Chapter 5 examines the genesis of the regional organization G5 Sahel and its Joint Force composed of Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, and Niger. It looks at a group of African actors that set up the organization with extraordinary support by French and other European partners in 2014. Following the discussion on the entanglement of spatial semantics with the issue of distrust and suspicion in politics from Chapter 4, this chapter begins with an analysis of the different narratives about the true ‘origin’ of the G5 Sahel, exploring narratives of French lobbying and different African foreign policy objectives. This links directly to questions of ownership and to how and why this regional organization emerged based on the idea of ‘core countries of the Sahel’, which excluded Algeria and Nigeria. Chapter 5 addresses these questions and shows how different spatial semantics were used in the formation of the G5 Sahel and its Joint Force to draw up a new region, to re-regionalize West African political space, to reposition the involved actors in the best possible way to gain influence on the security and military responses to the escalating armed violence in Mali and neighbouring countries.

This chapter sets out to provide a comparative perspective on seemingly incompatible global agendas and efforts to include all children in the general school system, thus reducing exclusion. With an examination of the international testing culture and the politics of inclusion currently permeating national school reforms, this chapter intends to raise a critical and constructive discussion of these movements, which appear to support one another, yet simultaneously offer profound contradictions. The chapter will include a brief history of psychological testing in Central Africa and identify types of psychological tests in use in Central Africa as well as the issues and problems that arise when making use of such psychological tests at both national and local levels. It will shed light on new possibilities for educational improvements in global and local contexts.

This chapter unpacks the critical relationship between African peacekeeping and the continent’s international relations, tracing peacekeeping’s evolution from the periphery to the heart of many bilateral and multilateral relationships. In the aftermath of the failed 1993 UN/US-led intervention in Somalia and 1994 Rwandan genocide, the authors argue, Western powers sought to disengage from direct military involvement on the continent, increasingly relying on African states and militaries to provide ‘African solutions to African problems’. This dynamic has evolved into Western (and, increasingly, Chinese and Russian) underwriting of African peacekeeping missions, from Somalia to the DRC, and the growing subsidising of African security states by international partners. The chapter examines this development and how it has enabled a range of African governments, from Chad to Ethiopia, to carve out greater room for manoeuvre in their (often aid-dependent) relations with international actors. This has, the authors argue, had profound implications for domestic politics in a number of instances.

The chapter analyses the evolution of state-Salafi relations in Niger, Chad, and Uganda between the late 1980s and today. These three countries demobilized political and jihadi Salafism with the help of the organizational gatekeepers that these countries had created in the 1970s. Although the organizational gatekeepers experienced institutional change, they remained in place and undercut activist Salafism.

The chapter analyses the historical evolution of state-Salafi relations in Niger, Chad, and Uganda between the 1950s and late 1980s. It identifies critical juntures in the Islamic sphere and the factors allowing for the emergence of these critical junctures. In Niger, Chad, and Uganda organizational gatekeepers were created to regulate access to the Islamic sphere. As a result, the Salafi creed was unable to establish a viable following throughout the 1970s and 1980s.

This chapter outlines the nature of the “Franco-Chadian state” and its early postcolonial political evolution. It highlights the deep embeddedness of French influence in the Chadian economy and security services. It also provides an overview of the broader context of postcolonial Franco-African relations and French strategic aims in its former empire. The chapter then examines the outbreak of civil war in the country. In 1965, communities in central Chad rebelled against abusive governmental taxation. Quickly the revolt spread throughout the country and gradually its disparate factions became more organized under the loose banner of the Front de Liberation Nationale du Tchad (Frolinat). By early 1969, Frolinat elements threatened Fort-Lamy, Chad’s capital. This chapter examines the nature of this rebellion and French President Charles de Gaulle’s decision, in the final weeks of his presidency, to launch a sizeable military intervention on behalf of Tombalbaye’s regime. This intervention included an important statebuilding component, the Mission pour la réforme administrative (MRA). It aimed to address the administrative failures that French policymakers saw as a root cause of the rebellion. The chapter concludes with a description of the MRA’s mission and an analysis of its ultimate failure.

