The Protection of Cultural Property during Occupation Cultural property represents an integral part of every nation, it completes the identity of the individual as well as that of humanity as a whole. Because of its specific character, it represents a unique and valuable source for the understanding of history, and creates a sense of belonging to a community, either in its national or in its worldwide sense. Cultural property has a special, irreplaceable meaning for society; its character, existence and continuity and must therefore be protected. The risks that cultural property faces are of two different kinds: either independent of human will or, on the other hand, connected with human activity. Dangers for cultural property are naturally present even during the time of peace. On the other hand, cultural property represents especially vulnerable objects during the time of armed conflict or occupation. Even though during the time of armed conflict the protection of human lives, especially of persons not involved in actual fighting, plays the paramount role, it is nevertheless important to provide protection to cultural property as well. The aim of my thesis is to provide an overview and framework of existing mechanisms for the protection of cultural property in the event of armed conflict,...

The prevalence of rape and its widespread impunity, whether committed during armed conflict or peacetime, has been firmly condemned by the UN and its prohibition has been consistently recognised in international law. This development, however, is a rather novel endeavour. The belated response is in part a consequence of rape being characterised by such myths as sexual violence representing an inevitable by-product of war or as being committed by sexual deviants. Its systematic nature has thus been ignored as has the gravity of the offence, often leading to a culture of impunity. This was evident, for example, through the failure to prosecute crimes of rape during the Nuremberg trials, in qualifying it as a harm against a woman’s honour in the 1949 Geneva Convention (IV), or in considering it a violation located in the “private sphere”, thereby beyond regulation by international law. However, substantial efforts have been made in international law to recognise obligations for states to prevent rape. A prohibition of the offence has developed both through treaty law and customary international law, requiring the prevention of rape whether committed by state agents or by a private actor. One measure to prevent such violence has been identified as the duty to enact domestic criminal laws on the matter. The flexibility for states in determining the substance of such criminal laws is increasingly circumscribed, leading to the question of whether a particular definition of rape or certain elements of the crime must be adopted in this process. Elaborations on the elements of the crime of rape have been a late concern of international law, the first efforts made by the ad hoc tribunals (the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia), followed by the regional human rights systems as well as the International Criminal Court. The principal purpose of the thesis is consequently the systematisation and analysis of provisions and emerging norms obliging states to adopt a particular definition of rape in domestic penal codes. The prohibition of rape and, subsequently, the process of defining the crime has been made in three areas of international law – international human rights law, international humanitarian law and international criminal law. Emerging norms in all three regimes are consequently examined in this thesis, bringing to the fore overarching questions on the possible harmonisation of defining rape in these distinct branches of international law. The study will thus provide a contextual approach, aiming to evince whether the definition can be harmonised or if prevailing circumstances, such as armed conflict or peace, should necessarily inform its definition. Ultimately, the advances in international law are evaluated in order to identify possible areas for further development.

This thesis aims to explain how the involvement of secondary parties affect the duration of intrastate armedconflicts. It argues that the acquisition of secondary support in favor of rebel groups is likely to lead to an extended duration of intrastate armed conflict. By granting a relatively weaker rebel group secondary support, a secondary party ought to directly alter the balance of power and capabilities in benefit for the rebels. The secondary party could thereby be able to level the balance of capabilities between a government and a rebel group, creating a situation in which the, at first, stronger government now have to face a rebel group capable of surviving longer. Using a structured focused comparison on two cases, the results find secondary support in the form of funding or economic support given to relatively weak rebels to be an important influence on extending the duration of intrastate armed conflicts. Nonetheless, further research might have to be made in order to fully understand the even more detailed mechanisms behind the strong influences of economic secondary support on conflict duration.

The aim of this thesis is to provide an objective view of the investment potential of Sri Lanka, including all the important factors that may affect the investment climate and to assess the current investment policy of Sri Lanka and propose some recommendations for improvement. The theoretical part of the thesis is devoted to the impact of armed conflict on the investment environment, it discusses the institutional framework for investment, the legal framework for investment, and investment incentives provided to investors. It also defines the priority investment areas and the main obstacles for the development of investment in the territory. The practical part of the thesis compares the investment potential of Sri Lanka with three selected Asian countries to determine which areas need an improvement, necessary to increase the country's attractiveness for foreign investment. It also evaluates the investment potential of the country in the form of a SWOT analysis and provides recommendations for improvement.

