Littérature scientifique sur le sujet « Spoils of War v »

The Harvard Law School Symposium, “Spoils of War v. Cultural Heritage: The Russian Cultural Property Law in Historical Context,” was convened in February 2008 to bring together legal, historical, and other academic experts who might shed some light on the issues raised by Russia's 1998 law that essentially nationalized and declared Russian ownership of the great many works of art, books, and archives that were taken under orders by the Red Army to the Soviet Union at the end of World War II. The symposium was jointly sponsored by the Commission for Art Recovery, the Foundation for International Cultural Diplomacy, the Harvard Law School Arts and Literature Law Society, the Harvard Law School European Law Research Center, and the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies of Harvard University.

Abstract States have increasingly been engaged in the development of cyber capabilities which can act across the full spectrum of effects. The structures competent to deliver these effects are usually institutionally tied to armed forces or intelligence services, or represent a mixture of the two. Both types of organizations are typically subject to strict oversight and control mechanisms due to the nature of their activities and their potential to impact on the constitutional foundations of a democratic state. Yet, there is limited research available on the respective national frameworks governing offensive cyber capabilities, and similarly little information on the applicable control mechanisms. This article provides an overview of the areas of oversight, explores the challenges related to cyber capabilities, and offers possible avenues for future research. Key words Offensive cyber operations, human rights, rule of law, constitutional order, oversight. Povzetek Države se vse bolj ukvarjajo z razvojem kibernetskih zmogljivosti, ki lahko delujejo v celotnem spektru učinkov. Strukture, pristojne za doseganje teh učinkov, so navadno institucionalno povezane z oboroženimi silami ali obveščevalnimi službami oziroma so sestavljene iz obeh. Zaradi narave njihovih dejavnosti in možnosti vpliva na ustavne temelje demokratične države za obe vrsti organizacij navadno veljajo strogi mehanizmi nadzora in kontrole. Kljub temu je na voljo le malo raziskav o ustreznih nacionalnih okvirih, ki urejajo ofenzivne kibernetske zmogljivosti, in malo informacij o veljavnih nadzornih mehanizmih. V članku so predstavljeni pregled področij nadzora in izzivi, povezani s kibernetskimi zmogljivostmi, ter nakazane možnosti za prihodnje raziskave. Ključne besede Ofenzivne kibernetske operacije, človekove pravice, pravna država, ustavni red, nadzor.

The subject of the inquiry is editions and versions of the text of the novel “The Black Council: The Chronicle of 1663” by Panteleimon Kulish. The objective of the study is to analyze a fragment of the original edition (released in 1846), that was not included in the final text (released in 1857), peculiar in that it contains materials to characterize the image of the Cossack. Analysis of this fragment in the interpretive and textual planes provides for a better understanding of the creative method of P. Kulish as the author of the “The Black Council”. The methodology of the article comprises of a combination of source studies and comparative methods, which helps to solve the raised textual problems. In particular, the comparison of different editions reveals the effect of the “blind eye” when reading the final text: the omitted place correlates with the immediate context, and upon careful reading of the novel one could notice a possible omission, because its presence somewhat violates the logic of presentation. As a result, it has been revealed that the Russian-language equivalent of the fragment is contained in a magazine publication “Kyiv Pilgrims in the 17th Century” (1846). This text is a dialogue between hetman Yakym Somko, Cossack Kyrylo Tur, colonel-priest Ivan Shram and his friend Matvii Cherevan. V. Petrov’s statement that the writer “builds his novel by wide concentric closed motivational circles”, using the methods of refutations and oppositions, has been confirmed. In textual criticism terms, this fragment in the final version reveals the effect of the “blind eye” while reading the novel. Cherevan’s remark (that only in the Sich everybody knows how to “live the right way”) is in response to Tur’s statement that the Cossacks are hardy drinkers and Tur’s ignoring of Somko’s accusations that the Cossacks sit up to their neck in vodka in the final text are less motivated than in the original version. Also, it is revealed that the source of Tur’s statement is that the Sich Cossacks divide the spoils of war in three parts: to the needs of the church, to the military needs and Cossacks festivities and fun. The author used an allusion to the epic song [duma] about Samiilo Kishka. The analyzed fragment of the original edition is published for the first time, which determines the novelty of the study. The analysis of Kyrylo Tur’s image in this fragment is promising in connection with the forthcoming comprehensive study of the topic, which will become possible after the publication of all draft texts of both versions of the novel in Complete Works by P. Kulish.

