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- Volume 2009, Issue 3, 2009
Freedom from Fear - Volume 2009, Issue 3, 2009
Volume 2009, Issue 3, 2009
This journal aims to contribute to the advancement of knowledge and awareness of the international community’s priority issues in the field of justice, crime prevention and human rights. The Magazine pursues the promotion of innovative dialogue by spreading awareness, creating consensus and a sense of shared responsibility of the problems that affect the global community. As a forum for long-term change, the Magazine endeavors to promote democratic values, civil stability, and aid the international community in developing actions towards greater peace, justice and security for all members of social, civil and political society.
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The responsibility to protect: Whom from what?
Author: Edward C. LuckUndoubtedly the responsibility to protect is a hot item. Endorsed and explained in two detailed paragraphs (138 and 139) of the unanimously adopted Outcome Document of the 2005 World Summit, it has since been reaffirmed by the General Assembly (resolution 60/1) and the Security Council (resolutions 1674 (2006) and 1706 (2006)), and the subject of a major speech (SG/SM/11701) and a major report (A/63/677) of UN Secretary- General Ban Ki-moon. The General Assembly is expected to take up the Secretary-General’s report, which lays out a comprehensive strategy for implementing the concept, in what promises to be a lively debate at some point in the next two months. Civil society networks for researching and advocating the responsibility to protect have sprung up in many parts of the world, as have any number of books, articles, and commentaries on the subject. It has acquired, as well, the ultimate symbols of trendiness: an acronym (or two really, RtoP for the UN and R2P for most everyone else) and a devoted academic journal, Global Responsibility to Protect. Not bad for a term first coined by Gareth Evans and the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS) less than eight years ago.
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A bleak year for piracy
Author: Pottengal Mukundan2008 has been a bleak year for piracy. The figures of the annual report by the International Maritime Bureau (IMB) Piracy Reporting Centre (PRC) surpass all figures for hijacked vessels and hostages taken recorded since it began its worldwide reporting function in 1992.
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Somalia at a glance
Author: Nicola FilizolaSomalia became independent in the 1960s, when the two protectorates, Great Britain’s in the South and Italy’s in the North, were unified. A military coup headed by Mohamed Siad Barre in 1969, brought the country into a military regime that very soon shifted into an authoritarian rule which somehow managed to generate a certain degree of balance. After having experienced such ‘stability’, the country precipitated into a civil chaos in 1991 after Siad Barre was overthrown by opposing clans. Since then Somalia, whose territory occupies a strategic and crucial position in the Horn of Africa has been living in full anarchy. Shortly after Barre’s capitulation, the northern region of Somalia self-declared the independent Republic of Somaliland, a country never recognized by other states, which, however, has been preserving a stable existence: the Republic includes today eight administrative districts and it keeps its effort to guarantee democratic representation, holding elections at all levels, local and parliamentary.
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A business worth 50 million dollars
Author: Francesco FornariNur is a common name, but it is just as likely that it is not his real name; he has been living for some time on the coast of Kenya near Lamu, one of the last standing examples of Islamic architecture, not far from the Somali border. He is a little over forty years old, he speaks broken English and is constantly chewing on “khat,” leaves from a plant that grows in some areas of Kenya and Ethiopia which cause a mild state of euphoria and are commonly used in Somalia. Although he was initially diffident and almost scared of my questions, he overcame his hesitation in front of a few banknotes and accepted my invitation to tell his story and his experience as a pirate.
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Somalia. Media under attack
Author: Nicola FilizolaFreedom of information in Somalia is at risk: gripped by anarchic violence and chaos, this nation of the Horn of Africa, has been ranked among the deadliest country for media by the Committee to Protect Journalists.
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Intelligence in the fight against piracy
Authors: Hans Tino Hansen and Karsten von HoesslinWith one of Africa’s longest coastlines stretching for 3300 kilometres, Somalia enjoys a strategic location in the Horn of Africa. Vital world trade flows around this failed state, torn from within by belligerent clans, warlords and Islamist jihadists. Despite this strategic location, Somalia is a fast changing entity whose unfolding events upset the international community.
