Canadian Consortium on Human Security

Andrea Charron is a doctoral candidate in the War Studies program at the Royal Military College of Canada. With a BScH from Queen’s University, MPA from Dalhousie University and an MA in International Relations from Webster in Leiden, The Netherlands, Andrea has an eclectic academic background. As a participant of the Canadian Federal Government’s Management Trainee Programme, Andrea has worked as a policy advisor for Canada’s Revenue Agency, Canada’s Border Services Agency and the Privy Council Office.

Her doctoral dissertation will investigate United Nations’ sanctions in four separate contexts: interstate conflicts, intrastate conflicts, pariah/rogue states and armed non-state actors. The two main research questions are: 1) How has the purpose of sanctions changed in the last sixty years? And, 2) what can this changing view of sanctions tells us about the wider issue of the international communities’ approach to peace and security especially the notion of “human” security?

In 2006-2007 Andrea was awarded a CCHS Doctoral Dissertation Award to finance travel to the UN headquarters. Her fieldwork includes interviews with Presidents of sanction committees as well as with experts in the field of sanctions. Her findings to date suggest that the international community’s reliance on “smart” or “targeted” sanctions as the international peace and security tool of choice poses a condundrum. On the one hand, employment of these smart sanctions indicates a commitment to human security on the part of the international community. On the other hand, the effects of imposing sanctions can threaten and harm human security. And yet, an analysis of this conundrum is absent because of the world’s reliance on this new form of sanction as an alternative to measures involving armed force.

Andrea is the winner of the David Scott-GD Canada Prize for her paper entitled: “The 3Ts of Canada’s Sanctions” presented at the Conference of Defence Association Institute’s Graduate Student Symposium in October 2006. She is also the recipient of a Defence Research Development Scholarship, a Social Sciences and Humanities Doctoral Fellowship and a Graduate Research Award, International Security Research and Outreach Programme of Foreign Affairs Canada.

Andrea can be reached at: Andrea.Charron (at) rmc.ca

Publications and Presentations:

Jane Boulden, Andrea Charron, Ben Zyla, “Darfur”, Beyond NATO: The Transatlantic Security Relationship Approaching 2010. Peter Schimt (ed). 2007.

“Darfur: The Ambiguous Genocide” by Gerard Prunier, Canadian Military Journal for Winter 2006.

The Purpose of Intervention: Changing Beliefs about the Use of Force by Martha Finnemore, Canadian Military Journal, vol. 7(3), (Autumn 2006). http://www.journal.dnd.ca/engraph/Vol7/no3/16-Book3_e.asp

“Enmification and Violent, Intrastate Conflict: A Study of the 1994 Rwandan Genocide”, Southwestern Social Science Association Conference, San Antonio Texas, (April 13 – 16, 2006).

“Canada, the United States, and the Northwest Passage: Sovereignty to the Side”, Polar Geography, 29(2) (October-December 2005): 171-187.

“The Iraqi Prisoner Scandals: Beware the Amity of Public Opinion”, Ted Woodcock (ed.). Cornwallis X: Analysis of New and Emerging Conflicts (Ottawa: Pearson Peacekeeping Press, 2005).

Joel Sokolsky and Andrea Charron, “Neither Saint Nor Sinner: Canadian-American Relations and the Politics of Irritation”, ACSUS, St. Louis Missouri, (November 16-20, 2005).

“Is Canada's Sovereignty Floating Away?” International Journal, Vol. 60(3), (Fall, 2005):831-848.