Thesis (M.A.) - Simon Fraser University, 2005. / Theses (School of Criminology) / Simon Fraser University.

The armed conflicts to humanity for centuries. Almost always the reason for armed conflict dominion over certain territories. If we focus on armed conflicts closest to us history, it is clear that these include first and second World War. These two wars have caused thousands of deaths on all sides and great hardship of the civilian population. After World War II it seemed that the end of armed conflicts. Nevertheless, followed by the war in Korea or Vietnam, where once again innocent civilians died. But this is more than fifty years of history. Unfortunately, the armed conflict is still repeated, and since 1990 there were more than a hundred and twenty. Although not a war of such magnitude, which is involved in the entire world, but they have also been responsible for hundreds of deaths. The trend of conflict after the Cold War is undoubtedly the killing of civilians. Unfortunately, the loss ratio for the armed forces and civilians dramatically changed. Particularly in Africa are relatively small losses on fighting units. But civilians are dying by the hundreds of thousands. Reasons for armed conflict after the Cold War are different. In most cases, however, it is the territory and related ethnic cleansing, or wealth, which are eg. in Africa diamonds. The purpose of my thesis was draw attention to the constant threats to fundamental human rights in armed conflicts are totally ignored. The theoretical part describes international humanitarian law, which should be the basis for armed conflict. And describes the basic principles of international humanitarian law and the types of armed conflict under international humanitarian law. The theoretical part also describes some of the articles of the Geneva Conventions and the Additional Protocols to the armed conflict since 1990 are the most commonly used and are very serious. Due to the number of armed conflicts since 1990, which was more than 120, is shown in the work of ten selected armed conflicts. In selected conflicts are described various war crimes that were committed against the civilian population. These crimes are similar in countries that are a common culture or mentality. In African countries is the same crimes. The difference is mostly in scale committing these war crimes. The same is true even in the conflicts in the former Yugoslavia. In this thesis were consumed interviews with some participants armed conflicts, which greatly helps us to better understand the war crimes that were committed during the armed conflict. Processing and evaluation of the results was done in MS Word and MS Excel.

This paper examines the possible future of chemical weapons through an exploration of the origins and history of legal proscriptions on their use and the practical utility of their procurement and use. Past public misunderstanding of the extent of the chemical weapons threat, exacerbated by propaganda, as well as fears of retaliatory use motivated efforts to ban the use of chemical weapons. These prohibitions have had and continue to have weaknesses and loopholes that prevent their intentions from being fully realized. While chemical agents have a wide variety of applications and have several unique advantages, including psychological effects on victims, their use is limited by several drawbacks. The accessibility of some agents is also limited for actors who are not major powers. Recent developments in chemical weapons use, especially their use in the Syrian civil war, inform present understanding of international resolve to prevent chemical weapons use and the continued advantages chemical weapons provide. These findings provide a framework to understand future opportunities for actors to produce chemical weapons and the likelihood that these actors will actually use chemical weapons.

Rape and other forms of sexual violence have been used against civilian populations since the advent of armed conflict. However, recent scholarship within the last few decades proves that rape is not a byproduct of war or a result of transgressions by a few “bad apples,” rather, rape and sexual violence are used as strategic, systematic, and calculated tools of war, ethnic cleansing, and genocide. Rape has also been used as a means of preventing future generations of children of “undesirable” groups from being born. Rape and sexual violence are also used with the purpose of intimidating women and their communities, destroying the social fabric and cohesion of specific groups, and even as a final act of humiliation before killing the victim. In each conflict that is examined in this thesis, sexual violence is used against civilian populations for the specific purpose of genocide.

Recently, the interaction between International Human Rights Law (IHRL) and International Humanitarian Law (IHL) has been significantly developed by the jurisprudence of the Inter- American Court of Human Rights (IACtHR). This article analyzes this recent trend from the cases of the Santo Domingo Massacreand Afro communities displaced from the Cacarica River Basin (Operation Genesis) of this tribunal to assert its competence not only to use IHL to interpret the Inter-American human rights instruments but, at the same time, to approach a direct use of humanitarian standards, which creates a gray area between the interpretation and application of such area of Law. In doing so, the Court resorts to the lex specialis if the IHL norm is the most specialized for the case, and uses IHL to a limited extent, only to expand the content of human rights, but not to judge on possible violations of IHL, which results in a methodology of pick and choose of IHL provisions. / Recientemente, la interacción entre el Derecho Internacional de los Derechos Humanos (DIDH) y el Derecho Internacional Humanitario (DIH) ha sido desarrollada significativamente en la jurisprudencia de la Corte Interamericana de Derechos Humanos (Corte IDH). Este artículo analiza la tendencia reciente de los casos Masacre de Santo Domingo y Comunidades Afrodescendientes desplazadas de la cuenca del río Cacarica (Operación Génesis) de este tribunal para afirmar su competencia no solo para utilizar el DIH al interpretar los instrumentos interamericanos de derechos humanos, pero, al mismo tiempo, para aproximarse a la utilización directa de las normas humanitarias, lo que genera una zona gris entre la interpretación y aplicación de esta área del Derecho. Al hacerlo, la Corte recurre a la lex specialis si la norma del DIH es la más especializada para el caso; y utiliza el DIH hasta cierto límite, solamente para expandir el contenido de los derechos humanos, pero no para juzgar posibles violaciones del DIH, lo que resulta en una metodología de pick and choose (selectiva) de las normas del DIH.

