Violating Peace

Jasmine-Kim Westendorf's discomforting book investigates sexual misconduct by military peacekeepers and abuses perpetrated by civilian peacekeepers and non-UN civilian interveners. Based on extensive field research in Bosnia, Timor-Leste, and with the UN and humanitarian communities, Violating Peace uncovers a brutal truth about peacebuilding as Westendorf investigates how such behaviors affect the capacity of the international community to achieve its goals related to stability and peacebuilding, and its legitimacy in the eyes of local and global populations. As Violating Peace shows, when interveners perpetrate sexual exploitation and abuse, they undermine the operational capacity of the international community to effectively build peace after civil wars and to alleviate human suffering in crises. Furthermore, sexual misconduct by interveners poses a significant risk to the perceived legitimacy of the multilateral peacekeeping project, and the UN more generally, with ramifications for the nature and dynamics of UN in future peace operations. Westendorf illustrates how sexual exploitation and abuse relates to other challenges facing UN peacekeeping, and shows how such misconduct is deeply linked to the broader cultures and structures within which peacekeepers work, and which shape their perceptions of and interactions with local communities. Effectively preventing such behaviors is crucial to global peace, order, and justice. Violating Peace thus identifies how policies might be improved in the future, based on an account of why they have failed to date.

2043 A.D.: The Ngumi War rages. A burned-out soldier and his scientist lover discover a secret that could put the universe back to square one. And it is not terrifying. It is tempting...

Michael Josephson discusses ethical values and decision-making techniques as he explores the everyday pressures that can compromise our integrity.

One of the most vexing issues that has faced the international community since the end of the Cold War has been the use of force by the United Nations peacekeeping forces. UN intervention in civil wars, as in Somalia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Rwanda, has thrown into stark relief the difficulty of peacekeepers operating in situations where consent to their presence and activities is fragile or incomplete and where there is little peace to keep. Complex questions arise in these circumstances. When and how should peacekeepers use force to protect themselves, to protect their mission, or, most troublingly, to ensure compliance by recalcitrant parties with peace accords? Is a peace enforcement role for peacekeepers possible or is this simply war by another name? Is there a grey zone between peacekeeping and peace enforcement? Trevor Findlay reveals the history of the use of force by UN peacekeepers from Sinai in the 1950s to Haiti in the 1990s. He untangles the arguments about the use of force in peace operations and sets these within the broader context of military doctrine and practice. Drawing on these insights the author examines proposals for future conduct of UN operations, including the formulation of UN peacekeeping doctrine and the establishment of a UN rapid reaction force.

In the spring and summer of 1961, several hundred Americans - black and white, male and female - converged on Jackson, Mississippi, to challenge the state segregation laws. The Freedom Riders, as they came to be known, were determined to open up the South to civil rights. Over 300 were arrested and convicted of 'breaching of the peace'. The name, mug shot and other personal details of each arrested Freedom Rider were duly recorded and saved. Collected here is a richly illustrated book book featuring contemporary photos and interviews alongside the mug shots.

A noted conflict-resolution expert explores dignity, its role in human conflict, and its power to improve relationships Drawing on her extensive experience in international conflict resolution and on insights from evolutionary biology, psychology, and neuroscience, Donna Hicks explains what the elements of dignity are, how to recognize dignity violations, how to respond when we are not treated with dignity, how dignity can restore a broken relationship, why leaders must understand the concept of dignity, and more. By choosing dignity as a way of life, Hicks shows, we open the way to greater peace within ourselves and to a safer and more humane world for all. For the Tenth Anniversary Edition of Dignity, Hicks has written a new preface that reflects on her experience helping communities and individuals understand the power of dignity and how it can lead to a more peaceful world. "Anyone who understands the importance of personal feelings and their fuel for conflict should consider Dignity as a powerful advisory and motivational guide."--Midwest Book Review Winner of the 2012 Educator's Award, given by the Delta Kappa Gamma Society International.