Business and International Crimes
Conflict Trade
Since 2001, Fafo has managed a series of research and policy development initiatives on the issue of illicit and licit economic activities sustaining wars, conflicts and violations of International Humanitarian Law. The activities in question include extraction of natural resources in war zones, corruption and money laundering and trafficking of goods and people. In this work Fafo has been cooperating with key international actors from civil society, research institutions, international agencies and governments.
War Economies
The Economies of Conflict
Many of the armed conflicts of recent years have been sustained by economic
activities of combatants with access to global markets. Today's warlords,
make use of global financial and commodity markets to transform control
over natural resources into war fighting capacity. Under the cover of
armed conflict, legally or illegally produced commodities are traded on
the legitimate, but highly unregulated, global markets to obtain financial
resources, weapons and other materiel needed to sustain the war.
The Economies of Conflict project asks the question; How do certain private sector activities help sustain armed conflict and what can be done about it? Fafo commissioned a series of reports from practitioners and researchers with an eye for what has worked - what has not worked - in practice.
Liability and Complicity in Economies of Conflict
Towards Defining Prohibited Practices
International humanitarian and human rights law prohibit economic actors from participating in, and benefiting from war crimes and other violent violence human rights abuses. Despite increasing attention given to the economic agendas of belligerents and the role of companies in sustaining war economies, most economic actors continue to operate with relative impunity. Such impunity is in large part the result of uncertainty concerning legal liabilities, inadequate enforcement, and difficulties in targeting policy responses.
This project will address each of these sources of impunity through three interrelated tracks of research and policy support:
1. Regulation of Prohibited Practices
2. Assessment of Mechanisms of Enforcement
3. Production and Trade in Conflict Commodities
Business and International Crimes
This collaborative policy research project, seeks to undertake a systematic
assessment of the legal implications of private sector economic activities
which abet, promote, or profit from armed conflict and its associated
human rights violations. The overall objective is to critically assay
the potential of international and national law to more effectively address
the climate of impunity surrounding business entities and actors that
engage these activities and to promote policy development in this area.
Trafficking
Crossing Borders
An Empirical Study of Transnational Prostitution and Trafficking in Human
Beings
This report presents the results of a study of transnational prostitution and trafficking in women, with two main goals. The report presents an estimate of the number and nationalities of women selling sex in Oslo, based on a survey undertaken during one month in 2003. Further, the report investigates mechanisms of trafficking and exploitation in prostitution, through analysis of interviews with women focussing on life histories. A particular aim is to explore the role of enforcement, exploitation and opportunities at various stages of the process. Crossing Borders also analyses how trafficked women have found their ways out again, using own resources and skills, as well as public and private helpers to cross the borders back.