UBC Journal of International Affairs 2011

JIA

T H E U B C J OU R NA L OF I N T E R NAT IONA L A F FA I R S

An Annual Publication of the International Relations Students Association 2011

edition

The University of British Columbia Vancouver, Canada

Cover image: Emily Campisi and Paul Bucci

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J O U R N A L O F I N T E R N AT I O N A L A F FA I R S editor in chief Eric Wallace-Deering

faculty liason Ivan Wu

coordinating editors Caroline Durran Gordan Katic Genevieve Barrons

faculty referees Dr. Sunera Thobani

editoiral board Victoria Bierkanick Wen-Ching Shan Linda Min Dennis Kam Codi Huaka Michelle Gillespie

Department of Political Science

production coordinator Kathy Yan Li production assistants Daniel Liang Emily Campsi

Centre for Women’s and Gender Studies

Dr. Sheryl Lightfoot

Dr. Kyung-Ae Park & Jeewon Min

Center for Korean Research Institute of Asian Research

Dr.Lisa Sundstrom

Department of Political Science

Professor Christopher Erickson Department of Political Science

Professor Steven Lee Department of History

marketing Michele Gillespie

2011 International Relations Students Association | all rights reserved.

Box 197-6138 Student Union Boulevard | Vancouver, BC | Canada | V6T 1Z1 ISSN 1913-9314 (print) ISSN 1913-9322 (web) The UBC Journal of International Affiars is a publicaton of the Interional Relations Students Association of the Alma Mater Society of the University of British Columbia. The UBC logo and the name “UBC” are official marks of the University of British Columbia and are used in accordance with UBC Public Affairs visual guidelines.

All articles published in the Journal of International Affairs represent the opinions of the authors and do not reflect the policies or opinions of the University of British Columbia, the staff of the Journal of International Affairs, or the International Relations Students Association. The University of British Columbia does not assume any responsibility for errors or omissions in this journal.

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CONTENTS Acknowledgement iv Forward v

Articles Safe Motherhood: An Analysis of Success for 1 Transnational Advocacy Campaigns Famine, Flight and Torture: International policy 10 options for North Korean Refugees in China “Dance of the Aborigines�: Representing Conflict 23 at the 2010 Winter Olympics American Foreign Policy: Redefining Realism at 35 the End of the Cold War Less Talk, More Action: Gender Mainstreaming 41 and United Nations Peacebuilding Operations UN Secretariat Reform: Harnessing the Power of 53 the NGO

Contributors

60

Directors and Staff

61

Sponsors

63

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AC K N OW L E D G E M E N T Dear Reader, On behalf of the International Relations Students Association, it is my delight to welcome you to the 2011 edition of IRSA’s Journal of International Affairs. The JIA is one of the University of British Columbia’s oldest and most celebrated undergraduate journals. For twenty-six years, it has granted undergraduate students at UBC and abroad the rare opportunity to publish their work in a highly accredited faculty and peer reviewed academic journal.

The JIA is a successful embodiment of UBC’s 2011 Trek pillars of Research and Internationalization and was recently referenced in the UBC President’s International Engagement Working Paper. It showcases talented authors in U21, a network of twenty-one international research-based universities devoted to advancing global perspectives and international communication.

I would like to officially congratulate the JIA team for their time, dedication and passion to the 2011 Edition, especially the Editor-in-Chief, editorial staff and publication team. I would also like to acknowledge the generous support from our sponsors, the Liu Institute and the International Relations Program, whom have always extended an open-door policy to IRSA staff.

I hope you enjoy the JIA 2011 Edition, and I look forward to future Kind Regards, Nikki Rosychuk President 2010/2011 International Relations Students AssociationSincerely,

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F O RWO R D Dear Reader, Our staff is proud to present to you the 2011 edition of the Journal of International Affairs. In this collection you will find six of the of the most compelling papers that the team received from students at the University of British Columbia, and the other schools of the U21 network. They are thought provoking and topical, ranging from the necessity of gender mainstreaming in peace building operations to how North Korean refugees should be dealt with in light of the political tension between China and the United States.

The publication of these papers represents the unique opportunity the JIA provides students to showcase their work. Too often at university, the life of student’s paper is limited to it being researched, written and submitted a professor. The only lasting memory of the paper being the final grade the student receives. Publication in the JIA gives students a platform to the take their academic enquiry to a more elevated and enduring level.

The JIA would not have been possible without the hard work of many individuals. All of the student staff of the JIA team, editors, production designers, advertising and faculty liaisons all worked extremely hard over nine months to bring this publication together. Throughout this process, the executive of the International Relations Student Association was an extremely supportive and helpful guiding resource. The effort of the faculty referees who took the time to review and edit our submissions is greatly appreciated. Also, this publication would not have been possible without the assistance and wisdom of the International Relations Program head, Dr. Allen Sens.

Sincerely, Eric Wallace-Deering Editors in Chief UBC Journal of International Affairs

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Safe Motherhood An Analysis of Success for Transnational Advocacy Campaigns

MEGAN VICTORIA PRICE

“Preparation for death is that most Reasonable and Seasonable thing, to which you must now apply yourself. – Cotton Mather, in a sermon advising pregnant women.”1 In 1980, the number of women dying in pregnancy and childbirth globally exceeded 500,000 annually2 one mother every minute. By the late 1980s a global initiative to severely reduce maternal mortality was launched as a joint effort between several international organizations. Since then, a multifaceted transnational advocacy campaign, often referred to holistically as safe motherhood, has spanned across the decades, meeting varying levels of success.3 The complex and sustained nature of the maternal mortality campaign makes it an ideal case study for why some issues become the focus of elaborate campaigns to change moral norms and practices of global politics, while others barely exit the starting gate.

In order to analyze this issue in its entirety, I will first discuss the importance and impacts of the strength of actors. A wide range of actors ranging from grassroots initiatives to states and even the United Nations (UN) all influence issue adoption and the capabilities of a campaign. The safe motherhood campaign has succeeded in catching the attention of international actors such as the UN, but has yet to establish key actors such as an internationally recognized “norm leader” to push the initiative into global prominence. Secondly, the framing of ideas and the political atmosphere in which the campaign unfolds can greatly hinder or propel an issue. Although the political atmosphere has been receptive, conservative pre-existing norms and the socially

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sensitive nature of maternal mortality have proven troublesome since the initiative’s inception. Finally, the nature of the issue itself often plays a large role in not only a campaign’s initial formation, but also in its continued growth and success at changing moral standards through altering societal notions and conceptualization of the issue of maternal mortality. I will conclude with some suggestions for transnational advocacy campaigns and case specific suggestions, such as pairing with complementary initiatives, promotion of grassroots organizations, and expansion of Canadian postsecondary midwifery programs, for the continued reduction of maternal mortality worldwide. the importance of actors Several scholars have dedicated ample amounts of energy and funding into researching why certain campaigns succeed. One common factor identified is the role of actors. Actors that have influenced the safe motherhood campaign include states, non-governmental and inter-governmental organizations, civil society, and individuals. With regards to these social forces, Charli Carpenter addresses several factors in her article “Setting the Agenda” that can be applied to the safe motherhood campaign.

The first, “issue adoption,” refers to the occurrence where “the issue is championed by at least one major player in broader network.”4 The issue of maternal mortality has succeeded at this initial step and has been adopted by various players throughout the campaign. Contrary to realist theory, adoption was not brought forth by powerful states within the global system. The global safe motherhood initiative was launched after a conference sponsored by the World Health Organization (WHO), United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and the World Bank in Nairobi, Kenya in 1987. Following the conference, the Inter-Agency Group for Safe Motherhood (IAG) was formed to focus global attention upon this issue.5 Evidently, issue adoption did not prove to be a challenge for maternal mortality, as is often the case for non-adopted issues, because several actors deemed the issue relevant to their objectives.

Nonetheless, the global Safe Motherhood Initiative has faced struggles in other aspects as a result of various actors. The most prominent complication is that the campaign has been unable to find a home base on the global stage and has therefore wrestled to find unity. Numerous departments and organizations in the UN system including, the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF), WHO, the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), and UNFPA, all oversee programs for safe motherhood. Unfortunately, none of these programs present safe motherhood as their primary objective. Furthermore, these organizations often find themselves in competition for scarce resources and have engaged in differing tactics of intervention.6 The result is that safe motherhood has often found itself as the forgotten child, lost in the bureaucratic inefficiencies of the UN system.

Further adding to the campaign’s woes has been the partial lack of a strong, prominent leader to draw support to the cause and provide a unified voice for the front. Carpenter defines such leaders as “political entrepreneurs” and “norm leaders.”7 It is political entrepreneurs who “identify under-studied causes and begin to work through their social networks to rally other influential individuals to their cause.”8 These actors are often crucial in creating the wide base of support that successful campaigns are built upon. Here, safe motherhood has found relative success given that the previously mentioned organizations (IAF, UN) have brought this issue to the

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table in the international arena. On the other hand, the campaign has yet to bring forth a “norm leader.” “Norm leaders” are those responsible for catapulting an issue to international prominence, capturing the attention of and otherwise mobilizing an otherwise unengaged audience in an attempt to change moral norms. They can include states or individuals such as celebrities.9 For example, the singer Bono is well known for his involvement in human rights campaigns such as the HIV/AIDS campaign.10 Individual advocates involved in the initiative stated in 2006 that “safe motherhood doesn’t have a Jim Grant (prominent former director of UNICEF), where’s the ambassador?”11 Safe motherhood has still yet to find its own Bono or Jim Grant. Until it does so the campaign may lack the power it needs to be considered successful at changing practices in world politics.

Furthermore, the safe motherhood campaign has failed to entice a key player to join wholeheartedly to its cause: civil society. The lack of civil society mobilization has greatly dampened efforts by advocates. Due to the complex moral, social, and economic nature of the issue (which will be addressed later), few grassroots organization developed on this initiative. This is partly due to the fact that the majority of women dying in pregnancy or childbirth are poor and undereducated.12 At a public forum on maternal health in October 2010 at the University of British Columbia, Dr Farah Shroff stated that, “pregnancy and childbirth is the leading cause of death and disability in the global south.”13 With a large majority of these women being illiterate and having very few political opportunities (such as the right to vote), it is understandable why these grassroots organizations, such as sexual health clinics and maternal health advocacy groups, did not emerge. However for the ones that did arise, it is a fault of the campaign that stronger connections were not made to channel support from civil society actors. Although Carpenter points out that some issues manage to become the topics of thriving campaigns to change moral norms and practices of global politics without such actors it is plain to see how the right actors can make, or perhaps break, a campaign.14 finging a frame that fits Regardless of how prominent a leader is a campaign will not succeed if is unable to aptly frame its ideas and find its place in the advocacy system first. Several scholars have discussed how it is necessary for ideas to resonate in order to ascertain wide support.15 In the case of Safe Motherhood, there have been several challenges in establishing a suitable frame. As mentioned earlier, the initiative has become the “forgotten child” amongst the UN. In an interview conducted by Shiffman a respondent reported that: [t]here are three siblings. Child survival is older, richer, more resourceful. The newborn is weak, small, but got a new grant from Gates for US$60 million. It is the small child in the family that everyone looks to. Safe motherhood is the middle child; it doesn’t know exactly where to be. We need a good parent to take care of the three equally, or unequally—safe motherhood needs more vigorous opportunities.16 This statement makes it clear that safe motherhood has floundered at finding a concise

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identity. In terms of framing, advocates have tried emphasizing human rights, economic outcomes, and impact upon children.17 Other campaigns have brought forth such perspectives and have met great success at increasing political and financial support. This is not the case for safe motherhood. This initiative faces challenges on several moral standpoints which hinder various actors from providing support.

In order for an issue to be the center of a successful campaign, it often has to find a place amongst pre-existing moral standards.18 For international relations scholar Richard Price, the concept of framing is too restrictive. He instead coined the term “grafting” to avoid “the overly static connotations of fit or resonance while capturing the genealogical heritage of such normative branching that is glossed over by overly volunteeristic terms such as framing .19 In order to successfully graft, the initiative was required to be careful not to step on the toes of conservative US administrators and to conform to given norms. Due to the fact that abortion and contraceptives are socially sensitive and controversial aspects in the intervention of maternal mortality, ‘safe motherhood’ was deemed after much deliberation, a neutral and, morally acceptable, name for the initiative. While this name grafted firmly with some pre-existing moral standards it failed to engage large women’s groups, especially feminists, and many men.20 Along with many other campaigns, the safe motherhood initiative became caught in the middle of two sets of contrasting moral standards. Unfortunately, this led the campaign to fall short in framing its ideas and grafting to a diverse set of pre-existing moral standards. This will drastically reduce the initiative’s ability to make changes to moral norms. By not taking a clear stance on controversial issues, the campaign risks losing supporters who would challenge conservative notions and strive for more liberal societal norms. If substantial changes in moral norms are not realized, safe motherhood will lack the support it needs to bring about change in global politics. navigating the political climate In my opinion, one of the most significant factors that determine whether a campaign is successful or not is also one that it has very little control over: political climate. Thankfully for the safe motherhood initiative, the international political climate proved moderately receptive towards the campaign. Since 1985 there have been numerous conferences, including the 1987 conference in Nairobi, the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995, and the conference in 1997 in Colombo, Sri Lanka, that marked the ten year anniversary of the initiative’s launch in 1987. Also notable is the grant for US$ 50 million from the Gates Foundation to Columbia University’s Averting Maternal Death and Disability Program.21 However the single most momentous political window was the establishment of the UN Millennium Development Goals in 2000. Goal five: Improve Maternal Health states that its targets are to: 1. Reduce by three quarters, between 1990 and 2015, the maternal mortality ratio.

2. Achieve, by 2015, universal access to reproductive health.22 For the first time, the issue of maternal mortality was selected to stand amongst globally prominent issues such as the eradication of extreme poverty and hunger, universal primary education and most, notably safe motherhood’s “big sister,” reduction

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of child mortality.23 This was a critical opportunity for the safe motherhood campaign.

It is arguable that without such recognition by the UN Millennium Development Goals, maternal mortality rates would have continued to rise.

It should be noted that while the UN Millennium Development Goals brought much-needed attention to the campaign, critics have chastised its ‘blanket effect.’ Although it is an admirable goal, cutting maternal mortality rates in half does not imply that every country or region will see such dramatic results. For example, Sub-Saharan Africa has a maternal mortality rate of approximately 900/100 000.24 This region may see their rates fall slightly while another rapidly industrializing area may see their rates fall by substantially more than half, thus theoretically equating the two regions to equal a total decrease of one half.

This aside, the UN Millennium Development Goals have impressively created a greatly needed flow of financial resources. Various governments around the globe have favourably altered political practices and donated millions of dollars towards the campaign, allowing for relative progress to be made in the subsequent years.

However, despite the newly acquired financial resources, critics remain skeptical of sustained resources. Shiffman states: Whether the maternal health MDG, efforts by advocates to take advantage of the MDG, and continual efforts by global safe motherhood advocates have had substantial effect on political support and resources is uncertain. A weak global governance structure for health (including absence of leadership on the issue of safe motherhood within the UN system) has hampered the capacity of the initiative to create and take advantage of opportunities.25 Evidently, anarchy in the international system has had inescapable negative impacts upon the success of transnational advocacy campaigns. These effects upon the Safe Motherhood initiative are yet to be determined. As Shiffman indicated, without a strong governing structure overseeing global health matters, anarchy will cause inefficiencies that, in my opinion, threaten to extinguish the momentum the initiative has gained through the MDGs. What this seems to indicate for potential advocacy campaigns is that no matter how prevalent, tragic, or extensive an issue is, if the international political climate is not ready or willing to take on the issue it is arguable that it will remain largely ignored until favourable conditions prevail. the nature of the issue While external conditions play a sizable role in the success of a campaign to change moral norms and practice in world politics, it is equally crucial to examine the nature of the issue itself. Keck and Sikkink commented that: As we look at the issues around which transnational advocacy networks have organized most effectively, we find two characteristic issues that appear most frequently:

1) those involving bodily harm to vulnerable individuals, especially when there is a short and clear causal chain (or story) about who bears responsibility;

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2) issues involving legal equality of opportunity.26

In the case of safe motherhood, it is difficult to directly place the issue into one of these clauses. This could be the reason, at least from Keck and Sikkink’s theory, why this initiative has not had the same success at changing moral norms as other campaigns have.

Scholars further note that the issue of maternal mortality can be viewed as less urgent than other issues in the global sphere. For example, the number of deaths in pregnancy and childbirth (estimated 529 000) are not nearly as significant as those dying from tuberculosis (1.6 million), HIV/AIDS (2.9 million) or malaria (1 million).

Sheer numbers can easily outweigh an issue in its attempt to bring about changes to moral norms and global practices in politics. In the case of maternal mortality, it is even outweighed by its own “sisters”: deaths of children under five (10.6 million) and neonatals (4 million). There has been movement in the initiative to change tactics to emphasize other factors such as combined newborn and maternal deaths (4.5 million), morbidity and lifetime risk of death.27 Often noted is the difficulty in obtaining clear, accurate statistical figures on the number of deaths directly related to pregnancy and childbirth. While accurate records may be kept in most developed countries, data collection is extremely challenging in developing nations. Obtaining accurate data is especially difficult in regions that have experienced violent conflict and political unrest, such as the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Furthermore, the fact that this issue has fairly low numbers per geographic region makes research difficult and confidence in the numbers varies widely.28 Without reliable data, any campaign would lack credibility and legitimacy,and have difficulty establishing itself in the competitive world ‘market’ of transnational advocacy campaigns.

Furthermore, scholars, including Keck and Sikkink, point towards the lack of a simple solution to issue of maternal mortality that prevents it from easily being able to obtain its goal of changing political policies. Contrasting smallpox or other diseases, the safe motherhood campaign cannot offer the world a vaccine to cure this issue. Moreover, unlike the efforts to ban landmine use, there is no one straightforward policy that governments or international organizations can apply that will solve maternal mortality. Maternal mortality is tightly wrapped up in social, economic and political tensions.

Many maternal deaths are related to unsafe abortions that result in haemorrhages or infection. Worldwide, there are 80 million unwanted pregnancies a year.29 Nearly half of those end in abortion, and nearly half (20 million) of those abortions, are unsafe.30 This is because in many countries worldwide abortions are illegal, which lead women to pursue unsafe options. Unsafe abortions are defined as being conducted by individuals without the requisite skills, or in environments below minimum “medical standards, or both... [n]early all unsafe abortions (97%) are in developing countries.”31 On the global stage many actors maintain conservative agendas. Therefore abortion, let alone unsafe abortion, go as widely unmentioned. It is also due to conservative agendas that family planning through the use of contraception also remains largely downplayed. analyzing the impacts of progress Despite the numerous challenges facing this initiative, commendable progress

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has been made towards eradicating preventable maternal deaths. Reviews are mixed as to whether the latest data will help or hurt the campaign’s success. The most recent data indicates that maternal mortality worldwide is down from about 526,300 in 198032 to 358,000 in 2008.

In 2008, the maternal mortality ratio in developing regions was 290 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births, representing a 34 per cent decline since 1990. Exciting progress has been made in many developing regions, including sub-Saharan Africa and Southern Asia, where the majority of maternal deaths occur.33 Evident from these statistics is the fact that that while maternal mortality rates have dropped by over 30 percent there is more than double that figure set out in the UN Millennium Development Goals.34 Given the need for continued progress, some advocates have become concerned about the impact of releasing such figures to the public.35 While some feared such celebration would cause donors’ and global focus to drift, others anxiously awaited the publication to prove that viable progress is tangible for the safe motherhood initiative. It is fascinating that a campaign’s own success at bringing change to moral norms could in turn be conceived as its own demise. This illustrates the complex nature of an issue’s characteristics and illuminates how these can play a considerable role in its triumph or failure at changing political practice worldwide. direction for the future Through analyzing this issue of maternal mortality there are several suggestions that are applicable not only to the global Safe Motherhood Initiative, but to other maturing campaigns as well. First, although safe motherhood has succeeded in grabbing political attention and forming ties with the global political community through the UN Millennium Development Goals, maintaining and enriching these connections remains crucial in sustaining and consolidating the progress made thus far. One way this can be accomplished is through additional joint issue awareness campaigns linking related issues. An example of a flourishing joint initiative is the partnership between the child soldier and conflict diamond campaigns. Following this model, connecting infant health to maternal health may prove beneficial for the initiative when it is paired with the existing advocacy efforts. Secondly, the campaign needs to improve its poor rapport with grassroots organizations and civil society by focusing energy and (when possible) funds towards fostering budding grassroots organizations. This will not only help provide a robust platform for the campaign, but also hasten the rate at which progress is obtained with more actors actively engaging in the cause.