After several months of fighting, it became clear to outside observers that Habré’s forces had gained the upper hand. Goukouni then asked Gaddafi to formalize and escalate the support he had received over the past several months. This culminated in a friendship treaty and a meticulously organized Libyan ground invasion of Chad in December 1980. This forced Habré to disengage from N’Djamena, and flee the country. Most of his forces managed to regroup and withdrawal into neighboring Sudan, from which Habré soon began conducting guerilla operations. In early 1981, Gaddafi and Goukouni announced the “merger” of Chad and Libya. This chapter narrates these events, and questions how French policy failed to prevent the kind of nightmare scenario which had haunted French officials over the previous three years. It also discusses the origins of a growing American role in support of Habré. The chapter further introduces the early approach of Mitterrand's presidency towards Chad and assesses the gradual shift in French policy which helped to encourage Goukouni to expel Libyan forces from Chad.

This chapter centers on Franco-Chadian relations during the “Claustre Affair,” from 1974-1977. This began when the two rebel leaders of a weakened “2nd Army,” Hissène Habré and Goukouni Weddeye kidnapped several French and German citizens, including Françoise Claustre, the wife of the head of the MRA. This set the stage for a nearly three year-long series of negotiations between French officials, the rebel movement, and the Chadian government. During these negotiations, Habré arrested and later executed one of the French negotiators, Captain Pierre Galopin, and Pierre Claustre, Françoise’s husband, himself became a hostage.The chapter also focuses on the weight of French influence in the Chadian regime’s decision-making processes and the role this played in Franco-Chadian relations over the next few years. It discusses the coup d’état that overthrew Tombalbaye in 1975 and the advent of his successor, the Conseil supérieur militaire (CSM) under General Félix Malloum. Finally, the chapter chronicles the way that France’s negotiation strategy facilitated increased Libyan military and diplomatic involvement with different factions of the Chadian rebellion. Ultimately, this support upset the balance of power within the country and facilitated a return to outright war.

This chapter narrates Operation Limousin, France’s first major military intervention in Chad from 1969-1972. It traces shifting French strategies to defeat a widespread Frolinat rebellion, and charts French military successes in central Chad. It also examines the ultimate inability of French arms and diplomacy to defeat Frolinat’s “2nd Army” in the desert north of the country. The chapter also analyzes Limousin’s mixed results and its longer-term consequences for Chad’s subsequent conflicts. In particular, the chapter addresses the counterinsurgency methods employed by French forces and their Chadian allies, and their impact on local populations. These included the fragmentation of state authority through the creation of numerous militias, indiscriminate air attacks, and operational support for an even less discriminating government army. Throughout, the difficult relations between Chadian President, François Tombalbaye, and top Chadian officials with their French patrons remain a central element to the story.

Chapter 5 addresses the potential role of domestic courts and mechanisms in the adjudication and award of reparations for international crimes. It draws from existing studies in the field and examines the role that domestic courts may have in adjudicating claims of reparations for international crimes. It analyzes these questions through case studies of domestic reparations for international crimes in Bosnia and Herzegovina where the international criminal tribunal did not have a reparative dimension. It also provides a unique contribution through a timely discussion of the development of universal civil jurisdiction, including the challenges, recent case law from different countries and the United States through the Alien Tort Claims Act (ATCA), as well as recent decisions by US courts limiting its jurisdictions on the ATCA. With this chapter, the book provides a careful survey and analysis of the intricacies of international, national, and administrative mechanisms that are being developed to address reparative justice for international crimes, their unique challenges and some suggestions on how reparative justice for international crimes should develop.

Flow regulation and water abstraction from rivers have devastating effects on receiving lakes. The most egregious example is the Aral ‘Sea’: from the 1960s, water for irrigation was diverted from influent rivers; 40 years later, the Aral had dwindled to tiny remnants - fisheries had long since collapsed.Shrinkage of lakes and wetlands across central Asia demonstrate the consequences of expanding irrigation, and highlight conflicts among human water users. Lake Chad in Africa has virtually disappeared as a result of water mismanagement, as has Lake Poopó in Bolivia; Yangtze floodplain lakes have diminished also. All such cases have had serious consequences for migratory waterbirds.In a few instances (Mono Lake in the US, the Mesopotamian marshes), the damage caused can be partially reversed by restoring water supplies, but the causes and drivers of ecosystem degradation are particular to each lake.Even the world’s largest water body, Lake Baikal, is subject to anthropogenic insult.Here, as is typical of lakes globally, a variety of factors – most often eutrophication, land-use change and alien species – contribute to habitat degradation and declines of endemic species.