Thesis advisor: James E. Cronin / Thesis advisor: Seth Jacobs / Under the banner of a New International Economic Order (NIEO), in the 1970s a coalition of developing countries forced the U.S. and other rich nations to revisit the terms of the post-World War II economic settlement through comprehensive global negotiations. This dissertation argues that this economic showdown reshaped U.S. foreign policy and made global inequality a major threat to American national security. Using newly available sources from presidential libraries, the personal papers of cabinet members and ambassadors, and interviews with former National Security Council officials, it demonstrates how the NIEO and accompanying “North-South dialogue” negotiations became an inflection point for some of the greatest economic, political, and moral crises of the 1970s, including the end of “Golden Age” liberalism and the return of the market, the splintering of the Democratic Party and the building of the Reagan coalition, and the role of human rights in foreign policy. U.S. policy debates and decisions in the North-South dialogue, it concludes, were pivotal moments in the histories of three ideological trends—neoliberalism, neoconservatism, and human rights—that would form the core of America’s post-Cold War foreign policy. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2018. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: History.

The United Nations Counterterrorism and Human Rights Committees’ current collaborative practices have failed to reduce global terrorists’ activities and human rights abuses associated with counterterrorism activities. The purpose of this qualitative case study was to explore and compare collaborative processes between the committees in combatting terrorism and human rights violations associated with counterterrorism. The researched was centered around two key questions: The similarities and differences with information sharing processes and the impacts of the committees’ collaborative processes on terrorists’ activities and human rights violations. For this study, the pragmatic paradigm theoretical framework was used, focusing on the descriptive exploratory design. Secondary data was used as a source. Additionally, face-to-face and telephonic interviews with subject matter experts were conducted. Eclectic coding was used as the primary coding methodology to integrate other coding methodologies in the analysis process. The research concluded that the current multidisciplinary collaborative process used by the United Nations Counterterrorism Committee and Human Rights Committee creates inefficiencies that enable terrorists’ activities to adapt while reinforcing their terrorist message. Strategically integrating the interdisciplinary process within both committees could expand each committee’s awareness and efficiency in specified areas while positively reducing terrorist activities and human rights violations. Developing an appreciation and understanding beyond one’s individual expertise while melding expert considerations is the basis of the interdisciplinary process that can positively effect social change for a more stable international forum.

In the last 20 years, international donors have made efforts to increase the participation of minorities into development programmes. Despite these efforts, development actors continues to receive critique from postcolonial theorists for continuing to reinforce neocolonial and Western-centered tendencies onto minorities. Given this background, the purpose of this study is to investigate how indigenous peoples in Latin America and their issues are represented and allowed to participate in and challenge the development agenda. This is done by analysing how ‘indigeneity’ and indigenous peoples’ issues are portrayed in reports by international donors. Through a discourse analysis of two reports from the World Bank and ECLAC, this study finds that indigenous peoples are still not allowed to challenge the standard development agenda. Even though improvements have been made concerning explicit representations of indigenous peoples knowledges and values as inferior, the findings of this study show that indigenous peoples’ issues are often represented to be legitimate only when its moved to Western frameworks. These findings suggest that postcolonial attitudes towards indigenous peoples are still integrated in development programmes. This study however encourages further research of postcolonial attitudes towards indigenous peoples within international donors, and how international donors can improve in these aspects.