During the military dictatorship in Argentina (1976--1983), 30,000 civilians disappeared. Most of these people were taken by the military to clandestine prisons where they were tortured and killed. The children of these victims were also seized, and pregnant women were kept alive long enough to give birth. An estimated five hundred infants and young children of the disappeared were given for adoption to highly connected families. This thesis consists of a historical background of these events and then offers a series of explanations as to why the military did this.

Controlled dispatch of selected staff to factories abroad in the years 1938--1941 played an important role in the history of Bata Shoe Company. Due to that fact the company man-aged to preserve civilian character of the production despite the on-going Second World War. The organizing of the whole process was not a simple task, it was necessary to harmonize actions of several organizational units. The selection of certain employees eligible for the transfers to foreign countries was conducted by sophisticated methodology, but still some of the top manager's decisions were quite controversial. First of all it involved the transfers of Jewish employees, because Chairman of the Board Jan Antonin Bata considered himself to be the rescuer of the Jews. Nevertheless top managers of the group were strictly pragmatic even in this matter and it is difficult to deduce that one of the objectives of the controlled staff transfers was the protection of this national minority. We can see the same rational approach to employees of the German origin. One of the unexplained questions is the Jan Antonin Bata's unclear relationship with Nazi leaders. I tried to deal with all of these questions in this thesis and I tried to contribute to the current debate about the Bata Group's activities during the Second World War.

This diploma thesis analyzes the ideological basis of islamism and deals with the reasons, why this political ideology is becomimg more and more popular in the Middle East and the West. The thesis also analyzes the phenomenon of globalization, in other words the interconnection between islamists in today's world. The last chapter summarizes the facts about the civil war in Syria, where both - islamists from the Middle East, as well as islamists from the West, are involved. The main objective of this thesis was to prove that the civil war in Syria will have an influence on the spread of the political ideology of islamism.

This thesis looks into the ways in which religion influenced the civil war in Lebanon. The basis for the analysis of religious influence is taken from several theoretical publications dealing with the general ways in which religion influences politics and international relations. Based on those theories, the thesis examines the influence of religion on the civil war in three parts. First, it examines the effect of religion on the identity of the participants in the war. Second, it shows to what extend religion was used as a source of legitimacy by those participants. Third, it ascertains whether religion encouraged the internationalization of the civil war. At the end, religion is compared with the other factors which explain the outbreak, the process and the nature of the civil war in Lebanon.

The thesis compares Western and Soviet approaches to creating the image of state in the Cold War period. Terms public diplomacy, propaganda and agitation are explained and the Cold War period is covered in the first section. Second chapter depicts American and British approach to the public diplomacy after WW2 and deals with Western methods and tools used to create the image of state abroad. Third section describes Soviet propaganda and its machine of the stated period and the fourth section compares and judges Western and Eastern approaches. It seems that although the differences of democratic and totalitarian form of state are relevant, the structure and institutions used to creating the image of state during the Cold War were similar on both sides of the iron curtain.

This contribution is focused on a unique issue, which is the theory of just war, the gradual forming of which will be approached through an excursion of the opinions of four important theorists who historically shaped this theory. We also focused on questions that touch on the requirements for a morally justified war, considering the three-category structure of ius ad bellum, ius in bello and ius post bellum. As a result, we find out that just war might have several meanings throughout history, but the aim, to justify wars led by one’s state, remains the same. Moreover, the true importance of a just war lies rather in limitation of damages caused by war through some basic requirements on how to lead a war, than an actual justification of war itself.

My paperwork focuses on the historical development of the punishment of war crimes up to the present day. The chapters are arranged chronologically from: International legal documents from the period before the WWI to International legal documents on the punishment of war crimes from the period of modern war conflicts. The last chapter of my paperwork will be devoted to the comparison of the current regulation with the legal regulation from the past.

