Research
My research broadly focuses on the intersection of armed conflicts and international law. Specifically, my interest lies in issues of justice during and in the aftermath of armed conflicts, with a goal to understand: (1) Under what conditions are political leaders more likely to commit war crimes? (2) What factors influence whether political leaders confront or evade punishment for crimes committed during armed conflicts? (3) How do crimes during armed conflicts affect the strategies of warring actors, external sponsorship, and the outcome of the war? My broader research interests encompass topics such as external rebel sponsorship, leader accountability, transborder crimes, and transitional justice.
Publications
“Transitional Justice in North Korea.” 2015. Yonsei Journal of International Studies 7(1): 91-108.(LINK)
Working papers
Negotiating Justice: Conflict Amnesties for Serious Crimes in the Era of Accountability (Under Review)
Why do we witness a persistent use of amnesty for serious crimes in the so-called “era of accountability”? When the International Criminal Court and Universal Jurisdiction emerged in the late 20th century, scholars and practitioners of conflict and international law took for granted that the regimes’ ability to bypass domestic amnesties for serious crimes would hamper the use of amnesties as a tool for conflict resolution. Perplexingly, recent studies find that states still persistently, if not increasingly, grant amnesties to perpetrators of heinous crimes. These findings raise questions about the effect of the international anti-impunity legal regime on conflict resolution and ending the global practice of impunity. This article explains how and under what conditions the legal regime fosters greater use of amnesty for serious crimes. Using a dataset on amnesties for international crimes in civil conflicts between 1945 and 2014, I find that the regime promotes, not hampers, the use of amnesties by impeding rebel groups’ transborder operations and incentivizing them to more actively seek amnesty from the home government. This finding highlights the unintended but critical consequences of the regimes on the dynamics of civil conflicts: smaller room for foreign rebel operations and a more favorable peace bargaining environment for state actors.
Leader Accountability in Civil War: Lessons for an Emerging Research Agenda (with Alyssa K. Prorok) (Under Review)
Building upon the leader turn in IR scholarship, civil war scholars have increasingly focused on how government and, more recently, rebel leaders influence the trajectory of political violence within countries. Much of this research builds upon the assumption that leaders seek to maintain power and avoid punishment, and that these goals shape their groups’ conflict behavior. This research note critically examines this fundamental underlying assumption in research on the role of leaders in civil conflict by examining whether government and rebel leaders are actually more likely to face punishment as costs of war mount. Preliminary results provide some support for the role of costs of war in government leader punishment but show that rebel leader punishment is not predicted by measures of the costs of war. This has implications for our understanding of how accountability works in rebel groups and during civil wars, suggests leader accountability-based arguments do not easily transfer from interstate to civil conflict, and that future research should seek to more fully explore the determinants of leader punishment in order to build a more comprehensive understanding of how leaders’ vulnerability to punishment affects civil conflict trajectory.
The Narrowing Path: Rebel Leader Exile in the Age of Accountability
Recent scholarship demonstrates that state leaders implicated in mass atrocities increasingly face hurdles in seeking exile, mainly due to heightened risks of prosecution for human rights violations. This study extends the inquiry to rebel leaders, examining whether the threat posed by the international justice regime similarly influences their decisions to flee. Utilizing an original dataset detailing the exile trajectories of rebel leaders, including their destinations and the timing of their departures, the study reveals two key findings. First, as rebel’s home state becomes more susceptible to international justice regime, rebel leaders culpable for serious crimes are more likely to seek exile. Second, when pursuing asylum, rebel leaders strategically select destinations with a lower likelihood of legal repercussions. These findings draw critical implications to literatures of civil war, international law, and refugee and immigration.
How do rebel’s illicit drug economies affect the implementation of peace agreements? Despite a significant amount of literature on the impact of illicit economies in the conflict process, little do we know about the role of pre-existing illicit drug markets in the post-peace agreement period. In this paper, we theorize how signing a peace agreement with a rebel group that monetizes illicit drugs is more likely to fail in bringing durable peace than signing a peace agreement with those that are not. We argue that the continuing demand for illicit drugs and lucrative benefits to maintain the illicit drug economy for farmers and ex-combatants led to the rearmament of ex-combatants and the emergence of a new armed group to control territory for drug cultivation. By employing survival analysis along with in-depth case studies, this paper provides a novel theory on war recurrence and policy implications for sustainable peace.
Work in progress
Bite the Hand that Feeds: Sponsor-Rebel Relations after Regime Transition (with Xiaoyan Qiu)
External Support in Civil War: The Counterbalance Effect and Its Impact on Interstate Conflict Escalation.