"Although the concept of human rights is not new, it has never attracted more attention than today. However, contrary to the tremendous growth of concern for the international protection of human rights, Rwanda was visited by three main deplorable waves of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. Therefore, while the study is based on the premise that the primary duty of preventing these international crimes lies with the state, it will be argued that the secondary duty lies with international organisations like the UN and the AU. Both organisations could have averted or minimised the atrocities that occurred in Rwanda. Accordingly the study aims to address four issues. First, it attempts to review the weaknesses of the UN and OAU in their human rights monitoring and promotional fucntion derived from international human rights instruments. Second, it seeks to investigate the shortcomings and the failures of these two organisations in intervening to stop the Rwandan genocide. Third, it attempts to examine the UN's and AU's current handling of the cases of genocide as a preventive mechanism against gross human rights violations in Rwanda. Finally, the study will attempt to see if the failures seen in Rwanda are reflected in the current responses of the UN and the AU. The study presupposes that the 1994 Rwandan genocide, although not altogether inevitable, would not have been so comprehensive had the UN and the OAU/AU not developed a culture of impunity in the genocide of 1963 and 1973. One way assume, too, that the suffering could even have been minimized had there been active measures taken by these two organisations. This thesis proceeds on the premise of a problem that the vacuum that still exists under the Rwandan situation, both pre- and post-1994 genocide, as well as the weakness of the response from the UN and AU, is also abetting the current genocide in Sudan and countries with a volatile situation, like the Democratic Republic of Congo and Burundi." -- Introduction. / Thesis (LLM (Human Rights and Democratisation in Africa)) -- University of Pretoria, 2004. / http://www.chr.up.ac.za/academic_pro/llm1/llm1.html / Centre for Human Rights / LLM

The main objectives of this study are: 1) To critically appraise the supposed tension between ‘territorial integrity’ on the one hand, and the peoples’ right to self-determination as a basis for secession. 2) To demonstrate that the current position of the law is tactically vague and crippling to the international efforts for a better and peaceful world for all. 3) To draw lessons from the practice of the United Nations and other regional bodies in diffusing violent conflict and maintaining peace where secession claims have taken violent forms. 4) To suggest an edifice for the permanent mandate of the United Nations to deal with secession claims. / A dissertation submitted to the Faculty of Law University of Pretoria, in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree Masters of Law (LLM in Human Rights and Democratisation in Africa). Prepared under the supervision of Dr Ben Twinomugisha, Faculty of Law, Makerere University, Uganda. / LLM Dissertation (Human Rights and Democratisation in Africa -- University of Pretoria, 2009. / http://www.chr.up.ac.za/ / Centre for Human Rights / LLM

Globalisation and the transfer of powers from state constitutional systems to international organisations (IOs) have led to several deficiencies, especially with regard to checks and balances in global governance. The need to inculcate the rule of law and constitutionalism in global governance has therefore gained currency in the 21st century. This has been exemplified by calls for the reform of the United Nations (UN) and the extensive reforms in regional IOs, such as the European Union (EU), with emphasis on institutional balance and the tempering of political power with institutional controls. / Thesis (LLM (Human Rights and Democratisation in Africa)) -- University of Pretoria, 2010. / A dissertation submitted to the Faculty of Law University of Pretoria, in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree Masters of Law (LLM in Human Rights and Democratisation in Africa). Prepared under the supervision of Dr. Jacqui Gallinetti Faculty of Law, University of the Western Cape, Cape Town, South Africa. 2010. / http://www.chr.up.ac.za/ / Centre for Human Rights / LLM

