Doctor of Philosophy / The hypothesis of this work is that international human rights law and not international humanitarian law is the legal framework that applies to United Nations (UN) peacekeeping operations in collapsed States where the peacekeepers do not become a party to an armed conflict. In order to test this hypothesis the work begins by examining what is meant by peacekeeping and charts the evolution of peacekeeping from its origins as a passive ad hoc activity to the modern highly complex operations capable of providing the foundations for the recreation of civil society. Chapter two of the work builds on the first chapter by analysing the UN’s theoretical approach to peacekeeping through its major reports. This chapter provides insight into the development of peacekeeping as a theoretical construct and then into a central tool in the UN’s attempt to implement the Charter. Chapters three and four analyse peacekeeping as practiced by the UN in operations conducted under Chapters VI and VII of the UN Charter. This analysis leads to the conclusion that as a matter of practice the UN and the State parties that have provided the troops to perform peacekeeping under UN control have acted in accordance with international human rights law and that as a result there is evidence of State practice to support an argument that as a matter of customary international law international human rights law applies as the framework for peacekeeping in collapsed States. With a clear grounding in the practice and theory of peacekeeping the work then examines the competing claims of international humanitarian law and international human rights law as the legal framework for peacekeeping operations. Suggestions are made with regard to the triggers for international humanitarian law to apply and the conclusion is drawn that the vast majority of UN operations between 1949 and 2003 were conducted beneath the threshold for the application of international humanitarian law. The final chapter of the work analyses the practical application of a human rights framework to peacekeeping and concludes that it provides a flexible and adaptive tool for the restoration of peace and the reconstruction of civil society. As a result of the analysis of UN peacekeeping theory, practice and the competing claims of international humanitarian law and international human rights law, the work concludes that international human rights law provides the framework for UN peacekeeping in collapsed States and that international humanitarian law will only apply where peacekeepers cross the threshold into armed conflict.

<p>Utilizing Critical Theory, through its neo-Gramscian and Frankfurt School dimensions, as the theoretical framework, this study aims to explain how the institutions, such as the United Nations, of an international system transform together with the structure – the international system. More specifically our aim is to explain the lack of transformation of only one body, the Security Council, of that specific institution, the United Nations.</p><p>Analyzing the press releases of the United Nations General Assembly in 1996, 1997, 2000, and 2006 and examining 337 statements from the Member States through Critical Theory to be able understand and explain how and why it hasn’t been possible to reform, or transform, the United Nations Security Council in the last 14 years since the establishment of the Open-Ended Working Group as a group to particularly deal with the question of reform. The analysis suggests that the current debates in the United Nations concerning the reform of the Security Council is unable to produce a successful transformation of that body because it is not possible for an institution to finalize its own transformation independent from that of the structure as a whole.</p>

Having soberly reflected upon the tragedy of September 11, 2001, the author observed that though international law and treaties restrict pre-emptive war, they do allow for war in self-defense. Consequently, some powerful nations have used this as a justification for launching pre-emptive strikes. The threats posed by the powerful nations using self-defense as a justification for pre-emptive strikes and the inability of weaker nations to do the same, greatly account for the unprecedented explosion of global terrorism. The author thinks that confronting terrorism therefore requires a pro-pacifist ethical framework whose principles have to be applied with international law to narrow the legitimacy of self-defense wars. Hence, he proposes "Moral Consistency" as a required condition for launching pre-emptive strikes with two main aims - to reduce violent conflicts and to draw a substantial distinction between reason and justification, and between crime and criminal justice.

Having soberly reflected upon the tragedy of September 11, 2001, the author observed that though international law and treaties restrict pre-emptive war, they do allow for war in self-defense. Consequently, some powerful nations have used this as a justification for launching pre-emptive strikes. The threats posed by the powerful nations using self-defense as a justification for pre-emptive strikes and the inability of weaker nations to do the same, greatly account for the unprecedented explosion of global terrorism. The author thinks that confronting terrorism therefore requires a pro-pacifist ethical framework whose principles have to be applied with international law to narrow the legitimacy of self-defense wars. Hence, he proposes "Moral Consistency" as a required condition for launching pre-emptive strikes with two main aims - to reduce violent conflicts and to draw a substantial distinction between reason and justification, and between crime and criminal justice.

