Past Projects

The Lord’s Resistance Army and Forced Conscription in Northern Uganda

Patrick Vinck
Phuong Pham
Eric Stover
2008

Since the late 1980s, the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), a spiritualist rebel group with no clear political agenda, has abducted tens of thousands of children and adults to serve as porters and soldiers. In the early 1990s, children who escaped from the LRA or were captured by Ugandan soldiers were often paraded in the streets in the hope that someone would identify them. This treatment prompted a group of parents of abducted children to establish the Gulu Support the Children Organization (GUSCO), a reception center in Gulu, in 1994. In December 2005, the Berkeley-Tulane Initiative...

Rebuilding After Katrina: A Population-Based Study of Labor and Human Rights in New Orleans

Eric Stover
Laurel E. Fletcher
Phuong Pham
Patrick Vinck
2008

Against the background of reports of abuse during the cleanup efforts after Hurricane Katrina—coupled with the easing of labor regulations, virtually no monitoring of construction sites, and the city’s lack of adequate housing and healthcare—this report a study conducted on the situation of both documented and undocumented construction workers in New Orleans.

With the International Human Rights Law Clinic...

Justice on Hold: Accountability and Social Reconstruction in Iraq

Eric Stover
Miranda Sissons
Phuong Pham
Patrick Vinck
2008

This article takes a critical look at the accountability measures implemented by the United States in Iraq. What is needed is a secure environment and a legitimate authority to implement a comprehensive transitional justice strategy that reflects the needs and priorities of a wide range of Iraqis. Such a strategy should contain several measures, including prosecutions, reparations, a balanced approach to vetting, truth-seeking mechanisms, and institutional reform.

Cyclone Nargis and the Politics of Relief and Reconstruction Aid in Burma (Myanmar)

Eric Stover
Patrick Vinck
2008

In early May 2008, Cyclone Nargis tore across southern coastal areas of Burma (Myanmar), pushing a tidal surge through villages and rice paddies. The 12-foot wall of water killed tens of thousands of people and left hundreds of thousands homeless and vulnerable to injury and disease. Even in the commercial capital of Rangoon, where structures are more sturdily constructed, winds up to 120 mph sheared off roofs and uprooted trees and electrical poles. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that the tropical storm rendered 500 000 or more acres of the 3.2 million acres of...

Teaching History after Identity‐Based Conflicts: The Rwanda Experience

Sarah Warshauer Freedman
Harvey Weinstein
Karen Murphy
Timothy Longman
2008

Inequalities and Prospects: Ethnicity and Legal Status in the Construction Labor Force After Hurricane Katrina

Phuong Pham
Patrick Vinck
Laurel Fletcher
Eric Stover
2009

The arrival of Latino immigrant workers and the weakening of federal labor regulations after Hurricane Katrina raised concerns about labor conditions and workers’ rights. We carried out a survey of workers at 212 randomly selected addresses in the city of New Orleans, successfully interviewing 212 out of 351 workers approached (40% refusal rate). Workers were asked about their demographic, employment, and health characteristics, as well as violations of human rights they may have experienced. The survey was supplemented with in-depth qualitative interviews with Latino workers and key...

PeaceBuilding and Displacement in Northern Uganda: A Cross-Sectional Study of Intentions to Move and Attitudes towards Former Combatants

Patrick Vinck
Phuong Pham
2009

Using data from a cross-sectional survey of internally displaced populations in northern Uganda, this article analyses individual-level determinants of attitudes toward peacebuilding processes, including returning home and the reintegration of former combatants. We find that perceptions of social services and livelihood opportunities at the current place of living and at return or resettlement sites influence individuals’ decisions to move as do attitudes toward former combatants. Furthermore, we show that internally displaced persons are a specific group with needs and attitudes...

Returning Home: Forced Conscription, Reintegration, and Mental Health Status of Former Abductees of the Lord’s Resistance Army in Northern Uganda

Phuong Pham
Eric Stover
Patrick Vinck
2009
Background

Since the late 1980s, the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), a spiritualist rebel group in northern Uganda, has killed and mutilated thousands of civilians and abducted an estimated 52,000 to 75,000 people to serve as soldiers, porters, and sex slaves for its commanders. This study examines the types of violence to which former abductees have been exposed and the extent to which these acts have affected their psychological well-being.

Methods

This is a cross-sectional study of 2,875 individuals selected through a multi-stage stratified cluster sampling design conducted in 8...

he Cumulative Effect: A Medico-Legal Approach to United States Torture Law and Policy

Alexa Koenig
Eric Stover
Laurel Fletcher
2009

In the weeks following the events of September 11, 2001, the Bush administration granted the CIA authority to set up detention facilities known as ‘black sites’ outside the United States, and to employ new interrogation procedures on suspected terrorists taken into custody. Recently released legal memoranda by the US Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel condoned the use of several interrogation techniques (such as waterboarding and prolonged sleep deprivation), which the US itself had previously condemned as torture. This paper examines the legal rationalisations the Bush...

Context, Timing and the Dynamics of Transitional Justice: A Historical Perspective

Laurel Fletcher
Harvey Weinstein
Jamie Rowen
2009

Legal process is invoked by supporters of transitional justice as necessary if not a precondition for societies affected by mass violence to transition into a new period of peace and stability. In this paper, we question the presumption that trials and/or truth commissions should be an early response to initiating a transitional justice process. We conducted a multi-factorial, qualitative analysis of seven case studies in countries impacted by mass violence and repression-Argentina, Cambodia, Guatemala, Timor-Leste, Northern Ireland, Sierra Leone, and South Africa. What emerges is a fuller...