This thesis focuses on the topic ‘The World Trade Organisation and Food Insecurity in the South: Prospects for the ECOWAS sub-region'. It is cast against the background of the prevailing global food crisis which is generally accepted as having assumed monumental dimensions in sub-Saharan Africa where a total of over 150 million people are said to be under the direct threat of hunger and starvation. The study appraises the mainstream understanding of the root causes of the on-going food crisis, the policies prescribed for their resolution as well as the efficacy of the neo-liberal multilateral institutional frameworks from within which these are currently being deployed. The global and regional multilateral institutions of reference here are the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) respectively. The study contends that the hegemonic narrative is severely limited; that the perspective which drives it suffers from some highly virulent blind-spots on the critical questions of history and the structural notions of power – notions which go to the very heart of the contemporary structuring of the global food system, and which, in the case of West Africa, is assuring the privileged access of some classes to food and food-producing resources whilst excluding the bulk of the class of the majority. Consequently, from a macro-historical qualitative perspective, the study develops and deploys an alternative conceptual framework from within which it appraises the regional agricultural and related trade policies of the member states of the ECOWAS which were developed in response to the neoliberal regimes of the WTO. With the reality of third world structural dependency as a point of departure, and situating this within the theoretical framework of Robert W. Cox and the tenets of Dependency theory, the study poses the question of whether and/or how, in the specific instance of West Africa, the framing of the region’s food and agricultural policies, couched as they have been in conformity to the broader context of the regimes of the WTO, has resulted in the aggravation of insecurity in food production and consumption. Pursuant to investigating this question, the study finds that as adherence by the member states of the ECOWAS to the rules of the WTO Agreements in particular and the dictates of neoliberal economic agenda in general intensifies, regional food and agricultural development strategies of the region have invariably proven incapable of overcoming the logic of structural capitalist dependency. Rather, as the ECOWAP achieves coincidence with the regimes of the WTO, those exact material conditions that stymie the prospects for structural transformation of the agrarian economy in the West African sub-region are being reinforced. The exacerbation of the associated problems of agricultural productivity decline, as well as the concomitant loss of household and national incomes is effectively putting even the food that is available both in the local and international markets well beyond the reach of the bulk of the poverty stricken majority of the people of Western Africa.

This study analyzed the economic welfare implications of the 1990 intraregional trade liberalization scheme within the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) on member country producers and consumers. Four countries were chosen as a point of focus: Burkina Faso, Cote d'Ivoire, Ghana and Mali, and two commodities: millet and sorghum. The supply and demand functions were estimated using time series data from 1970 to 1990 obtained at the level of administrative regions within each of the four countries. Optimal production, consumption, trade quantities and trade flows were determined using the REACTT model, a spatial price equilibrium solution algorithm. Two trade scenarios were simulated. The first examined trade flows under the 1990 tariff structures and the second examined trade flows under the proposed zero tariff rates. / The REACTT model results showed that removal of the tariffs would increase the crossborder trade flows between the four countries by about 12% for millet and 38% for sorghum. The welfare calculations showed that in the case of millet, all four countries would have net positive gains to the tune of $4.6 million in total. For sorghum, Burkina Faso, Ghana and Mali would have net positive gains, C ote d'Ivoire would have a net welfare loss, and the net impact on all four countries would be a positive gain of about $9.3 million. The results of the REACTT model and the welfare calculations suggest that intra-ECOWAS trade liberalization would increase total trade flows and total economic well being of the member countries.

The hypothesis underlying this research is that Africa's leaders are under a moral/political imperative to summon the will to develop a capacity to intervene in conflicts, possibly with external assistance, but without direct extra-continental intervention. This begs two questions. Is Africa right — politically and morally – to assume this task? And should the rest of the world, particularly the traditional intervening powers, accept and/or promote and/or assist African self-pacification? A trend toward subsidiarity and the regionalisation of conflict management in the African context followed reversals for United Nations and Western policy in the early 1990s, notably in Somalia and Rwanda. In the wake of these setbacks the universal impulse to intervene wherever necessary was overshadowed by a particularist/relativist position that distinguished Africa and African conflicts as cases apart. This translated in theoretical terms to a switch away from a cosmopolitan position allowing of international intervention to a communitarian position that promotes the African 'community' or African sub-regional 'communities' as the primary loci for addressing conflict. The continental organisation, the Organisation of African Union (0AU), has been hampered in assuming this task by its strict Charter adherence to state sovereignty and non-intervention in the internal affairs of its member states. As a result the logic of subsidiarity devolved on Africa's sub-regional organisations, in particular the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC). However, these organisations have found development of a security framework problematic, suffered from internal rivalries and have been hindered by paucity of funds and logistics. Interventions undertaken under the auspices of these bodies have often been of dubious legitimacy under international law. Viewed from the perspective of the 'just war' tradition these interventions also invariably seem morally suspect. Unwilling to intervene directly, the United States, France and Britain have established a joint initiative to enhance peacekeeping capacity in Africa. This project, under funded and ill considered, has proven inadequate from the perspective of both African participants and its sponsors. The research examines two case studies — intervention by the OAU in Chad in 1980-1982 and the peacekeeping operation undertaken by ECO WAS in Guinea-Bissau in 1998-1999. These cases confirm that existing mechanisms are ineffective for addressing African intra-state conflict. Moreover, they show that extra-African involvement remains an enduring feature of conflict on the continent. A return to the universal/cosmopolitan impulse in terms of international intervention in African conflicts seems unlikely in the short to medium term. In view of this neglect Africa must continue the project of self-pacification. The West is under a moral duty to set aside narrow national interests and expand and improve its existing peacekeeping capacity enhancement programme.

Thesis (M.M.A.S)--US Army Command and General Staff College, 2006. / Title from title screen (viewed on Apr. 9, 2008). Includes bibliographical references (p. 68-71).

Univ., Diss.--Konstanz, 1994.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Colorado, Boulder, 1992. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves [356]-404).

Chaque partie de l'espace, matérialisée par les frontières terrestres, maritimes ou aériennes est convoitée par les nations qui parviennent à en faire des chasses gardées à l’exception d’une seule composante : le cyberespace. Ce lieu d’échanges et de circulation de l’information s'est affranchi de cet accaparement. C’est ce qui le rend réel pour les utilisations qu’il permet (envois de messages, diffusion des informations en temps réel, formations…) et virtuel (dans la mesure où les réseaux numériques empruntent des voies difficilement localisables) au point de générer des difficultés quant à son encadrement par la loi. Dès lors, le cyberespace s’érige en un espace où il est aisé de cultiver des activités illégales compte tenu des facilités qu’il offre. Les activités illégales épousent des formes pluridimensionnelles et complexes qu’on regroupe sous l’appellation générique de cybercriminalité. De par sa nature et ses subdivisions, la cybercriminalité fait l’objet de réflexions, d’études, de recherches, de mises en place de politiques et d’actions à une échelle nationale et internationale en vue de parvenir à son éradication. Les actions sont menées de manière coordonnée entre les Etats et les institutions. La lutte contre ce phénomène interplanétaire exige la mutualisation des efforts de la part des acteurs des télécommunications, de l’informatique, de toutes les couches professionnelles ainsi que de la part des consommateurs sous réserve qu’ils soient bien informés des risques liés à l’usage du cyberespace. L’étude comparée des systèmes de répression mis en oeuvre dans les espaces européen et ouest-africain permettra de mieux comprendre l’exercice du droit souverain pénal face à la cybercriminalité et l’importance des collaborations entre ces deux espaces communautaires. / Each party of the space, realized by the ground, maritime or air borders is desired by the nations which succeed in making it private grounds with the exception of a single component: the cyberspace. This place of exchanges and circulation of information freed itself from this cornering. It is what makes it real for the uses which it allows (sendings of messages, broadcasting) of real-time information, trainings and virtual (as far as the digital networks follow with difficulty localizable paths) in the point to generate difficulties as for its frame by the law. From then on, the cyberspace sets up itself as a space where it is easy to cultivate illegal activities considering the opportunities which it offers. The illegal activities marry forms pluridimensionnelles and complex which we group under the generic naming of cybercrime. Due to its nature and its subdivisions, the cybercrime is the object of reflections, studies, searches, implementations of politics and of actions in a national and international scale to reach in his eradication. The actions are led in way coordinated between States and institutions. The fight against this interplanetary phenomenon requires the mutualization of the efforts on behalf of the actors of telecommunications, computing, all the professional layers as well as her on behalf of the consumers under reserve that they are informed well about the risks connected for the cyberspace. The study compared by the systems of repression implemented in the European and West-African spaces will allow to understand better the exercise of the penal sovereign right in front of the cybercrime and the importance of collaborations between these two community spaces.

