Journal for Peace and Justice Studies

Human security is being threatened as a consequence of climate change. However, the human security paradigm still needs to be addressed as a cause and effect of environmental degradation. Therefore, this article aims to comprehend the impacts of climate change in fragile states regarding food security and human development. The article is a comparative case study of the five most vulnerable countries in Africa: Somalia, South Sudan, Central African Republic, Sudan, and Congo (Dem. Republic). This research contends that climate change is detrimental to the agricultural sector and effects economic growth and basic human needs. Moreover, it is threatening human development due to food and water shortages. This scenario also triggers conflicts among the vulnerable populations of fragile states, disrupting food availability and people’s access. This article suggests that international measures connecting environmental degradation and human security must be implemented in order to improve the quality of life in Africa. Also, long-term nation-building is required to address human security issues present in all five countries.

This article examines the development of the GIFT project as a grassroots peacebuilding model that aims to create safe spaces in which girls can explore creative ways to recognize and build healthy relationships. In addition, GIFT provides a place to foster positive youth development through mentors who can influence the social and political landscape within their immediate communities in Jamaica. In exploring the planning and intervention process, this article critically reflects on the formation of the partnership between the GIFT Project and Project SCORE. Further, using the RE-AIM framework this article examines the reach and efficacy of the GIFT-Project SCORE initial training workshop. The Re-AIM framework seeks to ensure a holistic intervention process and is best reviewed throughout the planning and implementation of the project. Hence, this article hopes to impart the experiences of the first training workshop and next steps in the direction of the project.

Rwanda witnessed devastating conflicts leading to genocidal attacks in 1994 with active participation of the police in the pogrom. Various reports implicated the police in high-handedness, torture, extra judicial killings, intimidation, rape, and other heinous crimes during the conflicts. The police force was reformed for optimal performance. This paper examines the impact of the post-conflict reconstruction of the police on internal security management in Rwanda. Findings from the study, which relied on secondary data, are that reform impacted positively on the performance of the police, sharpening its skills in crime detection and prevention and leading to improved security for lives and property in Rwanda. Over-reliance on dwindling external sources and dysfunctional equipment still undermines maximum performance by the police. There should be adequate provision of advanced security devices and better funding of the police for the optimal discharge of their constitutional mandates of securing lives and property in Rwanda.

The 1998 Good Friday Agreement (GFA) brought an end to conflict in Northern Ireland (NI). Nonetheless, the peace process has not brought the reconciliation for which many had hoped. This purpose of this article is to consider the relationship between Remembrance, Commemoration and Reconciliation. The particular focus is on how the Centenary of 1916 (The Easter Rising and the Battle of the Somme) should be commemorated. My research also contains the views of politicians in Northern Ireland, in general, to the issue of ‘Commemoration, Remembrance and Reconciliation’. The research is positioned in the tradition of previous research literature and contemporary concerns relating to Commemoration, Remembrance and Reconciliation in Northern Ireland and internationally. It also engages with ‘Interventionist Research’. My research adds to the emerging knowledge in the area and offers insight and perspective on the attitudes of politicians in Northern Ireland to ‘Commemoration, Remembrance and Reconciliation’.

This paper is about an achievement of justice in the routine conduct of intercollegiate athletics competition. This accomplishment was a voluntary binding arrangement, lasting thirty years, through which five intercollegiate men’s basketball competitors sustained bilateral playing relationships and ventured into bilateral playing relationships beyond their togetherness. This was a just arrangement because the participants knowingly practiced tolerance of one another’s pursuit of outside playing relationships while affirming their belonging to the company of one another. Absorbent common ground is the name of this centered accomplishment of tolerance among distinctive competitors. Evidence of absorbent common ground is located in intercollegiate basketball schedules, where the basic building block is a voluntary bilateral agreement to engage in a competition. The paper concludes with a commentary about the work that we do as college educators and the assumptions that we take for granted in that endeavor.

