LL.M. (International Law) / Africa’s Great Lakes Region (GLR) has in recent years experienced political strife, armed conflict and population displacements with severe humanitarian consequences, specifically the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Some authors regard the prevailing war in the DRC as the African equivalent of the First World War. This is because up to eight African countries and more than 10 rebel groups were involved in this war which plays itself out on Congolese territory. This war has been the deadliest since World War II, with a death toll of 5.4 million people, mostly as a result of disease and starvation. What is more, 1.8 million women have reportedly been raped in the eastern Congo. All these facts point to the limited or non – application of IHL by all the belligerents involved in the armed conflict in the DRC. Ever since, the UN Security Council has adopted more than 15 resolutions aimed at terminating the war in the DRC; however, the war is still ongoing in this country. Thus, this study advocates for the creation and implementation of a regional legal instrument whose purpose is to ensure respect for and application of IHL by all belligerents. Put differently, this study raises the question of the creation and implementation of a special court for the DRC based on the models of the special court for Sierra Leone, and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR).

In this paper I will analyze the film, Whistling Dixie, as it relates to filmmaking principles such as: development, pre-production, production, and post-production. After evaluating all these aspects of the film, I will then make conclusions based on goals I had and how successful or unsuccessful I was in reaching these goals. I will include notes from unbiased audience members in evaluating this film.

The mounting of relief operations by the -humanitarian organizations during the thirty month Nigerian Civil War (1967-1970), for the blockaded Eastern Region became the center of intense political controversy throughout the war. The study analyzes in detail the activities of the humanitarian organizations as well as their influence which they exerted on both parties involved in the crisis. The Federal Government of Nigeria has consistently maintained that the humanitarian organizations involved in the relief efforts in Biafra were guilty of intervention in their internal affairs. The humanitarian organizations insist that their actions were purely humanitarian. This study seeks to ex an ire the merits of the two positions, using international law concepts, empirical data on relief activities and the historical record of the Nigerian civil war as the framework for this examination. The discussion of the nature of humanitarianism and the circumstances under which humanitarian intervention may be justifiable helps to explain the argument by the humanitarian organizations that humanitarian considerations to intervene in order to save civilian lives outweighed Nigeria's charges of their being guilty of intervention. The study concludes that even if the humanitarian organizations, efforts to airlift relief materials to Biafra were purely humanitarian in nature, they cannot be divorced from the political consequences that result from their activities. The study also concludes that the economic support that the humanitarian groups provided the Biafrans was vital toBiafra's legitimacy as a sovereign nation.

Scholarship on youth in Africa has mostly focused on unemployed young people, portraying them as a lost generation and exploring how states have failed them. Literature on young employed Africans has been conspicuously absent. This research portrays how a group of young professional Rwandans who define themselves as “diaspora” living in post-genocide Kigali, are redefining national belonging in economic terms. Many young professionals have moved from the diaspora to Rwanda because the state offers them a platform where they can find employment or start their own business: an entrepreneurial citizenship. The city of Kigali is experiencing physical and social transformation, and these young professionals are driving such change. The young people in this study see Rwanda as a place where they can belong by being cosmopolitan, and especially by becoming entrepreneurs. They feel that in Rwanda they are able to be global citizens more easily than in the Diaspora. This feeling of global citizenship is, ironically, what inspires in them a sense of national identity. This research explores the youth in the broader sense of economic activity and time and their sense of belonging in everyday life, in the capital city of Kigali.

Under what conditions does an ordinary citizen find it justified for an individual to engage in rebellion-related political actions? Though there is a large body of literature on rebel participation phenomenon, little is known about how ordinary citizens react to the motivations of rebels highlighted by the scholars. This research aims to address this gap by focusing on three generic sources of motivation for rebel participation: economic or political grievances, selective incentives, and indiscriminate violence. It is theorized that identification with a rebel candidate’s social group and the gender of this person would both affect individuals’ indicated justification levels for rebellion-related political actions. Through a self-administered survey conducted online by 309 participants from the United States, the theoretical expectations have been examined and while it turns out that the gender of a rebel candidate is not a decisive factor, the explanations based on identification with the rebel candidate’s social group has been partially supported in the study. Further research focusing on other sources of motivation for rebels is encouraged to assess the extent to which the proposed causal mechanism applies beyond the explanations for rebel participation taken in this study.

