, and even if they do the presidents are often overthrown by military coups. So these countries have ended up not providing security nor accountability to their people.

So what can we actually do about this? The way forward, he says, is to work towards both these things: security and accountability. There are regional solutions: African countries can come together to provide security for one another. This hasn’t really worked in the past, though, because many countries may have illegitimate interests and may use these opportunities to exploit one another. In addition, the regional effort for accountability has not been successful — even if many African leaders say they want to unite, they would never give up or share sovereignty themselves. For example, recently Libyan leader Muammar Gadaffi has called for a pan-African state and a single African government. But if he had to do so, he would likely never actually give up power in favor of a federal solution. Thus, regional efforts are not likely to make much progress.

And so, Collier turns to international solutions, which he believes are most effective. For security, he cites that post-conflict peacekeeping is highly effective in reducing recurrence of conflict in a particular country; sure, we have to continue aid, but we definitely have to dedicate more resources to ramping up peacekeeping in many post-conflict situations. Collier also supports more robust budget systems with increased governance conditionalities imposed by donors. I certainly see the merit in these suggestions.

But perhaps his most controversial suggestion is international intervention to ensure the accountability of African governments. He proposes the establishment of an international standard for free and fair elections. If a government holds a free and fair election fulfilling these standards, then the resulting winner should be guaranteed “protection” against any coup by powerful international actors, like the US. So essentially, an African president who is elected through free and fair elections, and then continue to rule in a democratic manner with good governance, then the US would help them to stay in power against any party who might try to overthrow him. This would give an incentive for an African leader to help establish free and fair elections with the hope that he would be granted protection, and this would also discourage coups because the threat of US intervention would be too great for any party to attempt a coup.

Although the idea is appealing, I have to say I’m not completely convinced. Is the only solution to stability, economic development, and democracy in Africa related to military intervention? There have to be ways in which economic development and bottom-up approaches can also help these societies: it seems pessimistic to assume that international intervention is the only solution to these problems - even in the long run. Where do NGOs and businesses come into play? And how would this work out politically - what happens if the US guarantees against a coup but then has to actually intervene? Would the US, UK, UN, etc actually agree to such a plan? Sure, his solution might work out, but suggesting politically unfeasible solutions isn’t all that effective.

Overall, I have some reservations, but still hope to read the book because I am sure it’ll provide valuable insights into the state of democracy and governance in Africa. What do you think: is military intervention a good idea to ensure security and accountability in the countries of the bottom billion?