The article explores the roles space metaphors play in the Dutch war non-fiction novels published during the period of 2010–2020. We hereby define metaphor as instrument the authors use to make up a personal view and to portray the events described, as well as to introduce and to define a war metaphor as well as to study the functions metaphors can have within a non-fiction texts. Another point of the article is a phenomenon of war metaphor seen as complex cognitive units which principal function is to underline the subjects related to the World War II. War metaphors are present in the texts explicitly (x is y) but also implicitly, as images. Among the principal war metaphors in the texts are ‘war is lack of freedom’, ‘war is a a disclosed space’, ‘war is an up-and-down movement’. These metaphors are nationally marked and are transparent for the Dutch as nation. As the notion of space is deeply rooted in the Dutch culture, we suggest that the war is also presented in the Dutch non-fiction as lack of space and distortion of common living space.

The paper discusses the process of pseudo-deglobalization, the basis of which was laid by the COVID-19 pandemic. The idea is being developed that deglobalization is impossible in principle. The paper shows how hyperglobalization was replaced by rapid globalization during the COVID-19 pandemic. The latter has turned into confrontational globalization as a result of Russia’s war in Ukraine and the economic sanctions imposed by the West on Russia. The pandemic and the war brought to the fore the problem of economic security, on the basis of which the paper develops the opinion that globalization in the future will be formed taking into account economic security. The challenges of the Georgian economy are directly related to global economic threats. The most important challenge for the Georgian economy is the “Middle Corridor” project, which provides a real opportunity to turn the transport corridor passing through Georgia into an economic corridor. Keywords: pseudo-deglobalization, hyperglobalization, turbulent globalization, confrontational globalization, economic corridor.

The issue of gray zone is an increasingly important issue in the current dynamic security environment, which characterizes the current security challenges. Actors exploit this space to pursue their interests through operations that are below the threshold of direct armed encounter. The concept of the gray zone was first characterised in an official document in the JP in 2010; in the European area, the issue began to be discussed after the annexation of the Crimean Peninsula. At present, the issue of the gray zone is not sufficiently characterised in the security strategies of the individual states of the European space, although the issue of hybrid war is mentioned in most of them.

"ABSTRACT Anfal Campaign and Kurdish Genocide The term al-Anfal is the name given to a succession of attacks against the Kurdish population in Iraq during a specific period, the word Anfal has come to represent the entire genocide over decades Hundreds of thousands of men, women and children were executed during a systematic attempt to exterminate the Kurdish population in Iraq in the Anfal operations in the late 198s. Their towns and villages were attacked by chemical weapons, and many women and children were sent to camps where they lived in appalling conditions. Men and boys of 'battle age' were targeted and executed en masse. The campaign takes its name from Suratal-Anfal in the Qur'an. Al Anfal literally means the spoils (of war) and was used to describe the military campaign of extermination and looting commanded by Ali Hassan al-Majid. The Ba'athists misused what the Qur'an says. Anfal in the Qur'an does not refer to genocide, but the word was used as a code name by the former Iraqi regime for the systematic attacks against the Kurdish population.. "

Manetho aus Sebennytos in Unterägypten war ein Priester, der sein bekanntestes Werk, die Aegyptiaca, eine Darstellung der Geschichte Ägyptens, im 3. Jh. v. Chr. verfasste. Dieses Werk ist jedoch nur in überarbeiteter Form und nur in Exzerpten späterer antiker Autoren überliefert, sodass der ursprüngliche Text nicht mehr rekonstruiert werden kann. Bedeutsam sind seine auf älteren Quellen basierende Darstellung der Abfolge der Herrscher Ägyptens in einer Königsliste sowie seine Einteilung der Geschichte Ägyptens in Dynastien, die die Ägyptologie bis heute prägt. Seine sonstigen Werke, die von der ägyptischen Religion handelten, sind ebenfalls nur äußerst bruchstückhaft überliefert.

