The study of the European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP) has been dominated by various mainstream theories drawn from International Relations and European Studies. These have largely neglected the role of ideas, beliefs, values and practices regarding the use of police and military instruments, in other words, the strategic culture which shapes the security and defence policies of the European Union (EU). This strategic culture of the EU has become manifest in the way ESDP officials think about the deployment of military and police resources as well as in the way they plan ESDP missions. After introducing the concept in general terms, the thesis claims that the notion of strategic culture can be applied to the EU. Various innovative models of categorisationa re provided throughout the thesis in order to describe the state of development of EU strategic culture. An analysis of the development of the strategic culture of the EU is provided since the end of the Cold War up to the year 2007. Important developments such as the institutionalisation of ESDP and the establishment of influential policy networks are considered in detail. The study also takes into account the discourse of ESDP and questions the ideas that stem from it through interviews and questionnaires with ESDP officials. A cases tudy of the police and military missions of the EU in Bosnia Herzegovina is included in order to show how ideas regarding the use of force impact on the implementation of EU missions. In conclusion, the thesis claims that the EU has its own strategic culture which is characterised by a number of behavioural/structural elements as well as by certain ideas, values, beliefs and practices.

The purpose of this thesis is to provide a critical evaluation of the neorealist theory of international relations and its soft balancing variant through the use of case studies referring to transatlantic relations in the post-Cold War era. Each case study indicates a specific category of power. These are: i) Military - the European attempt to create a common military arm from 1991 to 2003. ii) Diplomatic - the EU's involvement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from 1991 to 2003. iii) Economic the EU-USA steel dispute in 2002/03. In particular, the thesis undertakes to analyse whether the EU balanced the USA in the post-Cold War period either as a result of the altered structural distribution of capabilities within the international system (unipolarity) or of a set of deliberate plans to do so. After introducing the concepts of unipolarity, hard and soft balancing, the thesis outlines three comprehensive answers that neorealist scholars have generated as to whether the USA can or cannot be balanced in the post-Cold War international system, namely the structural, the soft balancing, and the alternative structural options. Then, drawing on a defensive realist perspective, this research goes on to consider the creation of the EU as a great power in the post-Cold War era. In light of this, the thesis aims to find out whether the rise of the EU as a great power has had an impact upon unipolarity either because of structural incentives or because of a predetermination to frustrate the aggressive policies of the unipolar state. The thesis then proceeds to investigate whether throughout the case studies series the EU has balanced the USA. The case studies highlight that the EU, freed from the rigid bipolar stalemate it had been locked into during the Cold War, undertook to exert greater influence on the world stage in the post-Cold War period. To some extent the EU has accomplished this in all of the power dimensions analysed in this thesis. Nevertheless, the EU's efforts to hold sway within the international system were not aimed at addressing the relative power imbalance created by unipolarity, and there were no deliberate plans harboured by the EU to frustrate the influence of any aggressive unipolar state. Overall, this thesis found the causal logic outlined by neorealism to be convincing to the extent that the EU emerged as a great power in the post-Cold War era and had greater freedom of action under unipolarity. However, with the partial exception of the economic dimension of power, there was no persuasive evidence uncovered to support the anticipated outcome of the neorealist theoretical slant, namely that great powers tend to balance each other. Moreover, while the soft balancing claim is considered to have promise as an attempt to understand how the EU can respond to US power under unipolarity, this study did not find sufficient evidence of the EU's deliberate intentions of doing so.

This thesis explores some of the connections between the defence industry and the European border policy that emerged leading up to, and following, the European refugee crisis of 2015. The paper is divided into two parts. The first seeks to examine and understand the context in which the refugee crisis occurred. In order to do this, I begin with a literature review that uses the integration theory of Multilevel Governance to understand how and where the European Union (EU) is susceptible to political pressure or special interest influence. Next, I present a brief history of the causes and course of the crisis, the pre-existing border regime, and the defence industry and lobby. The second section synthesises the context provided in the first section in order to determine whether actors in the defence industry were lucky beneficiaries of policies movements that happened to benefit them, or, if they were proactive lobbyists. I identify four trends in policy, namely the militarisation, centralisation, privatisation, and externalisation of border controls, and I discuss each trend, lobbyist influence, and the implications each trend has for refugees. Finally, I conclude that although there is significant evidence of lobbyist influence in shaping the policies, the presence of a myriad of other factors makes it nearly impossible to quantify how big a role lobbyist influence was in determining outcomes. Nevertheless, the implications of such institutional susceptibilities to lobbying in the EU should be both cause for concern and further inquiry.

Anthropogenic activities are fundamentally altering the chemistry of the world’s oceans. Many of these modifications could have a significant impact on the health of marine organisms. Yet, despite being proposed as one of the most significant threats that marine ecosystems face, to date very little is known about the impact of anthropogenic climate change, and ocean acidification in particular, on host defence. The aims of this thesis are to investigate the impact of environmental stressors on the invertebrate immune response, providing empirical data on how anthropogenically induced stressors will impact the invertebrate immune system and how this will impact organism condition and subsequent physiological trade-offs. Exposure to reduced seawater pH and increased temperature significantly reduced the immune response in the blue mussel, Mytilus edulis. This reduction in immune response could indicate stress-induced immune dysfunction. However, the immune system protects an organism from infectious disease, ensuring survival, and should therefore be evaluated functionally rather than immunologically. By subsequently exposing mussels to a bacterial challenge this study demonstrated that an earlier study which measured a reduction in host defence represented a trade-off of immune system maintenance costs, with mussels maintaining a capacity to up-regulate immune defence when required. However, whilst this immune plasticity ensures mussels are able to survive a pathogen exposure, such a strategy appears to be physiologically costly. This cost is seen as a reduction in reproductive investment, an altered energy metabolism and an altered fatty acid composition in organisms exposed to low pH. Therefore the overarching picture that emerges is, without measuring physiological processes functionally, and in neglecting any physiological trade-offs, it is possible that many studies may misinterpret the complex physiological responses of marine organisms to ocean acidification.