The Master's thesis "Private Military Companies in Africa" deals with the issues of the private military and security companies and their current position in international security relations. The central thesis of this academic publication is the question whether these commercial companies are capable of representing a significant position within the international community and executing extensive operations in conflict resolution and the subsequent transition towards a stable arrangement of the stricken regions. Essentially, the arguments leading to the key objective of this thesis are drawing upon a comparative study of recent activities of PMCs on the African continent, a discursive analysis of the approach towards these private subjects, as well as their international legal status. Consequently, by relying on the gathered information from the aforementioned research, the most substantial section of the text offers basic models of potential widespread use of private military companies in connection with national states and international organizations and explains the benefits resulting from this shift towards privatization of global security. Furthermore, the publication points out specific contemporary cases for the prospective application of PMCs and analyses the space for this industry within the existing international system.

This thesis is conducted as a descriptive qualitative single case study to establish empirical knowledge of the ongoing internal armed conflict between the government of Colombia and the guerrilla Ejército de Liberación Nacional. The ontological foundation orienting from social constructivism and Galtung’s theoretical concepts of attitude, behaviour, and contradiction along with the three aspects of violence: direct, cultural, and structural. Based on the application of the textual discourse analysis method, 96 different discourses were analysed. The result of the analysis shows that the perception the actors have towards each other strongly is negative. The government and the guerrilla accuse each other of contributing to the social injustice in Colombia, where perception towards the ‘other’, ideology and police violence against social protests are three main subjects found contributing to the conflict. The result indicates an interrelation in Galtung’s theory between the conflict triangle (T1) and the violence triangle (T2). The concept of contradiction from the conflict triangle, in this analysis, could only be distinguished within the three approaches of violence (T2). This study confirms several claims and arguments from previous research within the academic fields of peace and conflict in Colombia. Subsequently, I aim to contribute to a deeper understanding of the ongoing conflict

In recent years protection of cultural property in the event of armed conflicts has become largely mentioned issue. Despite broad international legal codification of principles to prevent destruction of cultural property in the event of armed conflicts, destruction of cultural property obviously occurs. Within discussion on their protection, attention is not so paid to the values of cultural property representing for interested actors not merely in the event of armed conflicts. Attention is not much paid also to the motivations leading actors to destroy cultural property in the event of armed conflicts. The thesis is based on current state of knowledge both in academic or international law and it focuses on exploring motivations leading actors to destroy cultural property in the event of armed conflicts. To answer the research question: "What motivators are leading actors to actively destroy cultural monuments in armed conflicts?" is proceeded from analysis of literature that expounds the motivations for the destruction of cultural property in the event of armed conflicts. These motivations will be understood as theoretical explanations of destruction for the purposes of the work, and on the basis of five case studies, their validity will be checked. The subsequent synthesis of the conclusions of...

Karolina Svobodová The Causes of Sexual Violence in the Armed Conflict in the DRC abstract My dissertation thesis (The Motivations of Sexual Violence in the Democratic Republic of the Congo) is a case study of sexual violence in armed conflict in the DRC examining and analysing the causes of its intensity and extent. The main research questions of the study are: - What are the causes of the systematic sexual violence in the armed conflict in the DRC? - Why sexual violence in the armed conflict in the DRC occurs in the large extent and with high intensity? The research theoretically stems from the constructivism as one of the three main scientific approaches to sexual violence in armed conflicts. Since the constructivism presents male and female identities as social constructs, it seems as the best approach to sexual violence where gender of victims and perpetrators is often generalized by supporters of essentialism. Hence, the inherent neutralism of constructivism makes it very suitable instrument for an empirical research. Further, the study works with combination of feminism, cultural anthropology, and feminist evolutionary psychology in the construtivist framework. This blend may seem incoherent but it allows a complex insight into the issue of sexual violence in the DRC and an interpretation of its...

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The aim of this thesis is to observe and analyze the effects of religious dimensions in armed conflict on violence against civilians. Focusing on rebel groups in intra-state conflicts, quantitative statistical analysis in form of Ordinary Least Squares multivariate regression, is utilized to examine data onreligious wars, one-sided violence, and conflict-related sexual violence. Two hypotheses are formulatedand tested; that (1) higher significance of religion in armed conflict leads to higher levels of one-sidedviolence, as well as that (2) higher significance of religion leads to higher levels of conflict-related sexual violence. The results, relying on four different datasets and 1107 observations, empirically support both hypotheses. The conclusion of this thesis suggests that civilians are found to be particularly vulnerable in religious armed conflict, pointing to the importance and urgency of further and closer examination of civilian victimization in these types of wars.