The article studies social media as a communication platform during the war. The set of mass communication tools to meet the audience’s information needs, coordination of volunteer activities, popularization of the volunteer movement, and involvement of the Internet community in helping the Armed Forces were analyzed. During the Russian-Ukrainian war, social media became the platform where the exchange of information takes place much faster; good analytics could be found quickly, which were pushed out of the information space. Also, social media have taken on the role of a platform where you can coordinate work, unite society around important issues, organize assistance to the army, and report on the needs of the Armed Forces. That is why the presentation of volunteering in social media is considered a relevant research topic because the presentation of volunteering in social networks has generally changed the content of blogging. Stars of show business, politicians, people of art, and educational and scientific fields have done incredible things with social media’s help in organizing military aid. We believe that the volunteer movement through social media has expanded the functions and role of these communication platforms, demonstrating the importance of Internet communication and the effectiveness of using the latest media tools in wartime. The historiography of the study covers the works of Ukrainian and foreign scientists. Among them are L. Horodenko, V. Hvozdiev, B. Potiatynyk, G. Synorub, A. Rohulskyi, D. Rashkoff, and others. The war situation in Ukraine has opened up new requests for blogging activities, exceptional support, and initiation of volunteering. The content of bloggers is now 80 percent filled with the topic of war. The presentation of volunteer work is considered individually and collectively on behalf of foundations and public organizations. We believe that a significant advantage of an active volunteer movement in social networks is fast communication, which contributes to the rapid resolution of crucial tasks. Keywords: social media, volunteering, information, war.

In this article considered Journalistic and editorial activity of Volodymyr Lenika (14.06.1922–02.11.2005) – one of the leading figures of Ukrainian emigration in Germany. First outlined basic landmarks of his life and creation. Journalistic and editorial activity of Volodymyr Lenik was during to forty years out of Ukraine. In the conditions of emigration politically zaangazhovani Ukrainians counted on temporality of the stay abroad and prepared to transference of the created charts and instituciy on native lands. It was or by not main part of conception of liberation revolution of elaborate OUN under the direction of Stepan Banderi, and successfully incarnated in post-war years. Volodymyr Lenik, executing responsible commissions Organization, proved on a few directions of activity, which were organically combined with his journalistic and editorial work. As an editor he was promotorom of creation and realization of models of magazines «Avangard», «Krylati», «Znannia», «Freie Presse Korespondenz», newspapers «Shliakh peremogy». As a journalist Volodymyr Lenik left ponderable work, considerable part of which entered in two-volume edition «Ukrainians on strange land, or reporting, from long journeys». Subject of him newspaper-magazine publications directed on illumination of school, youth, student, cultural, scientific problems, organization and activity of emigrant structures, political fight of emigration, to dethronement of the antiukrainskikh Moscow diversions and provocations. Such variety of problematic of works of V. Lenika was directed in the river-bed of retaining of revolutionary temperament in the environment of diaspore, to bringing in of it to activity in public and political life. Problematic of him is systematized publicism and journalistic appearances, which was inferior realization of a few important tasks, namely to the fight for Ukrainian independence in new terms, cherishing and maintainance of national identity, counteraction hostile soviet propaganda. On an example headed Volodymyr Lenikom a magazine «Knowledge» some aspects are exposed him editorial trade.

Banco de la República is celebrating its 100th anniversary in 2023. This is a very significant anniversary and one that provides an opportunity to highlight the contribution the Bank has made to the country’s development. Its track record as guarantor of monetary stability has established it as the one independent state institution that generates the greatest confidence among Colombians due to its transparency, management capabilities, and effective compliance with the central banking and cultural responsibilities entrusted to it by the Constitution and the Law. On a date as important as this, the Board of Directors of Banco de la República (BDBR) pays tribute to the generations of governors and officers whose commitment and dedication have contributed to the growth of this institution.1 Banco de la República’s mandate was confirmed in the National Constitutional Assembly of 1991 where the citizens had the opportunity to elect the seventy people who would have the task of drafting a new constitution. The leaders of the three political movements with the most votes were elected as chairs to the Assembly, and this tripartite presidency reflected the plurality and the need for consensus among the different political groups to move the reform forward. Among the issues considered, the National Constitutional Assembly gave special importance to monetary stability. That is why they decided to include central banking and to provide Banco de la República with the necessary autonomy to use the instruments for which they are responsible without interference from other authorities. The constituent members understood that ensuring price stability is a state duty and that the entity responsible for this task must be enshrined in the Constitution and have the technical capability and institutional autonomy necessary to adopt the decisions they deem appropriate to achieve this fundamental objective in coordination with the general economic policy. In particular, Article 373 established that “the State, through Banco de la República, shall ensure the maintenance of the purchasing power of the currency,” a provision that coincided with the central banking system adopted by countries that have been successful in controlling inflation. In 1999, in Ruling 481, the Constitutional Court stated that “the duty to maintain the purchasing power of the currency applies to not only the monetary, credit, and exchange authority, i.e., the Board of Banco de la República, but also those who have responsibilities in the formulation and implementation of the general economic policy of the country” and that “the basic constitutional purpose of Banco de la República is the protection of a sound currency. However, this authority must take the other economic objectives of state intervention such as full employment into consideration in their decisions since these functions must be coordinated with the general economic policy.” The reforms to Banco de la República agreed upon in the Constitutional Assembly of 1991 and in Act 31/1992 can be summarized in the following aspects: i) the Bank was assigned a specific mandate: to maintain the purchasing power of the currency in coordination with the general economic policy; ii) the BDBR was designatedas the monetary, foreign exchange, and credit authority; iii) the Bank and its Board of Directors were granted a significant degree of independence from the government; iv) the Bank was prohibited from granting credit to the private sector except in the case of the financial sector; v) established that in order to grant credit to the government, the unanimous vote of its Board of Directors was required except in the case of open market transactions; vi) determined that the legislature may, in no case, order credit quotas in favor of the State or individuals; vii) Congress was appointed, on behalf of society, as the main addressee of the Bank’s reporting exercise; and viii) the responsibility for inspection, surveillance, and control over Banco de la República was delegated to the President of the Republic. The members of the National Constitutional Assembly clearly understood that the benefits of low and stable inflation extend to the whole of society and contribute mto the smooth functioning of the economic system. Among the most important of these is that low inflation promotes the efficient use of productive resources by allowing relative prices to better guide the allocation of resources since this promotes economic growth and increases the welfare of the population. Likewise, low inflation reduces uncertainty about the expected return on investment and future asset prices. This increases the confidence of economic agents, facilitates long-term financing, and stimulates investment. Since the low-income population is unable to protect itself from inflation by diversifying its assets, and a high proportion of its income is concentrated in the purchase of food and other basic goods that are generally the most affected by inflationary shocks, low inflation avoids arbitrary redistribution of income and wealth.2 Moreover, low inflation facilitates wage negotiations, creates a good labor climate, and reduces the volatility of employment levels. Finally, low inflation helps to make the tax system more transparent and equitable by avoiding the distortions that inflation introduces into the value of assets and income that make up the tax base. From the monetary authority’s point of view, one of the most relevant benefits of low inflation is the credibility that economic agents acquire in inflation targeting, which turns it into an effective nominal anchor on price levels. Upon receiving its mandate, and using its autonomy, Banco de la República began to announce specific annual inflation targets as of 1992. Although the proposed inflation targets were not met precisely during this first stage, a downward trend in inflation was achieved that took it from 32.4% in 1990 to 16.7% in 1998. At that time, the exchange rate was kept within a band. This limited the effectiveness of monetary policy, which simultaneously sought to meet an inflation target and an exchange rate target. The Asian crisis spread to emerging economies and