Trends in Organized Crime, Smuggling, and International Security.
I’m delighted to launch my latest report on human smuggling in and through Sudan. It details how the smuggling ecosystem in the country has been impacted by the civil war, and how refugees are increasingly turning to smugglers to navigate the conflict landscape and escape the country.
It can be accessed here.
I’m delighted to launch my latest report: Troubled transitions and organised crime in Ethiopia and Tunisia.
Co-authored with Tadesse Simie Metekia, the report analyzes how troubled political transitions and democratic backsliding can impact organized crime. After laying out a theory, it delves into case studies from Ethiopia and Tunisia.
The report can be accessed here.
I’m delighted to have launched three reports in recent months which focus on the use of targeted sanctions to counter organized crime
The first is titled “Convergence Zone: The Evolution of Targeted Sanctions Usage Against Transnational Organized Crime.” It looks at the evolution of sanctions regimes and policy targeting organized crime, in the US, UN, EU and UK systems. It further details the processes these jurisdictions use in sanctioning. It is available here.
For those looking for highlights of the report, an executive briefing of the above report has also been produced. It is available here.
Finally, I just published “Hard Targets: Identifying a framework of objectives for targeted sanctions on illicit economies.” This report develops a tailored framework for assessing the strategic goals of sanctions regimes and groups of linked designations focused on TOC, as well as of individual designation objectives. The development of this framework is meant to create a tool to both better analyze the impact of TOC-focused sanctions and to design better sanctioning approaches. The report can be found here.
Delighted to be included in a great ISPI monograph: ‘The Cost of “Non-Maghreb”: Unpacking the Political and Economic Costs of Disunion and Divisions.’
My chapter, titled ‘The “Non-Maghreb” and Transnational Clandestine Flows from the Sahel Region,’ focuses on clandestine flows connecting the Sahel and Maghreb. It traces current dynamics around the smuggling of commodities, drugs and arms, and the movement of migrants, terrorists and mercenaries.
The chapter next turns to the structural factors which impede efforts by Maghrebi and Sahelien states to address these flows, including the structure of illicit markets, limited intra-state coordination, the growth of uncontrolled territories, and poor state relations with border communities.
The chapter ends with a brief set of policy recommendations. It can be accessed here.
