The purpose of this study is to examine the utility of a just war explanation in understanding Canada’s decision to enter into the war in Afghanistan. It examines Canada’s three phases of the war under the lens of jus ad bellum. The concentration is upon jus ad bellum’s core criteria of legitimate authority, public declaration of intent, just cause, last resort, reasonable chance of success and proportionality and then applies it to the three phases. By examining Canada’s international role, paying close attention to Canada’s association with the UN, NATO and its ally status with the United State are important explanations of why Canada entered into the Afghanistan war. This analysis strives to provide a holistic comprehension by exploring the utility of an ignored body of explanation and extrapolates from this analysis the contemporary use of jus ad bellum.

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Diplomatic stalemate at the seat of the UN Security Council is by no means a recent problem. Nevertheless, it may be argued that 'American unilateralism' reached its apex in July 2002, when the United States stood its ground and demanded immunity from prosecution before the International Criminal Court ("ICC") for US peacekeepers. This request was accompanied by the heavy-handed and deadly serious threat to veto the renewal of the UN peacekeeping mission in Bosnia, a threat which was realised over the course of the debates. This political brinkmanship, which pitted the United States against friends and foes alike, finally ceased when the US agreed to accept a Security Council Resolution offering a twelve-month deferral of prosecution for peacekeepers before the ICC. It is the legality of this Resolution which is the focus of this thesis. This thesis will expose the Resolution to the limits of international law and question the legitimacy of the tactics employed by the US. It will argue that in order to appease the recalcitrant superpower, the Security Council passed a Resolution contrary to both the Rome Statute of the ICC and the UN Charter. With the ICC still in its embryonic stage, this thesis will suggest the responses available to the Court when faced with a Resolution of such dubious legality which affects its jurisdiction to try the most heinous crimes known to humanity.

This study examines what frames the Swedish Lev Upp till Barnkonventionen campaign use, and whether the frames are in accordance to the frames suggested by Keck and Sikkink in their award-winning book Activists Beyond Borders. The Swedish Lev Upp till Barnkonventionen campaign is the only campaign in Sweden that aims to promote the implementation of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child into Swedish law. It started in 2009 as a network driven by 7 organizations, UNICEF, BRIS, World Childhood Foundation, Swedish Save the Children (Rädda Barnen), ECPAT, Plan Sverige and SOS-Barnbyar, together with the Swedish Children‟s Ombudsman (Barnombudsman). An ideational analysis of the texts, that the campaign uses to appeal to society and persuade, shows that four frames are frequently used within the campaign. Two of the frames are in accordance with the proposed frames, being "bodily harm to innocent and vulnerable people" and "legal inequality". The other two frames set the problem to be poverty/economic vulnerability or psychological harm. Although, all four frames identified follow the three parts a frame should include according to Keck and Sikkink – a problem, a cause with a short causal chain and a specific type of action to solve the problem. This study has contributed with another case study to the limited amount of cases that study how international norms are framed in national contexts. Furthermore, this study has discovered that Sweden, although is using other frames too, use the frames that Keck and Sikkink have proposed.

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