significantly affected the Colombian economy. The exchange rate came under strong pressure to depreciate as access to foreign financing was cut off under conditions of a high foreign imbalance. This, together with the lack of exchange rate flexibility, prevented a countercyclical monetary policy and led to a 4.2% contraction in GDP that year. In this context of economic slowdown, annual inflation fell to 9.2% at the end of 1999, thus falling below the 15% target set for that year. This episode fully revealed how costly it could be, in terms of economic activity, to have inflation and exchange rate targets simultaneously. Towards the end of 1999, Banco de la República announced the adoption of a new monetary policy regime called the Inflation Targeting Plan. This regime, known internationally as ‘Inflation Targeting,’ has been gaining increasing acceptance in developed countries, having been adopted in 1991 by New Zealand, Canada, and England, among others, and has achieved significant advances in the management of inflation without incurring costs in terms of economic activity. In Latin America, Brazil and Chile also adopted it in 1999. In the case of Colombia, the last remaining requirement to be fulfilled in order to adopt said policy was exchange rate flexibility. This was realized around September 1999, when the BDBR decided to abandon the exchange-rate bands to allow the exchange rate to be freely determined in the market.Consistent with the constitutional mandate, the fundamental objective of this new policy approach was “the achievement of an inflation target that contributes to maintaining output growth around its potential.”3 This potential capacity was understood as the GDP growth that the economy can obtain if it fully utilizes its productive resources. To meet this objective, monetary policy must of necessity play a countercyclical role in the economy. This is because when economic activity is below its potential and there are idle resources, the monetary authority can reduce the interest rate in the absence of inflationary pressure to stimulate the economy and, when output exceeds its potential capacity, raise it. This policy principle, which is immersed in the models for guiding the monetary policy stance, makes the following two objectives fully compatible in the medium term: meeting the inflation target and achieving a level of economic activity that is consistent with its productive capacity. To achieve this purpose, the inflation targeting system uses the money market interest rate (at which the central bank supplies primary liquidity to commercial banks) as the primary policy instrument. This replaced the quantity of money as an intermediate monetary policy target that Banco de la República, like several other central banks, had used for a long time. In the case of Colombia, the objective of the new monetary policy approach implied, in practical terms, that the recovery of the economy after the 1999 contraction should be achieved while complying with the decreasing inflation targets established by the BDBR. The accomplishment of this purpose was remarkable. In the first half of the first decade of the 2000s, economic activity recovered significantly and reached a growth rate of 6.8% in 2006. Meanwhile, inflation gradually declined in line with inflation targets. That was how the inflation rate went from 9.2% in 1999 to 4.5% in 2006, thus meeting the inflation target established for that year while GDP reached its potential level. After this balance was achieved in 2006, inflation rebounded to 5.7% in 2007, above the 4.0% target for that year due to the fact that the 7.5% GDP growth exceeded the potential capacity of the economy.4 After proving the effectiveness of the inflation targeting system in its first years of operation, this policy regime continued to consolidate as the BDBR and the technical staff gained experience in its management and state-of-the-art economic models were incorporated to diagnose the present and future state of the economy and to assess the persistence of inflation deviations and expectations with respect to the inflation target. Beginning in 2010, the BDBR established the long-term 3.0% annual inflation target, which remains in effect today. Lower inflation has contributed to making the macroeconomic environment more stable, and this has favored sustained economic growth, financial stability, capital market development, and the functioning of payment systems. As a result, reductions in the inflationary risk premia and lower TES and credit interest rates were achieved. At the same time, the duration of public domestic debt increased significantly going from 2.27 years in December 2002 to 5.86 years in December 2022, and financial deepening, measured as the level of the portfolio as a percentage of GDP, went from around 20% in the mid-1990s to values above 45% in recent years in a healthy context for credit institutions.Having been granted autonomy by the Constitution to fulfill the mandate of preserving the purchasing power of the currency, the tangible achievements made by Banco de la República in managing inflation together with the significant benefits derived from the process of bringing inflation to its long-term target, make the BDBR’s current challenge to return inflation to the 3.0% target even more demanding and pressing. As is well known, starting in 2021, and especially in 2022, inflation in Colombia once again became a serious economic problem with high welfare costs. The inflationary phenomenon has not been exclusive to Colombia and many other developed and emerging countries have seen their inflation rates move away from the targets proposed by their central banks.5 The reasons for this phenomenon have been analyzed in recent Reports to Congress, and this new edition delves deeper into the subject with updated information. The solid institutional and technical base that supports the inflation targeting approach under which the monetary policy strategy operates gives the BDBR the necessary elements to face this difficult challenge with confidence. In this regard, the BDBR reiterated its commitment to the 3.0% inflation target in its November 25 communiqué and expects