This dissertation investigates regime-based efforts by states to cooperate in providing assistance and protection to refugees since 1648. It argues from a constructivist perspective that state interests and identities are shaped both by other actors in the international system - including norm entrepreneurs, non-governmental organizations, and international organizations - and by the broader normative environment. Refugees are a by-product of this environment. Fundamental institutions - including territoriality, popular sovereignty, and international law - formed a system in which exit was one of the few mechanisms of survival for those who were religiously and politically persecuted. This led states to recognize that people who were so persecuted were different from ordinary migrants and had a right to flee their own state and seek accommodation elsewhere. States recognized this right to leave, but did not recognize a requirement that any given state had a responsibility to accept these refugees. This contradiction creates a dilemma in international relations, one which states have sought to solve through international cooperation. The dissertation explores policy change within the United States and Great Britain at the international and domestic levels in order to understand the tensions within current refugee protection efforts. Three regimes, based in different normative understandings, have framed state cooperation. In the first, during the 19th century, refugees were granted protections under domestic and then bilateral law through extradition treaties. The second, in the interwar period, saw states taught by norm entrepreneurs that multilateral organizations could successfully assist refugees, though states remained unwilling to provide blanket assistance and be bound by international law. These issues led to the failure of states to accommodate Jewish refugees fleeing from Germany in the 1930s. The third, since the Second World War, had a greater consistency among its norms, especially recognition by states of the need for international law. Once again, this process was shaped by other actors, including the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). This regime has been challenged by increased refugee numbers and restrictions on the part of states, but its central purpose remains robust due to the actions of actors such as the UNHCR.

This dissertation investigates regime-based efforts by states to cooperate in providing assistance and protection to refugees since 1648. It argues from a constructivist perspective that state interests and identities are shaped both by other actors in the international system - including norm entrepreneurs, non-governmental organizations, and international organizations - and by the broader normative environment. Refugees are a by-product of this environment. Fundamental institutions - including territoriality, popular sovereignty, and international law - formed a system in which exit was one of the few mechanisms of survival for those who were religiously and politically persecuted. This led states to recognize that people who were so persecuted were different from ordinary migrants and had a right to flee their own state and seek accommodation elsewhere. States recognized this right to leave, but did not recognize a requirement that any given state had a responsibility to accept these refugees. This contradiction creates a dilemma in international relations, one which states have sought to solve through international cooperation. The dissertation explores policy change within the United States and Great Britain at the international and domestic levels in order to understand the tensions within current refugee protection efforts. Three regimes, based in different normative understandings, have framed state cooperation. In the first, during the 19th century, refugees were granted protections under domestic and then bilateral law through extradition treaties. The second, in the interwar period, saw states taught by norm entrepreneurs that multilateral organizations could successfully assist refugees, though states remained unwilling to provide blanket assistance and be bound by international law. These issues led to the failure of states to accommodate Jewish refugees fleeing from Germany in the 1930s. The third, since the Second World War, had a greater consistency among its norms, especially recognition by states of the need for international law. Once again, this process was shaped by other actors, including the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). This regime has been challenged by increased refugee numbers and restrictions on the part of states, but its central purpose remains robust due to the actions of actors such as the UNHCR. / Arts, Faculty of / Political Science, Department of / Graduate

The thesis is concerned with the international position of Czechoslovakia between the years 1918 and 1938. Its aim is to explore possibilities and chances of a small state to survive and to prosper. The thesis analyses Czechoslovak journey to independence during the World War I, its activities at the Parisian Peace Conference, its performance in the League of Nations, development of mutual relations with powers and succesion states of former Austria-Hungaria and foundation of Petite entente. The thesis also pays attention to events that preceded signing of the Munich Agreement in September 1938 and tries to answer the question if it had been possible to prevent it and if there were any other ways how to react.

