This thesis employs discourse analysis to examine the human rights contradictions contained in the Common European Asylum System (CEAS). It follows the development of the CEAS since its inception in 1999. However, the principal emphasis of the thesis falls on the scope for realising a rights-based asylum regime in the post-Lisbon context. The research takes the form of policy analysis, and is grounded in a human rights framework of inquiry. This human rights perspective is used to examine the normative and legal inconsistencies inherent to the EU’s securitised approach to asylum, and to put forward suggestions for an approach to asylum in the EU, which engenders a rights-based approach to protection. The analysis of contemporary EU asylum policy and practice demonstrates the extent to which securitisation is present in EU asylum policymaking. It shows that, until the security paradigm in this policy area is supplanted, the realisation of a rights-based asylum system in the EU will not be possible. It also addresses the further challenges to the realisation of the EU as a ‘single asylum space,’ which stem from the limitations in the current instruments of the acquis, most notably the absence of burden-sharing mechanisms to ensure that the EU’s humanitarian obligations are shared equally amongst Member States. The recent ratification of the Treaty of Lisbon holds significant potential for the development of a rights-based asylum regime in the EU. However, it remains in question whether Member States have the political will necessary to accomplish this.

Off balance sheet financing (OBF) is either not visible or only partially visible in financial reporting for a number of reasons. It has attracted controversy in the light of its employment in a number of major corporate scandals. Previous investigations dominated by short works and consultancy papers have focused mainly on the financial aspects of OBF. This academic cross-country research on the use of OBF in the UK and US capital markets was undertaken to extend the published analyses to include a legal perspective by studying its legal implications for directors, financial advisers, auditors and financial regulators. The study’s legal focus prompted relying primarily on the doctrinal approach, which was in turn completed by the use of a modified case study in order to help address the how and why issues of the research phenomenon. The study found that OBF instruments are double-edge financial instruments with good and bad consequences. When corporations used OBF for liquidity enhancement or to realise financial savings, they result in positive outcomes. In contrast, when used for aggressive window-dressing or in the manipulation of financial reporting for fraudulent ends, OBF mechanisms generated serious legal liabilities for directors, auditors, and financial advisers in terms of compensation suits or even criminal sanctions. Financial regulators were nonetheless found to be less likely to face legal consequences as a result of current judicial attitudes on the tort of public misfeasance. However, the extensive applications of OBF in conjunction with other forms of creative accounting have resulted in various regulatory responses. On a comparative note, litigation and enforcement actions were found to be relatively more extensive in the US because of the higher incidence of large corporate frauds and the work of regulatory champions especially in New York using deferred prosecution agreements.

To securitise an issue is to elevate it above politics to security status. At the global level, population growth has been securitised by a number of change agents. They have arrived at an understanding of population growth as existentially threatening and of population control as the best solution. This transformative process took place during the twentieth century and was enabled largely by the United Nations. However, in some Muslim states and societies where population growth is potentially threatening and securitisation of it is necessary, Islamic factors and agents might prevent this from happening. Events and experiences suggest that population control is antithetical to Islam. Muslim states and societies tend to experience higher growth and fertility rates than their non-Muslim counterparts. Furthermore, some Islamic agents have vocally opposed global and national population control objectives. Because of these two occurrences, Islam is assumed to be pro-natalist and anti-population control. It is also assumed that Islam is causal to high fertility and growth and the failure of control efforts. But is this necessarily true? Is population control antithetical to Islam? Moreover, will Islam and its agents prevent the securitisation of population growth by Muslim states and societies? These questions are explored through the case studies of Iran and Pakistan.

This thesis addresses the role of education to mitigate the risks of deliberate disease, including biological weapons. Specifically, it aims to analyse how education was constructed as a potential instrument to mitigate specific security risks; if and how education could impact on risks; and how effectiveness of education as a risk mitigation measure could be improved. The research framework combines concepts of security, risk and education within a general constructionist approach. Securitization is used to analyse attempts to construct education as a tool to mitigate specific security risks; risk assessment is used to identify and characterize risk scenarios and potential for risks mitigation; and instructional design and evaluation models are used for the design and evaluation of education. The thesis contends that education has been constructed as a mitigation tool for what were presented as urgent security risks of deliberate disease. Nine attempted securitization moves are identified and assessed. Improved competences identified in four thematic areas, and built with education, can mitigate risks in specific scenarios via impacting factors that primarily influence risk likelihood. The thesis presents several examples of achieved learning objectives, and tools that can be useful to evaluate behavioural and risk impacts, though empirical results on these levels here are still scarce. Design and evaluation tools, illustrated through a large amount of original and pre-existing data from a range of countries and contexts, are presented that can improve effectiveness of education as a deliberate disease risks mitigation measure.

