Lost in transition: linking war, war economy and post-war crime in Sri Lanka

Scholars continue to draw attention to the link between the war economy and post-war crime. The majority of these studies are about cases of civil war that ended with peace agreements. Sri Lanka’s civil war ended with a military victory for the state armed forces; thus, it can help shed new light on the above link. Situated in the war economy perspective, this article investigates the dominant types of crimes reported from post-war Sri Lanka and the mechanisms linking them with the war economy. The culture of impunity, continued militarisation and enduring corruption are identified as key mechanisms through which the war economy and post-war bodily and material crime are linked. It suggests, although the ‘victors’ peace’ achieved by state armed forces was able to successfully dismantle the extra-legal war economy run by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, it was responsible for promoting criminality in the post-war period. Overall, this points to the urgency of breaking away from legacies of the state war economy in the post-war period, before introducing programs of longer term political and economic reform

‘Repeal the 8th’ in a Transnational Context: The Potential of SRHRs for Advancing Abortion Access in El Salvador

This article undertakes a discursive feminist reading of citizenship and human rights to understand, through the cases of Ireland and El Salvador, domestic abortion rights movements as part of a transnational women’s rights movement. While abortion has been partially decriminalised in Ireland, approximately 42 per cent of the world’s women1 of reproductive age still live in a country where abortion is prohibited entirely or only permitted to save a woman’s life or health (Singh et al., 2018, p. 4). In El Salvador, abortion is illegal and those suspected of having the procedure are prosecuted. As in Ireland, since 2012/2013 numerous controversies have brought the issue to wider public attention and have further galvanised the feminist movement to campaign for reform. Feminist abortion rights campaigns in both countries have connected important sites of activism and contestation: civil society, national parliaments, regional human rights systems and the United Nations

Shell, Nigeria and the Ogoni. A study in unsustainable development: I. The story of Shell, Nigeria and the Ogoni people - environment, economy, relationships: conflict and prospects for resolution

The Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) and its joint-venture partners - particularly the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation - have earned billions of dollars from the oil extracted from the land of the Ogoni in the Niger Delta. The Ogoni however complain that they have not seen adequate benefits; rather the oil has cost them dearly in terms of a deteriorating environment and underdevelopment and mobilized a successful national and international campaign against the Nigerian government and Shell. Despite the avowed non-violent nature of the campaign, military repression resulted in thousands of Ogoni killed, raped, beaten, detained and exiled and the main leaders executed. Under pressure from the Ogoni, Shell was forced to pull out from Ogoniland in 1993. Since then, Shell International has re-invented its corporate strategy in line with principles of sustainable development and it has committed itself to a level of stakeholder engagement on its environmental and social performance which would have been unthinkable in 1995. So for Shell, a return to Ogoni would be a powerful symbol that their corporate commitment to being a socially responsible company is being translated into action on the ground. However, there is still little trust between the company and the Ogoni people and their representative organization, the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP). Many of the issues raised by the Ogoni (such as the need for locally sustainable development, distribution of oil wealth, community projects and environmental issues) have yet to be addressed. This paper is the first of a trilogy examining the issues, relationships, management and strategic implications of the case. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment