Unexploded Ordnance (UXO) contamination presents a considerable level of danger in almost all post-conflict environments. Globally there are a vast amount of casualties every year. However, accurate numbers of casualties is hard to obtain both globally and locally. The purpose of this thesis is to examine how UXO affects Human Security in Lao PDR. The methodology used is a theory consuming empirical and heuristic method. The thesis is a case study that does not attempt to generalize but to understand and analyze the relation between UXO and Human Security in the context of Lao PDR. The theory used in the thesis is Human Security based on the concept of the 1994 UNDP Human Development Report. The findings of the thesis make clear the connection between UXO contamination and lack of Human Security in Lao PDR. The direct and indirect consequences of UXO contamination are explored. Finally, the thesis works at a broader societal level where the links to poverty and development are illustrated.

Ce travail de thèse porte sur les destructions matérielles de la Grande Guerre et plus particulièrement sur la manière dont la société française s’est emparée des représentations de ruines pour en faire un symbole de douleur. Première conséquence directe et visible d’un conflit, les ruines témoignent de la guerre, de sa conduite, mais aussi des souffrances vécues par les militaires et les populations civiles. De l’artiste officiel rattaché aux armées au simple citoyen non mobilisé, en passant par le soldat anonyme, tous ont évoqué pendant la Première Guerre mondiale les destructions matérielles, les paysages désolés, la terre bouleversée par l’artillerie. Photographiées, dessinées, filmées, exposées à Paris, Londres ou Genève, les représentations de ruines se sont ainsi affichées dans les journaux, ont circulé sous forme de cartes postales et ont été reproduites dans divers ouvrages. Ces représentations iconographiques ont été instrumentalisées dès le commencement du conflit pour appuyer des discours contribuant à mobiliser les populations et à convaincre les pays neutres du bien-fondé de la guerre. Elles sont ensuite devenues une manière de rendre visible le conflit, mais surtout de témoigner de la violence nouvelle de cette guerre d’artillerie. Les descriptions littéraires en firent des corps vivants, blessés, transpositions anthropomorphes des soldats dont on montrait peu les corps. Cibles de la violence des armes, corps symboliques, fragiles, elles incarnèrent donc successivement le corps du combattant, puis le corps sacré de la Nation. La paix revenue, les ruines furent mobilisées une dernière fois pour appuyer les demandes de réparations de guerre. Elles furent aussi honorées par des remises de décorations et valorisées dans les circuits touristiques. Le débat autour des ruines se réduisit alors à un questionnement sur la conservation des vestiges de guerre. / This PhD work focuses on the material destruction caused by the Great War and more specifically on the way French society used the representations of ruins as a symbol of pain. As a first direct and visible consequence of conflict, ruins bear testimony to it, to its course, but also to the suffering of soldiers and civilian populations. Everybody, from the official military artist, the anonymous soldier to the ordinary citizen, evoked the material destruction, the desolate landscapes and the earth upheaved by artillery shells during the First World War. Photographed, drawn, filmed, exhibited in Paris, London or Geneva, the representations of ruins were shown in newspapers, they have been distributed as postcards and have also been reproduced in various works. These iconographic representations were used from the very beginning of the conflict to support the arguments used to mobilize populations and convince neutral countries of the validity of the war. They then became a way of making the conflict visible, but especially to testify the new violence caused by artillery. The Literary descriptions presented them as living, wounded bodies, as anthropomorphic transpositions of the soldiers whose bodies were rarely displayed. Targets of armed violence, symbolic bodies and fragile, ruins have embodied first of all the body of the warrior and subsequently the sacred body of the Nation. Once peace had been restored, the ruins were mobilized one last time to reinforce the demands for war reparations. They were also honoured through decorative ceremonies and valued through organized tourist tours. Since then the debate around ruins has been minimized to a question of their conservation as remnants of war.