On January 24, Madeline Rees, former U.N. high commissioner for human rights in Bosnia and secretary general for the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, spoke at the second installment of the Sanela Diana Jenkins International Speaker Series. Rees, has been working with the CDDRL Program on Human Rights to promote research on human trafficking, posed an interesting question: can extraterritorial jurisdiction — the legal ability of a government to exercise authority beyond its borders — be a tool for improving accountability for human rights abuse during peacekeeping operations?

Rees was referring to a situation that she experienced in Bosnia where peacekeepers reportedly abused, tortured and actively trafficked women and girls. She noted, however, that there have been similar situations and accusations of sexual exploitation and abuse, including sex trafficking, in U.N. missions ranging from Cambodia to Haiti to Congo since the 1990s. Rees argued that these abuses and the involvement of peacekeepers in human trafficking in particular, result from a combination of factors, which include:

• The perception of immunity (based on UN peacekeepers status)
• Impunity that results from the lack of specific legislation and enforcement mechanisms
• Lack of formal training
• Peer pressure
• Patriarchic militarized model of peacekeeping

There has been some slow progress. Rees recalled that when she first brought up the issue of human trafficking to the U.N., laughter was a common response. Her struggle, portrayed in part in the recent film The Whistleblower, has enabled an open discussion within the U.N. In 2007, the U.N. created the Department of Field Support and made some structural changes, but these reforms have not yet addressed the heart of the problem. In part, Rees believes, this is because the U.N. has lacked the political will to hold peacekeepers accountable for their actions.

Riding around on the back of a motorcycle in 2009, Jeremy Menchik snapped photos of hundreds of Indonesian campaign posters. That number has now grown to over 5000 images, which Menchik and Colm Fox have painstakingly coded and analyzed to better understand the politics of identity in Indonesia. The initial results of their research reveal similarities between the United States and Indonesia, and shed light on the transitional democracies of the Arab Spring.

Menchik is a 2011–12 Shorenstein Fellow at Stanford University, and will take up a position as an assistant professor in international relations at Boston University in 2013.

Fox is a doctoral student at the George Washington University’s Department of Political Science.

How important is political identity in Indonesia? Why?

Indonesia is the largest Muslim-majority country in the world, and one of the most diverse. But what we found was that rather than being unique, Indonesian politicians behave remarkably similar to American politicians in using a variety of regional, religious, and ethnic identity symbols to court voters.

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What is an important factor in determining a candidate’s use of identity symbols?

What we found is that the election rules matter, a lot. Candidates are far more likely to use religious and ethnic symbols in a plurality (“winner-take-all”) system like the United States than in a proportional representation system (PR) like Indonesia. This is an important finding, because tinkering with election rules is one of the tools that international relations practitioners can use to reduce ethnic and sectarian violence. And what we are saying is that it works. Changing election rules can change the types and levels of identities that are politicized. And that is an important lesson for conflict resolution.

What are some of the most surprising results to come out of your research?

The first is how badly the dominant explanations for identity politics—modernization theory and secularization theory—fared when they were tested on a large dataset. We are at an interesting juncture in time, where our theories of religion and politics have not caught up with the way the world works.

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During last year’s Arab Spring, the ideal of democracy was celebrated throughout the world. How might your research shed light on understanding the complexities of these transitioning democracies?

Well this research has clear implications for the Arab Spring, particularly for understanding the future of Egypt. Just because religious parties like the Muslim Brotherhood or the Salafist Nour party come into office does not mean that democracy is doomed, or that religious minorities are going to suffer. As long as secular Muslims, Christians, liberals, and other groups have a stake in elections, we are likely to see cross-ethnic and cross-religious coalitions emerge. This is a very good thing. One obvious difference, however, is that we did not see a lot of overt military participation in politics in Indonesia after 1999. The military was largely absent. And that is one way that Egypt is very different from Indonesia. If there is a big threat to democracy in Egypt, it is not coming from the politicization of identity—it is coming from the suppression of the people's voice by the military.

Two Stanford graduates with close ties to FSI’s centers have been named 2012 Rhodes Scholars. A third was selected as a Mitchell Scholar.

