Mission Statement
The Netherlands Institute of International Relations Clingendael is a knowledge institute for international relations. In a constantly changing global environment, Clingendael acts as a think-tank as well as a diplomatic academy in order to identify and analyze emerging political and social developments for the benefit of government and the general public.
Activities
Clingendael seeks to achieve this objective through research, by publishing studies, organising courses and training programmes, and by providing information. The Institute acts in an advisory capacity to the government, parliament and social organisations, holds conferences and seminars, maintains a library and documentation centre, and publishes a Dutch language monthly on international politics as well as a newsletter. Clingendael currently employs some 75 staff, the majority of whom are researchers and training staff.
Teaching SSR to Vietnamese Government Officials at the Clingendael Institute in The Hague
This training week is part of a 3-year cooperation between the Netherlands Embassy in Hanoi, Vietnam, the Clingendael Academy and the Vietnamese Ministry of Public Security on the implementation of the United Nations Convention Against Torture. During these three years, Clingendael has provided the Vietnamese Ministry with in-depth knowledge on both the Convention and the mechanisms used in Human Rights reporting. This year’s focus is on the practical implementation of the Convention through training and education.
Mission d'étude sur la coopération régionale
Dans le cadre de ce projet, DCAF-ISSAT a requis l'expertise de l'institut Clingendael pour réaliser un état des lieux de la coopération régionale au Sahel. Dans cet objectif, deux experts ont visité quatre pays d'Afrique subsaharienne au cours de deux missions, afin de rencontrer des représentants de diverses organisations internationales, régionales et sous-régionales (ONUDC, UA, CEDEAO, Commission du Lac Tchad, G5 Sahel, Force Multinationale Mixte, délégations de l'UE, OIM) ainsi que des délégués d'organisations de la société civile.
L'ensemble des données récoltées a pour finalité la production d'un rapport de synthèse visant à alimenter notre réflexion dans la rédaction du rapport final.
Policy and Research Papers
Improving Security and Justice Through Local/Non-State Actors
Local/non‐state actors often play an important role in the provision of justice and security services in many of the world’s fragile and (post‐)conflict countries. With a view to improving their effectiveness, donors seeking to support justice and security development in thosecountries frequently look for ways to incorporate them in their programmes. However, given that non‐state actors can also be detrimental to local security and justice (for example when they form part of organized crime), supporting them also involves huge risks. With this dilemma in mind, the Clingendael Institute’s Conflict Research Unit investigated conceptual, policy and practical opportunities and challenges for including local/non‐state security and justice networks in security and justice programming. The project consisted of a conceptual desk‐study; case studies in Colombia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Burundi; and a synthesis phase focusing on the lessons learned from the project, complemented by an expert brainstorm meeting, on the practical issues that donors must deal with if they are to successfully include local/non‐state actors in security and justice programmes.The present report summarizes the findings from this synthesis effort. It concludes that in each of the cases examined, it was possible to identify local/non‐state actors suitable for support and ways to support them. They included actors such as local courts, lay judges, neighbourhood watch groups, community development councils, and trade associations. However, the research also identified a number of practical risks and challenges that donors need to manage and overcome in order to ensure that such actors are included effectively into broader, overall security and justice programmes.
Early Recovery in post-conflict countries. A conceptual study
This study analyses the issue of early recovery. In doing so it critically discusses, in a first step, the policy strategies and operational frameworks of selected bilateral donors, regional organizations as well as multilateral institutions to disentangle the main background concepts underlying the policy concepts and to inform the reader of the major challenges involved.The research investigate the following issues: the relations and trade-offs between the strategic objectives of peace-building as well as security and development; the analytical integration of socio-economic development and conflict; the methodological conceptualization of the 'transition' phase; the trade-offs between short and long-term development objectives; and the challenge of sequence and prioritization.
The study highlights policy recommendations and implications in fourteen priority areas: the reintegration of ex-combatants and special groups (IDPs, refugees), infrastructure, employment, agriculture, education, health, fiscal policy and public finance, monetary policy and exchange rate management, the financial sector, external finances (capital flight, debt relief, remittances, ODA), trade, private sector development and entrepreneurship, economic governance (land property rights and access to land, corruption, the management of natural resources, illegal economic activities, regional conflict factors) and horizontal inequality.