Thirdly, the impact of a skilled attendant, most often a midwife, is frequently mentioned as cause for risk reduction in illness and death.36 While funds may be scarce in a slumping global economy, focus should shift to training domestic (in donor nations) skilled attendants who will not only benefit women domestically but can apply their skills abroad. These domestically-trained midwives can not only directly save lives abroad, but work with traditional health care practitioners in foreign countries incorporating innovative medicine into their techniques. Canada has currently not chosen to adopt this road, for available midwifery training remains scarce. Even though midwifery care is covered under public health care, only six universities in the nation (with only one in western Canada) offer midwifery programs. With only ten seats available in the program at the University of British Columbia37 it would be

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difficult for aspiring Canadian midwives to acquire the training they need. If prestigious universities such as UBC would direct more funding (either private or federal) towards these programs, more Canadian midwifes could become a hands-on part of an initiative that would not only save lives around the world, but improve the lives of Canadian women by increasing access to maternal health care. Furthermore, with more midwives in the field, this would address the issue of the lack of preceptors to train student midwives in the long run and thus increase safe motherhood’s ability to save lives exponentially. If the safe motherhood campaign chooses to incorporate suggestions such as these, they may find the sustained progress they are looking for. conclusion Given this analysis of the global Safe Motherhood Initiative, it is apparent that the factors that determine whether or not an issue will become the focus of a successful campaign to change norms and practices are diverse and multifaceted. The actors that choose to engage in a campaign and the role that they play can greatly shape the future of a campaign. In the case of safe motherhood, the UN has been both a curse and a blessing, states have remained mostly hands off, and no “Bono” has stepped up to the plate, while civil society remains indifferent. Equally important is the framing of ideas and the grafting to pre-existing moral standards. This campaign has long faced difficulties establishing a unified front and grafting proved only mildly successful in a conservative political climate. Furthermore, the nature of the issue itself has proven a challenge. Given lower numbers in comparison to other issues, no “vaccine” solution, difficulty calculating statistics, and conflicting opinions on progress, safe motherhood has sometimes hindered its own cause. While significant progress has been made, the senior director at Amnesty International for Law and Policy, Widney Brown, stated that, “Although a woman is no longer dying every minute, according to the new statistics one woman is still dying every minute and a half.”38 While the future of the safe motherhood campaign does prove promising, the road so far has been long and winding, and the weathering winds of the political climate may or may not change for the better. It is roads like these that illustrate, and will continue to illustrate, why some issues become the center of successful transnational advocacy campaigns to change moral norms and political policies, while others remain in their infancy. notes Nicolas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn, Half the Sky, 93.

BBC News, “Maternal Health Facts and Figures.”

Jeremy Shiffman, “Generation of political priority for global health initiatives: a framework and case study of maternal mortality,” 1370.

4 Charli Carpenter, “Setting the Advocacy Agenda: Theorizing Issue Emergence and Nonemergence in Transnational Advocacy Networks,”103.

5 Jeremy Shiffman, “Generation of political priority for global health initiatives: a framework and case study of maternal mortality,” 1373.

6 Jeremy Shiffman, “Generation of political priority for global health initiatives: a framework and case study of maternal mortality,”1374.

7 Charli Carpenter, “Setting the Advocacy Agenda: Theorizing Issue Emergence and Nonemergence in Transnational Advocacy Networks,” 104.

8 Charli Carpenter, “Setting the Advocacy Agenda: Theorizing Issue Emergence and Nonemergence in Transnational Advocacy Networks,” 104.

1 2 3

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Charli Carpenter, “Setting the Advocacy Agenda: Theorizing Issue Emergence and Nonemergence in Transnational Advocacy Networks,” 104.

10 Tom Zeller, “Bono, Trying to Throw His Arms Around the World.”

11 Jeremy Shiffman, “Generation of political priority for global health initiatives: a framework and case study of maternal mortality,” 1375.

12 Farah Schroff, “Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies.”

13 Farah Schroff, “Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies.”

14 Charli Carpenter, “Setting the Advocacy Agenda: Theorizing Issue Emergence and Nonemergence in Transnational Advocacy Networks,” 104.

15 Jeremy Shiffman, “Generation of political priority for global health initiatives: a framework and case study of maternal mortality,”1375. Keck and Sikkink 99 16 Jeremy Shiffman, “Generation of political priority for global health initiatives: a framework and case study of maternal mortality,” 1374.

17 Jeremy Shiffman, “Generation of political priority for global health initiatives: a framework and case study of maternal mortality,” 1375.

18 Charli Carpenter, “Setting the Advocacy Agenda: Theorizing Issue Emergence and Nonemergence in Transnational Advocacy Networks,” 104.

19 Richard Price, “Reversing the Gun Sights: Transnational Civil Society Targets Landmines,” 628.

20 Jeremy Shiffman, “Generation of political priority for global health initiatives: a framework and case study of maternal mortality,”1376.

21 “UN Conferences.”

22 United Nations. “The Millennium Development Goal 5 Fact Sheet.”

23 United Nations, “The Millennium Development Goals Report.”

24 World Health Organizantion, “Maternal Mortality in 2005,” 1.

25 Jeremy Shiffman, “Generation of political priority for global health initiatives: a framework and case study of maternal mortality,”1376.

26 Margaret E. Keck and Kathryn Sikkink, “Transnational advocacy networks in international and regional politics,” 11.

27 Jeremy Shiffman, “Generation of political priority for global health initiatives: a framework and case study of maternal mortality,”1377.

28 Jeremy Shiffman, “Generation of political priority for global health initiatives: a framework and case study of maternal mortality,”1377.

29 Farah Schroff, “Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies.”

30 Farah Schroff, “Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies.”

31 D.A. Grimes, and J. Benson. “Unsafe abortion: the preventable pandemic.”

32 Denise Grady, “Maternal Deaths Decline Sharply Across the Globe.”

33 United Nations, “The Millennium Development Goal Report 2010 Addendum 2.”

34 Amnesty International Press Release, “Governments urged to do more to prevent women dying in pregnancy and childbirth.”

35 Denise Grady, “Maternal Deaths Decline Sharply Across the Globe.”

36 Jeremy Shiffman, “Generation of political priority for global health initiatives: a framework and case study of maternal mortality,” 1369. Farah Schroff, “Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies.”, Grady 37 “UBC Midwifery.”

38 Amnesty International Press Release, “Governments urged to do more to prevent women dying in pregnancy and childbirth.”

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bibiliography

Amnesty International. “Governments urged to do more to prevent women dying in pregnancy and childbirth.” Amnesty International Press Release. 2010.

BBC News. “Maternal Health Facts and Figures.” BBC News, June 26, 2005. Accessed November 15, 2010.

Carpenter, Charli. “Setting the Advocacy Agenda: Theorizing Issue Emergence and

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Nonemergence in Transnational Advocacy Networks.” International Studies Quarterly. 51.

(2007): 99-120.

Grady, Denise. “Maternal Deaths Decline Sharply Across the Globe.” New York Times April 13, 2010.

Grimes, D.A., and J. Benson. “Unsafe abortion: the preventable pandemic.” Lancet.

368.9550 (2006): 1908-1919.

Price, Richard. “Reversing the Gun Sights: Transnational Civil Society Targets Landmines,” International Organization 52 (Summer 1998), 628.

Shiffman, Jeremy, and Stephanie Smith. “Generation of political priority for global health initiatives: a framework and case study of maternal mortality.”Lancet. 370. (2007): 13701380.

Sikkink, Kathryn and Margaret E. Keck. “Transnational advocacy networks in international and regional politics.” UNESCO and Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1999. 89-100.

United Nations. “Millennium Development Goal 5 Fact Sheet.” United Nations, 2010. Accessed November 15, 2010. http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/maternal.shtml.

United Nations. “The Millennium Development Goals Report.” United Nations, 2010. Accessed November 15, 2010. http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/maternal.shtml.

United Nations. “The Millennium Development Goal Report 2010 Addendum 2.”

United Nations, 2010. Accessed November 15, 2010. http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/maternal.shtml.

United Nations, “UN Conferences,” Accessed: 15 Nov 2010. http://www.un.org/Conferences/.

World Health Organization. “Maternal Mortality in 2005.” (2007): 1.

Zeller, Tom. “Bono, Trying to Throw His Arms Around the World.” New York Times November 13, 2006.

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Famine, Flight and Torture International Policy Options for North Korean Refugess in China

SARAH CHUNG

As a result of a chronic economic slump for nearly two decades, thousands of North Koreans have illegally travelled across borders in search of food. This current crisis threatens the security of North Korea and its adjacent states, in particular, China, which receives the largest number of North Korean defectors. Fearing a mass migration of North Koreans into China, China agreed to sign Sino-Korean treaties in 1961 and 1986 that promise repatriation for all North Korean defectors in China.

Since then, China has sent back North Korean refugees, where many were tortured and starved to death for disobeying the national law.

Much of the international community has concluded that China’s repatriation of North Korean defectors is a violation of international human rights law.1 However, scholars remain deeply divided on the solution. Some have agreed with the US position of putting sanctions on North Korea,3 while others believe diplomatic talks will be necessary to convince China to allow “temporary asylum” for North Korean defectors.3 Still other scholars argue that the ultimate solution is to force a destabilization of the North Korean regime to free the North Korean citizens.4 This paper will focus on the North Korean refugee situation in China, the Chinese response, and the possible solutions to the growing problem. The aim of the paper is to evaluate each of the solutions outlined in the previous paragraph, and formulate the best recommendation for the crisis. First, I will explain the causes of the North Korean economic downturn that intensified the mass migrations to China. Next, I will evaluate China’s policy of repatriation, and the international response. Finally, I will assess the three aforementioned solutions to the growing North Korean refugee problem: encouraging destabilization of the North Korean regime, imposing sanctions, and introducing humanitarian status to China. I argue that offering a humanitarian status

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to North Korean defectors is the best option because it prevents human rights violations caused by repatriation while maintaining regional security that could otherwise have been disrupted by a massive influx of North Korean migrants. the beginning of the north korean economic crisis The North Korean government is still fighting an economic crisis that began two decades ago. The crisis began in the 1990s when North Korea lost any important trading partner, the Soviet Union, and encountered a series of natural disasters for nearly a decade.5 Intensified by the North Korean government’s ineffective policy and distribution system, the Great Famine forced more than 100,000 North Koreans to move to China in search for food.6 North Korea traditionally relied upon the Soviet Union’s subsidies of food, fuel, and equipment to function, as it had limited natural resources and technology.7 When the Soviet Union collapsed as an outcome of the Cold War, North Korea’s economy became stagnant and unstable. In addition, North Korea’s other ally, China, established economic and diplomatic relations with South Korea, which resulted in decreased trade levels with North Korea. With inadequate external aid, North Korea experienced increasing food shortages.

The food crisis deepened when cataclysmic floods in 1995 caused crop failures for about 40 per cent of North Korea’s arable land, followed by droughts in 2000 and 2001 that completely devastated North Korea’s agricultural industry.8 With scarce food resources, an efficient distribution system became crucial. However, North Korea’s Public Distribution System (PDS) only reached a small fraction of the population, often discriminating against the poorest. The famine killed an estimated 3.5 million people, 13 per cent of the total population.9 To revitalize the depressed economy, the North Korean government introduced “the July 2002 Economic Reform,” which was based on deregulation and price increase to stimulate the economy. Although the liberalization model was counterintuitive to North Korea’s socialist values, the North Korean government felt it was necessary to save the economy. The reform, in theory, made sense: increased wages would create incentives for consumers to spend, while increased prices would pour more money into the market. A major flaw, however, was that the North Korean government overestimated its own economy. Without a strong enough industry to stay competitive, North Korea faced devalued currency with high inflation. In one year, staple food prices increased by 50 per cent, making them unaffordable.10 Consequently, thousands of North Koreans migrated to China out of hunger.11 north korean refugees in china In their struggle to survive, thousands of North Koreans take a risky path over the Tumen River to China. Due to the immense difficulties and dangers associated with crossing the demilitarized zone and sea borders to South Korea, many North Koreans cross the northern border to China. Still, the river is heavily patrolled by armed guards and some have to wait days or even months for the perfect opportunity. Others risk arrest by bribe Chinese guards with large amounts of money. The estimates of North Korean refugees in China range from 10,00012 to 300,00013. The exact number cannot be determined because they cannot be legally registered as refugees, and because some

12 Journal of International Affairs

even move back and forth across the border to bring back money and/or see family.

Once across the river, many North Korean refugees receive help and protection from local ethnic Korean communities in China that are mostly located in the northeast. One survey of North Korean refugees in China found that an overwhelming majority, or 88 per cent received direct help from the Korean-Chinese communities and more than three quarters were living with Korean-Chinese.14 However, most of the North Korean refugees in China are transitive. This may be due to China’s strict action against North Korean defectors, where if found, they are arrested and repatriated. Indeed, the same survey found that only 14 per cent were satisfied to stay in China, while 64 per cent preferred to go to South Korea and a large number, 19 per cent, preferred to go to the United States.15 Due to the difficulties of crossing the southern border, a majority of North Korean defectors cross to China first and then seek refuge in foreign embassies or travel to third countries, such as Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Mongolia, before settling in South Korea.

While residing in China, North Koreans have to live in fear and hide from the Chinese authorities. As a result, many suffer post-traumatic stress and other psychological health problems. One study found that 99 per cent of the study group reported fear and anxiety and around 25 per cent said they were depressed on daily basis.16 Another study revealed that the longer the duration of stay in China increases the level of paranoia and one’s chances of developing a mental health problem such as anxiety, depression, and schizophrenia.17 Moreover, the North Korean defectors’ illegal status restricts access to humanitarian groups as well as many other services such as health care, education and employment. Many men end up doing illegal low-paying jobs, while more than 80 per cent of the North Korean women that cross the border into China are trafficked as brides or into the sex industry.18 a gendered problem As noted earlier, of the total number of North Korean refugees, women comprise 80 per cent. One possible explanation for this gender imbalance is that women are traditionally the first victims of lay-offs when the economy is in a recession.19 Additionally, women are also expected to support their family in place of men who were usually tied to the official economic sectors, often without receiving adequate wages.20 Therefore, many women cross borders to seek alternative ways to support their family.

Another plausible explanation is the “pulling” effect of China’s higher demand for brides. China’s one-child policy and parents’ general preference for male offspring has produced a gender imbalance in China, leaving many lonely Chinese bachelors— up to 38 million in rural areas21—to seek their match across borders. Chinese marriage brokers try to lure in North Korean women by falsely promising better lives in China.

Some reports have revealed that even Chinese border guards and policemen earn money by selling North Korean women to traffickers or directly to men.22 Of those trafficked, between 60 to 70 per cent experience physical violence.23 Women are found locked up, physically abused and repeatedly raped to tactically cause them to lose their self-esteem and thus, become more compliant sex workers. Due to their illegal status in China, many female refugees are forced to comply for fear of repatriation, the consequences of repatriation which are grave. Those who are forcibly repatriated are either immediately sent to jail or interrogated by officials where they have been tortured, sent to labor camps, and on some occasions, executed.24 Moreover,

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pregnant women who are repatriated to North Korea are often forced into abortions, or their infants are killed upon birth for fear of tainting the “pure blood.”25 Additional problems arise when North Korean women refugees have a child with a Chinese or a Korean-Chinese person. Since marriages between crossed nations are illegal, the mixed child will be denied from obtaining a ‘Chinese number’ that signifies Chinese citizenship.26 Without a ‘Chinese number,’ the child will not be able to have access to the most basic public services, including health care, legal rights, education and employment. the chinese response In dealing with North Korean refugee issues, China abides by a bilateral 1986 repatriation agreement with North Korea, which states that “both sides shall mutually cooperate on the work of preventing the illegal border crossing of residents” and “… individuals who illegally cross the border … should be turned over to the other side.”27 In other words, China does not recognize North Korean defectors as refugees but as criminals that should be punished.

Accordingly, China has heightened surveillance against North Korean defectors and also provided monetary incentives to the Chinese to turn in North Koreans. Those who assist any illegal migrants are penalized with fines and prison time. The Chinese government offers rewards of up to $1400 to families who report North Korean defectors and fines those who assist refugees by up to $3600, specifically targeting nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and Korean-Chinese habitants. It is estimated that some 300 North Koreans are repatriated to North Korea every week without any access to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).28 There are two main reasons for China’s stance. First, if China accepts North Korean defectors as refugees, they will have to provide them some aid. For example, the South Korean government budgets 70.1 billion won29 ($58.6 million) to help with resettlement for North Korean refugees. The current disassociation system allows China to spend nothing on the North Korean migrants. Some scholars have argued that the cheap labor may even be beneficial to the Chinese economy.30 Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, a relaxed border between North Korea and China may prompt a massive influx of refugees and likely lead to a collapse of the North Korean regime.31 This notion is not new: in 1989, the “wealthier” West Germany experienced economical and political chaos after the fall of the Berlin Wall that brought in an enormous influx of East German refugees. China has no intention on being the “West Germany” of Asia.

At the same time, China does not want to anger the international community that is pushing China to stop repatriations. Traditionally, China’s alliance with North Korea was important for trade benefits and acted as a buffer against South Korea.

Recently, however, China has sought to maintain long-term stability and peace in the peninsula by working with the US to discourage North Korea from developing weapons of mass destruction and nuclear proliferation.32 China has also been more diplomatic to other nations, with hopes to integrate itself better into the international community and to become more prominent in international decision-making. international pressures

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Various international agencies have argued that China has violated its obligations to the 1951 Refugee Convention, which states that a person should be given asylum if he or she is seeking protection from fear of persecution.33 On the other hand, China does not recognize North Korean asylum seekers as refugees, but as “economic migrants”34 that are exempt from the 1951 Refugee Convention.

A refugee is defined as any person who “...owing to well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality and is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country […].”35 Many sources support this position, suggesting that most North Koreans cross borders for economic factors rather than fear of persecution.36 Yet the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and other human rights organizations uphold that even if North Koreans cross borders in search of food, the known fact of persecution after repatriation should, in essence, permit them to claim refugee status sur place.

37

Secondly, China has also been criticized for violating a UN Declaration of Human Rights, in particular the principle of non-refoulement which states that ‘[n]o State Party shall expel, return (refouler) or extradite a person to another State where there are substantial grounds for believing that he would be in danger of being subjected to torture’.38 The UNHCR argues that international human rights law must be applied to all other laws. In other words, the obligation under the international human rights act to protect an individual from torture should overrule any other conventions.