Anand Habib was a graduate of the 2011 CISAC honors program in international security studies and a 2010 Dachs undergraduate intern. Habib and Katherine Niehaus – who is now a research assistant for a CHP/PCOR project evaluating whether HIV medication increases the risk of cardiovascular disease – will study at the University of Oxford in England under the Rhodes program. 

Philippe de Koning, who will study in Ireland as a Mitchell fellow, wrote a manuscript about Japan’s defense and financial crisis with Shorenstein APARC faculty member Phillip Lipscy. Lipscy, a political scientist, was de Koning’s advisor through his undergraduate career and also advised him on his senior thesis. De Koning was also a 2010 CISAC honors student.

More about the scholars:

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Habib is working on community health programs at St. Joseph's Clinic in Thomassique, Haiti, under a one-year global health fellowship awarded by Medical Missionaries. The nonprofit organization is a volunteer group of more than 200 doctors, nurses, dentists, and others who work to improve the health of the poor in the United States and throughout the world.

In 2011, he won a Deans' Award for Academic Accomplishment, which honors extraordinary undergraduate students for "exceptional, tangible" intellectual achievements. One of the professors who nominated him for the award described him as a "superb critical thinker" whose work is characterized by "creative genius" and "mature insights," adding that he "exemplifies exactly the kind of deeply informed, pragmatic and caring leadership that the world needs and Stanford enables."

As a Stanford student, Habib worked on behalf of politically and medically disenfranchised people in India, Mexico and Guatemala. His field research internship in Guatemala’s indigenous region during summer 2010 was carried out under the supervision of Paul Wise, professor of pediatrics and FSI senior fellow, as part of FSI’s Dachs mentored undergraduate research program.  On campus, he turned the Stanford tradition of the annual Dance Marathon into a vehicle dedicated to addressing the HIV/AIDS pandemic by engaging not only Stanford students but also local communities and corporations, raising more than $100,000. His exceptional work was recognized by his participation in the Clinton Global Initiative University Conference in April, 2011.

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She plans to pursue a doctorate of philosophy in systems approaches to biomedical science at Oxford.

At Stanford, Niehaus captained Stanford's varsity track and cross country teams, won the Pac-10 5,000 meters, and won Academic-All American status. She also served as a mentor and tutor for students in low-income families.

Working with faculty in the Center for Health Policy, Kate led a project to evaluate how well newer HIV antiretroviral drugs work compared with older drugs.  Her work was among the first to evaluate comprehensively all of the trials of new drugs in treatment of experienced patients, and showed that these drugs have substantial benefits.

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He is a Herbert Scoville Jr. Peace Fellow at the Nuclear Threat Initiative in Washington, D.C. The nongovernmental organization works to prevent nuclear, chemical, and biological threats from materializing. De Koning is researching nuclear materials security and the U.S.-China dialogue on nuclear issues.

De Koning, who earlier was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship, spent the 2010-2011 academic year at Hiroshima University in Japan. He examined various components of Japanese security policy, with emphasis on current evolution of Japanese Self-Defense Forces, policies on nuclear issues and approaches toward peacekeeping.

In 2009, he was a member of the Stanford delegation to the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen.

Congratulations to Philippe de Koning, recipient of the George J. Mitchell Scholarship. De Koning, 22, of Paris, France, earned a bachelor's degree in international relations at Stanford in 2010, and was a Class of 2010 graduate of the CISAC Honors program.

Recipients of the award pursue a year of post-graduate study at universities on the island of Ireland in the academic year 2012-2013. De Koning plans to pursue a master's degree in international security and conflict resolution at Dublin City University.

Currently, he is a Herbert Scoville Jr. Peace Fellow at the Nuclear Threat Initiative in Washington, D.C. The nongovernmental organization, which is run by former U.S. Sen. Sam Nunn, works to prevent nuclear, chemical, and biological threats from materializing. De Koning is researching nuclear materials security and the U.S-China dialogue on nuclear issues.

De Koning, who earlier was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship, spent the 2010-2011 academic year at Hiroshima University in Japan. He examined various components of Japanese security policy, with emphasis on current evolution of Japanese Self-Defense Forces, policies on nuclear issues and approaches toward peacekeeping.

In 2009, he was a member of the Stanford delegation to the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen.