The SSR issue paper Military Justice and Impunity in Mexico’s Drug War by Kristin Bricker (released just yesterday and available for download here) highlights military jurisdiction as an obstacle to accountability for (and also deterrence of) human rights abuses committed by the Mexican military in its war against drug trafficking organizations (DTOs). But the report 
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Monthly Archive
September | 2011
Military Justice and Impunity in Mexico’s Drug War
By: Michael Lawrence | Tuesday, September 27th, 2011SSR Issue Paper: Military Justice and Impunity in Mexico’s Drug War
By: Geoff Burt | Monday, September 26th, 2011During Mexican President Felipe Calderón’s administration, over 5,000 human rights complaints have been filed against the military, but only one soldier has been punished by the military justice system. The Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACtHR) has issued several rulings ordering Mexico to reform military jurisdiction so all crimes against civilians are handled by the
“Just Don’t Call it a Militia”: Human Rights Watch Reports on the Abuses of the Afghan Local Police
By: Michael Lawrence | Friday, September 16th, 2011Human Rights Watch just this month released the report “Just Don’t Call it a Militia”: Impunity, Militias, and the “Afghan Local Police” which details the dangers and abuses of informal militias and the Afghan government’s Afghan Local Police (ALP). The report can be downloaded here. Concerns regarding the latter group raise important issues about the
Edited volume: “Monopoly of Force: The Nexus of DDR and SSR”
By: Geoff Burt | Monday, September 12th, 2011The National Defense University Press has published an edited volume examining the relationship between disarmament, demobilization and reintegration (DDR) and SSR. The editors, Melanne A. Civic and Michael Miklaucic, have arranged a series of essays which “reflect the diversity of experience in DDR and SSR in various contexts. Despite the considerable experience acquired by the
CIGI Afghanistan Paper: The Triple Compact: Improving Accountability in State Building
By: Geoff Burt | Friday, September 2nd, 2011The latest CIGI Afghanistan Paper, by Canadian diplomat and former Representative of Canada to Kandahar Ben Rowswell, is now available for download. The international mission to reconstruct Afghanistan may be the most ambitious state-building exercise ever undertaken. The country has been the focus of tremendous international political will, development assistance and, at least since 2009,
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