Oxfam America

Beyond Sudan's big day

llucas — 2011-06-29T14:24:11Z

Southern Sudan will face enormous challenges and will need long-term support from the rest of the world regardless of the outcome of this week’s referendum. The vote could create the world’s newest country, which would also be one of the least developed and home to some of the world’s poorest people.

Geneva Convention turns 60

chufstader — 2011-06-29T13:59:31Z

The Geneva Conventions, written four years after the end of World War II, were designed to limit what armed actors could do in war and ensure civilians are protected from violence. Unfortunately, the Conventions are being violated in nearly every conflict in the world today. Civilians are not only still dying from the effects of conflict, but they are being specifically targeted by warring parties.

Here are just two examples:

Three quarters of a million civilians were killed in conflicts in Darfur, Congo, Iraq, and Afghanistan in 2006 alone.
At the end of 2008, more than 42 million people had to flee their homes due to more than 30 different conflicts around the world.

“The killing of civilians has become commonplace in modern conflict” says Raymond C. Offenheiser, President of Oxfam America. “Levels of impunity and lawlessness in conflict zones throughout the world have reached crisis levels.”

Violations of the laws of war are committed by governments and non-state actors, including terrorist and rebel groups. Many government forces are not equipped to protect civilians, or make decisions based on political considerations that endanger innocent people. And the United Nations Security Council has failed to take effective measures to protect millions of people in conflicts.

Oxfam America is working actively to promote more respect for international humanitarian law like the Geneva Conventions, and is recommending the following measures:

The United States and the United Nations should publicly challenge violators of international humanitarian law, even if the violations are committed by allies.
Impose timely sanctions against political and military leaders responsible for violations of humanitarian laws, and monitor them to deter future war crimes.
Improve the effectiveness of UN peacekeeping operations to protect civilians.
Work with the UN to monitor conflicts and quickly deploy mediation and diplomatic teams at the earliest stages of a crisis.
Adopt an arms trade treaty that would reduce access to illegal weapons used to wage war and violate humanitarian laws.

OXFAMExchange Spring 2009

Oxfam America — 2011-06-29T14:20:53Z

We believe climate change is more than an environmental concern. We believe curbing global warming isn't enough. We must go beyond that if we're going to help poor communities—from the US Gulf Coast to Bangladesh—build their resilience to climate change. The situation is increasingly urgent; many are already struggling to cope with the consequences of erratic weather, crop shortages, and receding coastlines. Naturally it is the world's poorest—among them women and children—who are hit hardest.

With some champions in Congress and support from the White House, we're hoping to see domestic legislation that not only fines companies who pollute, but also uses some of these funds to help affected communities build their resilience. If we are successful domestically, we can lay the groundwork for a global deal at the UN Climate Change Conference this December—an agreement that will create a more hospitable climate for us all.

Also in this issue: A force of peace in Peru; Rebuilding in Bangladesh; Oxfam America's new role in Darfur.

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For a Safer Tomorrow

mborum — 2011-06-29T14:22:39Z

Many people feel that there is little that can be done to prevent the brutal targeting of civilians that characterizes modern warfare. They are wrong. This report, based on Oxfam International's experience in most of the world's conflicts, sets out an ambitious agenda to protect civilians.

In the DRC, increasing violence has forced people to flee from their homes, and led to the deaths of almost 1,500 people a day. Though no other conflict causes that kind of death rate, Oxfam's workers hear similar stories of murder, rape, and displacement from men and women from Colombia to Sudan every day. Sixty years after the main Geneva Conventions enshrined civilians' rights to protection, they are violated in every current conflict.

Some states and non-state actors choose to kill civilians, or pursue strategies in which civilians are too likely to die. Some governments choose to protect their citizens: to keep them safe. Some do not protect all of them, or not well enough. There are, however, successful examples of protecting civilians that show what governments and others can do when they choose to.

They have an interest in protecting civilians, because mass atrocities fuel the conflicts that, in an interdependent world, create security threats that cannot be contained. And an increasing number of governments have a "moral interest" too, because their electorates expect them to help prevent, not just condemn, the atrocities they see beamed around the world through modern information technology.

Governments and others can reduce the mass atrocities that blight the world in the early twenty-first century

To do so, they need to make four key changes.

Make the protection of civilians the overriding priority in the response to conflicts everywhere—actively working to protect civilians, and upholding the Responsibility to Protect civilians from mass atrocities, agreed at the 2005 UN World Summit, as a cornerstone of policy;
Adopt zero tolerance of war crimes—whether in counter-terrorism or elsewhere—applying the same standard of international opprobrium to war crimes committed by friends or foes alike;
Act much more quickly to tackle the trends that threaten new or prolonged conflicts—including poverty and inequality, climate change, and arms proliferation—so that we can be better at preventing as well as reacting to conflicts;
Join up effective action at every level, from local communities to the UN Security Council—so that international action works in conjunction with what works on the ground. To help achieve this, the way the UN Security Council works should be urgently reformed with greater transparency and accountability, in which the Council's members have to account for their performance in pursuing international peace and security, including their Responsibility to Protect civilians from mass atrocities. All permanent members of the Security Council should renounce the use of their veto when the Council is discussing situations of actual or incipient war crimes, crimes against humanity, ethnic cleansing, and genocide.