"Other Situations of Violence" in Central America's Northern Triangle: The Normalization of Urban Violence in the Face of a Mounting Humanitarian Crisis
Abstract
Some of the world’s fastest growing cities are in the Northern Triangle of Central America, an area where overlapping violence from gangs and cartels have caused levels of displacement and deaths on par and sometimes higher than active warzones. Despite the severity and impact of human suffering on civilians, “other situations of violence” in El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala remain under-recognized, under-researched, and under-responded to by the international community. This is largely in part to the fact that international humanitarian law, specifically the protection framework, does not apply in “other situations of violence.” As the landscape of the urban world and the way war is waged changes, it is imperative that the legal frameworks that protect civilians continue to evolve to fill in gaps created by these changes. By doing so, international attention will become redirected to the region, followed by the essential funding, policy, and humanitarian aid needed to meet the needs of civilians affected by violence in this specific context. As the world continues to rapidly urbanize, especially in development contexts, it is important now more than ever to provide protection to the already vulnerable populations being displaced to urban centers.
Subject Area
Latin American Studies|International law
Recommended Citation
Slattery, Samantha, ""Other Situations of Violence" in Central America's Northern Triangle: The Normalization of Urban Violence in the Face of a Mounting Humanitarian Crisis" (2020). ETD Collection for Fordham University. AAI27963822.
https://research.library.fordham.edu/dissertations/AAI27963822
