Peace

The United Nations doctrine on the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) is state-centric, there's no doubt about that, but does that mean states are the only viable actors when it comes to protecting civilians from mass atrocities? In this essay, Corrie Hulse argues that when states fail to act on R2P, it is the responsibility of civilians and N.G.O.s to step up and push governments into action.

Sudan's elections and Comprehensive Peace Agreement, in the words of Southern Sudanese, Abraham Awolich: "This is the moment in history when we can walk tall in our African continent and declare that we are a new nation and a country, born again with a promise to work for the good of her people. We can sound the bells of freedom and democracy in Africa and the Middle East and declare dead the days when it was believed that Africans were incapable of solving their own problems." Read on...

With April elections drawing near, Sudan is on edge. Will the elections be fairly implemented and the results be just? Or will election fraud and violence throw the country into chaos? Savo Heleta takes a look at the final stages of the country's Comprehensive Peace Agreement and other events playing into the complex elections, and makes some bold and dire predictions.

Paul Collier is an optimist. Following the contrails left in the wake of The Bottom Billion, Wars, Guns and Votes examines baser elements of society (poverty, violence and more) to bolster his conclusion that the spread of democracy is a sure way to lift billions out of the muck and mire of destitution and political turmoil. Robert Spain takes a look at the provocative hypothesis to find that, despite some misfires here and there, Collier appears to be onto something.