This week’s Special Report addresses the prevailing gender gap and the different paths to empowerment that women across the world have taken. Where does your knowledge of the issue stand?
[QUIZZIN 33]
Categories
Nearly one year after the devastating Kunduz airstrike the German military has decided to pay $5,000 to each of the families of the 100 civilian victims. This is the latest move in an affair that forced the German public to face the reality of the country’s military involvement in Afghanistan.
Overall the Bundeswehr transferred $430,000, stressing that the payment is only a voluntary, humanitarian measure. This was preceded by demands by the families’ attorneys, who demanded up to 28,000 euro per family. Compared to the amount actually paid, the attorneys did not get very far.
The price tag of $5,000 appears even lower if one considers earlier reports that Germany had paid $20,000 to the family of an Afghan woman who was shot at a checkpoint, and $33,000 for a dead Afghan boy.
The German compensation policy appears ‘generous’ compared to other nations militarily engaged in Afghanistan. One report mentions a sum of $40,000 for 15 people killed, breaking down to roughly $2,700 per person, paid by US commanders. Other sources state that US military commanders are authorized to pay between $1,500 and $2,500 to a family that has lost a child or an adult. The loss of a limb or other injury is ‘worth’ between $600 and $1,500; a damaged or destroyed vehicle, $500 to $2,500; damage to a farmer’s fields is valued between $50 and $250.
Defence IQ has published a very interesting podcast on cybersecurity with Dr Nigel Inkster. He is the Director of Transnational Threats and Political Risks at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS).
The talk clarifies some important dimensions about the spectrum of activities from cybercrime to full blown cyberwarfare. The context of two major cybersecurity events, a cyber-attack in Georgia during the 2008 South Ossetia war and a 2009 attack in the UK on MI5 are considered.
The talk addresses the potential dimensions and impact of cyberwarfare (on military vs. civilian targets) For the most extreme forms of cyberwarfare, Dr Inkster notes, “…none of these attacks are going to be confined to the military domain, all of them are going to have a significant impact on civilian populations.” He further outlines areas of potential vulnerabilities to infrastructure.
The podcast ends with a consideration of the efforts that governments are making to develop defensive and offensive capabilities.
Defense IQ is a cyber security forum that provides military personnel and the defence community throughout the world with information regarding current military and defence issues. It offers focused content such as podcasts and presentations, and hosts webinars, conferences and summits on defense issues.
Please also check out our Special Report on cyberwarfare.
Categories
Closing the Gender Gap
This week the ISN assesses the status of women from the US to the United Arab Emirates. While sweeping progress has been made in recent decades, resistance to gender equality remains in all corners of the globe.
This ISN Special Report contains the following content:
- An Analysis by Gail Harris, the first woman in US Navy history to be successfully assigned to a combat unit, on the challenges facing women in the military – then and now.
- A Podcast interview with Dr Isobel Coleman of the Council on Foreign Relations about the rise of Islamic feminism.
- Security Watch articles about crimes against women from Burma to the DRC – and about female legislative empowerment from Kuwait to India.
- Publications housed in our Digital Library, including the Overseas Development Institute’s look at gender and the MGDs and the Kiel Institute’s assessment of women’s suffrage.
- Primary Resources, like the full-text of Hillary Clinton’s famous 1995 speech, ‘Women’s Rights are Human Rights’, to the 4th UN World Conference on Women in Beijing.
- Links to relevant websites, such as The New York Times 2010 series, ‘The Female Factor’, which explores the most recent shifts in women’s power, prominence and impact on societies.
- Our IR Directory, featuring the UN Division for the Advancement of Women.
Declaring a state of emergency opens the door to an exceptional world, one in which government power is temporarily prioritized over individual rights. Unfortunately, many countries (see examples below) have made the exception a permanent rule.
The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) recognizes each state’s right to declare a state of emergency in times of public crisis that pose a direct threat to the nation. This allows the state to derogate from certain human rights obligations under the Covenant. Declaring a state of emergency grants governments exceptional powers, thus allowing them to curtail certain individual rights.
Although certain rights are non-derogable even at a time of national emergency – among others, the right to life, prohibition of torture, freedom from slavery, the right to recognition before the law – governments can limit the freedom of the press, deploy armed forces domestically, search homes without a warrant, confiscate private property, and arrest without charges.
In order to avoid governmental abuse, the ICCPR makes clear a state of emergency must be guided by certain principles. First, the crisis at hand must be of present and real danger to the state’s political or territorial existence. Second, it must be temporary, meaning that states can only declare a state of emergency for as long as the crisis is still present. And third, the state of emergency must be clearly declared and communicated both to the domestic population and to the international community.