The thesis in the main, looks at the decision-making process which underlined the Economic Community of West African States' attempt to end the Liberian crisis. It examines the establishment of ECOMOG to intervene in the Liberian civil crisis and the various pacific attempts to resolve the Liberian question. It does so through the medium of decision - making theory and some of the conceptual models that have flowed out of it. The thesis' focus on the decisional process of a regional body marks an attempt to broaden the scope of application of decision - making paradigms, which are usually employed to analyse decisions of national governments. The imperative for analysing the decisional process of ECOWAS in its quest to find solution to the Liberian problem has in part been dictated by the novelty of the ECOMOG concept. It marks the first major attempt of a sub - regional economic organization to successfully find solution to a civil conflict, as a result, there are numerous lessons to be gleaned from its failures and successes. Its relevance in the African context, with its intractable conflicts cannot be overemphasized. It has also been motivated by the fact that more works need to be produced on the decision-making processes of governments and regional bodies within the continent. The thesis argues that, both rational and "irrational" elements infused the decisional process of ECOW AS in its bid to solve the Liberian Crisis. Among other things, Policy-makers were influenced in their choice of decision by rational calculations based on national interest. It examines the clash of interests which characterized the establishment ofECOMOG as an tntervention force, the impasse this fostered and how it was eventually resolved. It postulates that exteljIlal actors influenced the decision process and that policy :Qiakers were aided to make the decisions they made by other organs in the decisional chain. The "irrational" component of the process, among other things, could be seen from the fact that the Liberian question was solved in " bits and pieces". Besides, blunders were committed through defective decision - making mechanism. The thesis concludes by offering suggestions to improve the quality of ECOW AS decision-making process with regard to conflict resolution and how to achieve regional consensus.

Approach of African states towards International Criminal Court This diploma thesis aims to depict in the most exhaustive manner the approach of the African states towards the institution of the International Criminal Court (hereinafter as "the Court"). To offer a better understanding of this complicated bond, in the first chapter, I intend to describe the basic characteristics of the Court - the process of its creation along with all the necessary historical background of such efforts, its purpose or mission, financing, the composition and administration of the Court as well as detailed analysis of the proceedings before the Court and its decision making. The second chapter deals with brief introduction to other international criminal tribunals with jurisdiction in Africa and remarks on African Union, the most recognized international integration on the African continent. Third chapter starts to explain the nature and development of the approach of the African states towards the Court which is marked mainly by the initial support to the idea of its creation and followed by a slow aggravation of the stance and loss of most of the support and co-operation primarily due to alleged narrow focus of the prosecution almost exclusively towards African nationals. There were certain attempts to reestablish...

This paper will question why the African Union has been unsuccessful in confronting the rising issue of transnational terrorism. It looks at the history of both the Organization of African Unity and the African Union and examines the measures the two organizations have taken in preventing and combating terrorism. The particular history of African States and their relation to the term “terrorism” is discussed in this section. In this light, I analyze the African Union’s peacekeeping missions in both Somalia and Mali to determine why they have failed to stop the spread of transnational terrorism. In conclusion, I will discuss the reasons why I the African Union has struggled in dealing with transnational terrorism.