From Naples: voices against crime and the demand for justice

WRITTEN BY Luigi De Magistris

Those who suffer from a disease are able to develop a stronger immune system against it. That is why I strongly believe that Naples is more equipped to tackle crime-related problems compared to other cities. In fact, the South of Italy has developed an extraordinary wealth of resources and solutions to fight organized crime. The anti-mafia experience, which is predominantly southern, is one of the most important movements in Italy’s civil history. This rich past does not describe the South as a crime novel, but as a land where, above all, the people are ready to sacrifice themselves for the advancement of social justice.

When rape means something more than sexual violence

WRITTEN BY Elisabetta Mainenti

‘Rape, maim kill and destroy’ is the new categorical imperative that distinguishes this contemporary period, in which the violence used by the power unleashes — as the philosopher and political theorist Hanna Arendt understood — “a destructive process that stops only when there is nothing left to walk on.” The ancient practices of extermination, renewed by contemporary ideologies, soaked in the most atrocious violence and powered by a blind, irrational and inexhaustible will, which has no other purpose in life than to assert itself continuously, showed, at the gates of the third millennium and through those characteristic processes of the twentieth century — such as desecration of life and death, dehumanization and annihilation of the enemy — their whole disruptive power. In this context even rape — transcending its semantic meaning and using the body as a means to exert ritualistically the most traumatic and symbolic violence — has taken a new and even more frightening role becoming a specific weapon of the most atrocious crimes, including genocide.

Securing justice for survivors of conflict-related sexual violence: the stigma belongs with the perpetrator

WRITTEN BY Zainab Hawa Bangura

Imagine that you live in a country that had experienced a brutal and devastating war, and during that war you, or someone you loved, were the victims of sexual violence in conflict. Imagine the pain and betrayal you would feel knowing that those who orchestrated wide scale and systematic rapes, sexual slavery, forced marriages and other forms of sexual violence were allowed to walk free as if nothing had happened and remain a part of the community where you live, and each day you were forced to face them in public. This is the reality for most victims of sexual violence in conflict. Years after the guns have fallen silent they still struggle to rebuild their lives whilst their tormentors enjoy impunity. In Bosnia, only a handful of perpetrators have been prosecuted 20 years after the war, despite the fact that an estimated 50,000 women, and an unknown number of men, were raped during the conflict there.

The inconvenient truth about gang truces in the Americas

WRITTEN BY Robert Muggah, Ami Carpenter and Topher McDougal

After a two decade long hiatus, gang truces are back in vogue in the Americas. Very generally, truces typically consist of negotiations and pacts intended to prevent and reduce collective and interpersonal violence. They are often brokered by an eclectic cast of characters - from government officials and aid workers to faith-based groups and active and ex-gang members. And while truces are generating considerable attention in the global media, the evidence base about what they really accomplish is surprisingly thin.

Transborder gang partnerships on the US-Mexico border

WRITTEN BY Ami C. Carpenter

Peace work in urban arenas faces two realities. First, gangs are a permanent feature of urban life (at least for now) in all major cities around the world. Second, while the majority of youth gangs are not involved in transnational organized crime, some gangs are becoming engaged in criminal enterprises normally associated with better organized and more sophisticated crime syndicates.

Gangs in a Global Comparative Perspective

WRITTEN BY Dennis Rodgers & Jennifer M. Hazen

Frequently depicted as an almost pathological form of brutality, gangs have become popular bugbears and scapegoats across the world. This is perhaps most obvious in contemporary Central America, where gangs - known as pandillas and maras - are widely perceived as the most important security threat within a post-Cold War panorama of criminality often characterized by levels of violence that surpass those of the revolutionary conflicts that affected the region during the 1970s and 1980s.

A matter of justice: protecting land rights for inclusive growth in Africa

WRITTEN BY Harold Liversage

Land is fundamental to the lives of rural people. It is a source of food, shelter, income and social identity. Secure access to land reduces vulnerability to hunger and poverty. But for many rural households in developing countries, access is becoming more tenuous than ever. Protecting their land rights is a matter of basic social and economic justice.

