As Libya emerges from forty years of autocratic rule, the criminal economy is undermining government efforts at state consolidation. This report maps the flow of weapons, migrants, drugs, and smuggled goods through Libya and details the interactions between armed groups who control illicit markets and local communities. The authors warn that efforts to beef up border control policing will not be sufficient. Combating organized crime in Libya requires a broader approach that will engage marginalized groups in a political process. Failure to do so will affect not only Libya but the region as well.
This book focuses on the displacement and convergence of transnational crimes in North Africa and in the area of the Mediterranean Sea, providing empirical analysis of human smuggling and of drug trafficking. It discusses the displacement of crime due to the exploitation of asymmetries in legislation, law enforcement, and other vulnerabilities. Using an innovative multimethodology, this volume describes the evolution of illicit flows related to human smuggling and trafficking of illicit goods. This approach helps to provide critical information such as traffickers’ modi operandi, most exploited paths, and trafficked goods, that would not be achievable through more traditional methods. The Evolution of Illicit Flows will be a valuable resource for scholars and researchers of criminology and migration studies, as well as for policymakers and law enforcement working in transnational crimes and trafficking.
What happens at the nexus of the digital divide and human trafficking? This book examines the impact of the introduction of new digital information and communication technology (ICT) – as well as lack of access to digital connectivity – on human trafficking. The different studies presented in the chapters show the realities for people moving along the Central Mediterranean route from the Horn of Africa through Libya to Europe. The authors warn against an over-optimistic view of innovation as a solution and highlight the relationship between technology and the crimes committed against vulnerable people in search of protection. In this volume, the third in a four-part series ‘Connected and Mobile: Migration and Human Trafficking in Africa’, relevant new theories are proposed as tools to understand the dynamics that appear in mobile Africa. Most importantly, the editors identify critical ethical issues in relation to both technology and human trafficking and the nexus between them, helping explore the dimensions of new responsibilities that need to be defined. The chapters in this book represent a collection of well-documented empirical investigations by a young and diverse group of researchers, addressing critical issues in relation to innovation and the perils of our time.
Retaining the conceptual framework of the first edition through emphasis on the dual themes of continuity and change, the second edition of Libya is revised and updated to include discussion of key developments since 2010, including: The February 17 Revolution and the death of Muammar al-Qaddafi. The political process which evolved in the course of the February 17 Revolution and led to General National Congress elections in July 2012, Constitutional Assembly elections in February 2014, and House of Representative elections in June 2014. Post-Qaddafi economic policy from the National Transitional Council through successive interim transitional governments. Post-Qaddafi foreign policy. The on-going process of drafting a new constitution which will be followed by the election of a Parliament and a President. Providing a comprehensive overview of the Libyan uprising, seen to be the exception to the Arab Spring, and highlighting the issues facing contemporary Libya, this book is an important text for students and scholars of History, North Africa and the Middle East as well as the non-specialist with an interest in current affairs.
This edited volume examines the contemporary practice of human trafficking on the African continent. It investigates the scourge of human trafficking in Africa from the broader international and regional perspectives as well as from a country-specific context. Written by a multi-disciplinary panel of academics and practitioners, the book is divided into three sections that highlight a wide range of issues. Section One examines the theoretical and legal challenges of trafficking. Section Two focuses on the regional and nation-state perspectives of human trafficking along with selected cases of trafficking. Section Three highlights the impact of trafficking on youth, with specific attention given to child soldiering and female victims of trafficking. Providing a multi-faceted approach to a problem that crosses multiple disciplines, this volume will be useful to scholars and students interested in African politics, African studies, migration, human rights, sociology, law, and economics as well as members of the diplomatic corps, governmental, intergovernmental, and non-governmental organizations.
Countries emerging from civil war or protracted violence often face the daunting challenge of rebuilding their economy while simultaneously creating the political and social conditions for a stable peace. The implicit assumption in the international community that rapid political democratisation along with economic liberalisation holds the key to sustainable peace is belied by the experiences of countries such as Iraq and Afghanistan. Often, the challenges of post-conflict reconstruction revolve around the timing and sequencing of different reform that may have contradictory implications. Drawing on a range of thematic studies and empirical cases, this book examines how post-conflict reconstruction policies can be better sequenced in order to promote sustainable peace. The book provides evidence that many reforms that are often thought to be imperative in post-conflict societies may be better considered as long-term objectives, and that the immediate imperative for such societies should be 'people-centred' policies.
This report is a first step towards building a qualitative understanding of the way illicit or criminal activities interact with the economy, security and development of West African States.