it to be reached by the end of 2024.6 Monetary policy will continue to focus on meeting this objective while ensuring the sustainability of economic activity, as mandated by the Constitution. Analyst surveys done in March showed a significant increase (from 32.3% in January to 48.5% in March) in the percentage of responses placing inflation expectations two years or more ahead in a range between 3.0% and 4.0%. This is a clear indication of the recovery of credibility in the medium-term inflation target and is consistent with the BDBR’s announcement made in November 2022. The moderation of the upward trend in inflation seen in January, and especially in February, will help to reinforce this revision of inflation expectations and will help to meet the proposed targets. After reaching 5.6% at the end of 2021, inflation maintained an upward trend throughout 2022 due to inflationary pressures from both external sources, associated with the aftermath of the pandemic and the consequences of the war in Ukraine, and domestic sources, resulting from: strengthening of local demand; price indexation processes stimulated by the increase in inflation expectations; the impact on food production caused by the mid-2021 strike; and the pass-through of depreciation to prices. The 10% increase in the minimum wage in 2021 and the 16% increase in 2022, both of which exceeded the actual inflation and the increase in productivity, accentuated the indexation processes by establishing a high nominal adjustment benchmark. Thus, total inflation went to 13.1% by the end of 2022. The annual change in food prices, which went from 17.2% to 27.8% between those two years, was the most influential factor in the surge in the Consumer Price Index (CPI). Another segment that contributed significantly to price increases was regulated products, which saw the annual change go from 7.1% in December 2021 to 11.8% by the end of 2022. The measure of core inflation excluding food and regulated items, in turn, went from 2.5% to 9.5% between the end of 2021 and the end of 2022. The substantial increase in core inflation shows that inflationary pressure has spread to most of the items in the household basket, which is characteristic of inflationary processes with generalized price indexation as is the case in Colombia. Monetary policy began to react early to this inflationary pressure. Thus, starting with its September 2021 session, the BDBR began a progressive change in the monetary policy stance moving away from the historical low of a 1.75% policy rate that had intended to stimulate the recovery of the economy. This adjustment process continued without interruption throughout 2022 and into the beginning of 2023 when the monetary policy rate reached 12.75% last January, thus accumulating an increase of 11 percentage points (pp). The public and the markets have been surprised that inflation continued to rise despite significant interest rate increases. However, as the BDBR has explained in its various communiqués, monetary policy works with a lag. Just as in 2022 economic activity recovered to a level above the pre-pandemic level, driven, along with other factors, by the monetary stimulus granted during the pandemic period and subsequent months, so too the effects of the current restrictive monetary policy will gradually take effect. This will allow us to expect the inflation rate to converge to 3.0% by the end of 2024 as is the BDBR’s purpose.Inflation results for January and February of this year showed declining marginal increases (13 bp and 3 bp respectively) compared to the change seen in December (59 bp). This suggests that a turning point in the inflation trend is approaching. In other Latin American countries such as Chile, Brazil, Perú, and Mexico, inflation has peaked and has begun to decline slowly, albeit with some ups and downs. It is to be expected that a similar process will take place in Colombia in the coming months. The expected decline in inflation in 2023 will be due, along with other factors, to lower cost pressure from abroad as a result of the gradual normalization of supply chains, the overcoming of supply shocks caused by the weather, and road blockades in previous years. This will be reflected in lower adjustments in food prices, as has already been seen in the first two months of the year and, of course, the lagged effect of monetary policy. The process of inflation convergence to the target will be gradual and will extend beyond 2023. This process will be facilitated if devaluation pressure is reversed. To this end, it is essential to continue consolidating fiscal sustainability and avoid messages on different public policy fronts that generate uncertainty and distrust. 1 This Report to Congress includes Box 1, which summarizes the trajectory of Banco de la República over the past 100 years. In addition, under the Bank’s auspices, several books that delve into various aspects of the history of this institution have been published in recent years. See, for example: Historia del Banco de la República 1923-2015; Tres banqueros centrales; Junta Directiva del Banco de la República: grandes episodios en 30 años de historia; Banco de la República: 90 años de la banca central en Colombia. 2 This is why lower inflation has been reflected in a reduction of income inequality as measured by the Gini coefficient that went from 58.7 in 1998 to 51.3 in the year prior to the pandemic. 3 See Gómez Javier, Uribe José Darío, Vargas Hernando (2002). “The Implementation of Inflation Targeting in Colombia”. Borradores de Economía, No. 202, March, available at: https://repositorio.banrep.gov.co/handle/20.500.12134/5220 4 See López-Enciso Enrique A.; Vargas-Herrera Hernando and Rodríguez-Niño Norberto (2016). “The inflation targeting strategy in Colombia. An historical view.” Borradores de Economía, No. 952. https://repositorio.banrep.gov.co/handle/20.500.12134/6263 5 According to the IMF, the percentage change in consumer prices between 2021 and 2022 went from 3.1% to 7.3% for advanced economies, and from 5.9% to 9.9% for emerging market and developing economies. 6 https://www.banrep.gov.co/es/noticias/junta-directiva-banco-republica-reitera-meta-inflacion-3