Student human rights activist groups from the US, South Korea and even Canada have lent their voices of concern about the treatment of North Korean refugees in China, usually in the form of protests, letters, or by disseminating information.39 State governments have also put pressure on China. The US has continued to threaten non-trade and non-humanitarian sanctions against North Korea for its noncompliance to international human rights standards. In 2004, the US singled out China for not allowing North Korean defectors to have access to humanitarian organizations such as the UNHCR. Section 304(1) of the North Korean Human Rights Act states that “the United States, other UNHCR donor governments, and UNHCR should persistently and at the highest levels continue to urge the Government of China to abide by its previous commitments to allow UNHCR unimpeded access to North Korean refugees inside China.40 In 2007, the US again condemned China for repatriating North Korean defectors as a violation of the international human rights law.41 Most recently, US President Barack Obama made a personal trip to China to ask it to release five North Korean refugees who were caught crossing the China-Vietnam border.42 South Korea also once sent a Chinese envoy to protest the arrest of North Korean refugees that were in the international schools of Beijing.43 In another incident, when Chinese police used force against North Korean refugees escaping to a Japanese Consulate compound, Japan blamed Beijing for violating the right of diplomatic missions to provide sanctuary.44 With increasing pressure from the international community, China has generally tried to offset criticism in small steps. In 2008, China allowed over forty refugees

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taking shelter in foreign missions to depart to the US and South Korea.45 China is reluctant to make any drastic changes, however, because of the fear of North Korea’s refugee influx that could dismantle the security of the peninsula.

0ptions Destabilization of the North Korean Regime Some scholars have advocated the use of refugee flows for the political means of weakening the North Korean regime.46 This could be achieved by relaxing the two borders of North Korea, and by encouraging North Korean defectors to seek asylum abroad, such as in the US. If China fails to comply, the proponents recommend the construction of an underground railroad that would provide North Koreans a safe passage into China.47 Advocates of this position maintain that regime change in North Korea is the only solution to end the human rights atrocities in the nation.48 However, there are two main problems to this option. First, the majority of North Korean refugees leave to escape their political dissatisfactions with the country.49 Thus, when political dissidents exit, the North Korean regime is actually better off because it weeds out nonconformists, limiting their ability to mobilize for a social protest. In this way of thinking, the encouragement of refugee flows may not cause any threats to North Korean political stability, but rather, may strengthen it by draining the nation of its radicals.

Secondly, the more likely response to a mass refugee outflow is a breakout of conflicts between Chinese and North Korean officials, not necessarily leading to a regime collapse.50 With North Korea’s strong military stance, including its weapons of mass destruction, such conflict could result in a devastating war.

Furthermore, the collapse of the North Korean regime would cause chaos in the international political system, endangering lives and undermining human rights.51 Placing sanctions The US has continued to threaten economic sanctions against North Korea for its noncompliance with international human rights principles.52 Traditionally, economic sanctions have the ability to bring about policy change in the target nation by imposing the most severe economic harm possible. With North Korea’s dependence upon foreign goods and foreign aid, economic sanctions would have detrimental effects to North Korea’s already depressed economy. The US hopes that by making such threats, the North Korean government will stop treating North Korean defectors with inhuman brutality when they are repatriated from China.

Critics of this discourse have argued that economic sanctions are unfavourable because they tend to put significant human costs on innocent civilians of the target states, and also because they often promote hostility, which may turn into force.53 Indeed, putting economic sanctions on an already struggling economy would further escalate the food crisis, which would only encourage more North Koreans to migrate to China in search for food. In addition, North Korea might respond to sanctions with the threat of nuclear development. Therefore, economic sanctions become counterproductive when discussions such as the Six-Party Talks54 are needed to solve the problem of nuclear proliferation. Other critics simply argue that punishing North Korea purely on the basis of human rights is inadequate because of the inconsistency of the definitions of ‘human rights’ that North Korea and western countries use.55

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Finding a compromise The UNHCR has advocated for granting North Korean defectors humanitarian or temporary status instead of refugee status.56 This would allow North Koreans in China to gain access to services from NGOs including immediate sources of food and arrangements for resettlement in a third country. In addition, women would be able to benefit from UN programs that promote gender equality and protect human rights.

For example, the United Nations Women, United Nations entity for gender equality and the empowerment of women helps female migrant workers by teaching them preventative methods against human trafficking, advocating for more equal business standards for women and supporting local women’s groups.57 This stance assumes that North Koreans with humanitarian status in China will want to seek settlement elsewhere, and therefore, China will be neither accommodating nor repatriating North Koreans defectors and will only be acting as a transition state.

The proposal suggests that China could justify a “good neighbor approach” and adhere to international human rights standards without infringing Sino-DPRK agreements. Granting humanitarian status can be seen as a less provocative way to increase protection for the North Koreans in China than granting refugee status and is thus a practical solution that can be implemented.58 Still, the UNHCR insists that the discussion with China must occur behind closed doors so as to avoid the risk of appearing intrusive in domestic affairs. The UNHCR understands that any establishment of a “pull” factor by China may create an uncontrollable mass migration of North Korean defectors that could threaten the security of China, North Korea and other neighbouring countries.

The UNHCR argues that because China is a historical ally with North Korea, it is in the best interest of the international community to not anger North Korea and compromise for regional security. By having China as a “transitional” state that grants a temporal or humanitarian status, it still leaves room for border control that is less chaotic than a total destabilization of the North Korean regime. In addition, North Korean defectors in China gain access to immediate health, food and shelter services through NGOs. Finally, granting North Korean defectors with humanitarian or temporary status prevents possible human rights violations caused by repatriating North Korean defectors. Therefore, this is the best solution available so far. conclusion North Korea’s vulnerability to refugee issues is due to the nation’s long-term economic instability, caused by declining trade ties with the USSR and then with China after the Cold War. North Korea’s ineffective economic policy and the Great Famine in the 1990s and early 2000s only exacerbated its economic problems. With the growing number of starving North Koreans looking for a new place to live, their illegal crossings over the border have raised human rights concerns, especially with regards to the trafficking of women.

China, as the largest receiver of North Korean defectors, arrested and repatriated all North Korean defectors, labeling them “economic migrants” and refusing to recognize them as refugees. Condemned by the international community, China has fallen into an awkward position: while trying to uproot a previous agreement with North Korea, it does not want to anger the international community. To make matters worse, the nuclear missile issue endangered the security of the entire peninsula, as

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countries became more lenient towards North Korea out of fear.

To solve the issue, various scholars, governments, and international organizations have come up with several options, such as encouraging destabilization of the North Korean regime, imposing sanctions or introducing humanitarian status to North Korean defectors. Due to the potentially dangerous outcome of a large influx of North Korean defectors and the unfavorable by-product of antagonism towards sanctions, the last option of the three to offer a temporary status to North Korean defectors in China may be the best choice.

However, the solution only demands a short-term peace. Hence, there also needs to be a push toward improving the economic conditions of North Korea to ensure long-term peace and to tackle human rights issues. Indeed, many North Korean refugees confirm that the regime became far worse under Kim Jong-il than under his father, Kim Il-sung. Due to his history of dictatorship and totalitarian rule, the North Korean leader and his beliefs are crucial in determining the fate of North Korea’s economy. The world holds its breath as it awaits the uncertain future of North Korea when Kim Jong-il’s son, Kim Jong-un, takes his father’s place. notes Elim Chan and Andreas Schloenhardt, “North Korean Refugees and International Refugee Law,” International Journal of Refugee Law, 19. 2. (Oxford University Press, 2007): 215-245; Kathleen Davis, “Brides, Bruises and the Border: The Trafficking of North Korean Women into China,” SAIS Review. 26. 1. (2006): 131-141; Stephan Haggard and Marcus Noland, The North Korean Refugee Crisis: Human Rights and International Response (Washington, DC., 2006); J.R. Charney, “North Koreans in China: A Human Rights Analysis,” International Journal of Korean Unification Studies, 13. 2. (2004): 75-97.

2 US Senator Sam Brownback stated that he “hoped to encourage an exodus of North Korean refugees to China, adding that ‘if this destabilizes the regime, great!’” in USA Today, 15 July 2005, 7A, by B. Slavin, “Rights Conference May Be Pitfall for N. Korea Talks.”

3 J.R. Charney, “North Koreans in China: A Human Rights Analysis,” 76.

4 CRS Report for Congress, “North Korean Refugees in China and Human Rights Issues: International Response and US Policy Option” (2007), accessed November 2, 2010, http://handle. dtic.mil/100.2/ADA473619.

5 Kathleen Davis, “Brides, Bruises and the Border,” 132.

6 Young-Ja Kim, “Human Rights of North Korean Women in China and Policy Proposals,” Citizens’ Alliance for North Korean Human Rights, accessed November 2, 2010, http://www. nkhumanrights.or.kr/bbs/board2/files/85_fr2.doc.

7 Nicholas Eberstadt, Marc Rubin and Albina Tretyakova, “The Collapse of Soviet and Russian Trade with the DPRK, 1989–1993: Impact and Implications,” Korean Journal of National Unification 4 (1992).

8 Kathleen Davis, “Brides, Bruises and the Border,” 130.

9 Amnesty International, Starved of Rights: Human Rights and the Food Crisis in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea 3. 10. (2004): 13.

10 John Pomfret, “North Korea Faces New Crisis as Economic Reforms Falters,” (2003), accessed November 2, 2010, http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/01/27/1043534004032.html.

11 However, recent trends show that this is changing. Increasingly, the North Korean defectors are escaping for political reasons including loss of status, fear of persecution due to family history and a wish to live in a better standard of living. See J.R. Charney, “North Koreans in China: A Human Rights Analysis,” 78.

12 Amnesty International, Starved of Rights, 9.

13 Andrei Lankov, “North Korean Refugees in Northeast China,” Asian Survey 44. 6. (2004): 856-873.

1

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Yoonok Chang, “North Korean Refugees in China: Evidence from a Survey,” in Stephan Haggard and Marcus Noland, The North Korean Refugee Crisis, 21.

15 Ibid, 21.

16 Shi-Eun Yu and Woo-Teak Jeon, “Mental Health of North Korean Refugees in Protective Facilities in China,” Journal of Korean Neuropsychiatric Association (2008): 71.

17 Yunhwan Lee et al., “Trauma Experience of North Korean Refugees in China,” American Journal of Preventive Medicine (2001): 227.

18 Kathleen Davis, “Brides, Bruises and the Border,” 21.

19 Kyung-Ae Park, “People’s Exit, Regime Stability, and North Korean Diplomacy,” (Working paper, University of British Columbia, 2010): 52.

20 Ibid, 52-53.

21 Sung-Jin Lee, “Tragedy is Inherited for Refugees,” The Daily NK, 23 May 2009.

22 Barbara Demick, “North Korea’s Brides of Despair,” Los Angeles Times, 18 August 2003, accessed November 15, 2010, http://www2.gol.com/users/coynerhm/n_koreas_brides_of_despair. htm.

23 Man-Ho Heo, “61st UNCHR Meeting in Geneva: Oral Intervention on Item 12,” A Woman’s Voice International (2005), accessed November 2, 2010, http://awomansvoice.org/nl1-2005-4. html.

24 David Hawk, The Hidden Gulag Exposing North Korea’s Prison Camps: Prisoners’ Testimonies and Satellite Photographs, US Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, 2. 15. (2003): 23; Amnesty International, Starved of Rights, 31.

25 B.R. Myers, The Cleanest Race: How North Koreans See Themselves and Why It Matters, (Melville House, 2010), 35.

26 Young-Ja Kim, “Human Rights of North Korean Women in China and Policy Proposals,” 1.

27 1986 Mutual Cooperation Protocol for the Work of Maintaining National Security and Social Order in the Border Areas, signed in Dandong in the People’s Republic of China between the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea Ministry of State Security and the People’s Republic of China Ministry of Public Security on 12 August 1986, Article 4(2), accessed November 4, 2010, www.bekkoame.ne.jp/ro/renk/Protocol.htm.

28 Elim Chan and Andreas Schloenhardt, “North Korean Refugees and International Refugee Law,” 217.

29 Moon Gwang-lip, “Defector policy under criticism as inflow rises,” Joongangdaily, 12 July 2010, accessed November 4, 2010, http://joongangdaily.joins.com/article/view. asp?aid=2923050.

30 Andrei Lankov, “North Korean Refugees in Northeast China,” 870.

31 Elim Chan and Andreas Schloenhardt, “North Korean Refugees and International Refugee Law,” 222; Andrei Lankov, “North Korean Refugees in Northeast China,” 871.

32 Anne Wu, “What China Whispers to North Korea,” The Washington Quarterly 28. 2. (2005): 36.

33 Article 1A(2) Refugee Convention as amended by the Refugee Protocol.

34 See, for example, a lengthy interview with Zhu Liang, former head of the International Department of the Communist Party of China’s Central Committee, in the October 2002 issue of Wolgan Chungang [Central Monthly]. Zhu sometimes describes the refugees as “illegal trespassers”; James D. Seymour, China: Background Paper on the Situation of North Koreans in China 2. 12.

Writenet Independent Analysis (2005): 76, accessed November 15, 2010, www.ilw.com/lawyers/ articles/2005 ,0629-northkorean.pdf.

35 Brookings Bern Project on Internal Displacement, Legal Grounds for Protection of North Korean Refugees, 12

September 2010, available at:

http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/docid/4ca58cad0.html [accessed 12 March 2011] 36 In one survey, for example, of the 1346 North Korean refugees interviewed in China, an overwhelming 95 per cent said economy was the reason for leaving North Korea while only two per cent said it was political dissatisfaction; James D. Seymour, China, 9; Amnesty International, Starved of Rights, 30.

37 UNHCR, Refugee Handbook, 60. para. 94: Under international law, a person who becomes a refugee only after he or she has left his or her country of origin is, nevertheless, a refugee, a 14

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so-called refugee sur place.

38 Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, 1465 UNTS 85.

39 For example, the University of the British Columbia has a student club called “Promoting Understandings of North Korea” (PUNK) 40 North Korean Human Rights Act of 2004 (Public Law 108-333), accessed November 2, 2010, http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/PLAW-108publ333/content-detail.html.

41 Kyung-Ae Park, “People’s Exit, Regime Stability, and North Korean Diplomacy,” 64.

42 “Korea’s Berlin Wall,” The Wall Street Journal, 14 November 2009.

43 Kyung-Ae Park, “People’s Exit, Regime Stability, and North Korean Diplomacy,” 64.

44 Ibid, 64.

45 Kyung-Ae Park, “People’s Exit, Regime Stability, and North Korean Diplomacy,” 52.

46 CRS Report for Congress, “North Korean Refugees in China and Human Rights Issues,” 28.

47 See Nicholas Eberstadt and Christopher Griffin, “Saving North Korea’s Refugees: The Case for Action,” International Herald Tribune. 20 February 2007.

48 CRS Report for Congress, “North Korean Refugees in China and Human Rights Issues,” 28.

49 Albert Hirschman, “Exit, Voice, and the State,” World Politics 31. 1. (1978): 90.

50 CRS Report for Congress, “North Korean Refugees in China and Human Rights Issues,” 28.

51 Elim Chan and Andreas Schloenhardt, “North Korean Refugees and International Refugee Law,” 220.

52 Patricia Goedde, “Legal mobilization for Human Rights Protection in North Korea: Furthering Discourse or Discord?” Human Rights Quarterly 32 (The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010): 571.

53 Robert Pape, “Why Economic Sanctions Still Do Not Work,” International Security, 23. (The MIT Press, 1998): 76.

54 The Six-Party Talks began in 2003 aimed to end North Korea’s nuclear program through a negotiating process involving China, the US, North and South Korea, Japan and Russia.

55 Patricia Goedde, “Legal mobilization for Human Rights Protection in North Korea,” 530-574.

56 CRS Report for Congress, “North Korean Refugees in China and Human Rights Issues,” 27.

57 UN Women: United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowered of Women. Accessed March 15, 2011. Available at: http://www.unwomen.org/ 58 CRS Report for Congress, “North Korean Refugees in China and Human Rights Issues,” 27.

20 Journal of International Affairs

“Dance of the Aborigines” Representational Conflict at the 2010 Winter Olympics

HEATHER STACK

The Olympics, as an international event, provides a space of gathering for the celebration and performance of the host nation’s identity.1 Contrary to its presentation as an international space where sport and politics are divided, the Olympic Games have also been a site for international and domestic politics.2 As Canada and Australia share a similar legacy of marginalization and oppression of Aboriginals as a result of their shared history of British colonialism, the 2000 Sydney Olympics and the 2010 Vancouver Olympics have represented complicated spaces in this context. The Sydney and Vancouver Olympics each attempted to provide reconciliation and awareness by addressing histories of inequality. Both Olympic celebrations focused on creating ‘authentic’ experiences of host nations by presenting and including Aboriginal communities along with their Australian and Canadian counterparts.3 As a gold medalwinning Aboriginal Australian woman, Cathy Freedman became an iconic figure in the Sydney Olympics.4 In the media Freedman was presented as a politically charged athlete and champion who embodied reconciliation in Australia.5 Contrasting Freedman’s role in the media at the Sydney Olympics, Russian ice dancers Oksana Domnina and Maxim Shabalin became a global cautionary tale of cultural appropriation and mis-representation due to their performance “The Dance of the Aborigines” at the Vancouver Olympics.

The controversy surrounding this dance from the original performance at the European Championships throughout the Vancouver Olympics exemplifies the complexity of global conflicts over rights of representation. This case is important as it exemplifies that issues of race and class are not a thing of the past, but are present in complicated ways. The unprecedented amount of media attention this controversy garnered, alongside the support of Australian Aboriginals throughout the Olympics,

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proves the importance of contextualization and acknowledgement that the present is neither a-historical nor innocent. Domnina and Shabalin’s changing attitudes as the controversy gained momentum illustrate the difficulty of taking responsibility for cultural offense. By mapping the changes in the Russian ice dancers position on the dance and comparing it to the international interest, the controversy over the “Dance of the Aborigines” presents a sociological case study of increasing global interest in recognition of the severity of cultural appropriation of historically marginalized peoples.

Ice dance is a discipline of Figure Skating comprised of three performances.

The compulsory dance is worth 20, the original, or short dance 30, and the free dance worth 50 of the overall score of a competition.6 The original dance segment of the competition is designed to allow ice dancers the opportunity to explore their creativity. The original dance is judged on the couple’s ability to “express and reflect the character of the dance”7 while “physically, emotionally and intellectually…translat[ing] the intent of the music.” The skaters are to be dressed in “modest, dignified [costumes] – not garish or theatrical in design.”8 With the 2010 Winter Olympics Original Dance theme being ‘folk dance,’ Domnina and Shabalin performed their original dance, “The Dance of the Aborigines” in Tallinn, Estonia in December 2009. Though the dance won them second place in the competition, qualifying them for the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, it simultaneously ignited international debate over rights of representation that would last throughout the Olympics. the pre-olympic performance Shrouding their dance in Orientalist notions of ‘Otherness’ prior to their original performance of “The Dance of the Aborigines,” Domnina and Shabalin referred to their dance as exotic and mysterious. On the Official Website Domnina and Shabalin comment in a blog: It’s a dance of the Aboriginal: there are drums, mysterious voices….it will be something very unusual… really original! ... we believe that you will be amazed by the result of this funny and unusual dance.9 In “Orientalism” Edward Said states, “the Orient help[s] to define Europe (or the West) as its contrasting image, idea, personality, experience.”10 The Orient becomes positioned as the ‘Other’ that upholds the ‘West’ as the supposed ‘Norm’ through their contrast. For their performance Domnina and Shabalin were dressed in dark body suits with white paint markings, red ‘loincloths,’ and green ‘leaves’ based loosely on tribal symbols of Australian Aboriginal groups. Through their dance, choice of costume and their descriptions of those they seek to portray Domnina and Shabalin reconstruct Australian Aboriginals as interesting and ‘Other.’