Putting governance at the heart of Security Sector Reform - Lessons from the Burundi-Netherlands Security Sector Development Programme
Democratically governed security and justice sectors are a core objective of the Security Sector Development (SSD) agenda. But few such programmes put governance front and centre.
The Burundi-Netherlands Security Sector Development Programme has broken new ground in the promotion of democratic security sector development. It has begun to break down barriers to security-sector secrecy, increase dialogue on governance aspects, enhance security-sector accountability to civil authorities and its adherence to (inter)national law, although many hurdles still remain.
It has achieved these results by proactively addressing the politics of change at all levels and on a daily basis, establishing results progressively, prioritizing the gradual development of national ownership and matching timeframe with ambition and environment, recognizing that small steps can be important milestones in countries setting out along the road to democratic governance.
In this report, senior visiting fellow Nicole Ball of Clingendael's Conflict Research Unit analyzes the Dutch SSD program in Burundi, its governance achievements and its challenges going forward.
Independent Progress Review on the UN Global Focal Point for Police, Justice and Corrections
This report presents the results of an independent review of the progress that the GFP initiative has made since January 2012, conducted at the request of the GFP managers, by a joint research team from the Netherlands Institute of International Relations (Clingendael), the Stimson Center and the Folke Bernadotte Academy.
Source: http://www.clingendael.nl/publication/progress-review-un-global-focal-point-police-justice-corrections
Supporting SSR in the DRC: between a Rock and a Hard Place. An Analysis of the Donor Approach to Supporting Security Sector Reform in the Democrati...
This paper is the result of a collaborative effort of researchers and former practitioners with experience in the DRC currently working for Clingendael – the Netherlands Institute for International Relations based in The Hague, the Conflict, Security and Development Group at King’s College London in the United Kingdom, the Institut français des relations internationales based in Paris, France, and the Institute for Security Studies, South Africa. Hans Hoebeke, Senior Researcher at Egmont, The Royal Institute for International Relations, Belgium was extensively consulted during the preparation of this paper.
The authors of this paper have drawn upon their professional experience in the DRC and/or ongoing analysis of developments there. This has included interviews, conducted both in country and at donor headquarter level, of political representatives and working-level practitioners of donor country and multilateral institutions, independent experts, Congolese civil servants across the justice, police and defence sectors as well as non-governmental organisation and civil society representatives.
The EU and Rule of Law Reform in Kosovo
This paper presents the findings of a case-study carried out in Kosovo in January 2010, which investigated the challenges and opportunities that the EU faces supporting the reform of the rule of law in that country. It also identified a number of tensions and challenges at both the design/planning stage and the implementation stage of SSR support, and pointed to a number of avenues for improvement.
Other Documents
Civilian Influence on Transitional SSR in North Africa (Expert Meeting Report)
On 11 November 2011, a group of country experts, practitioners, policy makers, analysts and security experts assembled at the Netherlands Institute of International Relations Clingendael, to exchange insights and build practical knowledge on the following topic: (How) Can non-state actors and civil society in Tunisia and Egypt address security (reform) in these transition contexts? This summary report is an attempt to share with the general public some salient points that came out of the day’s discussion. The content of this paper is based exclusively on the exchange of opinions and ideas of the individuals present that day.
Mapping a way forward for Security Sector Reform
As Security Sector Reform (SSR) faces pressure to address new issues and threats, the moment is right to assess unresolved issues concerning both the concept and the practice of SSR. Four points stand out as essential to improving SSR initiatives.
First, SSR efforts require a more nuanced balance of support for state actors and their informal counterparts, to reflect more accurately the realities of security provision in different political contexts. Second, while continuing to strengthen security actors’ capacity, SSR’s original focus on governance and political analysis of the security sector needs to be more central to such efforts. Third, SSR programs must be longer in duration, more iterative in approach and less prescriptive in terms of expected outcomes. Lastly, as modern security threats come into sharper focus on the international community’s agenda, particularly threats posed by transnational organized crime and violent extremism, SSR must not fall into the trap of ‘solving security problems’ or becoming a quick-fix solution. Rather, it needs to be more carefully applied, in line with its original core tenets.