Publications
‘If you resist, we’ll shoot you’: The Democratic Republic of the Congo and the case for an effective Arms Trade Treaty
- Amnesty International, Peter Danssaert | June 7, 2012
IPIS contributed to the research for this AI report. In July 2012 UN Member States are to agree the final text of a comprehensive Arms Trade Treaty. The experience of arms proliferation and abuse in the Democratic Republic of the Congo should help to persuade States to establish strict rules consistent with States’ existing responsibilities under international law. This report focuses on several c
Vlaams Wapenhandeldecreet: Analyse en aanbevelingen
- IPIS | March 9, 2012
In november 2011 werd in het Vlaams Parlement een ontwerp van decreet ingediend ter vervanging van de federale wet van 5 augustus 1991 over in-, uit- en doorvoer van militair materieel, dit als gevolg van de regionalisering van de bevoegdheid inzake wapenhandel en van de Europese ICT-richtlijn die in mei 2009 goedgekeurd werd door de Raad en het Europees Parlement. Amnesty International toetste di
Study on the development of a framework for improving end-use and end-user control systems
- Brian Wood, Peter Danssaert | February 16, 2012
(UNODA Occasional Papers, No. 21, December 2011) Already, in 2002, the Security Council called upon States to establish an effective national end-user certificate system and to study the feasibility, as appropriate, of developing such a system at the regional and global levels, as well as information exchange and verification mechanisms. This study assesses existing practices regarding end-user ce
Transparency and Accountability. Monitoring and Reporting Methods Under An Arms Trade Treaty
- Peter Danssaert, Sergio Finardi | February 8, 2012
Without an understanding of the existing practices of States regarding their commonly agreed standards for the monitoring and reporting of their international transfers of conventional arms, it will be very difficult to draft many of the basic provisions of the Treaty to ensure compliance and enforcement. This report therefore seeks to clarify and discuss existing terminology and reporting practic
A Taxonomy of Non-State Armed Actors in the Central African Republic (2012)
- Jasper Bauters | January 2, 2012
This report hopes to provide an overview of how the Central African Republic got to where it is now, as well as to present the means to further our understanding of the current situation. First a genealogy of the current situation is provided, which is presented in the form of a narrative literature overview encompassing the postcolonial period. This is followed by a brief account on the main conf
Annual Report 2011 IPIS
- IPIS | December 31, 2011
Download in pdf or open with issuu reader. http://issuu.com/ipisresearch/docs/ipis_annualreport2011-1
Bisie. A one-year snapshot of the DRC’s principal cassiterite mine (2011)
- Filip Hilgert | November 28, 2011
Much has happened in the mining sector of Eastern DRC over the last year. President Kabila imposed a ban on all mining activities last fall, during which production fell considerably. As soon as the suspension was lifted in the spring of this year, the major global electronic companies stopped buying minerals from the region, provoking a de facto embargo on Congo’s minerals with detrimental effect
Arms Transfers to the Middle East and North Africa: Lessons for an effective arms trade treaty
- Amnesty International, Peter Danssaert | November 7, 2011
The numerous unlawful killings and other gross human rights abuses committed in response to the mass protests and demands for change that have gripped the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region since late 2010 underscore, both vividly and tragically, the urgent need for the establishment and implementation of an effective global Arms Trade Treaty (ATT). All across the region, government author
Violence against women in Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. Whose responsibility? Whose complicity?