Les Etats sont amenés à espionner les organisations internationales, les structures comme les membres qui les composent, car ces organisations ont déterminé depuis 1920 la place et la puissance des Etats dans l’ordre international. Cette recherche traite de la dynamique du renseignement dans la relation diplomatique de l’Etat à la Société des Nations et aux Nations Unies, de son articulation avec la diplomatie dans l’élaboration d’une politique étrangère à la SDN et à l’ONU. L’enjeu est de définir les leviers théoriques de l’articulation stratégique entre les services diplomatiques et les services de renseignement au cours de moments historiques précis et marquants des appréhensions, des objectifs, des moyens de mise en œuvre et de conduite des politiques d’influence des Etats dans les organisations internationales. A la SDN puis à l’ONU, nous étudierons le renseignement par le biais de son évolution vis-à-vis de ces nouveaux cadres internationaux, des figures et des jeux d’espions qui entourent les activités des organisations internationales, puis au cours de temps diplomatiques forts qui ont renforcé son rôle dans les organismes internationaux. Cette étude revisite l’histoire des relations internationales et des grandes institutions multilatérales telle qu’elle a été appréciée par les services de renseignement. Nous verrons ainsi que le renseignement à la SDN et à l’ONU se construit en fonction des impératifs diplomatiques comme un outil traditionnel de puissance et d’influence, un instrument de force et d’intégration de la politique étrangère des Etats. Il permettra de se projeter dans une actualité très contemporaine avec toute la profondeur de l’Histoire. / States are encouraged to spy on international organizations, as much on the structures themselves as on the members who compose them, because these organizations have determined since 1920 the role and power of states in the international order. This research deals with the intelligence process in the State diplomatic relation with the League of Nations (LN) and the United Nations (UN), and its coordination with diplomacy in developing a foreign policy within the LN and the UN. What is a stake is to define the theoretical levers of strategic coordination between the diplomatic and intelligence services during specific historical moments of apprehensions, objectives, means of implementation and conduct of policies of influence of states within international organizations. In the LN then in the UN, we will study intelligence through its evolution with regard to the new international frameworks, figures and spy games around the activities of international organizations and during strong diplomatic times which strengthened its role in international bodies. This study revisits the history of international relations and major multilateral institutions as it was appreciated by the intelligence services. We will see therefore that Intelligence in the LN and the UN is built depending on the diplomatic imperatives, as a traditional tool of power and influence, an instrument of strength and integration of the foreign policy of States. It will throw us in very contemporary affairs with all the depth of History.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

This thesis examines the body of international law drawn upon during the Nuremberg trials after World War II. The work analyzes the Hague Conventions, the Paris Peace Conference, and League of Nations decisions to support its conclusions. Contrary to the commonly held belief that the laws violated during World War II by the major war criminals were newly developed ideas, this thesis shows that the laws evolved over an extended period prior to the war. The work uses conference minutes, published government sources, the official journal of the League of Nations, and many memoirs to support the conclusions.

Jan Havlasa was the first Ambassador of Czechoslovakia to Brazil, a distinguished writer and explorer. The purpose of this thesis is to present the explorer's life. Havlasa visited Slovakia after finishing secondary school, and soon after he travelled also to Italy; Saint Louis, Missouri; or the island of Tahiti. After the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, Havlasa served as the Ambassador of Czechoslovakia to Brazil (1920-1924); in 1943, Czechoslovak president Edvard Beneš called him back into diplomatic service, this time as the Ambassador to Chile. Among his most important formative experiences we can find his membership in the Opium Commission of the League of Nations. Despite the fact that Havlasa spent most of his life abroad, he never relinquished his homeland: he took interest in the situation of Czechoslovakia and fought for its independence on the Austro-Hungarian monarchy. His extensive lecturing activities, as well as his treatise Colonial Policy in Relation to the Great War earned him one year of gaol in Vienna. The thesis also takes into account Havlasa's extensive literary work and his lectures, which took place all over Czechoslovakia and during which he presented his books, photographs and travel experience to his readers and listeners.