Democracy and Rule of Law - June/July 2009

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Sierra Leone: Women in Conflict with the Courts

Emmerson, one of Sierra Leone’s most popular artists, recently launched a new album, titled “Yesterday Betteh Pass Tiday?” The politically charged album queries whether Sierra Leone has actually improved since its civil war ended eight years ago. Working with the international community, Sierra Leone has been hard at work since 2002 trying to remake its image in terms of good governance, human rights, and rule of law. These are areas wherein the citizens of Sierra Leone have been in longstanding conflict with the State, and when left unchecked, create a fertile breeding ground for revolutionary ideology and a wide-spread conviction that change is necessary. Discontent with a corrupt political system is ultimately what sparked the “self-reliant struggle” of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) in 1991, yet change still proves elusive.

December 1, 2009

Logan Hambrick

Democracy and Rule of Law - June/July 2009

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Identity Crisis in Pakistan

Pakistan is at war: after decades of ambivalence the Pakistan Army has engaged the spawn of its Cold War tryst with the USA, the Taliban, in a fight-to-the-death among the peaks and valleys of the country’s far North West. The first result of this engagement is the largest displacement of South Asians since that which accompanied the partition of India in 1947—over three million men, women and children in teeming, makeshift camps.

July 1, 2009

Sheheryar Kabraji

Democracy and Rule of Law - June/July 2009

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Who Will Stand for Rule of Law in Honduras?

Ever since the Honduran president Manuel Zelaya was arrested in the middle of the night and flown out of his country by military officers less than a month ago, the small country of Honduras has received enormous international attention for been widely reported as the first Central American coup in almost two decades. There has been a strong stated desire by all the major outside players to this crisis not to allow for a repeat of Latin America’s plagued history of military coups being used to respond to constitutional crises. The international response has offered a rare opportunity for a united common front between the Obama administration, Latin American states across the political spectrum, and international institutions such as the United Nations and the Organization of American States (OAS).

July 1, 2009

Adam Benz

Democracy and Rule of Law - June/July 2009

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Why Obama’s Ghana Speech Comes at a Time of New Hope for Africa

President Obama went to Ghana this past July on his first visit to sub-Saharan Africa since becoming president. Obama chose to visit Ghana partly because it is a stable democratic country, with a growing economy relatively free of political corruption. The choice conveyed his message that the continent had the potential to overcome the corruption and mismanagement that holds back much of the region and that frustrates major aid donors and potential foreign investors. Comments concerning poor governance from previous U.S. presidents have sometimes been seen as paternalistic. But by complimenting Ghana’s progress, and through the perceived credibility that comes with having a cultural connection to the continent, by virtue of his Kenyan father, Obama conveyed a message that has been met with a rapturous response on the ground in Africa.

July 1, 2009

John Lyman

Democracy and Rule of Law - June/July 2009