The Journal of Humanitarian Assistance
From the monthly archives: October 2010
Juvenile justice is a fundamental component of criminal justice systems and a critical element of successful international development models. The Convention on the Rights of the Child establishes international standards for the treatment of children, including children in contact with law. This mandate is supplemented by juvenile justice provisions in signatory states around the globe. In post-conflict societies, however, juvenile justice efforts must often compete for scarce government resources. In Iraq in particular, the development of the juvenile justice system has encountered systemic challenges as the country has transitioned from continuous conflict and totalitarian rule to democracy and the rule of law. Based in part on the author’s first hand experience working with juvenile justice institutions in Baghdad, this article examines the state of Iraqi juvenile justice, past and present, and offers a strategy for the future of juvenile justice administration in Iraq.
The present article takes a critical look at the new humanitarian ideal and attempts to outline some of the predicaments the ‘new humanitarianism’ rhetoric is facing today. The first part of this paper gives a brief overview of classic and new humanitarianism, humanitarian practice and theory. The second part of the article takes Rwanda as a case study and examines some possible reasons for non-intervention by the international community during the unfolding tragedy in Rwanda in the spring and early summer of 1994. More precisely, it will explore three main views: indifference to what was happening in Rwanda; the psychological phenomenon of diffusion of responsibility and the slippery slope argument. The aim of this paper is to illustrate the pitfalls of humanitarianism, in a changing world, as well as encourage a re-conceptualization of humanitarianism, and of some of those indeterminate rules and ‘slippery’ concepts it is working with.
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