This study examines the theories about intervention and sovereignty in relation to the world of today, with the raising question about humanitarian intervention in a globalized society.The purpose of this paper is to examine if intervention can be justified in a sovereign state and how it can be justified. The expected outcome is that conclusion can be drawn from the specific case with United Nations intervention in Bosnia and Hercegovina, and what kind of motives they putted up to justify their intervention.Because we are still living in the era of the Westphalia system with the inherited thoughts of state sovereignty, but in conflict with the new ideas of globalization and human rights, it’s of big relevance to look at this topic closer.First of all the reader is presented to the theoretical aspects of state, sovereignty and different kinds of intervention, to become more aware of the complications surrounding the relationship between these conceptions.The method used in this study is a motive analysis with the focus on the motives told by United Nation, to be the reason for the intervention in Bosnia and Hercegovina. The empirical results are based on the reports from United Nations Security Council during the years 1991 – 1995.The results are that the intervention in Bosnia and Hercegovina can be justified when looking at the theories in relation to the empirical result, with the FN – charter and the fact of violation against humanitarian law and human rights.One conclusion can easily be drawn, that individual rights are playing a big role in today’s global society and are putting some pressure on the United Nation to look over the rules about humanitarian intervention.

Global warming is a current topic on the international agenda. The rise of temperature in the atmosphere threatens populations living on island, deltas and coastal areas, and people living nearby the Arctic and areas covered by permafrost are threatened. In turn this leads to the people in these areas being projected to be homeless or displaced due to climate change and the rising numbers of natural disasters. Those people are what you can label as climate refugees. According to IOM and Brown (2001) climate refugees are persons who for compelling reasons of change in the environment which change their living conditions have to escape their homes, either within their country or abroad.The United Nations Refugee Convention is the binding legislation followed by 147 (in 2008) of the UN member states. Either the UN Refugee Convention or any other international law recognizes climate refugees, and those people are due to that not granted any legal status. Who will protect these people when they have to escape their homes? This paper aims to explore what distinguish climate refugees from the refugees embraced by the UN Refugee Convention by a comparative literature review, for in this way be able to recognize the assumptions that make the United Nations to not classify climate refugees with refugee status. Both groups of refugees has in common that they live under the pressured decision they have to make as they flee their native homes to ensure their own and their families survival according to Grove (2006).In the long run both climate refugees and the UN Refugee Convention embraced refugees face the same traumatic experiences escaping their homes and have due to that the similar right to get the same mental help and be protected under international law. But populations facing the effects of global warming do not want to leave their land and believe it is an issue of human rights.

Since the opening of economic reform in 1978, mainland China's national power as a whole has been greatly enhanced with more than two decades of economic development. Under the impact of such events as the First Persian Gulf War, the Kosovo War, global anti-terrorist attacks following the 9/11/01 Attacks on America, and the Second Persian Gulf War, mainland China has thus reconstructed its viewpoint of international as well as regional security. This thesis aims to inspect, from the perspective of international regime, China's policy towards UN peacekeeping operations and apply the rationale of Neo-liberal Institutionalism ( which is based on international regime theory ) to explaining and analyzing the evolution of China's peacekeeping policy. China's policy has made a drastic impact on current international relations, involving peace and stability not just of Asian-Pacific but of cross-Strait relations. Due to the two-handed strategy adopted in dealing with ongoing cross-Strait issues, China has always shown reluctance to renounce the use of military force on Taiwan up to the present. As a result, cross-Strait security is now being threatened from enormous military stress. Hopefully, both sides of the Taiwan Strait can resolve existing political conflicts by taking peaceful means. However, in the face of such threats from China's abrupt rise as well as having its veto exercised by force in the UN Security Council and then proceeding to play a zero-sum game in which pure competitions in foreign affairs are doomed to become intensified, I'm deeply convinced that, through peacekeeping operations as well as coordination and cooperation between regional/international organizations ( as they are probed into in the thesis ), possible cross-Strait conflicts can be reduced to a great extent.

<p>ABSTRACT</p><p>The aim of this study is to analyse if the UN today constructs the water issue as a security issue and to argue about in which way the organization in that case does so alternatively why it can be said that the UN doesn’t construct the water issue as a security issue.</p><p>In order to reach this purpose the following questions will be answered:</p><p>•Does the UN construct the water issue as a security issue today?</p><p>-If yes, in which way?</p><p>-If no, why can it be said that the organisation doesn’t?</p><p>The methods used are qualitative literature studies of policy documents on water from the UN. The focus is to analyze the ideas about water and to apply my theory on the concept of security, which is Barry Buzan’s framework on security, to these ideas.</p><p>The main results showed that the UN strongly constructs the water issue as an environmental security issue for environments and species and in relatively strong terms also constructs it as an environmental security issue for civilisations. In rare cases the organisation constructs it as a societal security issue, but the UN doesn’t construct the water issue as a military, political or economic security issue.</p>

Univ., Diss.--Zugl.: Aix-Marseille, 2004.

Tesis--Pontificia Universidad Católica Javeriana, Bogotá.