Some cases related to the fight against terrorism, among others, have challenged some of the categories of international law on the use of force, generating a constant confrontation between what is considered legitimate and what is legal. The invasion of allied countries in Iraq and Afghanistan, the NATO intervention in Kosovo and the incursion of the Colombian state into Ecuadorian territory to attack a FARC guerrilla camp have put the existing legal regime to the test and highlighted some of its limitations, questioning the treatment given to concepts such as "legitimate defense," "armed attack," "necessity," and "proportionality." There are alternatives to overcome some of the main problems, including the possibility of revising the composition and decision-making procedure within the UN Security Council. The doctrine of the use of preventive force, which has been resorted to to a greater extent by states in the fight against terrorism, is a dangerous path that threatens to undermine rights and infringe on freedoms. Historically generally rejected, it is not advisable for the doctrine to be strengthened as an institution of public international law.
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Terrorism has not ended in Peru, it has mutated, because remnants of the Shining Path, the terrorist organization that caused so much damage to the country, have become, according to the latest social studies, a gang at the service of drug trafficking, who still bleed the country of the Incas. Operating clandestinely, the fear that they still produce in places lacking the presence of the State (mostly entrenched in the rugged geography of the Peruvian jungle) is due to their use of guerrilla techniques and asymmetric combat to beat the forces of order and State institutions, which try to prevent their new modus operandi. During the previous government (2006-2010), they became aware of the threat to governance that terrorism represents, and for this reason they established strategic policies focused on the restructuring of the ways to face the serious problems that have been originating, giving priority to terrorist actions in the Apurimac and Ene river valleys, located in the southern part of the country, where the greatest violence is concentrated, adding to the purely military strategies others that allow the development of the area and the presence of the State, However, in practice, it left aside another area where there are still men who have taken up arms and who, hiding behind their socialist claims, protect the drug cartels in the upper Huallaga River basin. Therefore, it is necessary to develop effective, concrete, quantifiable policies similar to those of the southern area in order to support the police and State institutions that counteract this threat in this part of the country, which is the final objective of this paper.
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This presentation was made at the Center for Hemispheric Defense Studies (CHDS) Conferencia Subregional para Meso-America, San Salvador, El Salvador, July 20-23, 2010.
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The role of women in combat has been a controversial issue in the U.S. armed forces for decades. Yet, it has been only 30 years since the first women graduated from the US Military Academy, and only since 9/11 have large numbers of them served in combat zones alongside their male counterparts. This article examines the all-too-brief life of one of them, 2LT Emily Perez, who was the first female graduate of West Point to be killed in the line of fire in Iraq and the first member of the "Class of 9/11" to die in combat. A statistical comparison of female representation at the three major U.S. service academies is included, along with a discussion of the emergence of minorities. An African-American with paternal roots in Puerto Rico, this soldier epitomized all that is right about women serving in combat, willing to sacrifice their lives for the interests of their country. 2LT Perez's legacy lives on today among her family, friends, classmates, fellow soldiers, and the unique charitable causes promoting the values she held dear. The following is a tribute to "Emily's Way."
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The incorporation of women into terrorist groups has occurred in disparate ways and with commitments characterized by gradual rhythms. This paper approaches the problem heuristically from a culturalist perspective, which has as its explanatory axis the male-female relationship. It is found that women leaders of terrorist organizations, or protagonists of emblematic acts, are rather a rarity, except in the Salvadoran and German experiences; both with quasi-epic connotations. Among the explanatory keys, the environmental influence of the machismo of the time is proposed, especially in Latin America, and reflected both in the very beginnings of the Cuban guerrillas and later in the various insurrectional pockets. The environmental influence would act as a major inhibiting factor. At the same time, the proletarian internationalism that was the basis for the proliferation of such groups seems to have been, at its core, a male thing. There is no record of women (not even Cuban) fighting alongside the mythical Ché in Bolivia; nor is there any record of any revolutionary leader accompanying Guevara in his previous journeys to the Congo, Algeria and others. A second major finding aims at explaining the irruption of women as suicide bombers as a product for communicational consumption. The crudeness of this incorporation of women into the great Chechen and Palestinian terrorist causes is rather frightening and raises a very pertinent doubt as to whether this phase responds to a construct or to a reliable integration into the cause they appear to embrace.
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This presentation addresses the subject of the war against terrorism and the implication that the Armed Forces in it is a topic that is itself polemic. However, it is possible to argue in favor of a moderate and contained insertion from a theoretical basis that, departing from M. Creveld and M. Kaldor in terms of the new types of armed violence, suggests that the concept of war can be applied post- September 11 to a series of conflicts that were being profiled from before that event, linked to large-scale political violence. It is a subject of defense entities inasmuch as it influences or disrupts security, but it has fewer armed implications under conditions of institutional stability if the action concentrates on the nature of the economic action that supports terrorist and criminal activities. The author postulates that weak states can define a supranational strategy that will coordinate and produce a strangulation of illegal funding sources, given that the illegal financing circuits are the same for terrorism as for transnational organized crime, which are not certainly the same thing, but represent threats of new nature for the region's states.
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In combating international terrorism in Latin America the great challenge is, unquestionably, the strengthening of institutions within nations, without which public assets, including security, cannot be guaranteed. When public opinion is consulted within the region the tendency is to look at how societies view the threat of terrorism and its relationship, for example, with the image of the United States, its foreign policy in particular and its means of addressing terrorism. Nevertheless, one point not usually noticed is that public opinion is also a factor to bear in mind in the struggle against terrorism, because it can be a condition for, although it does not determine the responses of institutionally weak states and can also detract from their institutional growth. Based on the Argentine experience, in which public opinion did not recognize the threat of international terrorism and a shortage of institutions dealing with it, the present work attempts to alert readers to that importance and propose a model of possible scenarios for bringing together the variables of public opinion and political will.
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The process of legislative approval of the Inter-American Convention against Terrorism has provided an interesting opportunity for reflection on some aspects of the international legal framework for fighting terrorism. In this essay, the author reviews some of the principal requirements in the international struggle against terrorism beginning on September 11, 2001, in light of Costa Rica's criminal legislation. The author also analyzes specific topics that have also been the subject of debate in other countries and international forums, such as the lack of a universal definition of "terrorism."
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Both the phenomenon of terrorism and our conception of it depend on historical context—political, social, and economic—and how the countries, groups and individuals who participate in or respond to the actions we call terrorism related to the world in which they act. The causes and effects of terrorism are comprehensible only in terms of political conflicts in specific historical periods. The current gap between Latin America and the United States on the conception of terrorism and the policy guidance that will establish a common anti-terrorist strategy in the Western Hemisphere respond to the unpredictability and dynamic of this phenomenon. Therefore, in order to reduce this present gap we require an effective guide to anti-terrorist policy formulation in Latin America and the United States under a common, clear, and prospective strategy that will be able to establish, enforce, and continually refine a holistic political-military plan and generate consistent national and international support.
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