<p>Does increased participation of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) improve the democratic quality at intergovernmental organizations (IGOs)? Multilateral institutions and global governance mechanisms have emerged during the past few decades to tackle global challenges, such as climate change. However, policy making institutions such as IGOs are often viewed as lacking democratic legitimacy. The decision- making process remains tied to nation-states represented often by non-elected delegates, yet the decisions affect people who do not have a say in the process. One remedy proposed by global governance scholars to close such democratic deficit is to include a variety of stakeholders such as non-governmental actors. I challenge the conventional wisdom that assumes the democratic potential of these actors, and unpack the “blackbox” of NGOs to assess their internal politics.</p><p></p><div><p>To assess their role in global governance, we need to understand the substantive participation and patterns of interaction among the NGOs at the governance institutions. I construct a multilevel theoretical framework from a social network perspective to understand their participation and interaction. The theoretical framework is based on transnational social movement theory and social network theory.</p><p></p><div><p>I draw on the example of women’s groups working at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) annual conferences. Employing both quantitative statistical analysis and network analysis, I demonstrate an evident increase in women’s groups that participate substantively at the UNFCCC. How- ever, the growth is accompanied by inequality in participation. Not all groups that attend the UNFCCC participate in collective advocacy or network actively. The variation is associated with the capacity and social embeddedness of a given organization. Furthermore, the community working on women’s issues has become fragmented over- time. The fragmentation is a result of NGOs’ different strategies and understandings of their role in global climate governance. The institutional context of UNFCCC has also contributed to the fragmentation. Overall, these civil society actors contribute to the democratization of the UNFCCC process by adding new voices, establishing new issue linkages, and raising awareness for women’s rights and gender equality. At the same time, however, the internal inequality and the power imbalance could further exacerbate the democratic deficit in the global climate governance process.</p><p></p><div><p>I have independently collected data on over 800 actors at the UN climate conferences. I have also conducted semi-structured, in-depth interviews with civil society representatives at the UN climate change summits in 2017 and 2018. The findings contribute to the understanding of democratic legitimacy in global governance of large-scale, transnational challenges by analyzing both macro-level network relation- ships among actors and the micro-level mechanisms among network members.</p></div></div></div>

This Master's thesis will focus on the newest trends in the field of United Nations (UN) peacekeeping operations that are moving the organization to unknown territory by deploying in theatres where missions are faced with asymmetric threats. In this regard, the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA), constituted as a groundbreaking and innovative peacekeeping operation, is spearheading a realignment in peacekeeping that can potentially shape future operations to come, as mandates increasingly reflect roles in areas such as counter-insurgency and counter-terrorism. The core objective of this study will be to analyze why MINUSMA is being forced to go green while studying how it is doing so, reflecting on past experiences from other operations such as the International Stabilization Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan and the Multi-National Force in Iraq (MNF-I), that have guided changes in MINUSMA's doctrines and capabilities. Gabriel van Oppen Ardanaz

Syrian Civil War has been occupying the international agenda since the year 2011. Despite the fact that most of the attention is paid to the conflict itself, peace processes are part of the international competition on Syrian arena, as well. For this reason, the thesis attempts to examine two major peace tracks: Astana and Geneva processes. The former is established among Russia-Turkey-Iran trio in late 2016 and functions as a regional mediation ground while the latter is led by the top world organization, the UN, as a ground for international actors with substantial interest in the Near East. Astana's relatively better performance in reaching certain outcomes is analyzed with hypotheses derived from three core International Relations theories: Realism, Liberalism and Constructivism. In this regard, those assumptions analyze actors that are involved in the conflict within the framework of their relevant peace track. According to the conducted analyses, findings indicate that realist hypothesis is better at explaining Astana's "fruitfulness" than the other assumptions- especially field-level agreements but not the broader cooperation among the Astana trio. Hence, Geneva track with higher level of international participation carries greater importance for an ultimate resolution to the conflict.

The transition from war to peace is seldom smooth, and violence persists in many postwar societies. Existing research found that peacekeepers have a good record in addressing postwar violence along the fault lines of the preceding conflict. Yet, most postwar violence stems from actors that were not formally part of the conflict. The shift of actors is a challenge for peacekeepers focused on keeping the peace between the belligerents. Nonetheless, recent studies show that only UN police positively impact postwar violence, likely due to their broader effect on public security. Further scrutinising this finding, the research question is How do peacekeeping mandates impact the level of postwar violence in the aftermath of intra-state conflicts? I argue that variation in peacekeepers’ activities sheds light on how peacekeeping missions address postwar violence: Missions with public security-oriented mandates can reduce postwar violence better than other missions because they fill the public security gap. I test this hypothesis utilising a quantitative research strategy of 310 post-conflict episodes – years of60 conflicts between 1991 and 2016. The results imply that public security-oriented missions might not prevent collective strategic postwar violence but positively impact spontaneous unorganised postwar violence.