UNIVERZITA KARLOVA V PRAZE Právnická fakulta Katedra trestního práva POJEM A PRÁVNÍ DŮSLEDKY PŘEKROČENÍ MEZÍ NUTNÉ OBRANY A KRAJNÍ NOUZE Diplomová práce Martin Lang Vedoucí diplomové práce: Doc. JUDr. Jiří Herczeg, Ph.D. Praha, prosinec 2010 2 Prohlašuji, že jsem tuto diplomovou práci vypracoval samostatně, všechny použité prameny a literatura byly řádně citovány a práce nebyla využita k získání jiného nebo stejného titulu. V Praze dne 13. prosince 2010 Martin Lang 3 Poděkování Děkuji panu Doc. JUDr. Jiří Herczegovi, Ph.D., vedoucímu mé diplomové práce, za připomínky a pomoc při jejím zpracování. 4 Obsah Obsah ...................................................................................................................................4 Úvod.....................................................................................................................................5 1. Okolnosti vylučující protiprávnost v českém právním řádu .................................7 1.1 Podstata nutné obrany a krajní nouze ............................................................................8 1.2 Ústavněprávní aspekty................................................................................................10 1.3 Správněprávní...

Soldier caste is the oldest altruistic caste in termites, highly specialized for defensive tasks. Therefore, a number of adaptations in anatomy and behaviour can be observed in soldier, lacking in other termite castes. The aim of this study was to verify the hypothesis that in disturbed groups the soldiers will prefer to stand by and defend the reproductives, the most valuable individuals. Therefore, I studied in two species of the genus Prorhinotermes (P. simplex and P. canalifrons) the ability of soldiers to discriminate neotenic reproductives and provide them with defence. In agreement with the initial hypothesis, the soldiers of both species prooved to be able of an instantaneous recognition of reproductives and remained close to them. In P. simplex, the neotenic female was the most attractive individual, while in P. canalifrons, neotenics of both sexes were equally attractive. The observed preference of reproductives appears to occur only with a certain age of the reproductives in incipient colonies, along with their sexual maturation. Caste specificity of cuticular lipids supports the presumption that the caste recognition is based on olphactoric cues in the cuticle of reproductives.

of my Master's degree thesis in English Lawful use of firearms The purpose of my paper is to draw attention to the lawful use of firearms in self- defence. The relation between the lawful use of firearms and self-defence is not explained sufficiently today. For example, it is not clear in what situations police officers have authority to act in self-defence and what their liability would be should they exceed the regulation of lawful use of firearms. The author offers possible solutions to this issue and describes their consequences. The paper is composed of three chapters. Introduction brings the reader into the issue. First chapter serves as an extension to the introductory part and defines basic terminology used in the paper such as defences, necessity, self-defence, dangerous offender, lawful use of firearms. Chapter Two deals with relevant international, constitutional and statutory legislation with a focus on the lawful use of firearms and its regulation. Chapter Three introduces basic knowledge from practice split into rulings and case studies. Author of this Master's degree thesis searched and chose the most relevant rulings with relation to the lawful use of firearms. Case studies include two cases of lawful use of firearms by the Police to which the author had access. Chapter Four looks...

Title: The basic aspects of self-defence Objectives: The principal aim of this thesis is describe the basic aspects of self-defence, like criminological factors, phases of conflict, expression of stress and the legal problems of self-defence. Methods: Application, processing and interpretation of informations from scholarly publications. Results: The result of this thesis is summary of individual aspects of self-defence in common civil life. Keywords: self-defence, conflict, circumstances excluded lawlessnes

The diploma thesis aims to verify the validity of neorealism, institutional neoliberalism, and critical geopolitics about consequences of the economic globalization for the structure of Finnish and Swedish defence forces. For this purporse, the author primary used the method of congruence. The next step led to the comparison of congruence between observance implications and theories predictions. Based on the results of the Finnish defence forces, the theory of neorealism was confirmed because there is no significant shift in the scope/structure of defence forces in the favor of expeditionary/reconnaissance units. Moreover, there is no evidence to waive the balance of power reasoning even in the geopolitically-low-intesive region. Last but not least, it was shown that difference between the Finnish and Swedish geografic location is one of the key factor for its distinct approach towards potentional threats and instruments how to resolve them. Key words: economic globalization, security, defence forces, Finland, Sweden

The topic of this diploma thesis is the concept and legal consequences of excessive self-defence and necessity. The aim of the thesis is to introduce and describe the conditions of using these defences and to focus on issues of case law in connection with them. Criminal law is an essential part of everyday life. This diploma thesis focuses on analysis of all conditions imposed by Czech legislation as well as Irish legislation. It is composed of seven chapters and each chapter deals with different issues. The first chapter is an introduction to the whole thesis: it sets out aims and the methods used for achieving them. The second chapter deals with the definition of the concept of justification with the basic features of these circumstances and highlights the basic foundations for behaviour under self-defence or necessity. The third chapter is fully devoted to regulation of necessity, focusing on its basic conditions. Each condition is explained and described separately with references to the case law. One part of this chapter deals with the excess in behaviour under necessity and the following solutions in criminal trial. The fourth chapter deals with the concept of self-defence in the Czech Republic, defining it and analysing its basic conditions. Examples from the case are discussed and analysed...