POLSCI 389 Lecture Notes - Lecture 16: Economic Sanctions, United Nations Human Rights Council, Humanitarian Intervention
8 May 2019
School
Department
Course
Professor
Policy, Advocacy, and Empowering Survivors
●Policies
○Preventinos (perpetrators) - how to incentivize better behavior/what can we do to make
perpetrators not want to commit sexual violence
○After the fact - empowerment (survivors) - not necessarily prevention, but for those who
have been victimized. What policies could be in place to help survivors. Survivors needs
help of various kinds and we have a moral obligation to help them. There is also an
argument to be made that empowerment of survivors and their strengths/seeing how they
view what happened to them could have benefits in the long term.
○Changing perceptions (community) - community changing their perceptions to change
the impact that sexual violence has on communities/the degree to which it is seen as a
useful weapon.
●General principles of prevention
○Main focus on (actual or potential) perpetrators
○Main points:
■Need to tailor policies to the repertoire and targeting of specific organizations
■Increasing commander responsibility
■Learning from restraint cases
■Learning from high prevalence cases (warning signs)
●Ending impunity - often hailed as solution
○This could be seen as a preventive measure, but is also something that happens after the
fact.
○Once the perpetrator has committed sexual violations, they should be punished for it.
Policies coming into place after violence has occurred.
○Assuming this will have some sort of deterrence effect if you see someone like yourself
being punished for sexual violence allegations.
■We assume that combatants respond to these kind of signals
■For this to work, there must be a substantially increasing in the likelihood that
these crimes of sexual violence will be punished. If there are few cases of sexual
violence being punished, the probability of this happening to your average
commander is very low. This will reduce the deterrent effect substantially. More
costs associated with this behavior will help commanders change their actions.
■Increase the strategic and personal costs of sexual violence to commanders in
particular
■Big leaps of faith thinking that ending impunity will have significant and
immediate effects. We should think of other options and not solely focus on this
justice mechanism.
■If principles are held accountable for the actions of agents, they will have a
stronger incentive to enforce bans of sexual violence. This may work better if it is
an opportunistic form of violence since it is not being used as a weapon of war. If
it was strategic, then maybe this won’t change the behavior that much and they
are willing to take the risk of this potentially being punished. Hints to that we
might need a better understanding of the strategic relevance of sexual violence to
know what might work in each case.
●International tools for countering human rights violations while ongoing - how could they work
here?
○Naming and shaming - calling out perpetrators, writing reports and news media stories,
talking about violations that puts the perpetrator in a bad light. This could change groups
in particular states from commiting sexual violence.
■States, UN, and news organizations can use this tool.
■Critical pressure or cheap talk? Effective? Or is it even detrimental to what you
are trying to do? Different opinions and circumstances.
■There are many organizations that consider it a useful tool that they have at their
disposal. Trying to increase publicity of bad behavior and convincing actors to
change their ways.
■General consensus even among UN skeptics that shining a light on a country’s
abuses can bring about better practices.
■Exactly how that works and if it always works creates quite a disagreement
■Could work in very specific conditions, but in general it probably does not work
very well by itself.
■Why might governments ignore naming and shaming?
●NGOs and media do not have authority over states - cannot put force
behind words. If the state chooses to ignore this and be willing to be
shamed, they can just continue their practice because force cannot be put
behind the words. This either needs to put force behind the words or
work with other actors to help with this force to make it meaningful.
●UN Human Rights Council lack legitimacy to name and shame others
●Very often seen as cheap talk if the sender of the message does not have
a good practice itself
■Why might rebel groups ignore this?
●Many of the same reasons as why the government ignores it.
■Could have opposite intended effects - If someone does something outrageous
that puts them on the map, they might get benefits by having more publicity,
allowing them to negotiate
■Sticks and stones - possible negative effects - Hafner-Burton (2008) study of 145
countries from 1975-200 finds that:
●Governments put in the spotlight for abuses continue or even ramp up
some violations
○But might reduce others - stop what they are being shamed for,
but do something else that is equally as bad to have an impact on
society
○Could have an election to appease the international community,
but make sure it goes into the party’s favor so they can hide their
violence and corruption.
