La evaluación política y judicial de la necesidad pública en Colombia. Exploración del juicio público de necesidad construido durante los siglos XX y XXI

This chapter analyses the transitional justice framework defined by the peace agreements between the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia—Ejercito del Pueblo (FARC—EP) and the Colombian Government. Peace talks began officially in November 2012, with the parties reaching an agreement on 24 September 2016. The agreement on the victims of the conflict starts with the recognition by the government and the FARC—EP that the main aim of this agreement is to compensate victims. When the FARC—EP entered into a negotiation process with the Colombian Government, they did not entertain the possibility of embracing a transitional justice framework. The agreement recognizes the clarification of truth, coexistence, and non-repetition as one of the mechanisms that victims' organizations have demanded, thus its inclusion not only responds to best practices in the field but also to the citizen's demands. The agreement explicitly addresses forced disappearances, given that it is one of the main crimes of the Colombian armed conflict.

FOCUS ❐ LATIN AMERICA According to the largest Colombian trade union centre - Central Unitaria de Trabajadores de Colombia / Central Union of Workers (CUT) – in 2013 there were 451 instances of anti-union violence – one act every 19 hours, every day of the year. The grim toll of Colombia’s war on trade unions amounts to at least 13,713 violations of the right to life and liberty since 1977 – 3062 assassinations, 233 kidnappings, 342 violent attacks, 6572 violent threats, 1890 forced displacements and 725 arbitrary detentions. Between 2000 and 2010, Colombia accounted for 63 percent of trade unionists murdered globally. The Colombian government has made significant effort to convince the international community they are taking steps to tackle anti-trade union violence, not least as part of their push to agree free trade agreements with the United States and the European Union. The Colombian government will often point to the protection measures provided by the state to many trade unionists - ranging from a bodyguard and a bullet-proof car, to a mobile phone or a bullet proof jacket - but the high impunity rate continues to give a green light for the assassinations to continue. Colombian organisations regularly point out that there often appears to be more time dedicated to investigating false accusations of trade unionist links to guerrilla organisations than to bringing those responsible for carrying out the murders to justice. The Labour Action Plan (LAP), was agreed in 2011 to demonstrate the commitment of the Colombian government to protect workers’ rights prior to the signing of the free trade agreement with the US – it has failed however to stop the killings. In the four years following the implementation of the LAP, more than 100 trade unionists were killed. And whilst the authorities assert that they are acting to apprehend the perpetrators, the evidence does not support this. A 2014 report by the CUT showed that 86.8 percent of assassinations remain in impunity, while 99.9 percent of threats are never investigated. The Colombian Trade Union Movement Trade union membership levels have taken a devastating hit as a direct result of the anti-union violence, anti-trade union laws and policies and massive labour market changes. In spite of these difficulties, the union movement continues to play an active role in Colombia: in 2013 and 2014, together with social organisations from across the country, the trade unions were involved in weeks of strikes and disruptions across Colombia in response to the devastating impact of international free trade agreements. Trade Union Rights in Colombia According to the largest Colombian trade union centre, in 2013 there were 451 instances of antiunion violence – one act every 19 hours INTERNATIONAL union rights Page 16 Volume 23 Issue 1 2016 T he trade union movement and the vast majority of social organisations in Colombia are currently giving their support to peace processes on-going between the government and the two left-wing guerrilla organisations, the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia / Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the Ejército de Liberación Nacional / National Liberation Army (ELN). There is hope that, if peace deals are reached that include measures for addressing the deep-rooted social and political inequalities, then an important step will have been taken towards improving the situation for workers, trade unionists and for all of those fighting for social transformation in Colombia. There are however considerable fears that the on-going lack of guarantees for political activists, including trade unionists, will provide a considerable obstacle to peace becoming a reality. Colombia has for several decades been the most dangerous place in the world to be a trade unionist. Every year numerous union leaders, union activists and union members are assassinated . Over 3000 trade unionists have been murdered since the mid-1970s, and nobody has been brought to justice in the vast majority of the cases. Over recent years, in spite of opening up of the peace talks and a more accepting discourse from Colombian government officials, the murders have not ceased. A recent Justice for Colombia report documented 534 political activists killed between 2011 and 2015 – this included 134 trade unionists. In addition to the violence, Colombia has some of the...

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to link public relations to peacebuilding. Although scholarship has discussed public relations as relationship management, the nexus between public relations and peace building has been understudied. To address this deficiency, this research studies the negotiations between the Government of Colombia and the FARC-EP separatist group that lead to the landmark peace treaty between the two entities that had fought for over five decades with thousands of deaths. Three research questions addressed the communication factors that contributed to the two sworn enemies – FARC-EP and the Colombian Government – finally sealing a peace agreement; the specific public relations strategies and techniques that led to relationship building between the two sides leading to the landmark peace agreement; and the use of the indicators of relationship building proposed by scholarship in the negotiations between the Colombian Government and FARC-EP.Design/methodology/approachThe case study method was used and a purposive sample of news reports from three national newspapers at specific key dates yielding a final sample consisted of 504 articles was analysed. A codebook with deductive and inductive categories was developed specially to study the existing communication factors (RQ1), public relations strategies and techniques (RQ2), as well as contributions by relationship indicators (RQ3). Given the sensitivity of the issues, only secondary data could be relied upon for this study.FindingsThe results of RQ1 fall within the scope of Grunig’s (2001), Sriramesh’s (1992) and Hung’s (2001) notion of the personal influence model where the leveraging of individuals’ network is important to facilitate communication. Indeed, the relations already existing and established with third parties are revealed to be fundamental to the success of the negotiation process. As for RQ2, findings demonstrate that the Colombian Government used third-party mediation, principled and distributive strategies, while FARC-EP mainly used contending strategies. But results showed that both used compromising during the whole process, and that both transitioned from one-way asymmetrical strategies, such as principled or contending towards compromising along the peace talks. Finally, findings demonstrate evidence of the four indicators of the relationship and their link with public relations techniques. The most evidenced indicators of the relationship were trust, commitment and control mutuality. Trust was the indicator of the relationship the most evidenced in the Colombian case. The dimension was built during the whole process and evolved continually. Distrust was the total between the two enemies at the beginning of the pre-negotiation. However, as parties entered into a relationship, confidence and trust increased.Research limitations/implicationsThe inability to obtain primary data is the major limitation of this study. It was caused by the sensitivity of the topic.Practical implicationsThis study links public relations to a very practical case that is also vastly understudied/underreported – peacemaking/peacebuilding – while also addressing communication by governments and civil society in Latin America – an area that is largely understudied.Originality/valueThis is the first study that links public relations with peacebuilding.

On 2 October 2016, in the so-called “Plebiscite for Peace,” the majority of voters rejected the peace agreement that the Colombian Government had negotiated with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia. The Colombian Government’s implementation of the agreement triggered review of the agreement by the Constitutional Court. This chapter aims to answer two questions arising from this case. First, can plebiscites—or referendums—confer legitimacy on the implementation of peace agreements? Second, can constitutional review of the implementation of a peace agreement confer legitimacy to that process? Correspondingly, this chapter grounds the following two claims. First, plebiscites—or referendums—can confer legitimacy to a peace agreement only where those mechanisms culminate in a fair and inclusive deliberative process. If it is likely to achieve those conditions, institutional designers should avoid scheduling this kind of participatory strategy within a transitional justice process. Second, instead—or additionally—institutional designers should employ mechanisms of constitutional review of norms implementing peace agreements. Constitutional Courts can ensure that peace agreements advance the entrenchment of democratic constitutionalism. Naturally, this can only be the case if Constitutional Courts are impartial and independent.

Transitional Justice and the Colombian Peace Processs

The Peace Treaty between the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the Colombian government in 2016 was a breakthrough toward ending an armed conflict of more than six decades. One requirement for its success is the reintegration of former combatants of the FARC into society, which in this case has been designed as a collective reintegration process. We conducted a qualitative field study with 20 former combatants of the FARC to understand their perception of this reintegration process using the framework of social identity theory. We found a strong disparity between the desire of participants to adhere to their identity as FARC while coming to terms with its decreasing likelihood. Participants felt threatened in their identity as FARC due to the violence targeted at them, their stigmatization and rejection by society, the perceived noncompliance of the Colombian government, and the increasing disintegration of the FARC. We discuss how identification with the FARC leads to different avenues of reintegration and affects former combatants' relations with society and the Colombian government. Adding to a multidimensional analysis and implementation of peace building, we highlight the need for structured reintegration programs that consider the psychosocial needs of all parties involved.

This article examines the centrality of the participation of society in the peace process between the Colombian government and the National Liberation Army (ELN) that initiated during the Santos administration, in the light of readiness theory. It does so on the basis of over 60 interviews with key respondents, documents from delegations to the negotiating table, as well as secondary sources. It analyses the importance of this point for the ELN on ideological and pragmatic grounds, and the government's perspective on it. It argues that such a participation was key to rebalance the perceived power asymmetry between the government and ELN, increasing this guerrilla group's optimism about a dignified exit and hence its readiness to engage in talks. In particular, the ELN considered that, by making social groups stakeholders in the peace process, these groups could put pressure on the government to agree on, and implement, provisions towards social transformation. In so doing, this article contributes to debates on how to enhance weaker parties' readiness to negotiate an end to internal armed conflict, as well as on how public participation in peace processes could be useful in this regard.

El presente trabajo tiene como propósito presentar un estudio breve sobre los tipos de penas por conductas ilegales que presenta el acuerdo de paz entre el gobierno colombiano y la guerrilla de las FARC-EP (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia - Ejército del Pueblo), para con ello dar evidencia de la posibilidad existente de desarrollar todo un modelo de sanción penal diferente a la institución de la cárcel tradicional que en la actualidad se presenta como una institución social en crisis. Para el desarrollo de dicho trabajo se abordará el texto en cinco momentos, siendo el primero una breve contextualización sobre la situación de conflicto armado y político en Colombia, pasando luego al panorama y situación de las cárceles, la argumentación teórica de la cárcel como una institución en crisis, la presentación somera del acuerdo de paz entre el gobierno colombiano y las FARC-EP (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia - Ejército del Pueblo) en materia de justicia transicional, jurisdicción especial para la paz y las penas establecidas en el mismo para aquellas personas que participaron en el conflicto armado colombiano y finalmente las conclusiones del estudio.

The revised peace agreement between the Colombian Government and the FARC, officially approved by the Congress on 30 November 2016, covers several crucial issues, including the destiny of the FARC rebels in the aftermath of the world’s longest civil war. The establishment of an effective DDR process is an essential step to ensure that FARC's members will meaningfully transition into civilian life and it represents one of the most controversial aspects amongst those addressed during the four years peace negotiations that led to the signature of the current deal. The present article, after providing an overview of the essential features of DDR programmes and the context-specific factors that can either facilitate or hamper their implementation, will first look at Colombia’s past attempts to reintegrate former FARC combatants and then it will discuss the DDR process outlined in the peace deal under implementation, arguing that, in comparison to the previous efforts and at least on paper, it satisfies many of the key requirements for success, in primis being part of a comprehensive transitional justice process.

Introduction: Although the peace process in Colombia resulted in a significant reduction in the number of anti-personnel mines across the country, there are no reliable data on the effects of this phenomenon on outcomes for patients who were victims of these devices.
 Objective: The objective of this study was to assess mortality from landmine injuries before and during the Colombian peace process. Furthermore possible associations between peace negotiations and mortality were explored.
 Methods: For this study, we used the "Colombian Victims of Antipersonnel Mines Injuries registry" (MAP/MUSE database) data from 2002 to 2018. This registry was launched in 2001 by the government of Colombia with the aim of prospectively and systematically collect information on all the cases of anti-personnel mine injuries in the country. The period between 2002-2012 was classified as the pre-negotiation period (war period), and 2014-2018 as the peace negotiations period, with 2013 classified as a washout year. Multivariate logistic regression was used to explore the association between peace negotiations and mortality among anti-personnel landmine injured individuals.
 Results: A total of 10306 landmine injury cases were registered. Of these, 1180 (11.4%) occurred in the peace-negotiation period. Mortality was significantly lower during the period of peace negotiations. After adjusting for sex, age group, race, active duty soldier status, rural area, and geographic departments case volumes, the peace negotiation period was found to be associated with lower risk-adjusted odds of mortality after suffering a landmine injury (OR= 0.6, 95% CI, 0.5-0.7; p<0.001).
 Conclusion: Our findings suggest an association between the period of peace negotiation and a lower likelihood of mortality among victims of anti-personnel landmines.

Human rights defenders, social leaders, and environmental and indigenous activists fight for political, cultural, social, economic, and environmental rights and often face intimidation and violence as a consequence. In this article, we analyze how the implementation of the peace agreement signed in 2016 between the government of Colombia and the FARC-EP guerrilla group affects environment and human rights defenders (EHRD) in Colombia. Despite the expectation of a more peaceful future following the peace agreement, EHRD have faced increased intimidation and violence in Colombia, making it the most dangerous country for EHRD globally. We seek to understand this counter-intuitive development through Fraser’s theory of social justice that stresses the need for integrated measures to address economic, political, and cultural injustices in parallel. The theory argues that a focus on correcting cultural misrecognition and political underrepresentation of vulnerable groups may, paradoxically, mask or even facilitate further injustices, if that focus is not matched by sufficient efforts to address economic maldistribution. The fate of EHRD since the peace agreement reflects such an imbalance in justice priorities, which is in the way of lasting and sustainable peace. Drawing on data from secondary sources, ethnographic interviews, and an analysis of policies and laws, we find that, since the peace agreement was signed, new forms of maldistribution have emerged and solidified in the country, including land grabbing, displacement of local populations, resource extraction, and illicit economies, which are strongly related to the growing influx of drug cartels. Despite the increasing advocacy of international organizations and regional legal agreements to protect EHRD, they are caught in precarious roles between cultural recognition and political and economic abandonment by state institutions and are affected by the global trade in illicit products, and the demand for land for agricultural products and minerals. This finding, we argue, warrants more research into the imbalance of addressing local and global injustices during peace processes and its fatal implications for EHRD in Colombia and globally.