Does political power sharing foster or inhibit democratisation in post-civil war states? Previous research dedicated to the study of power sharing and democratisation has been limited to the early post-conflict period and used minimalistic definitions of democracy. This thesis uses a wider definition of democracy and hypothesise that the empowerment of elite actors from relevant communities would strengthen democratisation in the short-term, as these groups would gain a patron that could protect their democratic liberties. Meanwhile, a digression was expected in the longer term as power sharing would equip these elite patrons to avoid accountability and suppress opposition. Democracy score changes were analysed using an OLS regression on 127 cases of civil war settlement between 1945-2006. Findings suggest that political power sharing promotes democratisation in the short term. Moreover, no negative long-term effects were found. Practitioners should therefore host no hesitations against introducing political power sharing when resolving conflicts. The absence of negative long-term effects could be attributed to criticisms not recognising the different setups that power-sharing institutions can take which promote accountability. Possibly, there are also other mechanisms which facilitates interaction between elite actors and their communities at play, counterbalancing the negative effects that power sharing would otherwise entail.

O objetivo desta dissertação é analisar como o Partido Conservador, o Partido Liberal e os artesãos, mobilizados pelos liberais, interpretaram e justificaram sua participação na Guerra Civil de 1851 na Nova Granada. O capítulo1sintetiza o desenvolvimento político do país, desde o fim do período colonial até o momento em que se desenvolve o conflito armado. O capítulo 2 debruça-se sobre a conjuntura granadina de meados do século XIX e apresenta a Guerra Civil de 1851, analisando a produção historiográfica a respeito do tema. Os três capítulos seguintes, que formam a segunda parte da dissertação, discutem as representações que as distintas forças políticas faziam de si mesmas, de seus adversários e da sociedade que os circundava. Um epílogo conclui a dissertação, dando particular destaque ao indulto concedido aos insurgentes conservadores após o desfecho da Guerra. / The goal of this dissertation is to analyze how the Conservative Party, the Liberal Party and the craftsmen, mobilized by the Liberals, have interpreted and justified their involvement in the Civil War of 1851 in New Granada. Chapter 1 summarizes the political development of the country, starting at the end of the colonial period until the moment when the armed conflict developed. Chapter 2 deals with the grenadine context during the mid-19th century and presents the Civil War of 1851, analyzing the historical production on the subject. The following three chapters, that form the second part of the dissertation, discuss the representations that different political forces made of themselves, their opponents and the surrounding society. An epilogue concludes the essay with particular prominence to the pardon granted to conservative insurgents, after the outcome of the war.

A Guerra Civil Espanhola não foi somente um confronto bélico, mas também, uma guerra marcada pelas questões sociais, políticas e ideológicas que estavam em ebulição no país, envolvendo operários, camponeses, personalidades políticas e artísticas, bem como intelectuais, que combatiam e defendiam seus ideais por meio de manifestações artísticas. Porém, mesmo com a imposição do exílio para estes escritores, poetas e pensadores, a resistência prosseguia por meio de autobiografias, antologias ou romances com a proposta de refletir os acontecimentos daqueles dias com um olhar distinto daquele imposto por Francisco Franco durante sua Ditadura. Um dos cenários recriados para a reflexão dos resultados desta guerra de confrontos já citados é Juego limpio, escrito durante o exílio de María Teresa León. No romance, Camilo rememora as experiências vividas durante sua atuação no grupo Guerrillas del Teatro del Ejército del Centro durante o conflito civil e sua relação amorosa com Angelines, atriz da companhia. De dentro de sua cela, Camilo refugia-se em suas memórias de modo a refletir seu presente mediante seu passado, estabelecendo a tensão entre o vivido (passado) e o narrado (presente), porém não o faz só, ele evoca os participantes do grupo de cômicos, para que junto com ele, a história das Guerrilhas seja contada. A estrutura polifônica das memórias de Camilo proporciona ao leitor construir a história por diversos ângulos, revelando tal qual uma caixa chinesa os acontecimentos explorados no romance, em que cada caixa é a representação da voz de uma personagem. María Teresa León encontra nessa estrutura polifônica o espaço para opor o discurso daqueles que vivenciaram a guerra ao discurso monocórdio da autoridade e, assim, o modo como se constrói a narrativa justifica a argumentação da obra em que há uma clara defesa da arte pluralizada defendida pelos republicanos espanhóis. / The Spanish Civil War was not only a war in martial terms, but was also marked by social, political and ideological disputes that were urgent in the country at the time. Such issues moved workers, peasants, politicians and artists, as well as intellectuals who fought for their ideals through art. Even though writers, poets and thinkers were punished with exile, the resistance held strong in memoirs, anthologies or novels that brought up new considerations about its contemporary events, with different visions from that of Francisco Franco\'s regime. One of the works that proposed a vigorous discussion about this war was Juego limpio, written by María Teresa León during exile. In the novel, Camilo remembers his experiences while working with the group Guerrillas del Teatro del Ejército del Centro, during the civil war, and his love affair with Angelines, one of its actresses. In his prison cell, Camilo takes shelter in his memories to make conclusions about his present. There is a conflict between what he lived (past) e what he reports (present). He doesn\'t do it alone, though, but invites comic actors from the group to tell the story of the Guerrillas with him. This polyphonic structure of Camilo\'s memoir enables the reader to know the story from different points of view, such as a Chinese box in which each box represents the voice of one character. María Teresa León finds in this polyphonic structure a way to confront the voice of those who lived the war with that of the authorities, which is monophonic. The way she chooses to tell the story reinforces her defense of the plural art in which the Spanish republicans believed.

