Negotiated settlements, formal treaties to unilateral cease-fires, are often accepted to be the preferable method to end war. When negotiated agreements are used in the normal business of international politics they can be potentially helpful devices; however, when they are relied upon for a nation's security or war prevention and conclusion they can prove disastrous. It is the presence of force variables, and not the formality of an agreement which effectively concludes a war. I recategorize success of an agreement to not only mean failure of a return to war, but also whether the tenets of an agreement are actually followed. I utilize a modified version of Fortna's conflict dataset and run three separate logit analyses to test the effectiveness of settlements in a medium n quantitative analysis. If politicians and policy makers realize that it is not treaties that establish peace but the costs of war and military might then perhaps the world will be a more peaceful place.

The thesis studies the relations of Communist China's foreign policy and its military offensives in the battlefield in Korean Peninsula in late 1950 and early 1951, an important topic that has yet received little academic attention. As original research, this thesis cites extensively from newly declassified Soviet and Chinese archives, as well as American and UN sources. This paper finds that an adventurism dominated the thinking and decision-making of Communist leaders in Beijing and Moscow, who seriously underestimated the military capabilities and diplomatic leverages of the US-led West. The origin of this adventurism, this paper argues, lays in the CCP's civil war experience with their Nationalist adversaries, which featured a preference of mobile warfare over positional warfare, and an opportunist attitude on cease-fire. This adventurism ended only when Communist front line came to the verge of collapse in June 1951.

"Ideally, peacekeeping operations demonstrate the concern of the international community in situations of instability or conflict arising between or within states. They are conceived to bring about peace and 'ensure the effective promotion and protection of [human] rights'. As a result, peacekeeping operations as well as peacekeepers are expected to comply with standards of human rights and humanitarian law. With respect to the Economic Community of West African States Cease-Fire Monitoring Group (ECOMOG), its intervention in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea Bissau, and Côte d'Ivoire have been generally welcomed as a response to barbaric and devastating wars in West Africa. However, the observation of ECOMOG missions reveals several instances of violations of human rights and humanitarian law committed by ECOMOG peacekeepers. These violations include attacks against civilians, summary executions, rapes, torture, looting, etc. In other words, the saviours have turned into violators of rights. While these violations have provoked concern and indignation, few measures have been taken to address the problem, hold peacekeepers accountable and prevent abuses in the future. ... This study is divided into five chapters. Chapter one provides, among other, the background of the study, the statement of the research problem and the significance of the study. Chapter two gives an insight into the creation, structure, mechanisms and evolution of ECOMOG as the peacekeeping organ of ECOWAS. Chapter three examines the basis for the applicability of human rights and international humanitarian law to peacekeepers and shows the violations committed by the ECOMOG peacekeepers since 1990. Chapter four analyses the responses to abuses committed by ECOMOG peacekeepers. It discusses the national, regional and universal responses to these abuses. It investigates both prevention and accountability mechanisms existing to address abuses committed by ECOMOG peacekeepers. It also explores some potential accountability and prevention mechanisms. Finally, chapter five makes some concluding remarks and suggests specific recommendations for the improvement of the existing responses." -- Introduction. / Thesis (LLM (Human Rights and Democratisation in Africa)) -- University of Pretoria, 2004. / http://www.chr.up.ac.za/academic_pro/llm1/dissertations.html / Centre for Human Rights / LLM

L’Afrique est, depuis quelques décennies, « la zone stratégique la plus déstabilisée de la planète ». La question des conflits armés constitue un véritable « casse-tête africain » aussi bien pour les acteurs locaux qu’internationaux qui s’y intéressent en ce que son caractère interne contraste avec les conséquences transnationales qui en résultent.Comment sortir de cette insécurité chronique et de la guerre civile qui guette en permanence derrière le rideau et parvenir à une stabilité et un développement durables afin de limiter au mieux les nombreuses violations des droits de l’homme occasionnées à cet effet?Des approches de solution n’ont pas manqué, allant de la solution militaire, peu respectueuse des vies humaines, à la solution négociée qui appelle au génie créatif de l’homme et de son intelligence, soucieuse de préserver le genre humain en « imaginant » ou en « inventant » des compromis inscrits dans des accords, essentiellement, politiques. C’est donc, à juste titre, que l’objet de notre étude porte sur cette question africaine traduite par un intitulé très actuel : « Les accords politiques dans la résolution des conflits armés internes en Afrique ». L’analyse envisagée dans la présente étude expose la conclusion des accords politiques en insistant distinctement sur l’environnement politique de leur formation ainsi que le cadre juridique qui les caractérise, d’une part. D’autre part, il paraît indiqué d’examiner l’application de ces accords en décortiquant la feuille de route dans laquelle ils évoluent en vue d’en dresser un bilan scientifiquement objectif afin de mesurer l’effectivité de leur mise en œuvre et leur efficacité en matière de protection des droits de l’homme. / Since some decades, Africa is «the most destabilized strategic area of the plane. » the issue of armed conflicts represent a real «African puzzle» as well for local actors as international ones who are involve in, with its internal characteristic contrast with the transnational consequences which result from.How to get out of this chronically in security and the civil war which permanently watch out behind curtain in order to reach sustainable development and stability in order to better limit numerous violations of human rights done in that fact?Some approaches of solution are numerous, going from military solution less respecting human lives, to the negociated solutions which call for the human genius and his intelligent, anxious to preserve human gender by «imaging» or by « inventing» Compromises signed in agreements, essentially political. Its then, precisely that African issue translated by an updated heading: agreements in the resolution of internal armed conflits in Africa. »The analysis considered in the present study will expose the conclusion of political agreements by insisting distinctly on political environment, their formation as well on the legal framework which characterizes them, on one hand. On the other hand, it seems important to examine the application of those agreements by analyzing in details the agenda in which they evoluate in order to draw up scientifically the balance sheet of the objective in order to assess the affectivity of their implementation and their effectiveness in domain of human rights protection.