Though Domnina and Shabalin momentarily take on the ‘Other,’ as Shabalin is clearly wearing a dark ‘skinned’ bodysuit and facial make-up and Domnina’s hair remains blonde, they remain effectively distanced from the ‘Other’ they temporarily assume in their dance. Identifying their dance as Aboriginal while simultaneously describing their dance as funny, unusual, and mysterious, Domnina and Shabalin further locate themselves in the ‘Norm’ rather than an Aboriginal ‘Other.’ This sentiment is echoed in their blog which states, “The couple once again confirmed their artistic

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maturity…[with] a mischievious [sic], funny sketch… recreating on the ice moments of everyday’s [sic] life in an Aboriginal tribe”.11 While their website claims the dance is representative of the everyday life of “Aboriginals,” it is identified as unusual, and thus exciting and exotic for the ‘Western’ subject. Domnina and Shabalin’s connection with and investment in the ‘Norm’ is upheld through identifying the dance, costumes, and people they are representing as unusual, thus not reflective of their own ‘true’ selves. Maintaining a barrier between themselves and those they take on maintains the binary of ‘Norm’ and ‘Other’ while exemplifying cultural appropriation. As the dancers sample the culture of an ‘Other’ for their personal benefit they appropriate Australian Aboriginals in hopes of being rewarded for artistic daring. initial responses to “dance of the aborigines” After the performance the crowd enthusiastically cheered and the judges made no deductions on the style of the dance or the costumes.12 However, despite their high scoring and positive response at the European Championships Domnina and Shabalin received criticism worldwide in the weeks that followed.

Critiques ranged from multiple aspects of the performance such as the costumes and music used, to the lack of research on and permission of Australian Aboriginals to imitate their ceremonial dress. In criticism of the costumes and movements in “Dance of the Aborigines,” Steven Page, the artistic director of the Australian indigenous group the Bangarra Dance Company commented, “It looks more like they were trying to emulate the token savage “caveman.”13 This representation of Aboriginal people is reflective of the double edged nature of how they are often portrayed in the media.14 As Shabalin swings Domnina around by her ponytail while making grimacing faces, the mixed image of the tribal warrior or caveman is evoked. Though this and other ‘exotic’ dance moves may be representative of “constructed images and cultural narratives that dominate our ways of seeing and representing the world,”15 it does so at the expense of creating limiting identity categories locating Aboriginal peoples as ‘wild,’ ‘exotic,’ and of the past. Page further identifies that there were “no traditional movements in the routine.”16 With regards to the music, Alexander Goldstein, the musical arranger for the Russians, added the didgeridoo to in attempts to evoke an auditory between Australia and the original music by Sheila Chandra, a UK pop star of Indian descent.17 Couples may perform an alternate dance from the dance they used to qualify for the Olympics at the National Championships. However, as there is only a month between the championships and the Olympics there is little time to alter the qualifying routine or create a new dance to be performed at the Olympics. The positive reception at the National Championships differed from the international response to the dance.

Due to the strong negative reaction the dance garnered internationally, Domnina and Shabalin’s announcement that they would be performing their original dance sparked international debate surrounding rights of representation.

Despite immediate criticisms of the dance, the couple responded positively on the amount of media attention they were receiving. After their original performance the Russians stated: The most important thing is that people are not left indifferent by the dance. There are reactions and that is already a plus. It is

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| representational conflict impossible to please everyone…I think the costumes were spot on right away.18

The question raised by many: What is the difference between the German pair interpreting a Hawaiian dance, an American team doing a Bollywood routine, a Chinese pair performing a Greek dance, and the Russians doing an Aboriginal dance at the 2010 Olympics? Why out of these many takes on ‘folk dance’ was there only a negative response to the Russians doing an ‘Aboriginal dance?’ To understand the difference, the “Dance of the Aborigines” must be put in context of the history of Aboriginal peoples in Australia, as well as Aboriginal peoples globally.

Elders Bev Manton and Sol Ballear of The New South Wales Aboriginal Land Council (NSWALC) made public statements condemning the dance. Manton, a Worimi woman from the mid-NSW North Coast and chairwoman of the NSWALC, wrote a response to the dance on 21 January, 2010 in an editorial for The Sydney Morning Herald. Manton announced that she and other members of her community found the dance offensive and urged the couple to reconsider performing the “Dance of the Aborigines” again at the upcoming Olympics. Ballear, also of the NSWALC, supported Manton’s claims, further noting that his community views the “Dance of the Aborigines” as “straight-out cultural theft… absolutely stolen without our permission and without consultation.”19 In response to the dance, Ballear wrote to the Russian Ambassador in Canberra a letter of protest.20 the past is always present and the present is never innocent Contextualizing the reasons for offence, Manton identified the long history of cultural appropriation of Australian Aboriginals. In acknowledgement of the lack of intent to harm and offend, Manton stated, “it’s wonderful that there is such international interest in some of the beautiful things that make us Aboriginal… [b]ut interest must be expressed in a way that is respectful …[and this] is not.”21 Highlighting the importance of the “depiction and protection of the Aboriginal image on the world stage,” Manton drew from the long history of appropriation and destruction of aboriginal art, dance, land, and culture.22 Historically Australia, like Canada, has a long history of Aboriginal exploitation, marginalization and oppression. In Australia, the mathematics of blood quantum created a way to exclude Aboriginal people from accessing rights.

Children who were designated ‘half-castes’ due to a lack of Aboriginal blood classification were removed from their families and placed in state or religions institutions, or fostered into white families to be raised in ‘white society.’ These children, described as ‘the Stolen Generation,’ are one of the many grievances and thefts that Australian Aboriginal communities have faced.23 The long history of eugenics, assimilation and theft are part of the history that Manton identified as causes for the offensive nature possessed by this latest form of cultural appropriation. authenticity and inequality At the Olympics, authenticity is a point of tension as promoters and athletes attempt to celebrate ‘authentic’ cultures and countries. Tewanee Joseph, the CEO of the four host nations, (the Lil’wat, Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh Nations), worked with the Vancouver Olympic Committee (VANOC) to create an ‘authentic’

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experience at the Vancouver Olympics.24 Joseph identified VANOC’s goal as “mak[ing] sure people have an authentic experience and feel welcome.”25 Exploring how racial thinking is increasingly becoming a new culturism, dividing people into ‘cultures’ rather than ‘races,’ Sissons draws from nineteenth century Romanticism to identify the origins of native/settler dichotomies.26 This violent binary essentializes Aboriginal peoples as ‘Other’ while forcing them into an ideological trap in which they must constantly perform and make visible their Aboriginal identities.27 Sissons identifies how strategic essentialism, or eco-authenticity, has worked to gain media attention in addition to political and economic support for certain Indigenous peoples. However, he simultaneously acknowledges the oppressive nature of the need to constantly perform and prove ‘authenticity’.28 At the Vancouver Olympics ‘authentic’ Aboriginals were located as displaced in time and always in ceremonial dress.

Though both the 2000 Sydney and the 2010 Vancouver Olympics have attempted to be more inclusive of Aboriginal identities, unequal distribution of profits gained from the presence of Aboriginal people, art, music and culture remains a defining feature of continuing inequality. The disconnect between the owners of Aboriginal culture and those who profit through the use of it is key to the controversy surrounding the “Dance of the Aborigines.” In their media statement the NSWALC asserted, “[a]ll over the globe, Indigenous culture is routinely appropriated by non-Indigenous people, mostly in the interests of profit.”29 While Joseph highlighted the strides made at the Vancouver Olympics, Manton was critical of the international consumption of Aboriginal culture, especially concerning who accesses the capital produced. Manton identified multiple ways in which Aboriginal culture is appropriated for the economic gain of others such as imitation art, names and logos of sports teams, ventures or enterprises. McCarthy and Hatcher identifed the use of ‘ritual-symbolic inclusion’ of the image of the boomerang in the 2000 Sydney Olympics as one of the few spaces where ‘Indigeneity’ was visible.30 Like the boomerang at the 2000 Olympics, the Inukshuk became a defining image at the 2010 Olympics as a token of Indigeneity. The use of myths, narratives and landscapes used to promote Australia as a ‘global village’ is similar to the inclusion of the four host nations in the 2010 Vancouver Olympics.

However, despite the advances in inclusion at the Olympics of Aboriginal cultures, mixed Aboriginal responses need to be recognized and validated. The NSWALC cited the lack of concern for responses from Australian Aboriginal communities in regards to the “Dance of the Aborigines” as indicative that profit, rather then respect or honor, was the ultimate goal.31 In a post-performance response to the “Dance of the Aborigines,” NSWALC expressed disappointment in the decision of Domnina and Shabalin to proceed with the performance. It is important to contextualize the intersections of power and class between the Australian Aboriginal community and those making and using Olympic official rules to work around legal and perhaps even moral boundaries. interesting ‘others’ Domnina and Shabalin’s dance marked Australian Aboriginals as ‘Other’ while claiming to celebrate their ‘unique-ness.’ Seeking to justify their dance, Domnina and Shabalin claimed the ‘authenticity’ of their dance in attempts to deflect censure for their representations of Aboriginal Australians. Though there is no rule in the ISU identifying the need for dances to be ‘authentic,’32 Domnina claimed, “[w]e’ve watched video clips on the internet of these dances and it is really like this complete with the

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leaves around the knees.33 Refuting the claims of authenticity by the Russians Manton stated, They are not, as they state, wearing “authentic Aboriginal paint markings.” They are wearing white body paint in designs they dreamed up after reading about Aboriginal Australians on the internet [sic]. The designs are no more “authentic” or “Aboriginal” than the shiploads of cheap, “Aboriginal” tourist trinkets that pour into our country from overseas.34 Despite denouncement of the authenticity of their dance, Domnina and Shabalin were adamant that their dance was well-researched, authentic, and thus unproblematic. strategic ‘pan-indigeneity’ to decontextualize the dance While maintaining the authenticity of their performance, Domnina and Shabalin attempted to deflect censure through decontextualizing their dance from any specific Aboriginal group or period in time. Upon their arrival to Canada, Domnina, Shabalin and their coach Natalia Linichuk agreed to meet with Joseph. The group was welcomed into Coast Salish territory and Shabalin and Domnina were welcomed by being presented with Coast Salish blankets “as a gesture of friendship, love and protection.”35 These blankets were displayed at media events and were donned as the couple stepped off the ice after their Olympic performance. A joint statement from the four host First Nations, Russian Olympic Committee, and the Figure Skating Federation of Russia was released after the meeting. In this statement Joseph addresses the importance of meeting face-to-face to meet “a time-honored traditional witness protocol.”36 The Statement declared that the intent of the Russians was “to be respectful of nature… there was no disrespect intended towards Indigenous Peoples, in fact the intent was the opposite, to honour and respect Indigenous Peoples and unify all the peoples of the world”.37 Although the meeting established good faith between the Russian dancers and the officials of the four host Nations in Canada, cultural appropriation remained a point of contention for Australian Aboriginals as neither their permission nor forgiveness were sought. privilege: the unquestioned right to ‘consume’

The media seized the opportunity to report the growing controversy and intensifying criticisms. As the Olympics drew nearer Domnina and Shabalin increasingly shifted their focus to the ‘fairness’ of their choice in dance, while highlighting the lack of intent to harm. In response to Ballear’s letter of complaint Linichuk stated, “we did nothing criminal.”48 In support of their choice of ‘folk dance,’ it was noted that the International Skating Union rulebook permits “Aborigines Dances” in competitions.39 Citing the ‘official’ ISU right to use the dance, Linichuk placed ‘official’ rules over the community in question’s self-identified forbidding of the performance of the dance.

Contesting claims of theft and appropriation, Domnina and Shabalin maintained that their dance was respectful, and not meant to be representative of any specific Aboriginal group, but rather a pan-Indigenous dance from many thousands of years ago that they researched on the Internet.40 In attempts to remove the dance from time and history to a primitive, depoliticized, a-historical past, Linichuk stated,

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“in this dance are found themes common to all the original peoples: hunting, weather, love.”41 Appealing to “exoticizing rhetoric of ‘world beat’ multiculturalism”42 or panindigeneity, the displacement of “The Dance of the Aborigines” from a conflict-ridden history of violence, silencing, and appropriation is an attempt to remove the dance from the context of history in an instance where context is essential.

In her work with intercultural performance, Coco Fusco addresses the ‘colonial unconscious’ of the right to represent and consume the culture of ‘Others.’ Fusco highlights the link between Columbus’s ‘discovery’ of the ‘New World’ and present day global cultural consumption of the ‘One-Third World’ of the ‘Two-Thirds World.’43 She writes, “the original body, or the physical and visual presence of the cultural Other, must be fetishized, silenced, subjugated, or otherwise controlled to be ‘appreciated.”44 Fusco’s work is useful for placing the “Dance of the Aborigines” within colonialist history as she highlights the history of the public display of Indigenous peoples for cultural consumption by European audiences. Especially relevant is the fact that “[i] n most cases, the human beings that were exhibited did not choose to be on display.”45 Though there are no Australian Aboriginals placed on display in the “Dance of the Aborigines,” Domnina and Shabalin attempt to assume this identity through the wearing of ‘brown skin’ in their original performance. Fusco identifies taking on of the ‘Other’ as becoming a “cultural transvestite” who attempts to become “a better version of the ‘primitive.”46 The decision to proceed with their performance at the 2010 Olympics, despite public condemnation by Australian Aboriginal representatives, maked Domnina and Shabalin’s performance an act of appropriation and fetishization that ultimately denies Australian Aboriginals the right to self-definition.47 re-contextualization Though Domnina and Shabalin claim the desire to be respectful and inclusive of culture, placing their choice of dance in the context of Russian history also helps contextualize their stance on the controversy. Shabalin explains his position: As far as the so-called cultural borrowing [my italics], this is starting to become a philosophical matter, and on this matter there are many views…. thanks to [technology], all these cultures … become known and accessible to the whole world. Isn’t it wonderful that all of this generates the desire to express oneself just through these cultures?… it would be terribly boring to have only one universal culture to replace hundreds of other unique ones.48 Here Shabalin downplays his role from Ballear’s charge of ‘cultural theft’ to a softer act of ‘cultural borrowing.’ Though the Soviet scientific and political interpretation of ‘race’ differed from German Nazi “race is fate” mentalities,49 there nonetheless existed a period of cultural cleansing during the 1930s and 1940s of mass arrest, deportation and death of those who were deemed to threaten the advancement of the “Soviet” nation.50 This history contextualizes Shabalin’s concerns regarding the reduction of diversity to one culture. Echoing Shabalin’s stance, Domnina states on their website: I grew up in a very multi-ethnic environment…. from a very young age we are used to respect others’ habits and traditions.

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| representational conflict I like to be with different people, each with their own different national culture.51

Like Shabalin, Domnina justified their actions because of their desire to participate in and enjoy diversity. However, what remains unacknowledged is their unquestioned right to participate in other cultures despite prohibition by the cultural group in question. Alcoff identifies how ‘white’ racial unconsciousness operates through hegemonic invisibility and universality in which ‘whiteness’ self-normalizes. Although ‘whiteness’ is not accessed or experienced equally by all, it carries a history of colonialist privilege, retaining the right “to decide the true, the just, and the culturally valuable.”52 Furthermore, the desire to designate and borrow from ‘difference’ means that difference must be maintained in order to keep cultures separate and ‘original.’ In essence, oppressive authenticity must be ensured.53 Without addressing the ways that race, class and power intersect to position people unequally in matters of rights of representation, and through their failure to go through proper routes for permission from Australian Aboriginals despite good intentions, Domnina and Shabalin engaged in appropriation across colonial divides.

The ice dance controversy reached unprecedented attention and media coverage from the European Championships up until the last day of the games on which Domnina and Shabalin performed. Jef Billings, a renowned skating costume designer, publicly stated, “[a]ccurate or not, you have to be sensitive to the people you are representing…At the turn of the last century, minstrel shows were acceptable [but] times have changed.”54 Tewanee noted, “I think we are always open to sharing our culture, but the first thing is to actually engage with aboriginal [sic] people.”55 The media response to this controversy is reflective of Kleinman and Kleinman’s claim that “the mixture of moral failures and global commerce is here to stay.”56 However, while Kleinman and Kleinman identify how the media sensationalizes the suffering of ‘Others’ through the “evocation of indigenous absence, an erasure of local voices and acts”57 in this controversy there was remarkable coverage of the response of Australian Aboriginal communities. The proliferation of the visibility, voice and agency of those who have historically been silenced is a powerful indicator of change. In this situation the amount of mediatization dedicated to addressing the offence identified by Australian Aboriginal leaders deeply impacted the final scorings of Domnina and Shabalin at the Olympics.

In David Eng’s “Queer Liberalism” he addresses how a new queer liberalism is ‘colorblind,’ equating ‘race’ as an issue of the past, with ‘queer rights’ as the focus of the present. Critical of the mentality that “Gay is the new Black,”58 Eng seeks to identify how colorblind neoliberalism helps to “instrumentalize the hyper-extraction of surplus value from racialized bodies.”59 Eng posits that equating queer struggles for rights to the black civil rights movement displaces ‘racism’ in the past and presents it as a struggle that has been overcome and completed. This belief is central to the notion that neoliberalism truly is equally accessible by all, and that racial inequality is no longer a concern. Eng’s analysis of the displacement of issues of ‘race’ to the past is applicable to the ice dance controversy. Eng identifies how queer liberalism authorizes ‘colorblindness’ in regards to intersections of identity such as race, sex, age, ability, class, and nation. This modern liberal humanism asserts that human freedom has been attained and that “racial difference has given way to an abstract and universal… community of individualism and merit.”60 Considering issues of ‘race’ as past, and ‘dealt with’ frames

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the cultural appropriation of Aboriginal Australian culture in the Ice Dance controversy to seem less problematic. Much as in the case of the “Dance of the Aborigines,” investment in the assumption that race is no longer an issue obscures the reality of inequality that is ongoing. This can be witnessed through identifying who was set to profit from Domnina and Shabalin’s performance and ties into Fusco’s argument of the unquestioned right to consume. Though under Neoliberalism the dance could be reflective of a global community of individualism and merit, the issue of ‘race’ and inequality is paramount. The NSWALC’s identification that Domnina and Shabalin were the only group to profit from the ‘cultural sampling’ of Australian Aboriginal culture highlights the presence of ongoing inequality. the olympic performance As the couple took the ice for the Original Dance it was clear that the skin tone of the body suits had been lightened and the white paint reduced, appearing more sparse, geometric, and located solely on the body with no white markings on Domnina’s face, nor dark makeup on Shabalin’s.61 In response to the alterations to the “Dance of the Aborigines,” Manton stated in a media release, “You can’t make a blackface performance less offensive by ‘doing it lighter’ anymore than you can make an ‘Aboriginal performance’ less offensive by using a lighter shade of brown.”62 The response from the crowd was tepid63 and the couple scored low in their original dance, significantly affecting their final position in the competition. The response from the crowd is telling of the expansive mediatization of the issue, most noticeable the strikingly different response from that of the audience and judges at the European Championships. Though each performance was held in different environments, in a post-performance statement Manton identified the crowd’s response as indicative of support for Aboriginal Australians.64 The amount of attention paid to the controversy, the solidarity of the crowd in acknowledgement of the cultural offence expressed through their silence, and the low scoring for the performance by the judges all are exemplary of the attention given to the recognition of the importance of rights of representation. Despite the nearly silent response, Domnina and Shabalin rubbed noses at the close of their performance and donned the gifted Coast Salish blankets in a final act of pan-Indigeneity. conclusion The expansive mediatization of the incident had a dual effect, recording the increasing international response to the calls of cultural appropriation made by Australian Aboriginals and raising awareness of the seriousness of the offence. The ice dance controversy garnered international interest prior to and throughout the Olympics. NBC chose live coverage of the open dance ice dance over the US Canadian men’s hockey game, which aired live on MSNBC instead.65 Though some hailed the reaction from Aboriginal Australians as excessive, and there were some Aboriginal people with positive responses to the dance, there was a markedly negative response globally to the decision of Domnina and Shabalin to proceed with the dance at the Olympics. In issues of rights of representation, contextualization of the controversy in conjunction with the inclusion of voices from subaltern and marginalized groups is essential. Even though the “Dance of the Aborigines” can be viewed as taking a step backwards from

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the advancements made at Olympic celebrations, the global response is encouraging.