Alternative financing of small and medium-sized enterprises This thesis analyses whether the legal framework, both present and envisaged, regulating securitisation and crowdfunding is likely to improve the access of small and medium-sized enterprises to financing. The first chapter focuses on securitisation, with a particular focus on securitisation of SME loans. In doing so it evaluates the costs and benefits associated with securitisation, as well as securitised assets and the products of securitisation. The following part describes the mechanism of both a true sale and a synthetic securitisation. The key part of the chapter, however, deals with the legal framework regulating securitisation as well as each individual step of a securitisation transaction, and analyses several issues that may arise under Czech law in relation to securitisation. Next, the proposal for the securitisation regulation, which proposes criteria for qualified securitisations, is introduced. This chapter concludes with an evaluation of the said proposal and presents a level of scepticism as to its intended positive impact on SME financing. The second chapter deals with crowdfunding. After a general introduction into crowdfunding and its various business models, the rest of the chapter focuses on financial crowdfunding, i.e....

The thesis will deal with reasons that lead to households becoming in debt on one hand, and on the other hand, the impacts that are caused by this process. Households are the biggest economic subject that create savings. They are also the second biggest debtor of the financial sector. From this point of view, there is an important role for the banks and financial institutions that offer households many kinds of credit products. The role of the central bank and its monetary policy and supervision are also important. In the theoretical part of the thesis some approaches of various economists will be described and monetary policy and defined economic subjects will be explained . In the second part of the thesis, ways that can run people into debt and the evolution of interest rates will be analysed. Focus will be also put on innovation that has arisen in financial markets, that have made credit expansion possible, mainly securitisation. After that an analysis of negative and positive macroeconomic impacts will follow, which are brought on by excessive financing of consumption and housing. The thesis will finish with a comparison of the households' debt in the Czech Republic and in other developed countries.

The Master's thesis called "The Effects of Securitising Migration: The case of Slovakia and the Czech Republic" aims to analyse the extent to which is migration constructed as a security threat in crucial conceptual and strategic documents regarding migration, drafted by the Ministry of Interior of the Slovak Republic and the Ministry of Interior of the Czech Republic. Given that the Ministry of Interior is a key player in the field of migration in both countries setting the direction of migration policy on conceptual, legislative and implementation level, it enters a discursive field of migration by offering its own understanding of migration, which has a great impact on the policymaking in the area of migration, migration practice and consequently on the life of migrants. Despite the fact that both Slovakia and the Czech Republic have one of the lowest shares of foreigners within population in the whole European Union as well as neither of the two countries have been the final destinations of migrants during the so called refugee crisis, we can identify the dominant role of security discourse in both countries. To get a better insight into a wider social context, the thesis also builds on the number of "texts and talks" dealing with the issue of migration beside the official policy documents and...

This study has intended to demonstrate the effects of categorising climate change as a developmental issue rather than a security issue on the conflict in Darfur. This was achieved by studying the following research questions: (I) What is the role of climate change adaptation in developmental work in Darfur? (II) What is the role of climate change adaptation in security work in Darfur? (III) How is the work on climate change adaptation connected to the course of the conflict? These questions have been answered by collecting material relating to development and security in Darfur. This material was then analysed with the help of models by McGray et al., Barnett et al. and Matthews to identify the work that has been done with climate change adaptation in the two areas. This showed that the developmental work mainly focused locally on drivers of vulnerability and that the security work did not regard climate change up until 2016. The merely local approach by development work and the lacking attention to climate change in the missions caused a lacking national plan, a lacking disaster risk programme, no focus on land tenure rights, a wrong attitude towards conflict reconciliation, and an incomplete approach to vulnerability. These missing points of integration were all found to have negatively impacted peace consolidation, which has allowed for violent communal outbreaks to continue.

This thesis forms a report including human security and economic aspect experienced by three groups that are Radical right, Radical left, and the refugees. The examined theory is based on the securitisation of the EU sphere since the 2014/2015 refugee crisis and the Eurozone crisis. Economic perspective has a place in the public discourse inside the EU sphere, presenting moral dilemmas and political obligations of aiding the refugees in ethical scrutiny of human rights and human security.However, the de-radicalisation of the EU sphere deserves pointing attention to radicalised individuals and the reasons supporting both radicalisation and isolation. Therefore, human security assessment is made in three different groups to prioritise all the groups in the research: The refugees have participated with the presentatives of Radical right and Radical left ideology in the interviews. Data collected from the interviews and literature review include background information on the causes of the refugee movement, the EU-sphere migration process, and the organisations related to administrating and supporting the refugees and asylum-seeking process. The data of the research could be used by report makers, educators, and scholars.

There are several things which can influence a nations policy both from within a nation and without. This Thesis aimed to understand the relationship between international incidents and the national rhetoric and policy of a nation. To this end the thesis made use of a comparative case study around the case of the annexation of Crimea and its impact on Swedish defence policy and rhetoric. Making use of two theories to structure the analysis that of Framing and Securitisation. The thesis selected and made use of public addresses performed by the Swedish Prime Minsters, Foreign Minsters, Defence Ministers and policy documents posted from the years 2010 to 2018. This thesis found that while the frame of the Russian state existed before 2014, it became much more severe within the speeches and statements from Swedish politicians following the event moving from being a passive threat to Sweden to an actively growing threat which needed to be addressed. The solutions which are proposed during the period range from increased cooperation with nations around Sweden to more extreme solutions such as an increased war readiness and a permanent garrison which is stationed on the Gotland Island in response to a suggested Russian threat.