- IPIS | November 1, 2011
IPIS contributed to the research for and writing of this ITUC report. Summary: Eastern DRC has been ravaged by war and violence since the mid-1990s. Civilians carry the greatest burden of the conflict. Women and girls are especially vulnerable to such attacks. Hundreds of women and girls get sexually violated in their homes and at their workplace. Fuelled and motivated by Congo’s minerals, rebel a
Upstream Pilot Implementation of the OECD Due Diligence Guidance for Responsible Supply Chains of Minerals from Conflict-Affected and High-Risk Areas
- IPIS | November 1, 2011
Baseline Report on the Supplement on Tin, Tantalum, and Tungsten IPIS executed the research for and the writing of this OECD report. The present baseline report is the first in a cycle of three reports on the implementation by upstream companies of the Supplement on Tin, Tantalum and Tungsten of the OECD Due Diligence Guidance for Responsible Supply Chains of Minerals from Conflict-Affected and Hi
“Véhicules civils militarisables” and the EU arms embargo on Sudan
- Benoit Muracciole, Brian Johnson-Thomas, Ken Matthysen, Peter Danssaert | September 13, 2011
The ongoing humanitarian crisis in Darfur has been overlooked recently because the international community has been focusing on the popular revolts in North Africa in the first half of the year and South Sudan’s peaceful referendum on secession from northern Sudan, and the subsequent violence in and over the contested Abyei region, In December 2010, however, fighting in Darfur resumed and has cont
Kenya’s role in the trade of gold from eastern DRC
- Jeroen Cuvelier | August 5, 2011
On 11 September 2010, the Congolese Ministry of Mines put out a statement in which it announced President Kabila’s decision to suspend all exploitation and export of minerals from the provinces of North Kivu, South Kivu and Maniema until further notice. The statement explained that the ban was intended to put a stop to the illegal exploitation of natural resources in eastern DRC. In the decree est
The Arms Flyers. Commercial Aviation, Human Rights, and the Business of War and Arms
- Peter Danssaert, Sergio Finardi | June 30, 2011
In the last decades, the “business of war” has attracted thousands of civilian transport and logistics companies, especially in the aviation sector. State and non-State actors engaged in armed conflicts or in military operations that require substantial logistic support have increasingly resorted to the services of civilian transport operators to fulfill their transport and logistics needs. For ai
Guide to Current Mining Reform Initiatives in Eastern DRC
- Didier Verbruggen, Evie Francq, Jeroen Cuvelier | April 17, 2011
US legislation has brought on a variety of initiatives aiming at mining reform in EDRC. This paper describes the basic elements of these initiatives, their genesis, the current state of affairs, the inkages between the initiatives and the main challenges they face. Further, the paper briefly evaluates the initiatives while focussing on the steps ahead. Download in pdf or open with issuu reader. ht
The complexity of resource governance in a context of state fragility: The case of eastern DRC
- Jeroen Cuvelier | April 4, 2011
A host of publications over the last decade have highlighted the important role played by artisanal and small-scale mining of coltan, gold and cassiterite in the ongoing conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), yet there is still little awareness of the modus operandi of the various actors involved in the exploitation and trade of these minerals. It is vitally important that initiatives
Simplified maps illustrating the link between natural resources and armed conflict in the DR Congo (2011)
- Filip Hilgert | January 17, 2011
Simplified maps illustrating the link between natural resources and armed conflict in the DR Congo (in French) (January 2011) At the request of different users of the IPIS web maps, and with the support of the Belgian Development Cooperation (DGD), IPIS has produced a series of six simplified and printable PDF maps illustrating the link between mineral resources and armed conflict in the Democrati
Jaarverslag 2010 IPIS
- IPIS | December 31, 2010
Download in pdf or open with issuu reader. http://issuu.com/ipisresearch/docs/jaarverslag2010-2
The Karamoja Cluster of eastern Africa: Arms transfers and their repercussions on communal security perceptions
- Brian Johnson-Thomas, Ken Matthysen, Peter Danssaert, Sergio Finardi | December 31, 2010
Nomadic peoples are often, if not universally, perceived as a problem by the governments of the nation states who have responsibility for them; this is particularly so in the case of the three nations with which this report is concerned, viz: Kenya, Uganda and (southern) Sudan. The pastoralist societies within the Karamajong cluster have been unable to adequately defend themselves politically agai
The complexity of resource governance in a context of state fragility: An analysis of the mining sector in the Kivu hinterlands (2010)
- Filip Hilgert, Ken Matthysen, Steven Spittaels | November 30, 2010
The report ‘Mining activity and mineral trade in the Kivu hinterland’ was commissioned by the Directorate General for Development (DG DEV) of the European Commission and aims to fill an information gap by identifying the principal mining sites and analysing the trade networks of the ‘eastern hinterland’ of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), located in Maniema, North Katanga and Orientale
Mapping the Labyrinth: more on the strange weapons flight of 4L-AWA
- Brian Johnson-Thomas, Peter Danssaert, Sergio Finardi | October 1, 2010
This research report is the third in a series about the case of a IL-76 aircraft used for an apparently clandestine arms flight in provenance from Pyongyang – in contravention of the United Nations arms embargo on North Korea -, which was impounded by Thai authorities during a technical stop in Bangkok December 12, 2009. Two previous research reports on this unusual case were published by IPIS and