No description available.

Sexuality is one of the most central elements of human existence. Throughout history, attacks on women have been common during armed conflict. Frequently military forces have viewed sexual violence as a spoil of war, a punishment to defeated populations, or as the deviance of rogue soldiers. However, there are conflicts in which sexual violence is used as a weapon. In these conflicts, sexual violence evolves from a facet of conflict to genocide. When a military force’s command utilizes systematic and widespread sexual violence as a weapon of war, in both intent and effect, it fulfills every condition of the Geneva Convention standards of genocide. Three cases are analyzed within this thesis: Chile under the Pinochet dictatorship, Rwanda during its genocide, and Bosnia during the break-up of the former Yugoslavia. Motivations for each of the conflicts varied. However, the constant in all three conflicts was the intended elimination of a specific group and the implementation of a policy of sexual violence in order to do so. In order for crimes to be considered genocide they must fulfill one of the following conditions, as stated in Article 2 of the Geneva Conventions, any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group, as such: A. Killing members of the group; B. Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; C. Deliberately inflicting on the group the conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; D. Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; E. Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group. Egregious acts of sexual violence and torture were utilized by all three respective commands in order to murder, incur grievous mental and physical harms, destroy the group’s ability to procreate in the future and impose measures upon the group intended to bring about its end. This work demonstrates that irrespective of the cause of a conflict, when systematic and widespread sexual violence is used as a weapon of war, it is genocide.

The theoretical part of diploma thesis The Treatment of Prisoners of War in Afghanistan addresses the international law response to events related with the "war on terror". It also highlights the fact that the application of international law is necessary for harmonization national legislation of the states with international rules. In this case the United States of America. The empirical part of the thesis points out to the case of prison torture in detention center Bagram. The aim of this thesis is posing a question whether nowadays it is possible to capture and define the legal issues that arise with the torture of prisoners of war.

No description available.

The Red Cross, Red Crescent and Red Crystal Movement is the largest humanitarian movement in the world with 97 million volunteer workers around the globe. The organisation relies on seven fundamental principles, the Neutrality Principle being one of them. The questions of this essay are: *Is it yet possible to provide neutral humanitarian aid in the 21st century? *Have the humanitarian crisis’s changed between the 20th century and the 21st century?

No description available.

No description available.

Magister Philosophiae - MPhil

(English) The thesis focuses on the issue of humanitarian assistance under international humanitarian law. The topic was chosen based on the personal interest of the author of the thesis and also based on the fact that it is a current and very discussed issue. The thesis is concerned with the legal sources governing the concept of humanitarian assistance. It also focuses on the history of the concept paying special attention to its modern development and to the principles on which it is based. Individual chapter is dedicated to the issue of providers and beneficiaries of humanitarian assistance. Special attention is also given to the issue of consent with the facilitation of humanitarian assistance, whether it is necessary to sough such a consent and from whom. Significant part of the thesis focuses on the facilitation and distribution of humanitarian assistance and the obligations of the third states. The first chapter of the thesis is dedicated to the introduction, definition of the term "humanitarian assistance", aims and goals of the thesis, and also to the methods and sources. The second chapter focuses in a great detail on legal sources relevant to the thesis. First, it pays attention to the treaty law. Thus, it describes the relevant provisions of the Geneva Convention IV, the Additional...

Magister Philosophiae - MPhil / South Africa