Transitional justice and women, peace and security: a critical reading of the EU framework

The European Parliament awarded its prestigious Sakharov Prize in October 2016 to two Iraqi Yazidi women who were held as sex slaves by Islamic State militias. Some months before, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued its landmark conviction of Jean-Pierre Bemba for his responsibility as commander-in-chief for sexual and gender-based violence committed by his troops in the Central African Republic. Both events are evidence of the increasing awareness at the European Union (EU), and internationally, about the need to amplify women’s experiences of violence and their claims to justice. In Guatemala, for example, a court recently convicted two former military officers for crimes against humanity for having enslaved, raped and sexually abused 11 indigenous Q’eqchi’ women at the Sepur Zarco military base during the armed conflict in Guatemala

Centre de vigilancia i control remot

Aquest projecte es centra en la vigilància remota. Una instal·lació de càmeres de seguretat que es permet veure via web, amb un extra de control de porter automàtic via telèfon fix. Per la realització d’aquest projecte s’ha hagut de dissenyar la infraestructura, ja sigui de cablejat com a recursos per poder presentar la visualització de les càmeres via web. La pàgina web ha sigut creada amb el llenguatge de programació PHP i HTML. En vers a aquests llenguatges de programació, abans s’ha hagut d’estudiar i obtenir els coneixements essencials per dur a terme la creació de la pàgina web. Aquest projecte neix d’una petició real, d’una proposta per la implantació d’un sistema de seguretat i control d’una casa aïllada. Per aquest motiu s’ha hagut de fer un càlcul molt acurat i real ja sigui de pressupost i d’infraestructures

Introduction:(Re)integrating Feminist Security Studies and Global Political Economy: Continuing the Conversation through Empirical Perspectives

Attempts to integrate feminist security studies (FSS) and feminist global political economy (GPE) were first meticulously studied in the Critical Perspectives sections of the June 2015 and December 2017 issues of this journal. Although the debate has gained presence in workshops, at international conferences, and even on dedicated websites, the diverse contributions have remained rather theoretical (e.g., Bergeron, Cohn, and Duncanson 2017; Hudson 2015). The aim of these Critical Perspectives essays is to take the integration of FSS and GPE one step further by presenting empirically grounded contributions that help us contextualize the existing theoretical debates. By focusing on postwar contexts, the pieces here take seriously the material conditions of women's empowerment from a perspective attuned to the gendered and racialized logics structuring social orders in postwar states. We believe that these are the spaces where war economies and peace economies meet and where (gendered) structural transformation of societies is possible. Like the two previous collections, we do not understand FSS and GPE as additive (Chisholm and Stachowitsch 2017). Rather, we understand them as traditions that share a common goal, namely, to undermine the racialized neoliberalism and patriarchal capitalism underpinning international intervention and postwar reconstruction projects

Gender, UN peacebuilding and security

Since its inception in the 1940s, the United Nations (UN) has been a prolific norm entrepreneur on women’s rights, gender equality and gender mainstreaming through its Commission on the Status of Women (CSW). Nevertheless, October 2000 constituted a revolution: the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), one of the last bastions of masculine power in the UN, produced the first resolution –Resolution 1325 – of its women, peace and security (WPS) agenda. The resolution contains a set of norms that seeks to address women’s concerns in post-conflict settings by highlighting the need to increase female participation in security governance and post-conflict processes, prevent sexual and gender-based violence, and protect women from conflict and post-conflict violence. The agenda is now formed by eight resolutions and has to date been adopted by 67 countries through national action plans, as well as by different organs, programmes and funds of the UN such as the United Nations Peacebuilding Commission. The conceptual apparatus of the agenda regulates the norms it seeks to promote, as well as the actors and institutions in charge of their promotion. Understanding how this conceptual apparatus is deployed and interpreted, how and under which circumstances it is resisted or reinforced, and what the implications of its reiteration and/or resistance might be, is therefore essential in order to grasp the impact that international norms on gender, peace and security have on the daily lives of ordinary citizens

Producing Participants: Gender, Race, Class, and Women, Peace and Security

Recent efforts to implement the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda and the creation of National Action Plans (NAPs) in post-conflict countries have resulted in a set of international policy discourses and practices on gender, peace and security. Critics have challenged the WPS agenda for its focus on “adding women and stir” and its failure to be transformative. This article contributes to this debate by showing that the implementation of the WPS agenda is not only about adding women, but also about gendering in racialised, sexualised and classed ways. Drawing on poststructuralist and postcolonial feminist theory and on extensive fieldwork in post-conflict contexts in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Burundi and Liberia, the article examines the subject position of the woman participant. I demonstrate how NAPs normalise certain subject positions in the Global South while rendering invisible and troubling others, contributing to (re)producing certain forms of normativity and hierarchy through a powerful set of policy practices. Deconstructing such processes of discursive inclusion and exclusion of troubled representations is essential as it allows for the identification of sites of contestation and offers a better understanding of the everyday needs and experiences of those the WPS agenda regulates.This work was supported by Horizon 2020 Framework Programme [grant number 706888]

Lost boomerangs, the rebound effect and transnational advocacy networks: a discursive approach to norm diffusion

