Social Science Research Council

Tragedy is the conflict of rights and there is no greater and more painful tragedy than the clash of fundamental rights. This drama is about to be played out between the members of the UN Security Council and the International Criminal Court.
The ICC was established under the Rome Statute of 2002. The case of Darfur [...]

In Complex Emergencies David Keen draws upon James Gilligan’s work on the psychological motivations of the most violent killers in American gaols as a source of insight into why atrocities are so commonly part of civil wars in countries such as Sierra Leone. Let me explore this with regard to Darfur.
Gilligan’s core insight, based [...]

Jim Lewis has a fascinating article in today’s New York Times–in the Architecture section. It’s called “The Exigent City” and poses the question, why are refugee camps and IDP camps designed how they are? According to the most recent estimates, refugees stay in camps for an average of seventeen years–so that camps are far from [...]

On page 115 of his recent book Complex Emergencies, David Keen writes, “For those familiar with this famine [1988 in southwest Kordofan and Bahr el Ghazal] the current crisis in Darfur is a horrific case of déja vu.”
Indeed there is little about the internal dynamics of the Darfur conflict that is substantially different from other [...]

This last few days, this blog has launched a discussion on political Islam in Sudan, focusing on the recent book The First Islamist Republic: Development and Disintegration of Islamism in the Sudan, by Abdullahi Gallab. It began with an essay by Abdullahi. Mine is the first commentary—others will follow over the next month.
The Sudanese Islamists [...]

The modern history of Sudan is riddled with bloodshed, destruction and squandered chances for peace and democracy. Consistently, the worst case scenario comes to pass and, just when it seems as though things could get no worse, they do precisely that. But occasionally, the Sudanese succeed in snatching an improbable victory for peace and civility [...]

The text of my presentation to the BBC’s World Tonight last week is now available online. (With a sentence added to reflect JEM’s attack on Khartoum, which occurred between my recording the piece and the time it was broadcast.) The more substantive article on which this was based was published last year in International Affairs [...]

A completely revised and updated (to January 2008) version of the book written by Julie Flint and myself is official launched this week. It’s available in both the UK (Zed Books) and the US (Palgrave-Macmillan).
Our earlier “short history” concluded in the early months of 2005, just as the phase of intense hostilities was coming to [...]

An obituary by Julie Flint and Alex de Waal.
One of the most disturbing images to have come out of Sudan in the wake of JEM’s attempt to overthrow the government has been that of the tortured body of a lawyer in his forties, Jamali Hassan Jalal al Din, apparently beaten to death by government forces [...]

As more details emerge about JEM’s assault on the national capital at the weekend, it is becoming clear that this was a solo operation by JEM directed by its leader Khalil Ibrahim. Its aim was nothing less than taking power.
The role of Chadian President Idriss Deby is now clearer. For two years, Deby armed [...]