Le Conseil de l'Europe et les droits des minorités

This survey deals with the problem of linguistic diversity in Europe. In what way does the Council of Europe react to what is commonly called there the « new minorities » composed of immigrants and refugees ? The Director for Human Rights at the Council of Europe first covers guarantees provided to members of minorities under the European Convention on Human Rights (article 14), then describes attempts made by the Council of Europe to protect minorities as such. As for the new minorities, the Council is taking action to favour intercultural education. Its policy aims a both preserving European languages in their diversity and encouraging multilingualism which is of such nature as to facilitate communication and understanding between different people

Abstenerse del terror: la paradoja de la no violencia en el Sáhara Occidental

En el Sáhara Occidental, antigua colonia española ocupada por Marruecos desde 1975, no ha habido prácticamente ninguna resistencia violenta por parte del pueblo indígena saharaui desde el final de la guerra de 1975-1991 entre Marruecos y el Frente Polisario. La ausencia de violencia sorprende por varios factores: amplio apoyo de la población a la independencia, disparidades sociales y económicas entre marroquíes y saharauis, así como una brutal represión de Marruecos de la cultura, la resistencia y las manifestaciones del sentimiento independentista saharaui. Este artículo analiza la lógica de la violencia –y de su ausencia–, así como la resistencia, y extrae lecciones del Sáhara Occidental. Además de avanzar en el desarrollo teórico, se realiza un aporte metodológico al estudio de la resistencia y una mejor comprensión del conflicto del Sáhara Occidental mediante un trabajo de campo que incluyó unas 60 entrevistas con activistas saharauis realizadas durante el verano de 2014

New opportunities in common security and defence policy: Joining PESCO

Responding to concerns about burden-sharing and aiming to improve internal defence cooperation, act more quickly and harness resource synergies, the European Union (EU) initiated the Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO) in 2017. PESCO, however, is controversial. On the one hand, the United States (US) wants greater burden-sharing by European allies whilst concerned about greater European military autarky that would undermine US influence over NATO, Europe/EU and EU member states. Onthe other hand, at least one European NATO ally wants to leverage PESCO precisely as an instrument to shore up European “strategic autonomy”. This tension over competing European defence futures leaves participation by third countries in limbo. Arguably, third-country participation would hinder greater European defence autarky. The article makes the case for the mutual benefits of third-country participation, focusing on Canada. Canada has a major stake in the outcome. NATO is Canada’s most important multilateral institution and Europe is Canada’s second-most important strategic partner, after the US. Canada’s unequivocal strategic interests in Europe have long informed its expeditionary priorities -- from the two world wars, when Canada coming to Europe’s defence long before the USproved existential for both parties, to nowadays. Since the 1970s, Canada and Europe have worked consistently together bilaterally beyond NATO to advance regional stability and mutual security interests. Canada’s and Europe’s defence futures are thus interdependent. Excluding third countries from participating in PESCO would have detrimental consequences for Canadian, European and transatlantic defence interests. In contrast, with third country participation, PESCO will be instrumental to effective transatlantic and transeuropean defence integration

Wars Without Beginning or End: Violent Political Organizations and Irregular Warfare in the Sahel-Sahara

This article examines the structure and spatial patterns of violent political organizations in the Sahel-Sahara, a region characterized by growing political instability over the last 20 years. Drawing on a public collection of disaggregated data, the article uses network science to represent alliances and conflicts of 179 organizations that were involved in violent events between 1997 and 2014. To this end, we combine two spectral embedding techniques that have previously been considered separately: one for directed graphs (relationships are asymmetric), and one for signed graphs (relationships are positive or negative). Our result show that groups that are net attackers are indistinguishable at the level of their individual behavior, but clearly separate into pro- and anti-political violence based on the groups to which they are close. The second part of the article maps a series of 389 events related to nine Trans-Saharan Islamist groups between 2004 and 2014. Spatial analysis suggests that cross-border movement has intensified following the establishment of military bases by AQIM in Mali but reveals no evidence of a border sanctuary. Owing to the transnational nature of conflict, the article shows that national management strategies and foreign military interventions have profoundly affected the movement of Islamist groups

Why Terror Networks are Dissimilar: How Structure Relates to Function

Abstract Theories on international terrorist networks are wrought with contradiction. On the one hand, networks that support or facilitate politically motivated violent extremism are thought to pose a threat because they are centralized and hierarchical. On the other hand, the same networks are thought to pose a threat because they are decentralized and operate autonomously. Social networks analysis (SNA) makes it possible to resolve this apparent contradiction by controlling across countries for characteristics and structure of networks linked to the same terrorist organization relative to different functions that such networks perform. One terrorist organization for which sufficient open-source data exist to mount a systematic comparison is Al-Shabaab (AS). Comparing traits such as brokers, centrality characteristics of nodes, international linkages, and use of funds, the chapter compares AS networks as they relate to recruitment, fundraising and attacks across the United States and Australia with corroborating evidence from Canada, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Denmark. Although networks differ markedly across these attributes, unrelated networks performing similar functions are consistent in their nature and structure. These findings suggest that networks are functionally differentiated insofar as they serve as strategic repertoires. This is a significant finding. Knowing how a network's function is related strategically to its structure means being able to infer a network's function if only its structure is known and, conversely, being able to infer a network's structure if only its function is known. Not only does SNA thereby facilitate detection and dismantling of networks, it also suggests that recruitment, fundraising and attack networks require differentiated approaches by defence and security agencies insofar as SNA shows them to be distinct phenomena