Finding justice within climate change actions

WRITTEN BY Brian Harding

In December 2015, government negotiators from all countries in the world will come together in Paris, and are expected to sign what will be the long anticipated agreement to follow the Kyoto Protocol. (1) This new framework will establish a binding agreement for avoiding dangerous climate change and makes the next year of preparation one of the most important for humanity.

Parallel cities: Buenos Aires’ villas miseria

WRITTEN BY Carlo Francardo

Buenos Aires is a city with many faces, and its shantytowns, villas de emergencia (emergency villages) – euphemistically also called asentamientos (settlements) or villas miseria (villages of misery) – represent, for the rest of the society, the most scary and impenetrable face of them all. Collecting data, or even knowing the number of its inhabitants, is in this area very difficult. According to the census conducted in 2010, there are in Buenos Aires Capital, without considering its surrounding provinces, about 23 villas and a total of 170,000 residents. Over the last four years the number has increased to 225,000. This however seems to be an approximation, as in 2006 the inhabitants of the 796 villas in the capital and surrounding provinces were calculated to exceed one million.

Uniting Beyond Borders

WRITTEN BY Hana Abul Husn

In a mountainous sanctuary where it is easy to forget the neighboring war in Syria and the threats that have become commonplace in Lebanon, the stories of the children and women affected converge. Perched against the railing, with a mosque in the near distance, one woman describes the Borj El Barajneh refugee camp where she and her classmates live with reserved distaste. Revealing that the dirty streets and cramped housing do not speak for the well-kept homes of its inhabitants. With her thickly accented Arabic and a touch of regret, she mentions that visitors to the area are afraid of what they see. But like the surface infrastructure, the preconceptions of those living outside of the refugee camps in Lebanon falsely taint this woman and her classmates attending their English and I.T. classes on this sunny morning.

Virtual Currencies: Safe For Business And Consumers Or Just For Criminals?

WRITTEN BY Erik R. Barnett

Introduction The potential societal benefits of virtual currencies include mobile banking systems in developing countries, decreased transaction costs to merchants, and elimination of fees associated with normal bank accounts - all practical benefits for most businesses and consumers. (1) However, there is significant risk of large-scale criminal use of these same virtual currencies because of a lack of universal regulation, a gap in critical industry-based checks against money laundering, decentralized administrations, and the anonymity of transactions.

Are Cyber Criminals Competing At The Olympics?

WRITTEN BY Alan Brill and Snezana Petreska

Mass gatherings of cyber connected people are magnets for predatory cyber criminals Events like the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Summer Olympic Games (both of which are being held in Brazil) as well as national and regional events can draw tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of fans. Cultural events like concerts at arenas and sports stadiums can result in masses of viewers.

Deep Web, Going Beneath The Surface

WRITTEN BY Carola Frediani

The “Deep Web” is not an easy subject to investigate. To begin with, the first rule of the Deep Web is: “You do not talk about the Deep Web”. And that holds true for the second rule. While the third rule of the Deep Web is: “You can talk about it, but just if this is related to drug lords, weapons, terrorism or other similar topics.”

Beyond Asimov’s Laws Of Robotics: Sleepwalking Toward The Future?

WRITTEN BY by Irakli Beridze and Odhran James McCarthy

On 16 May 2014, the first multilateral discussion of lethal autonomous systems was convened at the United Nations Office in Geneva on the margins of the Expert Meeting for the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons. The subject of discussion, in more colloquial terms, was the so-called ‘killer robot’ – that is, fully autonomous lethal weapons systems that can select and engage targets without human intervention. During this milestone meeting, discussions touched on the various technical, legal, operational and ethical implications of robotic weapons and, of course, a number of concerns were voiced about a future with weapons void of human control, judgment or compassion.

New opportunities from globalization

WRITTEN BY Jonathan Lucas

Unprecedented globalization, expansion and change is irrevocably altering global dynamics. Technological evolution has brought about unparalleled levels of progress which continually restructure the fabric of our society, beginning from the very way we interface with one another. Indeed, the achievements of a fast-evolving and increasingly interconnected world with a quantum jump in technology in different sectors benefit mankind as a whole.