Domnina and Shabalin clung to their ‘technical’ right to perform the dance as stated in the ISU the global support of the Australian Aboriginal leaders throughout the Olympics. The negative portrayal of Domnina and Shabalin’s decision to perform their dance again at the Olympics in the global media highlights bourgeoning awareness of the need for accountability. Despite entering the Olympics as favorites for the gold, the low score for their original dance reduced Domnina and Shabalin from first place to third, winning them the bronze. Though this is still a significant achievement for Domnina and Shabalin, of greater importance is the worldwide acknowledgement of the harm done to the Australian Aboriginal community throughout this controversy.

This controversy of “The Dance of the Aborigines” highlights the importance of recognizing that ‘race’ is an ongoing issue and that ‘racial inequality’ is not restricted to the past, but must be continually addressed as it arises. notes Patsy McCarthy and Caroline Hatcher. “Performing Identity: Australian Dreaming at the Sydney 2000 Olympics,” (World Communication 30, no. 3/4, 2001): 39.

2 Bev Manton. “Russian Ice Dancers Should Rethink Their Routine,” Sydney Morning Herald, http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/russian-ice-dancers-should-rethink-their-routine20100121-mnwj.html?comments=69%3E (accessed November 23, 2010).

3 McCarthy and Hatcher, “Performing,” 43.

4 Graham Knight, Nicole Neverson, Margaret MacNeill, and Peter Donnelly. 2007, “The Weight of Expectation: Cathy Freeman, Legacy, Reconciliation and the Sydney Olympics - A Canadian Perspective,” International Journal of the History of Sport 24, no. 10: 1243-1263. Historical Abstracts with Full Text, EBSCOhost (accessed November 24 2010).

5 Toni Bruce, and Emma Wensing, “’She’s Not One of Us’: Cathy Freeman and the Place of Aboriginal People in Australian National Culture,” Australian Aboriginal Studies 2009.2 (2009): 90-100, www.EBSCO.com, (November 25, 2010).

6 “2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics: Ice Dancing Continues with Original Dance Tomorrow.” Life Skate.com. 20 Feb 2010. Retrieved 22 Nov 2010. <http://www.lifeskate.com/ skate/2010/02/2010-vancouver-winter-olympics-original-dance-begins-on-sunday.html>.

7 “Special Regulations and Technical Rules,” International Skating Union Official Site, accessed November 20, 2010. http://www.isu.org/vsite/vnavsite/page/directory/0,10853,4844-128611129919-nav-list,00.html, 149 8 International Skating Union, “Special,” 159.

9 Oksana Domnina and Maxim Shabalin. Official Website, last modified October 13, 2009, accessed November 20, 2010, http://en.domnina-shabalin.ru/news/oksana_domnina_and_maxim_shabalin_talk_about_their_music_for_the_new_season/2009-10-13-20.

11 Edward W. Said. “Orientalism.” The Post Colonial Studies Reader. ed. Bill Ashcroft et. al. (New York: Routledge, 2005), 24.

12 Oksana Domnina and Maxim Shabalin. Official Website, last modified October 13, 2009, accessed November 20, 2010, http://en.domnina-shabalin.ru/news/oksana_domnina_and_maxim_shabalin_talk_about_their_music_for_the_new_season/2009-10-13-20.

13 “Russians Surprised After Dance Offends Aborigines,” 7 News, last modified January 22 2010, accessed November 18, 2010, http://au.news.yahoo.com/a/-/entertainment/6708262/russianssurprised-after-dance-offends-aborigines/7/.

14 “Figure Skating: ‘Aboriginal’ Routine Slammed in Australia,” Vancouver 2010 Olympic Website, last modified January 21, 2010, accessed November 20 2010, http://www.vancouver2010.com/olympic-news/n/news/afp-news/figure-skating--aboriginal-routine-slammed-inaustralia_235276QT.html.

15 Gail Valaskakis. “Rights and Warriors: First Nations, Media and Identity,” Ariel 25, no. 1 (January 1994): 62. Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost (accessed November 20, 2010).

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Valaskakis, “Rights,” 64.

“Figure Skating,” n.p.

18 “Aborigines Claim Culture Theft Over Oksana Domnina and Maxim Shabalin’s Olympic Routine,” News.com.au, last modified January 22 2010, accessed November 25 2010, http:// www.news.com.au/national/aborigines-claim-culture-theft-over-oksana-domnina-and-maximshabalins-olympic-ice-dance/story-e6frfkvr-1225822375720.

19 Lynn Rutherford. “In Ice Dance, it’s a Fine Line Between Tribute and Insult,” Icenetwork.com, last modified January 23, 2010, accessed November 19, 2010, http://web.icenetwork.com/news/ article.jsp?ymd=20100123&content_id=7959196&vkey=ice_news.

20 “Australian Aboriginal Elders Have Accused Russian World Figure Skating Champions Oksana Domnina and Maxim Shabalin of Stealing an Aboriginal Dance Idea and Causing Serious Cultural Offence,” The Herald Sun, last modified January 21, 2010, accessed November 19, 2010, http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/breaking-news/domnina-shabalin-accused-ofaboriginal-cultural-theft/story-e6frf7jx-1225822160654.

21 “Russians Surprised,” 7 News, n.p.

22 Manton. “Russian,” n.p.

23 Ibid.

24 Jeffrey Sissons. “Oppressive Authenticity,” in First Peoples: Indigenous Cultures and Their Futures, (London: Reaktion Press, 2005), 44.

25 John Colebourn. “Olympic Skaters on Thin Ice with B.C. First Nations over Aussie Aboriginal Costume Flap,” last modified Jan 23 2010, accessed November 20, 2010,” http://www.vancouversun.com/sports/Olympic+skaters+thin+with+First+Nations+over+Aussie+aboriginal+costume +flap/2477891/story.html.

26 “Russian Skaters’ Aborigine Theme Causes Outcry,” CBC News, last modified January 22, 2010, accessed November 20, 2010,http://www.cbc.ca/canada/british-columbia/story/2010/01/22/bc-russian-skaters-aboriginal-olympics.html.

27 Sissons, “Oppressive,” 37.

28 Sissons, “Oppressive,” 40.

29 Ibid.

30 Bev Manton. “No Winners in the Russian Ice Dancing Routine,” NSWALC Media Releases, last modified February 23, 2010, accessed November 19, 2010, http://www.alc.org.au/newsroom/media-releases/russian-dances---2-%281%29.aspx 31 McCarthy and Hatcher, “Performing,” 41.

32 Manton, “No,” n.p.

33 Madeleine Coorey. “Russian Ice Dancers Slammed in Australia,” Canada.com, last modified January 22, 2010, accessed November 20, 2010, http://www.canada.com/entertainment/Russian +dancers+slammed+Australia/2472322/story.html?id=2472322.

34 Tom Reilly. “‘Aboriginal’ Skating Routine has Russian Pair on Thin Ice,” TheAge.com.au., last modified January 21 2010, accessed November 26 2010, http://www.theage.com.au/sport/ aboriginal-skating-routine-has-russian-pair-on-thin-ice-20100120-mls9.html.

35 Manton, “Russians,” n.p.

36 “Joint Statement from the Four Host First Nations, Russian Olympic Committee, The Figure Skating Federation of Russia,” lest modified February 20, 2010, accessed November 20 2010, http://www.fourhostfirstnations.com/joint-statement-from-the-four-host-first-nations-russianolympic-committee-the-figure-skating-federation-of-russia.

37 Ibid.

38 Ibid.

39 Jere Longman. “Out-Of-Step Ice Dancing Routine,” The New York Times, last modified February 3, 2010, accessed November 18, 2010, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/04/sports/ olympics/04longman.html?_r=2.

40 Rutherford, “In Ice Dance,” n.p.

41 Longman, “Out-Of-Step,” n.p.

42 “Interview with Natalia Linichuk (Google Translation),” Domnina-Shabalin Message Board, last modified January 23, 2010, accessed November 26, 2010, http://domshab.proboards.com/ index.cgi?board=office&action=display&thread=90 43 Coco Fusco. “The Other History of Intercultural Performance.” TDR: The Drama Review 16 17

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38, no. 1 (Spring94 1994): 143. International Bibliography of Theatre & Dance with Full Text, EBSCOhost (accessed November 26, 2010), 559 44 Ibid.

45 Fusco, “The Other,” 565.

46 Fusco, “The Other,” 564.

47 Fusco, “The Other,” 565.

48 Fusco, “The Other,” 566.

49 “Dancing for All Tastes,” Oksana Domnina and Maxim Shabalin Official Website, last modified February 3, 2010, accessed November 20, 2010, http://en.domnina-shabalin.ru/ publ/2009_10/dancing_for_all_tastes/7-1-0-35.

50 Francine Hirsch. “Race without the Practice of Racial Politics,” Slavic Review: Interdisciplinary Quarterly of Russian, Eurasian, & East European Studies 61, no. 1 (Spring2002 2002): 30.

Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost (accessed November 19, 2010), 34.

51 Hirsch, “Race,” 37.

52 “Dancing,” Oksana Domina and Maxin Shabalin Official Website, n.p.

53 Linda Alcoff. The Whiteness Question. Hypatia 13(3): 6-26. (1998), http://www.alcoff.com/ content/whiteque.html>.

54 Sissons, “Oppressive,” 37.

55 Longman, “Out-Of-Step,” n.p.

56 David Hume and Beverly Smith. “Ice Dance Routine Falls Out of Step With the Natives,” The Globe and Mail, last updated January 23, 2010, accessed November 18 2010, http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/nati....rticle1441716.

57 Arthur Klienman and Joan Kleinman. “The Appeal of Experience; The Dismay of Images: Cultural Appropriations of Suffering in Our Times,” Daedalus 125 (1): 1-23. (1996), 7.

58 Ibid.

59 David Eng. “The Feeling of Kinship: Queer Liberalism and the Racialization of Intimacy.”

Ebrary, Inc. Durham [N.C.] : Duke University Press, 2010, ix.

60 Eng, “The Feeling,” x.

61 Ibid.

62 Manton, “Media,” n.p.

63 Maggie Hendricks. “Aboriginal Leaders: Russian Ice Dancers’ Routine Still Offensive,” Yahoo Sports Canada.com. February 22, 2010, accessed November 25, 2010, http://sports.yahoo. com/olympics/blog/fourth_place_medal/post/Aboriginal-leaders-Russian-ice-dancersroutine?urn=oly-221290.

64 Manton, “No,” n.p.

65 Philip Hersch. “Russians Hope to End Blanket Criticism of (Ab)Original Dance,” Chicago Tribune. Last modified February 21, 2010, accessed November 19 2010, http://newsblogs. chicagotribune.com/sports_globetrotting/2010/02/russians-hope-to-end-blanket-criticism-ofaboriginal-dance.html.

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American Foreign Policy Redefining Realism at the End of the Cold War

MARIE LEAF

The proceedings leading up to the end of the Cold War were important and peculiar events. They defied old paradigms of international relations theorists and sparked new ways of thinking. Endless debate regarding the best way of thinking to understand the event seems inconclusive—why try to mold a new experience within a conservative understanding? To best understand the end of the Cold War we cannot limit ourselves to solely individual or domestic levels of analysis, nor can we follow the systemic neorealist assumptions which proved to hold weak predictions. This paper argues that neoclassical realism serves as the best explanation for the end of the Cold War. It is a more coherent perspective than individual level analysis, it uses domestic factors better than analytical liberalism, and it debunks absolutist assumptions inherent in neorealism.

Neorealism was the most prevalent mindset throughout the second half of the Cold War. However, neorealism failed in predictive value. It attributed international stability to the bipolar nature of the Cold War and failed to foresee the swift and peaceful decline of the Soviet Union. The events during and leading up to the end of the Cold War rejected realism as a suitable paradigm. As academic literature emerged analyzing domestic and individual level factors, distinct and competing schools of political science formed to explain them. Some credit constructivist reasons and the individual actions of Reagan or Gorbachev. They attribute the outcome of the Cold War to Ronald Reagan’s hard-line military policies: denouncing the USSR as “the evil empire,” dramatically increasing American defense spending and pursuing the

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Strategic Defense Initiative, which finally forced the Soviets to capitulate.1 Other writers commended Gorbachev’s brave personality and “new thinking” within the Soviet government and their policies.2 The analytical liberal school in particular focuses on a domestic level of analysis. They highlight Gorbachev’s efforts to restructure his economically deteriorating country. They argue that the weakening of the Communist Party ultimately caused the breakup of the Soviet Union.3 In a pull between the generalizability, and accuracy of political science paradigms, there lies the neoclassical realist perspective. Constructivism is seemingly the most parsimonious of the paradigms, as only one variable is needed for explanation.

The individual level analysis of Gorbachev and Reagan’s personalities and their interactions may have been necessary conditions catalyzing the end of the Cold War, but they are not sufficient. A theory attributing events to a single person’s actions loses generalizability and accuracy. Similarly weak with a narrow scope, the domestic socio-economic, analytical liberal approach seems incomplete without considering the state’s relative capability in the international system. Analytical liberalism places emphasis on bottom-up domestic actor preferences prior to the nature of domestic politics. This is an amended facet of neoclassical realism, where it assumes that political institutions filter those preferences, but ultimately the state is the main authority.4 The domestic analytical liberal approach seems more accurate than the individual analysis, as it includes more influencing domestic actors as variables asserting their individual preferences. However, the theory still lacks generalizability, as states can have highly differentiated domestic actors and interests.

Having outlined the theoretical weakness and narrow scope of individual and domestic analyses, the three main proposition of neo-classical realism can be clearly identified and illustrated. These propositions explain both domestic and contextual factors with the added strength of realist certainty to best explain the end of the Cold War. Lobell et. al’s third version of neoclassical realism draws on the valuable characteristics of realism’s state capabilities, along with neorealism’s structural balance-ofpower. Neoclassical realism differs as it acknowledges the intertwining relationship between domestic politics and the international structure. The breakdown of realism into many distinct definitions has been interpreted within the classical paradigm debate as a “weakening” or “degeneration” of the theory.5 This is a shallow argument when one considers the contextual flexibility it provides over neorealism. Neoclassical realism accounts for state capabilities, the influence of the state’s position within the international structure, as well as state actions’ dependence on domestic politics. Three observations of the Cold War and its demise validate this emergence of the neoclassical realist paradigm.

The first observation illustrates the change in perception of state capabilities.

A main challenge to the realist argument is that the Gorbachev revolution,6 which focused on economic revitalization rather than military objectives—the main objective of states under realist assumptions. Wohlforth asserts that the “decision-makers’ assessments of power are what matters.”7 If we acknowledge the changing nature of capability measurements and assessments, from quantitative to qualitative, from military might to economic livelihood, we give agency to the influence of power capabilities. Rational decision-makers may revise assessments of capabilities dramatically and suddenly when confronted with new information about non-material indicators, even if crude quantitative indicators of capabilities tell otherwise.

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Soviet policy leading up to the end of the Cold War exhibited the state’s assessment of economic power as a relative capability. The Soviet economy was stagnant and faced a sharp fall in foreign currency earnings as a result of the downward slide in oil prices in the 1980s. Gorbachev realized the toll the economy, along with inefficiently planned manufacturing and collectivized agriculture, placed on his military capabilities. In Gorbachev’s 1988 speech to the UN General Assembly he revealed, We spend two and a half times more than the US on military needs, and not a single country in the world, not to mention the ‘less developed’ ones we shower with weapons without receiving anything in return, spends more per capita for those purposes than we do…we cannot resolve the tasks of perestroika if we allow the army to remain as it is. All our best scientific-technical resources go there.8 Additionally, the pressure that Reagan’s new military build-up placed on the Soviet Union, called on stronger economic means to support the Soviet military.

The Soviets were unable to keep up with the pace of global economic production entering a stage of unprecedented technological development, diversification, and globalization. They found themselves economically and technologically lagging behind the US in the late 1970s. This realization sparked Soviet economic reforms.

Gorbachev’s perestroika relaxed the quota system, allowed private ownership of businesses and encouraged foreign investment. These measures were intended to redirect the country’s resources from costly Cold War military commitments to more profitable areas in the civilian sector.9 These moves to more free-market and less trade restrictive government policies unarguably played a large role in the fall of the Soviet Union.

The second observation of the Cold War accounts for influential factors at the systemic level. In 1988, Kenneth Waltz argued that the Cold War was “firmly rooted in the structure of postwar international politics, and will last as long as that structure endures.”10 A criticism of neorealist assumptions was its failure to predict the relatively peaceful manner in which the Soviet Union stepped aside, and its belief in bi-polar stability. If we take the neoclassical realist assumption to regard the Soviet Union as a carefully constructed challenger state influenced by American power rather than a rigid hegemon, the assumptions of structural power balancing hold. Two facts seem to defy the laws of the international structure: the Soviet’s bold actions of retrenching and reforming after losing their Eastern European countries rather than opting for preventative war; and the following peace and global stability. The neorealist paradigm opts for a more fluid and multi-faceted definition of international influences.

The true extent of Soviet power was often hard to accurately assess, and analysis of how the bi-polar struggle might end, depended on inductive observations of past wars.11 Wohlforth argues that the US, perceiving its own power capabilities to be greater, denied the Soviets the global power and role they sought to achieve, but still regarded it as a strong contender. Episodes of tension between the countries displayed a familiar pattern: [A] perceived shift in power, publicly acknowledged by both sides; a new Soviet drive for increased prestige; positive early feedback on the new policy; sharp crises that eventually revealed the

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| redefining realism contradictions between the two sides’ interpretations of the political implications of the power shift; and an eventual relaxation of tensions based on mutual acceptance of a stalemate.12

The U.S. National Security Council’s Soviet expert, Robert Blackwill, concluded that the Malta Summit of 1989 was the first superpower summit where the Soviet’s drive for cooperation outweighed competitive impulses. We see, from negotiations at the Malta summit that Gorbachev conceded as a defeated challenger. Soviet diplomacy changed dramatically in the last quarter of 1989, as a rational reaction to new evidence about relative Soviet power. When the revolutions in East-Central Europe began to call socialism’s viability into question, Gorbachev focused on maintaining the status quo. From December 1989 onward, his foreign policy tried to enlist Western support for stabilizing the Soviet Union’s eroding international position.

The third observation that can be made allows the consideration of domestic politics to play a role in state decisions. A weak domestic political system may ultimately lead to a state’s collapse. This third observation of the end to the Cold War has more indirect causation, but is key to asserting neoclassical realism as a comprehensive explanation.

Glasnost policy undermined the forces that provided strength to the Communist state structure. It was the final blow to the Soviet Union’s relative power capability.

The soviets had no division between available resources and the state strength needed to mobilize those resources. Gorbachev misjudged this non-transparency of the Communist state structure as a relative advantage over the more transparent US domestic system. The introduction of glasnost increased freedom of the press and transparency of state institutions—not a complementary policy for Communist state structure. It intended to reduce the corruption at the top of the Communist Party and moderate abuse of power in the Central Committee. Glasnost enabled increased contact between Soviet citizens and the Western World. Unintentionally, it helped facilitate the breakdown of the bonds that held the Soviet Union together. By February 1990, with the dissolution of the USSR looming, the Communist party was forced to surrender its monopoly on state power. Glasnost also gave agency to the wave of revolutionaries across Central and Eastern Europe in 1989. Soviet-style communist states were overthrown in Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Bulgaria, and Romania. Their communist leadership was vital in maintaining a position of support for the Soviet Union.