Thesis advisor: Stephen J. Pope / Transitional justice responds to injustices and violations of human rights following a period of repressive rule or civil war. This dissertation argues that the needs of post-conflict societies are best served by local, participatory approaches to transitional justice. In the case of Guatemala, it was essential for the nation to embrace its common religious narrative as a resource for rebuilding the republic. The Guatemalan Catholic Church worked to build peace out of the ashes of state sponsored terror. It demonstrated the prophetic role of the Church by offering a collective voice condemning those in positions of authority for their neglect of the basic human rights of the majority of Guatemalans. The CEG also highlighted the reconciliatory function of the Church by promoting forgiveness and reconciliation within the public square. This experience calls for theological ethical reflection on how the Catholic Church could best serve the needs of civil society in the wake of nearly forty years of political violence. Responding to the need for critical theological reflection, this dissertation proposes a transformationalist understanding of the relation of love to justice for transitional justice. It draws its inspiration from a selective reading of Augustine and Augustinian scholarship. An Augustinian approach to transitional justice brings together the high moral ideas of love, justice, forgiveness, and peace while at the same time acknowledging the ever-present reality of sin and human weakness. It attempts to transform a post-conflict society into a moral community whose citizens are on a journey toward the destination of temporal peace. It realizes that we may never reach our destination of temporal peace, but we can glimpse it from afar. This dissertation offers the following ten Augustinian insights as a framework for a theological approach to transitional justice. 1) Charity is the motivating force for transitional justice and the pursuit of socio-political reconciliation; 2) Charity transforms our understanding of justice from noninterference and retribution to rehabilitating and reconciling; 3) Transitional justice ought to be contextual, paying attention to the unique concerns of a given post-conflict society; 4) Distinguishing, without bifurcating, the ends of the temporal and celestial commonwealths offers a positive, but not naïve, evaluation of the Church’s potential to be an instrument of social transformation; 5) Post-conflict societies need to foster conditions that allow for pluralism and social cohesion through civic friendship; 6) Post-conflict societies must develop social practices to train citizens in the civic virtues of love, justice, and friendship; 7) Transitional justice requires an ethical retrieval of the truth through the healing of memory; 8) Transitional justice upholds the moral obligation to admonish and correct sinful social behavior; 9) Transitional justice ought to foster the just and prudential protection of society through the use of coercive force on behalf of society’s most vulnerable citizens; and 10) Post-conflict societies need to cultivate and sustain an ethos of active hope that, far from inducing political passivity, promotes civic engagement. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2015. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Theology.

Thesis advisor: James Cronin / This paper examines the esoteric and essentially negativist character of international reaction to the Spanish Civil War. While the mass of the foreign public, (specifically in the United States, Britain, and Ireland), remained apathetic, several interest groups became deeply involved in the conflict. Analysis of the reasons why each group became interested, the methods they used to win supporters, and the effectiveness of those methods in shaping the historical legacy of the war constitutes the bulk of the paper. Particular emphasis is placed on the role of the Roman Catholic Church and the Communist Party in Britain and the United States. The inquiry concludes with an analysis of the historical trends which have erased the Spanish Civil War from the popular consciousness even while it remains vital to specific political constituencies. / Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2004. / Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: History. / Discipline: College Honors Program.