Due to the crisis lived in Mali since 2012, due to a non-international armed conflict between the government and different armed groups, the Security Council of the United Nations Organization declared that the situation in Mali constituted a threat to international peace and security. This led to the military intervention in Mali by France. This article aims to analyse the arguments with which the French government attempted to justify its intervention in order to determine if those arguments are legal or not. / Debido a la crisis que vive Malí desde el año 2012, a causa de un conflicto armado no internacional entre el gobierno y varios grupos armados, el Consejo de Seguridad de la Organización de Naciones Unidas declaró que dicha situación representaba una amenaza contra la paz y la seguridad internacionales. Ello condujo a la intervención  militar de Francia  en la República de Malí. Este artículo tiene como objetivo analizar los argumentos con los que el gobierno francés justificó su intervención para así determinar sidichos argumentos son legales o no.

Les Humanitaires et les Journalistes sont des acteurs de terrain qui se mobilisent à chaque fois que des conflits armés éclatent et que des populations sont, malheureusement, livrées à elles-mêmes. Leurs missions respectives consistent, d'une part, à venir en aide aux victimes touchées soit par la maladie, soit par la famine ou encore par les blessures de guerre ; d'autre part, à informer sur la situation conflictuelle en cours, parfois à en dénoncer les dérives et violations du droit de la guerre. Cependant, le danger n'est jamais très loin de ces deux acteurs de terrain, car ils sont exposés aux effets directs et indirects du conflit armé que peuvent être : les enlèvements voire les rétentions arbitraires, les assassinats, les viols, etc. La particularité de leurs missions et la dangerosité des zones dans lesquelles ils exercent, leur ont fait gagner en importance en droit international. C’est en ce sens qu’un cadre de protection juridique des Humanitaires et des Journalistes a été élaboré par le droit international, notamment via deux de ses branches que sont le droit international humanitaire et le droit pénal international. Il en résulte donc à la fois une protection par les textes contraignants de droit international humanitaire, ainsi qu’une protection par la répression judiciaire des violations desdits textes grâce aux règles de droit pénal international. Un équilibre parfait sur le papier que les juridictions compétentes tardent à appliquer, principalement en raison d’une négligence, voire d’un désintérêt, pour la problématique de la protection juridique des Humanitaires et des Journalistes. / Humanitarian workers and journalists are actors on the ground who mobilize every time armed conflicts erupt and populations are unfortunately left to their own devices. Their respective missions consist, on the one hand, in helping the victims affected either by illness, famine or war wounds ; on the other hand, to inform about the current conflict situation, sometimes to denounce its abuses and violations of the law of war. However, the danger is never very far from these two actors on the ground, because they are exposed to the direct and indirect effects of the armed conflict that can be : kidnappings or even arbitrary retention, assassinations, rape, etc. The particularity of their missions and the dangerousness of the areas in which they exercise, has increased their importance in international law. It is in this sense that a legal protection framework for humanitarians and journalists has been developed by international law, in particular through two branches of : international humanitarian law and international criminal law. The result is both protection by binding texts of international humanitarian law, as well as protection by judicial repression of violations of these texts thanks to the rules of international criminal law. A perfect balance on paper that the competent jurisdictions are slow to apply, mainly because of negligence or even lack of interest in the legal protection of humanitarians and journalists.

A Child in an Armed Conflict in the Light of Article 38 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child The thesis aims to transparently elaborate the topic of protection of children in armed conflicts pursuant to the Article 38 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child as well as identification of the main problems associated with the topic and efforts to suggest their solutions. The thesis also focuses on monitoring and enforcement mechanism of individual international instruments. The body of the thesis is divided into four parts, each of several chapters. The first part of the thesis deals with the development of protection of children in armed conflicts until the adoption of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and relevant international law documents on the protection of children in armed conflicts. The first part also includes a chapter with the identification of the main problems associated with the protection of children. Second part of the thesis concentrates on the analysis of various instruments of international law regarding the protection of children, that is, of course, the Convention on the Rights of the Child and its Optional Protocols, and following documents regarding protection of children based on this Convention, i.e. The Convention of the International Labour Organization...

The use of Private Military Companies (PMCs) has become an increasingly common feature of contemporary armed conflict. Because of their autonomous contractual status, PMCs have presented governments with problems of accountability on several levels, including violations of international human rights and humanitarian law (IHL) standards. This thesis argues that PMCs should be considered to be non-state actors (NSAs), subject to international law from both an International Relations Theory and a Legal Theory perspective. This conclusion is linked to the issue of whether individual PMC employees can be treated as legitimate combatants according to IHL. State practice has not led to a clear understanding of the definition of combatant, a problem which has been compounded by a lack of government policy on the use of PMCs. Using Canadian experience as a case study, the thesis concludes that IHL suggests two options for regularizing the status of PMCs which would both strengthen accountability and uphold the rule of law.

On the particular example of the US new motto of the foreign policy after 9/11 --War on Terror I am trying to refer to the work of the non-profit organization Amnesty International in the field of the international relations. I am pointing out its importance in the decision-making process of the political elites. My intention is to find the correlation between the persuasion of the American population in relation to its leadership or leaders based on the expressed promises in the election campaign. As the object of my work I have chosen the current US President - Barack Obama whose one of his five main promises declared in the campaign was to defeat the terrorism, detain and adequately punish the masterminds of attacks from the September 2001 for the committed crimes. This point comprises the significant change from the approach of his predecessor and so the closure of the Guantanamo military base as a symbol of modern torture and denial of human rights which serves as a detention camp for the suspects of terrorism for more than 14 years now. This was a daring commitment but he gained millions of supporters thanks to it. This option comprised the expectations of sophisticated solutions for tens of substantial issues, including meeting the objective of punishment of the terrorists and establishment of deterrent precedent for any other similar attempts. Obama failed to accomplish it.