This article investigates the development of Information Communication Technology (ICT) as a global profession with a specific focus on the role of ethics. It addresses three main issues: to what extent ethics contribute to the development of the professional identity of ICT practitioners; what practices and policies can promote the development of ICT ethics; how these practices and policies can usefully be coordinated internationally. Within the European policy framework, professional ethics is seen as one of the four pillars of ICT professionalism, along with: competences; bodies of knowledge; education and training. A diverse range of international stakeholders were consulted on how to develop and implement ethical frameworks in culturally and economically diverse regions. Findings include the need to: be sensitive to the cultural and economic factors of different regions; integrate work on ethics with other aspects of professionalism; promote multiple types of engagement with professional ethics.

The purpose of this article is to provide a better understanding of why some countries experience mass atrocities during periods of democratic transition, while others do not. Scholars have long regarded democracy as an important source of stability and protection from mass atrocities such as genocide, crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing. But democratic transition itself is fraught with the heightened risk of violent conflict and even mass atrocities. Indeed, a number of studies have identified regimes in transition as containing the highest risk of political instability and mass atrocities. What is overlooked is the question of how and why some regimes undergo such transitions without experiencing mass atrocities, despite the presence of a number of salient risk factors, including state-based discrimination, inter-group tension and horizontal inequality. Utilizing a new analytical framework, this article investigates this lacuna by conducting a comparative analysis of two countries-one that experienced atrocities (Burundi) during transition, and one that did not (Guyana). How countries avoid such violence during transition has the potential to yield insights for the mitigation of risk associated with mass atrocity crimes.

This article seeks to explore the role that leadership plays in both the perpetration and avoidance of mass atrocities. Many scholars have argued that leadership is pivotal to the outbreak of such violence but there is almost no scholarship which explores the role that political leaders play in mitigating or aggravating the risk of atrocities over time. Why is it that mass atrocities occur in some places but not in others, despite the existence of similar risk factors? By conducting a comparative analysis of Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe and Kenneth Kaunda of Zambia, this paper investigates the impact that the strategies of each leader had on the risk of mass atrocities. Both countries share similar colonial backgrounds, and display comparable structural risk factors commonly associated with genocide and other mass atrocities. Both Kaunda and Mugabe were key leaders in their countries' liberation struggles, and both leaders played pivotal roles during the crucial formative years of independence. Yet the two countries have taken dramatically different paths-while Zambia has remained relatively stable and peaceful, Zimbabwe has experience mass violence and repression.

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