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Restorative justice. Restoring victims and communities
Authors: Lisa Rea and Theo GavrielidesWhat do the following news stories have in common? The Bernard Madoff Ponzi scheme responsible for the biggest corporate securities fraud in history, the Austrian rape and murder case of Josef Fritzi whose daughter was enslaved for 24 years, and the Irish Republican Army shooting two British soldiers and injuring four others in March 2009, breaking the peace outside Belfast? The answer is that we will probably never know what steps have been taken to provide a form of reparation to the victims or their families, in ways that allow them to live their lives in peace. Victims-driven restorative justice is happening all around the globe. It is challenging the traditional criminal justice system by providing a new vision for systemic justice reform. The crime victims and those who recognize their unmet needs are the ones who are increasingly leading the effort to make this transition. However, despite thorough evidence and numerous restorative justice evaluations, the victims’ appeals for restoration are rarely heard.
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GIS and satallite applications for piracy-monitoring
Author: Josh LyonsWithout a central government, for nearly two decades the people of Somalia have had to cope with natural disasters, civil war and humanitarian crisis as best as they can, often resorting to informal and illegal economic activities for survival. Although the origins of Somali maritime piracy remain obscured, it is likely that this was a response of Somali fishermen to the illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing within their territorial waters by foreign companies who sought to capitalize on the lack of a national coast guard in the 1990s.
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Insurance world. New coverage for new threats
The last developments off the coast of the Horn of Africa, have triggered a veritable media frenzy. Clearly, piracy is not a new phenomenon. However, the frequency and scale of recent acts of piracy are a real cause for concern, especially those off the coast of Somalia, currently the most perilous waters in the world.
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What makes news newsworthy?
Author: Tony WhiteIn order to provide counter piracy support in the Gulf of Aden, and to ensure the delivery of the Humanitarian Aid intended to the territory of Somalia, NATO escorted World Food Program vessels off the coast of Somalia, from October to December 2008. This mission was assigned to the NATO Standing Maritime Group 2 and was acting under the name of Operation Allied provider. Following the request of the Secretary General of the United Nations on 25 September 2008, the operation took place in support of UNSC resolution 1814,1816, and 1838.
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Iraqi elections
Author: Marina MazziniIn his last unscheduled visit to Iraq last 6th of February, UN’s Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon congratulated Iraqi people for the largely violence-free elections and restated the UN’s commitment to the country.
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From sea to land. An all-encompassing approach
Authors: Giuseppina Maddaluno and Giacomo MascoliContemporary piracy is a booming criminal activity, not only because of its high profitability with an extremely positive cost-benefit balance for the perpetrators, but also due to the acute vulnerability of the targets, lack of awareness and specific countermeasures along with the highly underreported nature of the crime. Since the beginning of 2008 UNICRI started to develop the idea of a programme taking into account the Institute’s competences in crime prevention and knowledge management, and its expertise in the establishment of an effective public / private partnership to counter crime. The programme has been conceived within the framework of the UN convention on the Law of the Sea (1982) and on the Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts Against the Safety of Maritime Navigation (1988), considering also the United Nations Security Council Resolutions 1816, 1846 and 1851 (2008), which authorize a series of decisive measures to combat the acts of piracy against vessels off the coast of Somalia.
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Legal disputes over maritime piracy
Somalia is not party to any of the relevant international treaties and does not have any modern domestic legislation directly applicable to piracy or environmental protection. However, the countries currently providing naval forces to combat piracy at sea off Somalia are parties to one or more of the relevant treaties. In addition, neighboring countries such as Kenya, Djibouti, Yemen and Tanzania are also parties to some or all of these treaties, and these countries have enacted the legislation necessary to implement one or more of the treaties.
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See you in Mogadishu
Authors: Anna Mays, Francesco Candelari and Nicola FilizolaIt was the month of November 1991. Mohamed Aden Sheikh, one of the most versatile Somali men and former representative of the Somali government, was publishing his first book in a Western country. “See you in Mogadishu”, a book-interview with Italian journalist Pietro Petrucci, was the story of the state of Somalia since its independence (1960) told by somebody who served its country as a shepherd, doctor, minister and refugee. Siad Barre, was the dictator who first appointed him as Minister of Health and Minister of Culture and Information in the ‘70s and then jailed him from 1982 to 1988; after Barre’s government fell in January 1991, three different self-declared “presidents” started fighting for the control of the territory and the international community was about to intervene.
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