Child soldiering as genocide: The case of Sierra Leone

This research explores the effects of the use of children in the Sierra Leonean civil war. Specifically, I will be analyzing how the use of children in warfare in Sierra Leone from 1995-2000 has been used as a tool of genocide. Genocide is a heavily researched topic with many cases; however, the Sierra Leonean civil war has not been classified as a genocide of any category. My goal is to prove that the Revolutionary United Front utilized policies pertaining to the destruction of children to institute a genocide. The long journey to disarm rebel groups, rescue captive children, and punish rebel leaders was a drawn-out process that has only recently come to a close within the international community. With this research, I am hoping to educate the scholarly community on the case of Sierra Leone, change the way we view genocide, and use the UN Genocide Convention to recognize the policies of the Revolutionary United Front in Sierra Leone as genocidal tactics. The academic community needs to acknowledge that the Sierra Leonean civil war was a genocide that left the nation in a decaying state

Child soldiering as genocide: The case of Sierra Leone

This research explores the effects of the use of children in the Sierra Leonean civil war. Specifically, I will be analyzing how the use of children in warfare in Sierra Leone from 1995-2000 has been used as a tool of genocide. Genocide is a heavily researched topic with many cases; however, the Sierra Leonean civil war has not been classified as a genocide of any category. My goal is to prove that the Revolutionary United Front utilized policies pertaining to the destruction of children to institute a genocide. The long journey to disarm rebel groups, rescue captive children, and punish rebel leaders was a drawn-out process that has only recently come to a close within the international community. With this research, I am hoping to educate the scholarly community on the case of Sierra Leone, change the way we view genocide, and use the UN Genocide Convention to recognize the policies of the Revolutionary United Front in Sierra Leone as genocidal tactics. The academic community needs to acknowledge that the Sierra Leonean civil war was a genocide that left the nation in a decaying state

Making Sense of a Senseless War

A review of: A Dirty War in West Africa: The RUF and the Destruction of Sierra Leone by Lansana Gberie. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2005. and Young Soldiers: Why They Choose to Fight by Rachel Brett and Irma Specht. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2005

The Economic Legacy of Civil War: Firm Level Evidence from Sierra Leone

This paper positions itself among the very rare microeconomic analyses on the consequences of civil war. Up to now, most analyses on this topic are based upon household surveys. The originality of the present study is that it investigates for the first time the likely predominant route by which civil conflict affects the economy, namely through firms. The context of the study is Sierra Leone, a country that was ravaged by a violent conflict from 1991 to 2002. The approach is to use geographical variations in the intensity of conflict to estimate the impact of violence on firms, on which we have data from the World Bank 2007 Employers Survey. The proposed theory is that during the conflict, violence affects production through a form of technical regress and demand through a reduction in income. The persistent post-conflict effects are yet less obvious We assume that war forces a prolonged contraction in output skills, which slows the pace of recovery. We termed this phenomenon ‘forgetting by not doing’. The results confirm our theory. Civil war negatively impacts the existence of firms and employment, but there is no distinction between regions. However, the size of firms in 2006 is negatively affected by the intensity of the war in the area it operates. Yet, firms tend to grow twice faster in more affected areas, strikingly matching the macroeconomic rate of recovery post-conflict environments (Collier and Hoeffler, 2004). The analysis of training patterns clearly confirms the long lasting lack of skills experienced as a result of the war in areas where the conflict was more intense.entrepreneurship, national systems of innovation, SMEs, innovative capabilities, emerging economies

Humanitarian Action and Military Intervention: Temptations and Possibilities.

Although the war in Liberia in July 2003 claimed hundreds of lives, the international community was reluctant to intervene. In this article, the author debates the question: does international military intervention equal protection of populations? The role of humanitarian organisations in military intervention is considered. Aid organisations cannot call for deployment of a protection force without renouncing their autonomy or appealing to references outside their own practices. Such organisations provide victims with vital assistance and contribute to ensuring that their fate becomes a stake in political debate by exposing the violence that engulfs them, without substituting their own voices for those of the victims. The political content of humanitarian action is also outlined and military intervention in the context of genocide is discussed. The author concludes that the latter is one of the rare situations in which humanitarian actors can consider calling for an armed intervention without renouncing their own logic

Current Apathy for Coming Anarchy: Building the Special Court for Sierra Leone

Part I of this Article examines the chronology of the decade-long conflict in Sierra Leone. It provides an illuminating backdrop against which the Special Court may be assessed and highlights particular features that the institutional design of the Special Court would have to accommodate. Part II explores the precedents for the Special Court. Specifically, it considers the establishment of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia ( ICTY ) and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda ( ICTR ), and the impetus behind the International Criminal Court, developments that parallel in time the unfolding of Sierra Leone\u27s conflict. Part III subjects particular features of the Special Court to critical assessment, namely its institutional design, the lack of power and resources committed thereto, and the context in which it will operate. It argues that these features represent fundamental flaws and significant hurdles that need to be overcome if the Special Court is to operate effectively or efficiently

The Social and Political Dimensions of the Ebola Response: Global Inequality, Climate Change, and Infectious Disease

The 2014 Ebola crisis has highlighted public-health vulnerabilities in Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea – countries ravaged by extreme poverty, deforestation and mining-related disruption of livelihoods and ecosystems, and bloody civil wars in the cases of Liberia and Sierra Leone. Ebola’s emergence and impact are grounded in the legacy of colonialism and its creation of enduring inequalities within African nations and globally, via neoliberalism and the Washington Consensus. Recent experiences with new and emerging diseases such as SARS and various strains of HN influenzas have demonstrated the effectiveness of a coordinated local and global public health and education-oriented response to contain epidemics. To what extent is international assistance to fight Ebola strengthening local public health and medical capacity in a sustainable way, so that other emerging disease threats, which are accelerating with climate change, may be met successfully? This chapter considers the wide-ranging socio-political, medical, legal and environmental factors that have contributed to the rapid spread of Ebola, with particular emphasis on the politics of the global and public health response and the role of gender, social inequality, colonialism and racism as they relate to the mobilization and establishment of the public health infrastructure required to combat Ebola and other emerging diseases in times of climate change

Current Apathy for Coming Anarchy: Building the Special Court for Sierra Leone

Part I of this Article examines the chronology of the decade-long conflict in Sierra Leone. It provides an illuminating backdrop against which the Special Court may be assessed and highlights particular features that the institutional design of the Special Court would have to accommodate. Part II explores the precedents for the Special Court. Specifically, it considers the establishment of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia ( ICTY ) and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda ( ICTR ), and the impetus behind the International Criminal Court, developments that parallel in time the unfolding of Sierra Leone\u27s conflict. Part III subjects particular features of the Special Court to critical assessment, namely its institutional design, the lack of power and resources committed thereto, and the context in which it will operate. It argues that these features represent fundamental flaws and significant hurdles that need to be overcome if the Special Court is to operate effectively or efficiently