By understanding Glasnost—which aimed to promote freedom of speech and government transparency inspired by the new thinking stemming from relative economic and military decline—we can see just how the Communist party lost its hold over the Soviet people. To understand the ways states interpret and respond to their external environment, neoclassical realism allows us to analyze how systemic pressures are translated through unit-level intervening variables. These variables include the domestic structure or the perceptions of decision-makers. In neoclassical realism, world leaders can be constrained by both international and domestic politics. States within the international structure have a hard time seeing whether security is plentiful or scarce and must grope their way through, interpreting partial and possibly problematic evidence.13 Neoclassical realism provides a unique amendment to constructivism, analytical liberalism, and neorealism; it emphasizes the state’s assessment of its position visà-vis domestic actors as well as systemic competitors. It has been criticized for making

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all-encompassing sweeping statements.14 At the same time, it has been criticized for its reluctance to generalize and seek parsimony.15 Neoclassical realism rejects the quest for universal laws, and instead seeks to build an empirical, contextual, and predictive framework for political science enquiry. It is exactly in this way that neoclassical realism best explains the unique intricacies surrounding the Cold War. notes Jack Matlocke. Reagan and Gorbachev: How the Cold War Ended. (New York: Random House, 2004.) Print.

2 Vladislav M Zubak,. “Gorbachev and the End of the Cold War: Perspectives on History and Personality.” Cold War History 2.2 (2002): 61-100. Print.

3 Matlock, 2004.

4 Mark Brawley. “Liberalism, Neo-Classical Realism and the Hamiltonian Solution: Modeling the Domestic Sources of International Politics” Paper presented at the annual meeting of the ISA’s 49th ANNUAL CONVENTION, BRIDGING MULTIPLE DIVIDES, Hilton San Francisco, SAN FRANCISCO, CA, USA, Mar 26, 2008. 2010-11-12 <http://www.allacademic.com/meta/ p251186_index.html> 5 William C. Wohlforth, “Realism and the End of the Cold War.” International Security 19.3 (1995): 91-129. JSTOR. Web. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/2539080>.

6 Gorbachev’s revolutionary reforms are characterized by perestroika which tried to stimulate the economy through more free market mechanisms and glasnost, which presented citizens with more freedom of speech.

7 Ibid.

8 Ibid.

9 John Lewis Gaddis, The Cold War a New History. (New York: Penguin, 2005.) Print.

10 Richard Ned Lebow, 1996. International Relations Theory and the End of the Cold War, The Long Peace, the End of the Cold War, and the Failure of Realism. Columbia International Affairs Online. Web. 24 Nov. 2010. <http://www.ciaonet.org/book/lebow/Lebow02.html> 11 Wohlforth, 1995.

12 Gideon Rose, “Neoclassical realism and theories of foreign policy.” World Politics 51.1 (1998): 144-172. Project MUSE. 20 Nov. 2010 <http://muse.jhu.edu/>.

13 Rose, 1998.

14 Thomas Juneau, “Neoclassical Realist Strategic Analysis: A Statement.” Proc. of European Consortium on Political Research Graduate Student Conference, Ireland, Dublin. 2010. Web. 24 Nov. 2010. <http://www.ecprnet.eu/databases/conferences/papers/308.pdf> 15 Ibid.

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Less Talk, More Action Gender Mainstreaming and United Nations Peacebuilding Operations ALEXIS JENNIFER CASSAP-HANSON

It is interesting that while most individuals residing in the developed world would readily support the abolition of oppressive forms of national rule, the issue of males exercising tyrannical control over females in certain “non-Western” societies draws a far less united response. Although vehemently opposed by some, the vastly different cultural context in which gender inequality is often found appears to render it acceptable to others. According to the reasoning of the latter category, efforts to promote gender equality where it does not exist are ethnocentric–that is, they assume the superiority of the “Western” liberal-democratic (i.e. egalitarian) conception of gender relations. If inequality between the sexes is deemed an acceptable reality when found in other cultures, should not racism–the subjugation of one people by another–likewise be regarded a tolerable cultural practice? This is not to suggest that especially patriarchal states should be invaded in order to impose equality, but that opportunities for gendersensitive reforms, such as those afforded by peacebuilding missions, must be utilized.

As stated by the Inter-Agency Standing Committee for the Integration of a Gender Perspective in Humanitarian Assistance, “Ignoring gender equality in emergencies is not a neutral position. It supports discrimination.”1 While the unanimous adoption of Security Council Resolution 1325 on women, peace and security has led to increased awareness regarding the unique needs of women and girls in post-conflict situations, actual progress to date has been modest at best, thus leaving much to be accomplished in this field. Although committed action on adopted resolutions concerning gender mainstreaming would be a clear step forward for females (and thus those in their care), there are additional improvements to be made if peacebuilding operations are to benefit both sexes equally: specialized staff devoted exclusively to gender-related concerns

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must be assigned to each mission as of the first phase of planning: adequate advisory support must be provided to deployed personnel by gender experts at United Nations Headquarters and by the mission head; gender-sensitive training of UN personnel should be strengthened; greater efforts must be made to educate females about their rights and opportunities; and women should form a greater proportion of an operation’s civilian, military and police personnel. gender mainstreaming and un peacekeeping – a history While efforts to integrate gender mainstreaming into United Nations peace support operations2 did not formally begin until a decade later, the United Nations Transitional Assistance Group (UNTAG) to Namibia, deployed from April 1989 to March 1990, was the earliest mission to undertake gender-sensitive reforms.3 Although its mandate did not require such a focus of its personnel, the unusually large number of female staff devoted to institutional reform and creation favoured designs which legally recognized the political and human rights of females as well as males.4 Frequent consultation with local women, awareness-raising campaigns, and information meetings were to prove immensely valuable as they ensured that women knew of their newly-acquired rights, exactly what they entailed, and how to best begin exercising them. The success of the Namibian mission was immediately recognized to have set an important precedent regarding gender-sensitive peacebuilding, although it would be a full decade before efforts would be made to incorporate these lessons into ongoing and future UN peace operations.

In June 1999, Angela King, then the UN Special Advisor to the SecretaryGeneral on Gender Issues and the Advancement of Women, requested that a study she had devised, entitled Mainstreaming a Gender Perspective in Multi-dimensional Peace Support Operations, be undertaken by the UN.5 It would be quite some time before the Lessons Learned Unit within the Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO) would step forward to lead the study, but the internal responses triggered by its findings were both numerous and swift. Based largely on analysis of the thendeployed operation in Kosovo and previous UN peacekeeping missions to Namibia, El Salvador, and South Africa, the study made clear the need to consider and incorporate men and women equally in all phases and at every level of a mission. This conclusion was formally recognized in the Windhoek Declaration on the tenth anniversary of UNTAG, which called for the Namibia Plan of Action outlining nine areas in which gender mainstreaming was required to increase the effectiveness of UN peace support operations.6 These initiatives, along with a presentation of the study at the five-year reunion of signatories to the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action on women’s empowerment, forced the issue of gender and peacekeeping onto the Security Council’s agenda in 2000, resulting in Resolution 1325 on women, peace and security.7 According to former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s report on gender mainstreaming in peacekeeping activities, a commitment to the concept implies “the full incorporation of gender perspectives into all peacekeeping activities, from the initial stages of ceasefire negotiation and the establishment of mandates for peacekeeping operations, to post-conflict situations.”8 While gender mainstreaming should be applied to all forms of peace support operations, its inclusion in peacebuilding missions, or during the peacebuilding stage of a mission, can prove especially beneficial to local women as evinced by UNTAG. This is due to the type of tasks associated with

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post-conflict reconstruction, such as institution building and reform, which are intended to address “the deep-rooted, structural causes of violent conflict”9 so as to prevent the relapse of hostilities. As emphasized by Annan in his aforementioned report, peacebuilding thus offers unique and valuable “opportunities to establish principles of non-discrimination and equality on the basis of gender.”10 If women’s particular needs and concerns are overlooked or ignored during the planning and implementation of a mandate, however, the mission risks perpetuating or even solidifying existing gender inequalities. If, for example, a mission pursues constitutional reform but neglects to address its discriminatory legal provisions (e.g. the exclusion of women from ownership and inheritance of property), the UN may be perceived by the local population as condoning, if not approving, existing forms of gender inequity. Gender-sensitive institutional reform is especially pressing in post-conflict situations, as “the usual imbalance in power relations between women and men is sustained and even deepened throughout the conflict.”11 As stated in a UN report on the post-conflict property rights of females, women and children are the primary casualties of “the less visible, psychological and socio-economic scars left by the conflict and the fragile peace that follows it.”12 It should also be noted that peacebuilding affords opportunities to create lasting positive changes not only for women, who should experience improved social, political and economic welfare, but for society as a whole, as males and females thus share a vested interest in maintaining the peace.

Security Council mandates for peacebuilding operations generally aim to restore a state’s ability to ensure public safety and order; strengthen adherence to the rule of law and respect for human rights; support the establishment of legitimate participatory political institutions; and promote domestic social recovery and economic development.13 Each of these areas includes opportunities for the advancement of women, such as the recognition of their right to vote and participate as candidates in free and fair elections,14 the promotion of a gender-sensitive judiciary,15 the re-writing of property rights which often exclude women from the ownership or inheritance of wealth,16 and the facilitation of equal access to education and employment irrespective of sex.17 The importance of such reforms becomes even clearer when it is considered that “women and girls are disproportionately the main civilian victims and survivors of war.”18 Two years after the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, for example, females comprised 70 percent of the nation’s total population and headed half of all households.19 Thus, by improving the welfare of women, gender mainstreaming should, improve the conditions of their dependence.

Peacebuilding missions must also seek to rehabilitate victims of sexual and gender-based violence and to prosecute those responsible for such crimes.20 If victims do not receive the care and support that they require, they may be unable to make full use of their newfound rights and opportunities. As argued by Inger Skjelsbaek in her essay on sexual violence and war, the increased use of rape and other forms of sexual assault has made “assistance to traumatized individuals and local communities ... an everyday in-theatre challenge of current multifunctional peace operations.”21 In societies where a woman must rely on a male protector for her safety, as in Somalia incidences of gender-based violence may even increase in the aftermath of a conflict due to the presence of many widowed or fatherless females.22 Communication with victims is absolutely fundamental to both the recovery process and in order to punish those responsible for sexual crimes. Experience has proven that female victims of sexual violence are much more willing to confide in investigators or mission personnel of

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the same sex.23 This reluctance to confide in male personnel is often exacerbated by the fact that “in many cultures, women are virtually prohibited by social convention from talking directly to male strangers.”24 Given that in most cases women and girls form the majority of post-conflict populations and are the primary sufferers of sexual violence, it is imperative that they be adequately represented in an operation’s staff. past successes and challenges to progress While Resolution 1325 has undoubtedly led to increased awareness regarding the distinct needs and concerns of females in post-conflict settings, the rhetoric of this resolution must now be put fully into practice.25 The lack of actual progress is demonstrated by the Security Council’s adoption of Resolution 1889 on 5 October 2009, which called on all member states and UN bodies to effectively implement Resolution 1325.26 The impressive progress being made by the few peacebuilding operations in which the Resolution has been activated further emphasizes the need to incorporate gender mainstreaming into all UN missions. Apart from the Namibian mission during the late 1980s, the current UN operation in Liberia is likely the most oft-cited gender mainstreaming success story thus far. This is largely due to the commitment of the nation’s current president, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, a woman’s rights advocate and the first elected female Head of State in Africa.27 Johnson-Sirleaf ’s Ministry of Gender and Development has readily collaborated with the Office of the Gender Advisor of the United Nations Mission in Liberia (UNMIL-OGA), the United Nations International Research and Training Institute for the Advancement of Women (UN-INSTRAW) and several civil society organisations in order to work towards the implementation of Resolution 1325.28 Their joint efforts resulted in a national action plan, detailing the steps required to realize this goal, which was launched on International Women’s Day (8 March 2009).29 Aiming to increase the proportion of female candidates in political parties to thirty percent, the OGA has, for example, provided leadership training for women seeking nomination.30 The presence of an all-female police unit from India has also inspired many women to join the Liberian National Police.31 Moreover, the President’s desire for the inclusion of women in the post-conflict recovery process has led to the establishment of a committee on gender within the Liberian Truth and Reconciliation Commission.32 While Liberia still faces an uphill battle regarding the pursuit of gender equality, progress on the ground since the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement merely seven years ago has been both inspiring and promising.

As of September 2008, of the thirty peacekeeping operations deployed worldwide, the mission in Liberia was the only one to be headed by a female Special Representative of the Secretary-General (SRSG), Ellen Margrethe Løj of Denmark.

The operation was also the only one to have a female Deputy SRSG, Henrietta Joy Abena Nyarko Mensa-Bonsu of Ghana.33 Many missions do, however, include fulltime gender advisors (as opposed to ‘gender focal points,’ who have additional areas of responsibility)34 who are mandated to “promote, facilitate, support and monitor the incorporation of gender perspectives in peacekeeping operations.”35 As of May 2008, 12 of the then 20 operating missions hosted one or more gender advisors and six others included at least one ‘gender focal point.’36 While the inclusion of staff dedicated, at least in part, to the incorporation of gender-sensitive perspectives in mission planning and implementation is undoubtedly a step in the right direction, they are generally severely underfunded and overburdened. This problem is further aggravated by the lack

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of a strong gender advisory and support capacity in the Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO) at UN headquarters.37 Thus, when overwhelmed, staff are often unable to adequately engage the local community, a function which is crucial to the success of their work.38 The General Assembly has likewise cited the advisory void in New York as an obstacle to the successful implementation of Resolution 1325, as it haphazardly fits gender mainstreaming into peacekeeping mandates (if at all), rather than including it throughout the planning phase of all missions.39 Another challenge has been the lack of appropriately trained female military personnel to draw upon. As stated by a UN official, “though the UN should be pushing for more women, we’re begging, borrowing and stealing to get any troops at all.”40 Currently, only Western militaries include suitably trained women and, given the UN’s fixed monthly compensation rate of roughly $1,028 USD per soldier, these troops are too expensive for the UN to rely upon fully.41 This shortage of female peacekeepers is a major obstacle hampering consultation with local women and girls, especially regarding sexual and gender-based violence. Rape and other types of sexual assault by peacekeeping personnel have also plagued various UN peace support operations, thus threatening the credibility and legitimacy of these missions. In 2004 the Peacekeeping Best Practices Unit of the DPKO published a gender resource package for peacekeeping operations, a section of which is devoted to the expected conduct of all mission personnel. While it is intended to be distributed amongst all peacekeeping personnel, the decision to actually use the resource package ultimately rests with the commanders of troop-contributing nations. Similarly, the prosecution of repatriated personnel suspected of misconduct is handled by the suspect’s own government which, unfortunately, has frequently resulted in impunity.

The obvious lack of political will regarding the actual application of gender mainstreaming in peace support operations has likewise greatly restricted progress.

As explained by Henry F. Carey in his essay on the politics surrounding gender and peacekeeping, “States supported Resolution 1325 as much to support unobjectionable principles without concrete commitments requiring sacrifices as from genuine desires to address concerns of war-torn women and families.”42 Thus, much like the Millennium Development Goals and other unfulfilled global initiatives, gender mainstreaming is generally perceived to be yet another competitor for the UN’s already insufficient resources and funding. While many member states simply do not consider gender-sensitivity to be a priority, others are firmly opposed to its composite policies and prescriptions. A recent UN-INSTRAW report on Resolution 1325 and Somalia asserted that, “most actors in conflict and post-conflict settings, from warring parties and peacekeeping forces, to international organisations and peace negotiating delegations, usually have a strong male bias against the inclusion of women, or indeed any non-traditional actors.”43 Some actors may, for example, resist any changes to customary or religious laws that clearly discriminate against women.44 recommendations If the benefits of gender mainstreaming in peace support operations are to be fully realized, specialized staff devoted entirely to this endeavour must be included as of the earliest phase of a mission’s planning. This will help to ensure that the unique needs of women and girls are adequately addressed in the operation’s mandate and will establish the issue as an operational priority. In order to achieve the comprehensive

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implementation of a mandate, however, a peacebuilding mission must be sufficiently funded, staffed and equipped. Where and when this is not the case, “directing energy and resources to gender balance and mainstreaming may seem a distraction and a drain on resources”45 and may thus be overlooked. This challenge further highlights the need to assign specialized staff focused solely on gender-related concerns to each mission, rather than having regular mission personnel, who may be focussed on other tasks or lack proper training, take on these additional roles.

As evidenced by previous missions, an operation’s personnel must include qualified females in the civilian, police and military divisions. In addition to facilitating discussion with local women, a significant female presence has also tended to reduce incidences of sexual harassment and violence against local women.46 It has also been suggested that “pursuing gender balance has the potential for greatly increasing the pool of talent”47 from which the UN draws its personnel. Thus, the UN should encourage member states, especially those which regularly contribute troops to peace support missions, to enlist more females in their militaries. Even in those nations where women are free to join the military, changes must be made to render the establishment a more female-friendly environment. The enlistment of more women in UN member state militaries would allow for a greater female presence in peace operations.

Should this approach fail to lead member state militaries to include more women, the UN ought to consider requiring troop-contributing nations to meet a certain female to male ratio in order to participate in UN-led missions. This ratio would initially be set very low, as females currently constitute only some 1.5 percent of UN military personnel, but could be made incrementally greater over a reasonable period of time.48 Given that participation in peacekeeping operations is profitable for many developing world militaries–leading these countries to be the primary troop-contributors to the UN–the adoption of such a criterion would likely facilitate the desired compositional change.

Another possibility, or a complementary measure, would be to establish allwomen specialized peacekeeping contingents to be deployed alongside regular troops.

This approach has met with much success in Liberia, where the first all-female police contingent to take part in a UN mission was deployed in January 2000. The 101woman strong Indian Formed Police has received much praise for providing security and stability while actively reaching out to the community, and especially to women and girls, in unprecedented ways. The contingent has, for example, helped to provide maternal and child healthcare, has led efforts to equip female youths with independence-promoting and confidence-building skills and has, more generally, acted as “an inspiration for many Liberian girls and women.”49 The impressive precedents set by the greater inclusion of female personnel in the Namibian and Liberian missions must guide future peacebuilding operations, thus rendering the increased inclusion of women in the militaries of major UN troop-contributing states integral to the success of this end.

Efforts must also be made to strengthen the education and training of all UN personnel in the gender-sensitive policies and provisions relevant to their areas of duty. While the DPKO’s aforementioned gender resource package is a potentially valuable instructional tool, its effectiveness as such depends entirely upon its thorough distribution and careful consideration by mission personnel. As it stands, however, the UN has left the use and dissemination of the package to member state governments, which has rendered its effectiveness as an awareness-raising and training tool highly difficult to ascertain.50 The UN should thus require that the resource package

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is covered extensively in the pre-deployment training received by all UN personnel by having it included in the core pre-deployment training materials assigned by the DPKO. The UN should likewise require that location-specific gender issues be covered in the ‘introduction training’ delivered to personnel upon their arrival in the field.

If this training is neglected, offending militaries, police units and civilian personnel should be denied participation in UN operations until they have addressed these shortcomings.

Mission personnel also require advice and support regarding gender mainstreaming from the DPKO at headquarters in order to fully and effectively implement their mandates. Thus, contacts who are fully committed to gender concerns in deployed missions and who can be consulted as needed must be installed in New York (e.g. members of UN Women). Gender advisors and ‘focal points’ have also expressed concern regarding their lack of access to and communication with an operation’s SRSG, often limiting their ability to make a meaningful contribution to the mission. In order to ensure that a mandate’s gender-related provisions are realized, the SRSG must consult regularly with staff specializing in this field. Missions should also primarily employ gender advisors, as opposed to ‘gender focal points,’ whenever possible. As explained in the secretary-general’s 2003 report on gender mainstreaming in peacekeeping activities, given the breadth and depth of tasks covered in Resolution 1325, “assigning staff as focal points on a part-time and ad hoc basis is clearly inadequate to deal with gender mainstreaming in peacekeeping activities at both headquarters and in missions.”51 In July 2010, the UN General Assembly voted in favour of uniting its four separate bodies devoted to the advancement and equal status of women, thus eliminating a key source of wasteful institutional overlap and the costly spreading of already scarce resources. As a hub for research and policy development relating exclusively to gender concerns, representatives from UN Women must be included in the planning of mission mandates as their expertise would greatly enhance the Security Council’s understanding of the fundamental role of gender-sensitive reforms in the fostering of sustainable peace and development. Without a mandate which prioritizes gender-sensitive efforts and which assigns sufficient staffing to the cause, gender mainstreaming is unlikely to receive adequate attention from deployed mission personnel. Members of UN Women should also work closely with the DPKO to consistently and reliably provide expert gender-specific advice and assistance to deployed personnel, filling the current advisory void at UN Headquarters.