This article aims to show the added value of studying transnational advocacy networks through a discursive approach in order to better understand the outcomes of norm diffusion in postconflict contexts. I argue that constructivist approaches to norm diffusion fall short as an explanation of norm adoption because they assume an automatic process of norm propagation through socialisation mechanisms. The first goal of the article is then to discuss how the internal dynamics of discourse negotiation in transnational advocacy networks impact the diffusion and implementation of international norms. The second goal is to propose the concept of the rebound effect and to explore the conditions under which it takes place. Through data collected during extended fieldwork, the article examines a prominent case, namely the transnational campaign for the implementation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace, and Security in Burundi and Liberia. I ask why and how the campaign was understood as a success in Liberia and as a failure in Burundi. I argue that there is another way of looking at these cases in less dichotomised ways. Crucially, my findings demonstrate how in both cases a very particular discourse on gender security is (re)produced through power relations between local and transnational activists limiting the type of policies that are advocated for and depoliticising the grassroots

Enigmas de identidad: ¿lamias, estriges o brujas? en De Lamiis et Pythonicis Mulieribus y otros tratados demonológicos del siglo XV

El terme làmia, que neix de l'Antiguitat designant un monstre femení de naturalesa sobrenatural, va passar en època posterior a designar les bruixes i es va fer comuna en els tractats demonològics sobre bruixeria a partir del segle XV. En el present estudi analitzem l'evolució del terme i el seu ús en aquests tractats, redactats majoritàriament en llatí, en particular en un d'ells: el De Lamiis et Pythonicis mulieribus d'Ulrich Molitor.The word lamia, which came from Antiquity to designate a female supernatural monster, was common in demonological treatises on witchcraft from the 15th century onwards. In the present contribution we analyze  the evolution of the concept and its use in the Latin treatises, in particular that by Ulrich Molitor, De Lamiis et Pythonicis mulieribus.El término lamia, que parte de la Antigüedad designando a un monstruo femenino de naturaleza sobrenatural, pasó a época posterior a designar a las brujas y se hizo común en los tratados demonológicos sobre brujería a partir del siglo XV. En el presente estudio analizamos la evolución del término así como su empleo en dichos tratados, redactados mayoritariamente en latín, en particular en uno de ellos: el De Lamiis ey Pythonicis Mulieribus de Ulrich Molitor

Enigmas de identidad: ¿lamias, estriges o brujas en De Lamiis et Pythonicis Mulieribus y otros tratados demonológicos del siglo XV?

[ESP] El término lamia, que parte de la Antigüedad designando a un monstruo femenino de naturaleza sobrenatural, pasó a época posterior a designar a las brujas y se hizo común en los tratados demonológicos sobre brujería a partir del siglo XV. En el presente estudio analizamos la evolución del término así como su empleo en dichos tratados, redactados mayoritariamente en latín, en particular en uno de ellos: el De Lamiis ey Pythonicis Mulieribus de Ulrich Molitor. [EN] The word lamia, which came from Antiquity to designate a female supernatural monster, was common in demonological treatises on witchcraft from the 15th century onwards. In the present contribution we analyse the evolution of the concept and its use in the Latin treatises, in particular that by Ulrich Molitor, De Lamiis et Pythonicis mulieribus

Remote sensing methods for the biophysical characterization of protected areas globally: challenges and opportunities

Protected areas (PAs) are a key strategy to reverse global biodiversity declines, but they are under increasing pressure from anthropogenic activities and concomitant effects. Thus, the heterogeneous landscapes within PAs, containing a number of different habitats and ecosystem types, are in various degrees of disturbance. Characterizing habitats and ecosystems within the global protected area network requires large-scale monitoring over long time scales. This study reviews methods for the biophysical characterization of terrestrial PAs at a global scale by means of remote sensing (RS) and provides further recommendations. To this end, we first discuss the importance of taking into account the structural and functional attributes, as well as integrating a broad spectrum of variables, to account for the different ecosystem and habitat types within PAs, considering examples at local and regional scales. We then discuss potential variables, challenges and limitations of existing global environmental stratifications, as well as the biophysical characterization of PAs, and finally offer some recommendations. Computational and interoperability issues are also discussed, as well as the potential of cloud-based platforms linked to earth observations to support large-scale characterization of PAs. Using RS to characterize PAs globally is a crucial approach to help ensure sustainable development, but it requires further work before such studies are able to inform large-scale conservation actions. This study proposes 14 recommendations in order to improve existing initiatives to biophysically characterize PAs at a global scale

Synergistic effect of methyljasmonate and cyclodextrin on stilbene biosynthesis pathway gene expression and resveratrol production in Monastrell grapevine cell cultures

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Plant cell cultures have been shown as feasible systems for the production of secondary metabolites, being the elicitation with biotic or abiotic stimuli the most efficient strategy to increase the production of those metabolites. Vitaceae phytoalexins constitute a group of molecules belonging to the stilbene family which are derivatives of the <it>trans</it>-resveratrol structure and are produced by plants and cell cultures as a response to biotic and abiotic stresses. The potential benefits of resveratrol on human health have made it one of the most thoroughly studied phytochemical molecules. The aim of this study was to evaluate the elicitor effect of both cyclodextrin (CD) and methyljasmonate (MeJA) on grapevine cell cultures by carrying out a quantitative analysis of their role on resveratrol production and on the expression of stilbene biosynthetic genes in <it>Vitis vinifera </it>cv Monastrell albino cell suspension cultures.</p> <p>Findings</p> <p>MeJA and CD significantly but transiently induced the expression of stilbene biosynthetic genes when independently used to treat grapevine cells. This expression correlated with resveratrol production in CD-treated cells but not in MeJA-treated cells, which growth was drastically affected. In the combined treatment of CD and MeJA cell growth was similarly affected, however resveratrol production was almost one order of magnitude higher, in correlation with maximum expression values for stilbene biosynthetic genes.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The effect of MeJA on cell division combined with a true and strong elicitor like CD could be responsible for the observed synergistic effect of both compounds on resveratrol production and on the expression of genes in the stilbene pathway.</p