For the past twenty years, international donors have invested heavily in large-scale disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration (DDR) programs, while, at the same time, transitional justice measures have proliferated, bringing truth, justice, and reparations to those recovering from state violence and civil war. Yet DDR programs are seldom deconstructed to discover whether they truly achieve their justice-related aims. Additionally, transitional justice mechanisms rarely articulate strategies for coordinating with DDR. Disarming the Past examines the connections--and failures--between these two initiatives within peacebuilding contexts and evaluates future links between DDR programs and the aims of transitional justice. The outcome of a substantial research project initiated by the International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ), this book is crucial for anyone interested in effective interventions and enduring outcomes.

From the École Polytechnique shootings of 1989 to the political controversy surrounding the elimination of the federal long-gun registry, the issue of gun control has been a subject of fierce debate in Canada. But in fact, firearm regulation has been a sharply contested issue in the country since Confederation. Arming and Disarming offers the first comprehensive history of gun control in Canada from the colonial period to the present. In this sweeping, immersive book, R. Blake Brown outlines efforts to regulate the use of guns by young people, punish the misuse of arms, impose licensing regimes, and create firearm registries. Brown also challenges many popular assumptions about Canadian history, suggesting that gun ownership was far from universal during much of the colonial period, and that many nineteenth century lawyers – including John A. Macdonald – believed in a limited right to bear arms. Arming and Disarming provides a careful exploration of how social, economic, cultural, legal, and constitutional concerns shaped gun legislation and its implementation, as well as how these factors defined Canada’s historical and contemporary ‘gun culture.’

A provocative, timely, and deeply-researched history of gun culture and how it reflects race and power in the United States

This book revisits post-Cold War Disarmament Disintegration and Reintegration (DDR) programmes in the light of previous experiences of disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration. In the history of North America and Europe, in particular, such programmes had a major impact on state-building, contributing to the development of the welfare state, shaping political settlements and directing government policy to maintain social peace. The authors in this important book ask what is left of these state-building dimensions in contemporary DDR programmes and whether the constraints imposed by international organisations on DDR programmes have more negative effects than positive ones. The role of political leadership in DDR processes is highlighted: can bureaucratically-driven processes deliver success? Only if political elites take full control and manage DDR programmes can there be a lasting impact on state-building. Even then, most political elites avoid deep changes in their relationship with the veterans. Is there a chance of reshaping international intervention in such a way as to favour the development of a 'social contract' between political elites and veterans? In taking a historical perspective, this book is unique in the existing literature on DDR and will be essential reading for policy makers, students and scholars of conflict studies, and those working in NGOs, particularly donor agencies. This volume was produced with the contribution of the Crisis States Research Centre (LSE).

In the past quarter century our world has hosted ninety-nine wars, twenty-nine of these are ongoing. The bill for maintaining huge stores of weapons and some 70 million people in uniform currently stands at $1.7 trillion a year. Of these wars, over 85 percent are not settled on the battlefield; they are fought to desperately hurting stalemates, eventually being turned over to diplomats and politicians who go in search of whatever face-saving outcomes may still be available. And yet, abandoning the conference table in favour of the battlefield is still justified when viewed as a last resort. In this brave and discerning book, Ernie Regehr, OC, explains the approaches and initiatives needed to steer away from the futility of global military effort. Combining four decades of experience in conflict zones, advising and leading diplomacy efforts, building NGOs and contributing to the adoption of the Responsibility to Protect Act by the World Assembly, Regehr boldly shows that political stability will never be issued from the barrel of a gun.

The war against Iraq divided opinion throughout the world and generated a maelstrom of spin and counterspin. The man at the eye of the storm, and arguably the only key player to emerge from it with his integrity intact, was Hans Blix, head of the UN weapons inspection team. This is Dr. Blix’s account of what really happened during the months leading up to the declaration of war in March 2003. In riveting descriptions of his meetings with Tony Blair, Jacques Chirac, Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice, and Kofi Annan, he conveys the frustrations, the tensions, the pressure and the drama as the clock ticked toward the fateful hour. In the process, he asks the vital questions about the war: Was it inevitable? Why couldn’t the U.S. and UK get the backing of the other member states of the UN Security Council? Did Iraq have weapons of mass destruction? What does the situation in Iraq teach us about the propriety and efficacy of policies of preemptive attack and unilateral action? Free of the agendas of politicians and ideologues, Blix is the plainspoken, measured voice of reason in the cacophony of debate about Iraq. His assessment of what happened is invaluable in trying to understand both what brought us to the present state of affairs and what we can learn as we try to move toward peace and security in the world after Iraq.