The monitoring of the implementation of the Havana Agreements by regional organizations: the OAS and the OEI] At the end of 2016, the Government of Colombia and the FARC-EP managed to sign a Peace Agreement to end the longest armed conflict in Latin America, known as the Havana Agreements. However, the implementation phase of the Agreements is extremely fragile and the institutionalized international community plays a key role in the success of this procedure. The Peace Agreement assigned the regional organizations very specific functions in terms of monitoring the implementation of each of the six points agreed upon. This investigation analyzes the results obtained through the monitoring and accompaniment work of the Organization of American States –OAS- and the Organization of Ibero-American States for Education, Science and Culture –OEI- reflected in the official reports published in this regard.

The signing of the peace agreements between the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia-Ejercito del Pueblo (FARC-EP) and the Government of Colombia in late November 2016 has generated new prospects for peace in Colombia, opening up the possibility of redressing the harms inflicted on Colombians by Colombians. The negotiation process and the agreements have been explicit about the importance of justice and the prioritization of victims. In fact, the negotiation agenda established the topic of justice for victims as central to the peace process. Other elements of the agreements relate to land, demobilization, disarmament and reintegration of cadres, illicit crops and illicit drugs, and political participation. The agreements regarding victims and justice present a roadmap for a journey towards a more peaceful environment. They signal the intention and commitment of actors to reach this goal, but institution building and specific policies and programmes to implement these agreements are necessary to achieve it. Statehood and peace have never been built by decree; they are built by institutions, bureaucrats, and by government policies that are consistent across time. Peace building and state-building must not be seen as processes which are disconnected from justice. The strengthening of institutions, endowments, processes, and practices that realize the agreements signed in a peace process will condition the possibility of justice agreements being implemented. They also affect citizens’ perceptions of the credibility of their state. For this process of state-building and for the consolidation of a justice framework to take place successfully, institutions and the state apparatus must assess the gaps between the commitments contained in the agreements and the realities of the country. This ensures that institutions can be designed to implement procedures and processes accordingly. If we are talking about peace and justice seriously we need to think about how to operationalize peace agreements, otherwise we risk pursuing armchair justice in favour of real justice, and using the peace agreements and their transitional justice frameworks as hollow rhetorical tools rather than pathways to peace.

The peace agreement that ended the armed conflict between the Government of Colombia and the FARC-EP armed group in 2016 was the result of a process of negotiations noted for its innovations, including those relating to the inclusion of the gender approach (Herbolzheimer). Among these, the treatment that the peace agreement gives to sexual violence perpetrated during the armed conflict stands out, recognizing the victims of this violation of human rights and denying impunity for its perpetrators. This article aims to analyse the process that led to the inclusion of sexual violence in the Colombian peace process by analysing, from a comparative perspective with other processes, the factors that promoted its inclusion, as well as the obstacles faced by the actors participating in the process and the influence that the existence of the agenda on women, peace and security had in this process.

Armed conflicts have different impacts on women. In this regard, women’s civil society organizations are inserted in the international political arenas in order to guarantee their rights in warfare contexts. In the case of conflicts in Colombia, women are identified not only as combatants and victims, but also as members of women civil organizations for peacebuilding. These organizations played a prominent role in the elaboration of the peace agreement between the Government of Colombia and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) in Havana, Cuba, between 2012 and 2016. This article proposes an analysis of the theoretical production on peace, international security, feminism and subalternity, to present the specific case of the conflict in Colombia and its gender perspectives. The results indicate that peace agreements can be instruments of political inclusion and reparation for women affected by armed conflicts. In highlighting the role of political minorities in the international peace negotiations in Colombia, this research contributes to the development and expansion of critical perspectives —feminist and subaltern— on international security and studies for peace. Moreover, building upon the specific analysis of the Havana Agreement, this paper aims to contribute to the inclusion of a gender perspective in future peace agreements.