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This research, affirms that some mechanisms of the transitional justice approaches can be applicable to SIDS conflict; particularly structural conflicts. The fourth principle of the Joinet/Orentlicher Principles of ‘Dealing with the Past’; the right to non-occurrence of conflict, was utilised as a conceptual framework to research the case of Fiji, as it addresses military and institution reforms; both of which are problematic area in Fiji. Focus groups interviews, semi-structured questionnaires and key informant interviews were used to collect data. The overall research question was: ‘How can transitional justice strategies address conflicts that are distinctive to Small Island developing states?’, and the more specific questions related to amnesty, military reform and prevention of coup d’états in the future. The thesis confirms that many respondents and key informants regard amnesty for coups d’état negatively and unjust. A number of key informants also think that amnesty is bad as it sends the wrong signals to the coup perpetrators and to future generations. Respondents felt strongly (78%) that the coup perpetrators should be held accountable as coups are illegal, but they also acknowledged that the military is too strong and praetorian at this stage in Fiji to be held accountable. Findings also indicate that there were mixed views on military reform. A number of other important reforms were also suggested by the respondents to prevent the reoccurrence of coups in Fiji. These include; education to foster a national identity, and reforms to the rule of law as well as to the judiciary. This thesis concludes that transitional justice mechanisms would be applicable to small island developing states but it would need to be tailored to the country’s specific needs. Additionally, if we are to ensure that another coup does not occur in the future, Fiji has to carry out military reform and revive discussions on amnesty, or such discussions will be driven underground and may fester into future conflicts.

Despite being afflicted by cyclical bouts of unrest over the past century, repression in Bahrain as a concept has not been the focus of considerable academic attention. This is the first interpretive historical and contemporary study of repression in Bahrain. It addresses the limitations of regime-type analysis and quantitative studies of repression, which tend to focus on the co-variation between repression and demobilization. Using a template analysis, a virtual ethnography and framing theory, this thesis offers a new conceptualisation of repression. Several episodes of contention in Bahrain are analysed, including; tribal resistance to the British reforms of the 1920s, the rise of the Higher Executive Committee in the 1950s, the leftist agitation of the 1970s, the 1990s Intifada, and the 2001 Uprising. Using evidence from multiple sources, including recently released Foreign and Commonwealth Office files, social media, and historical records, this thesis argues that Bahrain's protecting powers have had a marked impact on the severity, nature and type of repression in Bahrain, as well as the structure of the repressive apparatus. While the British mitigated the excesses of Al Khalifa's treatment of political opposition, their declining influence following Independence saw the rise of a Saudi-Al Khalifa dual authority structure that created a new approach to repressive choices. Crucially, Bahrain's protecting powers influenced the nature and type of repression that was applied to political opposition. Yet despite this meta-narrative of outside influence, this research complicates generalisable theories of repression, showing that repressive choices are often contingent on a complex mix of the availability of resources, elite attitudes, strategic objectives of power holders, and the nature of threat. For this reason, the research sheds light on repression in Bahrain, but also highlights the value of conducting case studies and long term studies that allow researchers to compare and contrast the reasons motivating repressive choices. The new conceptualisation also emphasises the rising importance of social media and rhizomatic actors as tools of repression.

This thesis is an examination of the Civil Rights struggle in the city of Mobile, Alabama between 1925 and 1985. Race, class and citizenship were three important factors which shaped African-American leadership, political goals and protest strategies to overcome the problem of racism during this century. The influence of elites, changing class alignments and differing interpretations of the concept of freedom in democratic society, created an uneven social movement for reform among Mobile's African American citizens. In common with other Southern localities of comparable size, the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People and the political philosophy of Martin Luther King, Jr., influenced the struggle for equality in Mobile. World War II and the economic modernisation of the South during the post-war era, helped to bring the city closer to the national mainstream and foster liberal racial attitudes among middle-class, white Mobilians. Yet Mobile had also established itself as a semi-autonomous area with a distinct cultural tradition drawn from the heritage of early European and African settlement along the Gulf Coast. Within this context, the city did not experience a full Civil Rights movement comparable to other urban localities such as Montgomery, Birmingham and Tuskegee during the racially turbulent 1950s and 1960s. The grass-roots revolutionary aspects of the black freedom struggle emerged in Mobile after 1968 coinciding with the death of King. This movement absorbed the political culture of Black Power and the confrontational tactics of the militant wing of the national civil rights coalitions. Despite over a half-century of civil rights protest and accommodation in the 1980s however, it was clear that racism continued to determine the nature and problem of African-American citizenship in one of America's oldest cities.

The study examines the realisation of the right to higher education in the occupied Palestinian territories. It develops an analytical framework for the protections afforded to higher education by the international human rights conventions and applies it to the context. Despite being under Israeli occupation since 1967, higher education in the occupied territories has developed into a sophisticated sector and is entirely administered by Palestinian authorities. However, it is hampered by the impact of the occupation regime. As occupier, Israel is understood to hold obligations for the humanitarian protection of the Palestinian population of the occupied territories, and both Israel and the Palestinian National Authority are understood to be accountable for the human rights of the Palestinian population, thereby instituting two duty-bearers. The study assesses the ways in which higher education is obstructed in the occupied Palestinian territories. It indicates a flourishing sector which is accorded a deep social value. It confirms many of the reported obstacles to the realisation of the right resulting from the Israeli occupation, but it also records obstacles arising from the policies and practice of Palestinian higher education institutions and the social and cultural context. Attempting to attribute obligations for the right to one or both of the duty-bearers indicates the contingency between the actions of the occupier and the efforts of the Palestinian authorities to realise the right. While some breaches are clearly attributable to one side or the other, others are not. Actions to mitigate the effects of the occupation give rise to additional, separate breaches, as do interactions between the occupation regime and cultural practice. The obstacles reported in the study give substance to higher education formulated as a human right. The study adds to the understanding of breaches of economic, social and cultural rights in a situation of military occupation.

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Corporations - their power and impact on society - are a neglected topic in political philosophy. In this thesis, I attempt to address this neglect by using the framework of Rawlsian justice to examine what corporations' relationship to social and international justice ought to be. The first part of the thesis is on domestic social justice. I urge that Rawlsians should not begin their inquiry by taking the corporate form as given because the corporation's existence requires a specific set of private-ordering and property rules to be in place. What we should ask, instead, is whether these rules are actually permitted by the two principles of justice as fairness. This question leads to an examination of different economic regimes that are compatible with Rawlsian justice. I focus on one particular regime - that of property-owning democracy. What I find is that while not all versions of property-owning democracy would permit the corporate form, some would actually welcome it due to the feature of 'the separation of ownership and control' that is typical of modern corporations. The second part of the thesis is on international justice. I argue that the best way to situate corporations in Rawls's theory of international justice - his Law of Peoples - is to connect them to the duty of assistance. This is not a straightforward task because a relatively strict reading of the duty of assistance would disallow treating corporations as primarily responsible for discharging it. However, a revisionist approach to the Law of Peoples shows that we can understand the duty of assistance as a part of transitional justice. The significance of this is that Rawls's prescribed ideal theory of international justice does not determine who the agents for transitional justice ought to be or the grounds for attributing responsibility to such agents. We are thus free to adopt David Miller's criteria for attribution of remedial responsibilities to assign to corporations responsibilities for the duty of assistance. What is more, in a particular area of international justice - that of fairness in trade - we can establish that corporations can be primary agents of transitional justice.

Partant du postulat selon lequel la principale justification de la répression de formes d’expressions réside dans leur nocivité supposée, nous tentons de répondre à la question suivante : comment définir des limites claires et cohérentes à la liberté d’expression ? L’analyse des controverses relatives à la pornographie, et en particulier de la manière dont les notions de liberté d’expression et de nuisance ont été articulées, contribue à répondre à cette question générale. À travers l’analyse des débats portant sur la restriction des représentations sexuelles, nous tentons de montrer que les parties en présence ne sont pas parvenues à définir la notion de « nuisance » de manière claire et satisfaisante, et ne permettent pas, dès lors, de définir avec précision les limites légitimes de la liberté d’expression. Les deux voies théoriques alternatives que nous avons identifiées, les conceptions instrumentales et déontologiques de la liberté d’expression, ne se révèlent pas plus convaincantes. Nous montrons néanmoins qu’il est possible de préciser le principe de non-nuisance en y intégrant deux éléments auparavant négligés : la subjectivité du récepteur, et les rapports d’autorité qui existent entre le locuteur et le récepteur. Nous défendons ainsi l’idée que le principe de non-nuisance reste l’instrument le plus clair et le plus cohérent pour fonder les limites de la liberté d’expression, à condition de l’amender et de le compléter. / Acknowledging the fact that the main justification to restrict some forms of expression lies in the harm they may cause to others, this thesis aims at answering the following question: how do we define clear and coherent limits of the freedom of expression? The study of the controversies regarding pornography, and particularly the way in which the concepts of freedom of expression and harm are closely linked together, is an important contribution in order to answer this vast subject. Through the analysis of debates with regard to sexual representations, this thesis aims at gaining a deeper understanding on how the authors were unsuccessful in defining the notion of « harm » in a clear and convincing way, and fail at allowing to set precisely the legitimate limits of freedom of expression. The two alternative theoretical approaches that were identified and established - the instrumental and deontological conceptions of freedom of expression – were not proven to be more satisfactory either. However, this research confirms that the harm principle can be clarified if two previously neglected aspects are included in the analysis: the receiver’s subjectivity, and the authority relationship established between the speaker and the viewer. Thus, it is argued that the harm principle, given that it is modified and completed, remains the most effective and adequate tool in order to ground the limits of freedom of expression.