The international mediation of power-sharing settlements

Funding The authors declared the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This research was funded by a grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.Peer reviewedPostprin

Transforming Tunisia: Transitional Justice and Internet Governance in a Post-Revolutionary Society

In this article we argue that examining efforts at Internet reform in Tunisia holds important lessons for transitional justice (TJ) theory and practice, as well as for the way the field defines itself in a space where technology plays an important role in facilitating both repression and transitions. Given the impact of the Tunisian revolution in inspiring the Arab uprisings, as well as those elsewhere, an examination of the Tunisian revolution offers many lessons in understanding the transition away from authoritarian government. We focus specifically on what the Tunisian process of Internet reform can tell us about the increasingly institutionalized implementation of the TJ framework. This process is particularly notable because it has been informed by TJ goals and discourse while remaining outside the formal mechanisms implemented in the wake of the revolution. We examine the more flexible and responsive ways in which local institutions and activists might approach transition, including through attempts to memorialize the impacts of a regime or conflict, build trust, incorporate diverse voices in new partnerships and manage the international dimensions of postconflict reconstruction. Finally, given the Internet’s central role as both a tool for repression and a site of resistance and democratic engagement, our findings indicate the importance of future work in considering how TJ can begin addressing Internet governance as a vital aspect of conflict resolution and rebuilding

Political Agreements in Internal Conflicts, 1989-2016

The dataset of Political Agreements in Internal Conflicts (PAIC) captures the institutional provisions in political agreements concluded between 1989 and 2016. It provides information on 91 variables, along five dimensions: power sharing, transitional justice, cultural institutions, territorial self-governance and international assistance.The 'disputed territories of Iraq' are a contentious and destabilizing issue with wider regional ramifications of increasing national security importance to the UK. The contestation impacts upon broader Middle East instabilities, and is of interest to the UK and Europe in terms of energy security and economic interests in Iraq and the Kurdistan Region. The stability of Iraq is a critical UK foreign policy concern, even though in recent years it has diminished in visibility. Key issues remain unresolved, with perhaps the most pressing being the territorial extent of the Kurdistan Region, its relationship with Baghdad, and the management of security and resources in this oil-rich territory. The centrality of this particular issue also derives from the wider regional implications of the &quot;Kurdish question&quot; that also affects Turkey (a NATO ally), and Iran and Syria. This project examines the dynamics of the disputed territories - internally in terms of the social and political aspirations of communities there, and 'externally', in terms of their links with Baghdad and Erbil (the capital of the Kurdistan Region), and the interests of these two power poles, plus their regional and global interactions. It does so with a view to assessing current proposals (including those submitted by the UN in 2009 and Kurdish demands for a referendum on the disputed territories) to resolve what remains a dangerous political stand-off, while presenting an empirically rich and comparative analysis to assist in the formulation of approaches that may assist in the management of the dispute. This analysis focuses upon three inter-related issues which we contend lie at the core of the contestation: (1) communal mobilization and the articulation of local aspirations, i.e. what do people in this territory want, in terms of their governance, socio-economic provision, and overall future? (2) the interests of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) and the Government of Iraq (GoI), in terms of 'security' and natural resource exploitation, and (3) the influence of neighbouring and regional powers (namely Turkey, Iran, Syria, and the Arab Gulf states) and of extra-regional and global powers (especially the US and UK) on the status of the Kurdistan Region and its overall status as either an autonomous entity existing inside Iraq, or an independent entity having seceded from Iraq. With this set of understandings in place, the research then considers the current options that have been posited by different interest groups for the resolution of the problem. At the time of writing, two proposals have gathered significant traction. The first is that by the KRG and those political forces in Iraq that tend to stand in opposition to the government, namely the implementation of relevant constitutional articles that specified a roadmap for the resolution of the status of the disputed territories (Article 140). There exist a myriad range of problems regarding the implementation of this article in terms of (a) how the article could be implemented, and (b) the impact of the implementation (or lack of implementation) of the article. The second set of options that exist are those presented by the UN Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) in 2009. Following in-depth fieldwork in the disputed territories, UNAMI submitted a range of possible power-sharing options, all of which were rejected by Iraqi stakeholders for reasons of political sensitivity at the time. We contend that these proposals warrant systematic and comparative analysis to identify their appropriateness as possible solutions to the problem. We will base our analysis of these proposals on the current state of the art in relation to the management of territorial disputes in divided societies, thus being able to reflect on what are considered feasible and viable options for relevant institutional designs and how these may be applied in the specific context of Iraq's disputed territories.</p

De-linkage Processes and Grassroots Movements in Transitional Justice

Transitional justice literature has highlighted a negative relationship between enforced disappearances and reconciliation in post-conflict settings. Little attention has been paid to how human rights issues can become stepping-stones to reconciliation. The article explains the transformation of the Cypriot Committee on Missing Persons (CMP) from an inoperative body into a successful humanitarian forum, paving the way for the pro-rapprochement bi-communal grassroots mobilization of the relatives of the missing. By juxtaposing the experience of Cyprus with other societies confronting similar problems, the article shows how the issue of the missing can become a driving force for reconciliation. The findings indicate that a policy delinking humanitarian exhumations from the prospect of a wider political settlement facilitates positive transformation in protracted human rights problems and opens up a window of opportunity to grassroots actors