The value and practicality of in bello discrimination in the context of “modern war” has been the subject of much scholarly debate. This essay analyzes in bello discrimination within the framework of the just war ethic in conversation with these contemporary concerns. In addition to analyzing objections frequently brought to bear on the feasibility of practicing in bello discrimination, this essay emphasizes the role of empathy as a corrective to pseudospeciation if violations of noncombatant immunity are to be reduced.

The gender perspective theory is a framework that assists Peace and Conflict Studies (PACS) scholars and practitioners to develop less violent and more equal societies. In Colombia, this theory is under attack from Protestant Christian churches that have produced the category of gender ideology to delegitimize the gender perspective. In this article, we analyse the narratives used by members of the Protestant Christian churches and conservative political leaders in Colombia to create the category of gender ideology. This new concept became a central element both in forging the identity of Protestant Christian congregations and in opposing the peace agreement reached by the Colombian government and FARC guerrillas. We discuss how family plays a significant role in the development of the gender ideology. Finally, we contend that gender ideology is a social category that is gaining ground in legal and academic circles in Colombia, forming an identity for Christian conservatives centered in a Manichean world that excludes people who traditionally have been marginalized in Colombian society.

The 1998 Good Friday Agreement (GFA) brought an end to conflict in Northern Ireland (NI). However, the peace process has not brought about the reconciliation which many had hoped for. The purpose of this article is to consider the role of ‘peace education’ and ‘integrated education’ in fostering reconciliation in Northern Ireland. My research contains the views of primary school and secondary school principals and head teachers to ‘peace education’ and ‘integrated education’ in Northern Ireland. The research is positioned in the tradition of previous research literature and contemporary concerns relating to integrated education and the Shared Education Bill that was passed by the Northern Ireland Assembly on the 8th March 2016. My research adds to the emerging knowledge in the area and offers an insight on the attitudes of educators in Northern Ireland to ‘peace education’ and ‘integrated education’. It also engages with ‘interventionist research’. This paper is written from the point of view that genuine and effective ‘peace education’ requires ‘integrated education’ where children from diverse backgrounds are educated together every day in the same classrooms.

Applied linguists and anthropologists tend to agree on the interplay between language and culture in the study of society; yet, language and culture are seldom evoked to understand crises in human relations, such as interethnic wars. Drawing from some examples of naming practices and proverbs, this paper will analyze Burundians’ perceptions of peace (amahoro) or peace-related concepts, such as calm (umutekano), or unity (ubumwe). Two major theories, i.e., Galtung’s theory of negative and positive peace, and Danesh’s Integrative Theory of Peace, provide the framework for the discussion. Critical discourse analysis is applied to the content of folkloric genres, namely proverbial uses and (children) name choices to demonstrate that: (1) Burundians as a society do not have a culturally grounded peace expectation, (2) Rather, Burundian society has been built on the core principle of sharing and hospitality, which are also at the core of harmony and peace; and (3) a climate of mutual distrust and suspicion has always prevailed in Burundi regardless of ethnic rivalries. The conclusion supports the proposition that, as predicted in the nation’s folkloric literature, the restoration of peace and harmony cannot happen unless the practices of sharing and hospitality are reinstated and respected.

This discussion paper draws on previous literature, and new primary research into human trafficking and sexual exploitation, outlining how the discipline of Peace and Conflict Studies (PACS) has evolved over the past fifty years. The discipline has moved through the following six distinct schools of thought: (1) Peace Studies (disarmament, nonviolence), (2) Conflict Management (ADR), (3) Conflict Resolution (problem solving, human needs), (4) Conflict Transformation (reconciliation, local people’s culture), (5) Peace and Conflict Studies (peacebuilding), and (6) Critical and Emancipatory Peacebuilding (the local people’s resiliency, and social justice). While these PACS eras can be distinguished, there is also considerable overlap between them. This paper explores some of those definable periods.