While serious challenges to the safety and standing of women continue to plague the realization of Liberia’s national action plan, the joint creation of a guiding document reflecting the gender mainstreaming goals of a variety of local and international actors remains a valuable practice. The UN must require that such a plan is created for each mission and should encourage all relevant actors–i.e. local women’s groups, activists and members of government, participating NGOs and all UN staff and entities focusing on women’s issues–to engage in its implementation. This mixing of local perspectives and knowledge with foreign advice and expertise is essential to the tailoring of gender mainstreaming policies to a particular setting. The plan should outline the nation’s gender-related goals and must include a comprehensive implementation strategy for each objective which specifies what all relevant participants will contribute. This will enable actors to pool and coordinate their efforts while feedback from local groups and individuals should serve to guide the actual implementation or

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pursuit of each goal.

Special attention should be paid to gender-sensitive institutional reform and creation, to ensuring equal educational opportunities for both sexes and to improving female health and safety, as changes made to these areas are those which can most significantly impact the overall status and welfare of women. Females must be permitted to participate fully and equally in the political arena as voters and as politicians.

This process may require creating and amending laws, educating women and girls on their rights, and training and advising females who are interested in running for public office. Opportunities for education must likewise be extended to males and females alike. The UN should assist nations in establishing universal primary education where it does not already exist, as parents would have less reason to prioritize the education of their sons above that of their daughters if schooling were free for all. Finally, the UN must help to strengthen the safety and security of females by supporting the creation of a law-enforcement system that responds promptly and effectively to all offences and provides appropriate relief and support to all victims, regardless of sex.

In order to benefit fully from progress in these areas, however, “women must be trained and sensitised about their rights and the laws protecting these.”52 Civil society groups, as a result of their local knowledge and ability to reach out and communicate appropriately and effectively with local females, have a key role to play in the pursuit of this goal. Such efforts are often compromised by the primacy of customary law in rural and semi-urban areas (relative to its constitutional and statutory counterparts),53 the lack of effective legal recourse, high illiteracy rates among local women, and the logistical challenge of reaching out to all women. Increasing long-term UN assistance to civil society groups devoted to this cause should be an operational priority, as a widespread and thorough understanding of the rights and opportunities accorded to women is essential to the cultivation of a female populace which will “claim and champion their rights”54 and press for their greater assurance and protection. The importance of such efforts is demonstrated by the UN mission to Namibia, which oversaw the nation’s first ‘free and fair’ elections. During the lead-up to the 1990 election, mission staff learned that local women were reluctant to participate as they were uncertain as to whether their vote would be secret and whether they could vote differently from their husbands.55 In order to dispel these and other concerns, UNTAG ran a strong and largely successful information campaign, one component of which was education sessions for women organized through local churches.56 Given the challenging nature of the task, Alma Mieze, a local woman who in 1990 worked in an UNTAG election unit, stressed the importance of both immediate and long-term efforts to educate females about their rights.57 One possible way to extend this instruction beyond the end of the mission would be to allocate a portion of the state’s primary school curriculum (where and when this exists) to human rights education and awareness.

Overall, the greatest challenge to the success of gender mainstreaming and the pursuit of the above-mentioned recommendations is undoubtedly the critical lack of political will. In order to rectify this situation, leaders and their constituents must be made fully aware of the crucial link between Resolution 1325 and success in peace support operations. Precedents like the missions to Liberia and Namibia demonstrate that the inclusion of women in the peacebuilding process can create a more lasting stability, as both men and women share more equally in the benefits of peace. Furthermore, if institutional reforms do not attempt to mitigate gender-based discrimination, peacebuilding operations risk perpetuating or solidifying existing inequalities. Such an

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oversight reflects poorly upon the UN, as it suggests that in certain cases the organisation is willing to tacitly accept sex-based discrimination. Thus, domestic publics and civil society groups must demand that their governments implement Resolution 1325 both at the national and international level, treating gender mainstreaming not as a mere competitor for scarce resources, but as a priority item of the utmost importance. notes The Inter-Agency Standing Committee for the Integration of a Gender Perspective in Humanitarian Assistance, as found in Judith Hicks Stiehm, “Women, Peacekeeping and Peacemaking: Gender Balance and Mainstreaming,” International Peacekeeping 8, no. 2 (2001): 43, doi: 10.1080/13533310108413894; the committee bolsters this claim by citing Article 7 of the Convention for the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, which states that parties to the convention “shall take all appropriate measures to eliminate discrimination against women in the political and public life of the country.”

2 In this essay, “peace support operations” is used to refer broadly to all types of UN missions – i.e. conflict prevention (or preventative diplomacy), peacemaking, peacekeeping, peace enforcement and peacebuilding.

3 Louise Olsson, “Gender Mainstreaming in Practice: The United Nations Transitional Assistance Group in Namibia,” International Peacekeeping 8, no. 2 (2001): 97, doi: 10.1080/13533310108413898.

4 Ibid.

5 Louise Olsson and Torunn L. Tryggestad, “Introduction,” International Peacekeeping 8, no. 2 (2001): 2, doi: 10.1080/13533310108413891.

6 See either UN document A/55/138 or S/2000/693 for the Windhoek Declaration which includes the ‘Namibia Plan of Action.’

7 Olsson and Tryggestad, “Introduction,” 2.

8 UN General Assembly, Fifty-Seventh Session, Official Records, Report of the Secretary-General: Gender Mainstreaming in Peacekeeping Activities (13 Feb. 2003), A/57/731, III.A.17.

9 UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations, Peacekeeping Best Practices Section, Division of Policy, Evaluation and Training, “United Nations Peacekeeping Operations: Principles and Guidelines,” Jan. 18, 2008, http://www.peacekeepingbestpractices.unlb.org/.../Capstone_Doctrine_ENG.pdf, 2.2.

10 UN General Assembly, Fifty-Seventh Session, Official Records, Report of the Secretary-General: Gender Mainstreaming in Peacekeeping Activities (13 Feb. 2003), A/57/731, III.C.32.

11 UN Development Fund for Women, “Women’s Land and Property Rights in Situations of Conflict and Reconstruction,” 2001, http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/docid/46cadad90.html (accessed March 14, 2011), 14.

12 Ibid., 32.

13 UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations, Peacekeeping Best Practices Section, Division of Policy, Evaluation and Training, “United Nations Peacekeeping Operations: Principles and Guidelines,” Jan. 18, 2008, http://www.peacekeepingbestpractices.unlb.org/.../Capstone_Doctrine_ENG.pdf, 2.4.

14 UN General Assembly, Fifty-Seventh Session, Official Records, Report of the Secretary-General: Gender Mainstreaming in Peacekeeping Activities (13 Feb. 2003), A/57/731, III.B.25.

15 Ibid., III.C.32.

16 Patricia Kameri-Mbote, “The Land Has Its Owners! Gender Issues in Land Tenure under Customary Law in Kenya” (working paper, International Environmental Law Research Centre, International Environment House, Geneva, 2005-9), http://www.ielrc.org/content/w0509.pdf.

17 UN General Assembly, Fifty-Seventh Session, Official Records, Report of the Secretary-General: Gender Mainstreaming in Peacekeeping Activities (13 Feb. 2003), A/57/731, III.C.36.

18 Henry F. Carey, “’Women and Peace and Security’: The Politics of Implementing Gender Sensitivity Norms in Peacekeeping,” International Peacekeeping 8, no. 2 (2001): 50, doi: 10.1080/13533310108413895.

1

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Inger Skjelsbaek, “Sexual Violence in Times of War: A New Challenge for Peace Operations?,” International Peacekeeping 8, no. 2 (2001): 73-74, doi: 10.1080/13533310108413896.

20 Ibid., 81; Carey, “Women and Peace and Security,” 53.

21 Skjelsbaek, “Sexual Violence in Times of War,” 81.

22 Ibid., 72.

23 Ibid., 76, 81.

24 Gerard J. DeGroot, “A Few Good Women: Gender Stereotypes, the Military and Peacekeeping,” International Peacekeeping 8, no. 2 (2001): 36, doi: 10.1080/13533310108413893.

25 UN International Research and Training Institute for the Advancement of Women, “Women, Peace and Security in Somalia: Implementation of UN Security Council 1325 – A UN-INSTRAW Background Paper,” August 2008, http://www.un-instraw.org/data/media/.../Somalia%20background%20paper.pdf, 1.1.

26 See UNSCR S/RES/1889 (2009).

27 Government of the Republic of Liberia Ministry of Gender and Development and UNINSTRAW, “Liberia Breaks New Ground for Women, Peace and Security,” news release, March 8, 2009.

28 UN International Research and Training Institute for the Advancement of Women, “Women, Peace and Security in Somalia: Implementation of UN Security Council 1325 – A UN-INSTRAW Background Paper,” August 2008, http://www.un-instraw.org/data/media/.../Somalia%20background%20paper.pdf, 1.1.

29 “Liberia Breaks New Ground for Women, Peace and Security,” news release.

30 UN International Research and Training Institute for the Advancement of Women, “Women, Peace and Security in Somalia: Implementation of UN Security Council 1325 – A UN-INSTRAW Background Paper,” August 2008, http://www.un-instraw.org/data/media/.../Somalia%20background%20paper.pdf, 1.1.

31 UN News Centre, “Liberia: UN Envoy Welcomes New Batch of Female Indian Police Officers,” http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=25557&Cr=liberia&Cr1= (accessed November 2, 2009).

32 UN International Research and Training Institute for the Advancement of Women, “Women, Peace and Security in Somalia: Implementation of UN Security Council 1325 – A UN-INSTRAW Background Paper,” August 2008, http://www.un-instraw.org/data/media/.../Somalia%20background%20paper.pdf, 1.1.

33 UN-INSTRAW Media Centre, “Gender Equality Key to Effective Peacekeeping,” http://www. un-instraw.org/es/media-center/notas-de-prensa/gender-equality-key-to-effective-peaceke.html (accessed November 2, 2009).

34 To clarify: ‘gender focal points’ must split their time between acting as gender advisors and fulfilling other mandated roles, whereas ‘gender advisors’ have no other areas of responsibility and thus work full-time on gender issues. Moreover, ‘gender advisors’ are specialists in their field, while ‘gender focal points’ often are not.

35 UN Security Council, Official Records, Report of the Secretary General on Women, Peace and Security (16 Oct. 2002), S/2002/1154.

36 Peace Women: Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, “Gender and Peacekeeping: Some Facts,” http://www.peacewomen.org/un/pkwatch/facts.html (accessed November 2, 2009).

37 UN General Assembly, Fifty-Seventh Session, Official Records, Report of the Secretary-General: Gender Mainstreaming in Peacekeeping Activities (13 Feb. 2003), A/57/731, IV.41-V.54.

38 Carey, “Women and Peace and Security,” 54.

39 UN Secretariat, Substantive Session of 2004, Gender Mainstreaming in the Work of the United Nations on Peace and Security: Note by the Secretariat (19 May 2004), E/2004/CRP.3, II.11.

40 DeGroot, “A Few Good Women,” 37.

41 Ibid.; To clarify: the UN pays a fixed monthly rate of roughly US$1,028 per soldier to the peacekeepers’ respective Governments which, in turn, pay their soldiers according to established national pay scales. While US$1,028 meets, if not exceeds, the monthly earnings of many developing world soldiers, this is not the case for those serving in developed world militaries.

A new recruit to the Canadian Armed Forces, for example, earns a starting wage approximately two-and-a-half times that paid by the UN. Thus, for each Canadian peacekeeper, the Canadian 19

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Government must pay the difference between a soldier’s regular salary and the US$1,028 UN contribution.

42 Carey, “Women and Peace and Security,” 63.

43 UN International Research and Training Institute for the Advancement of Women, “Women, Peace and Security in Somalia: Implementation of UN Security Council 1325 – A UN-INSTRAW Background Paper,” August 2008, http://www.un-instraw.org/data/media/.../Somalia%20background%20paper.pdf, 1.1.

44 Carey, “Women and Peace and Security,” 61.

45 Stiehm, “Women, Peacekeeping and Peacemaking,” 44.

46 Olsson and Tryggestad, “Introduction,” 2.

47 Stiehm, “Women, Peacekeeping and Peacemaking,” 44.

48 UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations, Peacekeeping Best Practices Unit, Gender Resource Package for Peacekeeping Operations (New York, 2004), 16.

49 UNMIL–United Nations Mission in Liberia, “Female Indian Formed Police Unit ‘an inspiration for Liberian women and girls,’ says UN Envoy as she awards them UN medals,” news release, http://unmil.org/1article.asp?id= 4168&zdoc=1 (accessed February 10, 2011).

50 The NGO Working Group on Women, Peace and Security, “From Local to Global: Making Peace Work for Women/Security Council Resolution 1325-Five Years On Report – October 2005,” http://www.womenpeacesecurity.org/media/pdf-fiveyearson.pdf (accessed February 16, 2011).

51 UN General Assembly, Fifty-Seventh Session, Official Records, Report of the Secretary-General: Gender Mainstreaming in Peacekeeping Activities (13 Feb. 2003), A/57/731, IV.43.

52 UN Development Fund for Women, “Women’s Land and Property Rights in Situations of Conflict and Reconstruction,” 2001, http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/docid/46cadad90.html (accessed March 14, 2011), 44.

53 Anne Gallagher, “Ending the Marginalization: Strategies for Incorporating Women into the United Nations Human Rights System,” Human Rights Quarterly 19, no. 2 (1997): 324-25; Nicola Popovic, “Women, Peace and Security in Liberia: Supporting the Implementation of Resolution 1325 in Liberia – A UN-INSTRAW Background Paper,” UN International Research and Training Institute for the Advancement of Women, http://www.peacewomen.org/.../uninstraw_unscr1325inliberia_march2009.pdf (accessed March 15, 2011), 3.b.

54 UN Development Fund for Women, “Women’s Land and Property Rights in Situations of Conflict and Reconstruction,” 2001, http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/docid/46cadad90.html (accessed March 14, 2011), 44.

55 Olsson, “Gender Mainstreaming in Practice,” 100.

56 Ibid.

57 Ibid., 100-101.

48 Journal of International Affairs

UN Secretariat Reform: Harnessing the Power of the NGO “Reform is not an event, it is a process.” Kofi Annan

SARAH CHAMBERS

The Secretariat of the United Nations (UN) is comprised of an international pool of staff working around the world to carry out the daily programme of the organization. Through the development of reports, administration of funds, and the dissemination of public information, the Secretariat has become one of the most essential parts of the UN. All staff members are referred to as ‘international civil servants’ and are required to take an oath of impartiality. This oath includes not seeking direction from an outside authority and full respect for the authority of the office of the Secretary-General.1 While the absolute necessity of the Secretariat is unequivocal, there is, however, substantial room for improvement. This paper will outline modern-age proposals focused on reforming management to deal with three major organizational issues of the Secretariat: low efficiency, complicated staff recruitment processes and training, and a lack of transparency and accountability. These issues continue to be hotly contested, as shown in a recent issue of The Economist wherein current Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon received a grade of only two out of ten for Secretariat Management at the halfway point of his first term in office.2 This poor mark was due to inadequate communication among his staff, and a sense of isolation from the Secretariat due to the close circle of South Korean advisors he employs. However, Ki-Moon and many other Secretaries-General have pledged support for Secretariat reform during their tenure.3 Since the founding of the United Nations in 1945 the issue of reform has been prominent, coming to the forefront every five to ten years.4 Former Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali initiated the current round of proposals in February 1992, firing 14 high-ranking administrators and disbanding twelve operating units. He also slashed the workload of the Centre for Transnational Corporations, a well-respected

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agency, to nothing more than a perfunctory committee.5 Following this, he was expected to continue the reorganization of the UN Secretariat, but stopped short due to strong resistance from member states.6 Boutros-Ghali lost his bid for re-election in 1997 however, his successor, Kofi Annan, was elected based on his proposals for further reform.

On July 14, 1997, Annan released the first document detailing his suggestions for UN Reform, entitled “Renewing the United Nations: A Programme for Reform.”

This report from the office of the Secretary-General listed 29 suggested actions to be undertaken by the UN Secretariat and member states, mostly focused on increasing the efficiency of the Organization. This document which received strong support from the General Assembly,7 proposes three new entities: a new Deputy Secretary-General position, a senior management group, and a strategic planning unit.8 Twelve Secretariat entities were slated to be reduced into five more compact and efficient units.9 The Deputy Secretary-General, and the Senior Management Group, is charged with ensuring the cohesiveness of all UN related activities, and are still in existence today.10 The Deputy Secretary-General are also responsible for any additional tasks assigned by the Office of the Secretary-General.11 The strategic planning unit has not been introduced as of yet. However, it was suggested that the unit be formed in order to identify emerging global issues, so that the Secretary-General can react as necessary.12 The programme for reform also highlights the necessity of embracing the Internet as a new and exciting way to streamline delivery of reports and data.13 Secretary-General Annan’s second report on reform, “Strengthening the United Nations: A Further Agenda for Change,” was released in 2002, following the commitment of member states to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). In this report, Annan repeatedly assured member states that strong organization and Secretariat efficiency are essential to the ability of the UN to achieve all eight MDGs.14 Again, he called for a streamlining of UN reports and initiatives to be accomplished by allowing the Secretary-General discretion on the work of the Secretariat on requested reports, and strict adherence to page limits on necessary documents.15 Annan also called for more flexibility in the Secretary-General’s ability to allocate funds for unforeseen projects derived from defunct programmes such as the trusteeship council. “Strengthening the United Nations” also made mention of staff reforms including better recruitment processes. The term “International Civil Servants” was coined and the Deputy Secretary-General was tasked with overseeing the implementation of reforms mentioned in the report. Thus, the importance of both impartiality and respect for UN Staff were reiterated.16 The last report that Annan wrote on UN Reform as secretary-general was “Investing in the United Nations: For a stronger Organization worldwide,” released on March 7, 2006. This report received strong backlash from the UN Staff Council, and resulted in a vote of no confidence in the Secretary-General in May of that year.17 While Annan stressed that staff members were the most valuable resource, and that they were “increasingly overstretched,” his method of correcting the problem was the buyout of several long-time UN staff members, lessening the importance of job security in order to recruit a more diverse employee pool, and the cutting of several UN departments in order to allow for the merging of administrative roles.18 As recommended by the General Assembly, permanent contracts were replaced with “continuing appointments,” with very little job security.19 Annan reiterated the call for a one-time staff buyout, previously mentioned in a detailed report on staff efficiency, in order to

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“improve personnel structure and quality.”20 He estimated that 1,000 staff would be bought out (at an estimated cost of $1 million USD) in order to make room for new recruitment strategies.21 In addition to staff reform, the report redefined the role of the Deputy Secretary-General in order to have more people reporting directly to his or her office. At the time of the report, 25 departments and offices reported to the Secretary General, in addition to ten programs and trust funds that required constant advice and guidance.22 In response to Annan’s 2006 reform proposals, the nations of Chile, South Africa, Sweden and Thailand banded together, creating the Four Nations Initiative. Under this initiative, these four nations pledged to strengthen the United Nations through investigating policies on governance and management. Their work ended on October 1, 2007 when they released their final report titled “Towards a Compact.”23 This report reflects the common viewpoint of member states on Secretariat reform.