This book offers a novel, incisive and wide-ranging account of Libya's '17 February Revolution' by tracing how critical towns, communities and political groups helped to shape its course. Each community, whether geographical (e.g. Misrata, Zintan), tribal/communal (e.g. Beni Walid) or political (e.g. the Muslim Brotherhood) took its own path into the uprisings and subsequent conflict of 2011, according to their own histories and relationship to Muammar Qadhafi's regime. The story of each group is told by the authors, based on reportage and expert analysis, from the outbreak of protests in Benghazi in February 2011 through to the transitional period following the end of fighting in October 2011. They describe the emergence of Libya's new politics through the unique stories of those who made it happen, or those who fought against it. The Libyan Revolution and its Aftermath brings together leading journalists, academics, and specialists, each with extensive field experience amidst the constituencies they depict, drawing on interviews with fighters, politicians and civil society leaders who have contributed their own account of events to this volume.
What happens when the international community simultaneously pursues peace and justice in response to ongoing conflicts? What are the effects of interventions by the International Criminal Court (ICC) on the wars in which the institution intervenes? Is holding perpetrators of mass atrocitiesaccountable a help or hindrance to conflict resolution? This book offers an in-depth examination of the effects of interventions by the ICC on peace, justice and conflict processes. The "peace versus justice" debate, wherein it is argued that the ICC has either positive or negative effects on'peace', has spawned in response to the Court's propensity to intervene in conflicts as they still rage. This book is a response to, and a critical engagement with, this debate.Building on theoretical and analytical insights from the fields of conflict and peace studies, conflict resolution, and negotiation theory, the book develops a novel analytical framework to study the Court's effects on peace, justice, and conflict processes. This framework is applied to two cases:Libya and northern Uganda. Drawing on extensive fieldwork, the core of the book examines the empirical effects of the ICC on each case. The book also examines why the ICC has the effects that it does, delineating the relationship between the interests of states that refer situations to the Court andthe ICC's institutional interests, arguing that the negotiation of these interests determines which side of a conflict the ICC targets and thus its effects on peace, justice, and conflict processes.While the effects of the ICC's interventions are ultimately and inevitably mixed, the book makes a unique contribution to the empirical record on ICC interventions and presents a novel and sophisticated means of studying, analyzing, and understanding the effects of the Court's interventions inLibya, northern Uganda - and beyond.
On March 17, 2011, a month after the beginning of the Libyan revolution, with up to dead 2,000 civilians, the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) decided on backing a no-fly zone over Libya and authorized "all necessary measures" to protect civilians. While France, Great Britain, and the United States took immediate military action using air and missile strikes, considerations to hand over military actions to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) emerged within days of the operation. On March 22 2012, NATO agreed to enforce the arms embargo against Libya; 2 days later, it announced to take over all military aspects of the UNSC 1973. On March 31, 2012, Operation UNIFIED PROTECTOR (OUP) began. OUP turned out to be one of NATO's shorter, and seemingly also less controversial, missions. Mandated by both the League of Arab States and the UN as the regime of Colonel Qaddafi was launching assaults on peacefully demonstrating citizens, its aim was to protect civilians from the air and sea. Described as a "war of choice" rather than a "war of necessity," NATO achieved its goals more by accident than by design, according to some critics. The lessons which can be drawn from OUP are both military and political in nature. The overestimation of air power as a result of "no boots on the ground" might be a dangerous conclusion for future cases; the lack of cultural advice very likely prolonged the mission, while the shortcomings in strategic communication gave input to improve an area that is still new to NATO. The operation also highlighted a strategic dimension the Alliance was not ready to perceive -- that the Mediterranean, and its Southern states, is likely to continue being a source of instability for NATO, particularly after the Arab Spring. In legal terms, the Alliance faced an important communication gap between its legal, and therefore military, mandate -- the legal interpretations of UNSCR 1973 made clear that the operation did not seek to topple Colonel Gaddafi's regime, let alone assassinate him. Its aim was solely the protection of civilians in a situation of internal conflict, and, therefore, it conformed to the norm of "Responsibility to Protect." On the political level, heads of NATO member states made contradictory remarks calling for Gaddafi's departure, thereby compromising the clarity of the mission. Last but not least, the aftermath of NATO's Libya operation was not planned at all as the Libyan National Transitional Council firmly rejected any military personnel on the ground, not even UN observers. As the regime's security forces had virtually imploded, Libya's security therefore fell into the hands of the multiple militias which continued to proliferate after the conflict had ended.