Areas that needed reform were grouped into the following three areas: efficiency (in member state and secretariat communications), accountability, and transparency of Secretariat staff (human resources reform). It is on these three topics that I will further elaborate.24 efficiency The United Nations has never been renowned for its efficiency, and is often criticized for its quagmire of bureaucracy, lengthy procedures, and inconvenient rules.25 In the 59th session, the fifth Committee of the General Assembly alone received 275 official Secretariat Reports, totalling up to over 60,000 pages.26 Under such conditions, the Secretariat, let alone the smaller member state offices, is overwhelmed by the vast amount of redundant information in every committee session. Several committees and agencies produce similar reports and data on important issues. While the UN is certainly efficient at producing pages of information, because so many of them contain duplicated material, or material available through other organizations, the amount of time and labour wasted is astronomical. However, with clearer communication between the Secretariat and committees about delegation of tasks, this issue could be prevented. The Four Nations Initiative has already suggested opening up a form of informal communication, such as Secretaries General holding office hours for conversations regarding such matters with member states.27 Because the work of the Secretariat derives from the mandates received from UN bodies, increasing the efficiency of management would thus increase the efficiency of the entire organization, providing vast improvements towards alleviating the strain on the current system.28 secretariat staffing Kofi Annan was a strong advocate for a new way of training and recruiting Secretariat staff. In his “Programme for Reform,” Annan stated his vision as follows: “The Secretariat of the future will be somewhat smaller, better-trained, more versatile, more mobile, better managed and better integrated as a global team.”29 He believed the Member States needed to reverse the pattern of years of under-investing in people and systems of the Organization in order to bring the UN to the level of management it requires to operate efficiently.30 However, the number of Secretariat staff continues to grow every year as more and more mandates are continually added, and 90 percent of the organization’s operating budget is spent on human capital.31 Currently, there are

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over 40,000 international civil servants employed by the UN, not including peacekeeping forces and administration.32 The percentage of women serving in the Professional Level was less than 38 percent in 2006.33 This is an area where a new style of recruitment could contribute to diversifying the makeup of the Secretariat. With 15 percent of the Secretariat staff reaching the retirement age by 2015, it is clear that now is the time to enact full staff reforms.34 This, combined with the aforementioned staff buyout, will create room to bring in a more diverse staff, one that can be trained according to the most up to date policies and methods. To correct this unbalanced staff, special recruitment could be focused on underrepresented populations, such as women, and those from developing nations. Currently quotas from developed countries plague the recruitment process, and essentially allow the 5 permanent members of the UN Security Council to appoint individuals at will. Relaxing quotas from each country to regional quotas could provide more flexibility when choosing between qualified individuals. To ensure that the quality of staff does not suffer, highly competitive, standardized testing could be implemented.35 transparency and accountability It is often hard to follow the muddle of bureaucracy involved in the Secretariat’s daily procedures to find specific reports, or actions taken on an issue. There have been many calls for increased transparency and accountability in the management of the United Nations. Regarding this issue, several suggestions have been made, mostly focusing around two distinct areas: redefining the responsibilities of each office and increasing equality of representatives in management. The position of Deputy Secretary-General was created in 1998 to establish a clearer line of command.36 Canadian national Louise Fréchette, a long-standing ambassador to the UN, first held the Deputy Secretary General post.37 In 2006, Frechétte was forced to resign over the failure of the Oil for Food Programme, widely criticized for its lack of effective management.38 In this situation it is easy to follow the path of governance to the person directly responsible for every order given, due to the strict definitions surrounding the newly created position. The Four Nations Initiative also had a strong policy on accountability, providing recommendations for altering the lines of communication between Member States and the Secretariat.39 The lack of equality in selecting Secretariat members has also been criticized. The main proposal to emerge out of this criticism has been a “world presidential’ system, under which global citizens would have the opportunity to participate in the direct election of the Secretary General and key figures.40 This would ensure that all nations are given equal say in the appointment of the figurehead of the organization, instead of the decision resting solely in the hands of Security Council members. However, this is proposal has been met with understandable resistance. While International organizations rely on their Secretariat and are ultimately responsible for individuals, they are presided over by governments, who would be reluctant to concede power to the citizens. Inevitably, problems with voter density by region, availability of knowledge and access to polls would have to be addressed. proposal for secretariat reform My argument for further reform of the United Nations Secretariat surrounds

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a more complete integration of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) into the daily workings of the organization. Article 71 in the Charter of the UN embraced the “Third” United Nations (the other two being the Secretariat and Member States):41 “The Economic and Social Council may make suitable arrangements for consultation with non-governmental organizations which are concerned with matters within its competence. Such arrangements may be made with international organizations and, where appropriate, with national organizations after consultation with the Member of the United Nations concerned.”42 By including NGOs in the charter, the founders of the United Nations clearly recognized the power of these organizations in providing consultations on economic and social matters. However, since the founding of the UN, the growth of NGOs has been rampant, and the areas in which they are effective has greatly diversified. efficiency The United Nations Development Programme has estimated that there are over 37,000 NGOs worldwide, most of these emerging over the course of the 1990s.43 NGO staff are a valuable resource in that they can be used to streamline the delivery and implementation of programs that the Secretariat administration is too overstretched to deal with. In 1997 alone, NGOs administered 80 percent of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees budget, and the United Nations already provides funds for other human rights work by these organizations.44, 45 They are experienced, highly specified, well-funded (worth an estimated one trillion USD) and ready to use their resources in ways that would benefit the UN.46 NGOs themselves would benefit from a relationship with the UN, gaining both legitimacy and a voice in negotiations. While the Secretariat already uses many of the reports created by NGOs in their daily work, no current system successfully integrates the research done by the two organizations.47 Undertaking this process would save time and resources by eliminating much of the redundancy that exists, which would decreases the time spent between requests of the member states for documents and the delivery of the reports to the relevant committee. Formalizing this relationship and creating procedures for outsourcing reports much like UN outsources development and human rights programs would streamline this partnership. In order for this partnership to continue successfully, NGOs would need to retain their autonomy, both through governance and location (such as not being located within UN offices), and their freedom to pursue their (ideally) unpoliticized agendas, meaning that they are unattached from any state or government control. This would allow for open criticism of international actions, and a higher level of engagement by the specialized experts working for NGOs. Kofi Annan has said that “prosperity cannot be achieved without partnerships.”48 I believe that “efficiency cannot be achieved without partnerships,” particularly partnerships with NGOs. accountability and transparency Integration of NGOs would also aid in increasing the accountability and transparency of the UN Secretariat. A recent study has shown that Americans and

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Europeans trust NGOs more than they trust governments, corporations and the media.49 Because they are apolitical and unaffiliated with businesses, NGOs are able to act as a watchful eye over the UN Secretariat. They have often accused the UN of making rules and procedures unmanageable for most global citizens.50 While the UN has greatly increased their use of the Internet, it is still difficult to access basic information and news for the average person, and the many people without internet access are neglected altogether. NGOs already have mechanisms in place for delivering information to concerned parties, and could continue this role through disseminating UN press releases, committee meeting minutes, communiqués and so forth, thereby increasing the Secretariat’s effectiveness. NGOs would also be the only reasonable mediator of any global Secretariat elections as they seldom have political or national affiliations, along with the manpower necessary to staff and supervise such an election.

With a wider availability of knowledge, global citizens would also be more capable of enhancing the Organization’s accountability, transparency and most importantly, its legitimacy. human resources

Lastly, a partnership with NGOs would provide the Secretariat with a wealth of qualified and experienced employees. Many previous prominent Secretariat members were involved with non-governmental organizations before appointment. Due to the grassroots nature of these groups, it is entirely possible that many of their employees have been involved since early grade school. By incorporating NGOs into the recruitment process, a diverse pool of potential applicants could be obtained by the UN. This is especially relevant in ensuring that fresh perspectives are continually present in the employee pool. By recruiting from multiple organizations, the Secretariat will be able to pull together experiences and training from around the world to create a powerful think tank, and move the Secretariat forward in a dynamic way. conclusion Now more than ever it is clear that drastic Secretariat reform is necessary and imminent. At an ever-quickening pace the world is becoming more globalized, with contemporary issues that require urgent attention. Unfortunately, over 60,000 pages of reading leave no room for action. Under the current organizational structure, the administration of the largest international organization is over-stretched and constrained, rendering it largely inefficient. However, policy and political goals are often intertwined with any restructuring proposals, making reform difficult. To solve the problems of low efficiency, the complicated staff recruitment processes, and poor transparency, the United Nations must embrace the ‘Third UN’ and the power of the NGO workforce. Using a non-biased contracted organization can help the UN become more transparent, and take advantage of experts already active in the field. The human capital of the United Nations is their most precious resource, and Ban Ki-Moon certainly has much to do, especially if he would like to score better on management in the second half of his current term. Hopefully the organization can adapt to our growing global needs, and remain relevant in an ever-changing world. notes:

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. United Nations, “Secretariat”; available from http://www.un.org/en/mainbodies/secretariat/ index.shtml; Internet; accessed December 5th, 2009.

2 . The Economist, “The Score at Half Time,” 11 June 2009.

3 . Farhad Analoui, “Reform in International Institutions: the case of the United Nations,” Journal of Management Development 28, no.6 (2009), in Emerald Group Publishing [database on-line] accessed December 12, 2009.

4 . Ibid.

5 . Mario De Benedetti, “The United Nations International Governance Looking for a New “Glass Palace”: Reforming the United Nations System,” Transit Studies Review 16, (2009): 511.

6 . Ibid.

7 . U.N. General Assembly, 59th Session. In larger freedom: towards development, security and human rights for all (A/59/2005). 21 March 2005.

8 . U.N. General Assembly, 51st Session. Renewing the United Nations: A Programme for Reform (A/51/950). 14 July 1997.

9 . Ibid.

10 . U.N. General Assembly, 52nd Session. Renewing the United Nations: a programme for reform (A/RES/52/12 B). 9 January 1998.

11 . United Nations, “Deputy Secretary General”; available from http://www.un.org/sg/deputysg. shtml: Internet; accessed December 5th, 2009.

12 . UN General Assembly, “Programme for Reform,” 1997.

13 . Ibid.

14 . United Nations, Strengthening of the United Nations: an agenda for further change (A/57/387). 9 September, 2002 15 . Ibid.

16 . United Nations General Assembly, “Strengthening the UN,” 2002.

17 . Associated Press, “UN Overhaul Plan Leaves Staff with No Confidence in Anan,” Global Policy Forum, 10 March 2006, in Global Policy Forum [database on-line] pdf file accessed December 10th, 2009.

18 . United Nations General Assembly, 60th session. Investing in the United Nations: for a stronger Organization worldwide (A/60/692). 7 March 2006.

19 . United Nations General Assembly, 59th session, Human Resources Management Reform (A/59/263/Add.1). 9 September 2004.

20 . United Nations General Assembly, 60th Session, 2005 World Summit Outcome (A/ RES/60/1). 24 October 2005.

21 . United Nations General Assembly, “Investing in the United Nations,” 2006.

22 . Ibid.

23 . The Four Nations Initiative, www.the4ni.org, updated 1 October 2007.

24 . Ibid.

25 . Ziring L, Riggs RE, Plano J, “The UN and International Organizations” (New York; Thomson Wadsworth, 2005) 196.

26 . United Nations General Assembly, “Investing in the United Nations,” 2006 .

27 . The Four Nations Initiative, www.the4ni.org, updated 1 October 2007.

28 . UN General Assembly, “Programme for Reform,” 1997.

29 . United Nations General Assembly, “Investing in the United Nations,” 2006.

30 . Analoui, “Reform in International Institutions,” 2009.

31 . Weiss, “Reinvigorating the International Civil Service,” 2010 32 . De Benedetti, “The United Nations International Governance Looking for a New “Glass Palace,” 2009.

33 . United Nations General Assembly, “Investing in the United Nations,” 2006.

34 . Ibid.

35 . Weiss, “Reinvigorating the International Civil Service.” 2010 36 . UN General Assembly, “Programme for Reform,” 1998.

37 .United Nations, “Louise Frechette”; available from http://www.un.org/sg/frechette.shtml; 1

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chambers

| un secretariat reform

Internet; accessed December 10th, 2009.

38 . Reuters, “Oil-for-food probe: U.N. failures let Saddam pocket $10.2 billion,” 8 September 2005.

39 . The Four Nations Initiative, www.the4ni.org, updated 1 October 2007.

40 . De Benedetti, “The United Nations International Governance Looking for a New “Glass Palace,” 2009.

41 . UN Intellectual History Project, “The Third United Nations,” May 2009. . The United Nations, “The Charter of the United Nations,” 1945. . Matthew Bolton and Thomas Nash, “The Role in Middle Power NGO coalitions in Global Policy,” Internet: http://www.globalpolicyjournal.com/articles/conflict-and-security/role-middle-power%E2%80%93ngo-coalitions-global-policy-case-cluster-munitions accessed December 8th, 2009.

44 . Rena Lehr-Lehnardt, “NGO Legitimacy: Reassessing Democracy, Accountability and Transparency” (2005). Cornell Law School Intern-University Graduate Student Conference Papers.

45 . UN General Assembly A/58/817, “Strengthening of the United Nations System,” 11 June 2004.

46 . Lehr- Lehnardt , “NGO Legitimacy: Reassessing Democracy, Accountability and Transparency,” 2005.

47 . UN Intellectual History Project, “The Third United Nations,” May 2009.

48 . Lehr- Lehnardt, “NGO Legitimacy: Reassessing Democracy, Accountability and Transparency,” 2005.

49 . Ibid.

50 . Ibid.

42 43

56 Journal of International Affairs

biographical notes

contributors Alexis Jennifer Cassap-Hanson is a recent University of British Columbia graduate, having completed a Bachelor of Arts in rural Uganda, an experience which confirmed her desire to work in the field of international development with a focus on female empowerment. She plans to return to school this fall to pursue post-graduate. sarah chambers is a 4th year, graduating student in the Faculty of Science at the University of British Columbia, with a major in Integrated Sciences. She has been involved with Model United Nations for seven years and with the International Relations Students Association for the past 4 years. She hopes to combine my interests for International Relations and health into a career in international public health policy. sarah chung is currently a 3rd year UBC student studying B.A. International Relations with a Political Science minor. As a former associate News Editor for The Ubyssey, the largest student newspaper in western Canada, she is interested in the influence of media on public opinion and politics. She volunteers regularly at the Downtown Community Court and plans to study law after graduation. marie leaf is a Joint Honors Political Science and International Development Studies Major at McGill University. She is in her last year of undergraduate studies and is looking to pursue a career in international human rights and/or international business development practices. She is currently exploring her options with various graduate programs and law schools. meghan victoria price is a third year undergraduate student majoring in International Relations at the University of British Columbia. Upon completion of her degree she intends to pursue a Bachelors of Midwifery. Her goal is to work locally as a midwife and to play an active role in combating maternal mortality in the global community. heather stack is a fourth year Undergraduate at the University of British Columbia. Majoring in Sociology and Minoring in Womenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s and Gender Studies Stack is an Undergraduate Teaching Assistant for Dr. Guppy and Dr. Wang and is an undergraduate research assistant for Dr. Guppy. Her next stage of academia includes a Masters in Women and Gender Studies with a focus on social justice and â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;disabilityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; rights.

60 Journal of International Affairs

jia directors and staff editor in chief eric wallace-deering is a fifth year student graduating in political science, with a focus on rhetoric and security studies.Eric has been involved in the JIA and other on campus public for several years, and hopes to use this experience to pursue a career in journalism or public relations. coordinating editors genevieve barrons is a fourth year student double majoring in English Honours and International Relations. Her academic interests include American political rhetoric, war crimes, literature of the 19th and 20th centuries, HIV/AIDS and the plight of women and children in conflict zones. After graduating she hopes to pursue her masters in Security Studies, and then do something with her life. caroline durran is a fourth year graduating International Relations major. Her areas of interest include internet politics, Latin America and women in development.

Following a brief jaunt through Central America for the summer, she will be starting law school in September. gordan katic is a third year student majoring in philosophy and political science.

His background is in journalism, and he currently writes a popular weekly column for The Ubyssey. When he graduates, he plans to either pursue a career in journalism or in law. editoiral board victoria bierkanick is a fifth year Political Science student. She has a particular interest in security studies and conflict/post-conflict societies. After graduating this year she is planning to complete the Teacher Education program before attaining a Master in Education and International Development. michelle gillespie is a third year international relations major with a minor in economics. She is interested in international trade and is enrolled in the Arts co-op program at UBC. codi huaka is a fourth year student majoring in international relations with a minor in history. She plans on pursuing a career in journalism or taking over as anchor of the Colbert Report. dennis kam is a third year Political Science and International Relations major.

He has cultivated an insatiable interest in foreign policy, public policy and public management, with his sights aimed at either post-graduate studies on governance or law school. He is the Internal Director of UBCâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Rights and Democracy Delegation, dedicated in engaging dialogue on accountability and human rights. His involvement with the JIA is out of a personal desire to

Journal of International Affairs 61

biographical notes

facilitate intellectual exchange and collaboration amongst scholars. linda min is a third year student who is majoring in International Relations and minoring in Political Science. She is particularly interested in International Diplomacy, Security, and Peace Studies. Linda hopes to study Journalism for her graduate studies. wen-ching shan is currently a 3rd year studying International Relations and English Literature. Her areas of interest include East Asian politics and intra-state conflicts. production coordinator kathy yan li is a third year theatre student specialzing in lighting design. She has been invovled in The Ubyssey for the past three years in a variety of positions including associate culture editor and print ad sales. Kathy has been actively involved on campus, including co-founding the UBC Brewing Club. She hopes to run for Parliament in the future on a platform of edible glitter for everyone. production assistants emily campsi is a third year Arts student from Oakville, Ontario who loves travelling, skiing, and life on the West Coast. She is majoring in International Relations with a focus on International Diplomacy, Security and Peace Studies. She plans to continue her education by attending Law School after graduation next year. daniel liang is a second year student majoring in International Relations. When he is not working for the JIA, he enjoys shooting life with his beloved Nikon or wreck diving in the Bahamas. marketing michele gillespie is also an editor. See above. faculty liason ivan ko-cheng wu is a fourth year student of International Relations with a Commerce minor. Having traveled extensively throughout Asia, he has a strong research & editorial background both academically and professionally. In the future, he plans to continue his research on technology transfer in the developing world and become a social entrepreneur.

62 Journal of International Affairs

I N T E R N AT I O N A L R E L AT I O N S S T U D E N T S A S S O C I AT I O N UBC has long encouraged global citizenship as a key part of academic development. For over twenty-five years, the International Relations Students Association (IRSA) has worked to develop co-curricular programs that help achieve this goal. We aim to provide students from a variety of disciplines with a forum for the discussion of international issues. IRSA membership is available to all UBC students and alumni.

Our core projects include: • The UBC Journal of International Affairs • The Night of a Thousand Dinners • The UBC Model United Nations Conference • A Bi-Annual Foreign Policy Conference • Model NATO delegation • International Career Night • External Model United Nations delegation • Social events • Weekly meetings The JIA and IRSA would like to thank the following organizations and departments for their generous support for our programs: • UBC Alma Mater Society • UBC Arts Undergraduate Society • The Centre for International Relations • The Liu Institute for Global Issues • UBC International House • UBC International Relations Program www.irsa.ca | 1.604. 822.1604 | UBC Student Union Building, room 30G

The UBC International Relations Program is a degree granting undergraduate program in the Faculty of Arts. With over 250 majors enrolled, the program is one of the largest in the Faculty. The program is interdisciplinary, permitting students to take courses in a variety of disciplines including History, Political Science, Economics, Geography, Asian Studies, and Sociology, among many others. The IR Program is a proud sponsor of the UBC Journal of International Affairs.

For more information, please visit the UBC IR Program website at: www.ir.arts.ubc.ca

Journal of International Affairs 63