During the UN World Summit 2005 all Member States of the United Nations unanimously accepted the Responsibility to protect- principle (R2P- principle), that each member state shall protect its own population from ethnic cleansing, genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. During the set-up of the United Nations and the Security Council’s veto system in the San Francisco Conference 1945, the five permanent members of the Security Council promised that their right to veto would be used “sparingly” and in the “interest” of the world organization, to safeguard “the International peace and security”. Despite the united acceptance of the R2P- principle to avoid mass atrocities since 2005, China have been detaining up to one million Uyghur, including Kazakhs in detainment camps, in former East Turkestan since the beginning of 2018. Since the passage to invoke the R2P- principle is by the Security Council, the question arises if- the veto would serve as a deadlock on the R2P- principle if China could veto such decision. The purpose of the thesis have therefore been to analyze if the R2P- principle is inefficient against the Security Council’s veto system, by targeting China’s opportunity of vetoing the R2P- principle. The conclusion have been that the R2P- principle is inefficient against the Security Council’s veto system. This is because a permanent member can block the R2P- principle by either vetoing or double vetoing a draft resolution, which have been demonstrated by illustrating how China could veto the R2P- principle. Since the decisions of the Security Council cannot be appealed or dissent in terms of the veto card and UN Charter, it leaves the R2P- principle inefficient with a weak operational legitimacy against the Security Council’s powerful veto system, on the cost of human lives.

The main purpose of this work is to investigate if the US ́s killing of Osama bin Laden on 2 May 2011 in Abbottabad in Pakistan was lawful. The background to the killing is what happened on 11 September 2001 when four US airplanes were hijacked and crashed into World Trade Center and Pentagon. Al Qaeda, a terrorist organisation led by Osama bin Laden, was immediately suspected for the attacks, which led to the starting point of the US ́s ‘global war on terror’. This work tries to give a short brief on ‘global war on terror’ and answer if there is a global war on terror and/or if a new category of war is needed. In order to get an answer to the main question of this work I had to investigate if US is in an international armed conflict or in a non-international armed conflict with Al Qaida. Another important question to investigate is if an armed conflict in one State can spill over to another State and still be consider as an armed conflict. Other important questions to answer are, if Osama bin Laden was a legitimate target under international humanitarian law, if he was a civilian or if he had a continuous combat function and what level of participation in hostilities he had? Not less important is also to investigate if human rights law is applicable when Osama bin Laden was killed, especially the fundamental right to life. Lastly I end my investigation with a quick review of the laws of jus ad bellum in order to get an answer if US had a right to resort to force in Pakistan. My conclusion is that the US was not involved in an armed conflict with al Qaeda in Pakistan where the killing took place. The conflict between the US and al Qaeda in Afghanistan is to be categorised as a non-international conflict. This conflict cannot be described as a conflict that has spilled over to Abbottabad where Osama bin Laden was killed. All people, including Osama bin Laden, has a right to life. Because of lack of information on what happened in Abbottabad when Osama bin Laden was killed it is impossible to give a clear legal answer if the US had the right to kill him. It could be lawful, but it could also be considered as a crime against international human rights law.

Exploring Puritanical cultural habits in the 21st century American military, the following study focuses on U.S. Army courts-martial in the Global War on Terrorism. The study uses Emile Durkheim's original sociological interpretation of crime and deviance. That interpretation is linked with responsibility as described by Durkheim's follower Paul Fauconnet in Responsibility: A Study in Sociology ([1928] 1978) and with a new cultural reading of Max Weber's The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism ([1905] 1976). The study is an inductive, descriptive examination of the Puritanical aspects of American military culture based on its treatment of acts labeled as deviant and criminal in the Global War on Terrorism. Four sets of war crimes are included in the study: Abu Ghraib (which occurred in Iraq in 2004), Operation Iron Triangle (which occurred in Iraq in 2006), the Baghdad canal killings (which occurred in Iraq in 2007), and the Maywand District killings (which occurred in Afghanistan in 2010). My data include primary data collected through participation and observation as a consultant for courts-martial related to all the cases except Abu Ghraib. Records of trial, investigation reports, charge sheets, sworn statements, and other documentation are also included in the study as secondary data sources. The study illuminates how unconscious, Puritan cultural habits color and shape both military actions and their perceptions. I explore Puritanism and its influence on military law, responsibility, revenge, "magic" (in its sociological sense), and narcissism. The study concludes with observations and recommendations for changes in U.S. military law.

Taking as its starting point Nietzsche’s and Foucault’s theses on liberalism and war, and Dillon and Reid’s extensive engagement thereof, this thesis offers a critical conceptualization of drones and drone warfare. I argue that deployment of drones specifically over and against bodies and communities in conflict zones in and between Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Yemen, Somalia, and until recently, Libya, is the material practice of a legal and political doctrine and precedent that has been established and policed most prominently by the United States and its military and intelligence apparatuses since the end of the Cold War. This novel precedent, however - due to its necessarily mutually constitutive relationship with a perceived danger said to be emerging from specific spaces, bodies, and communities in the decolonized and still-colonized worlds - locates its ontological and thus political genealogy in the anthropological knowledge that legally justified the (in)humanity of peoples and communities in these spaces during the era of high imperialism that lasted roughly from the nineteenth to mid-twentieth centuries. I theorize this as a mode of political, tragic nihilism through a reading of some key theories of Deleuze and Guattari, Foucault, and Nietzsche and specifically, their import to the field of critical security and international relations theory. I demonstrate that the semiotic image of the drone is a highly pertinent point of departure through which we can understand these political stakes of strategic discourses enunciating the imperatives of both the Revolution in Military Affairs as well as recent global counterinsurgency/counterterrorism operations, specifically as they relate to claims about what it is drones are said to productively offer such militaristic projects. Ultimately, I argue that it is through the semiotic image of the drone as a clean, precise tactic that furthers the strategic goals of counterterrorism to target specific bodies that we can begin to politically theorize a particularly malignant political nihilism symptomatic of contemporary liberal societies. However, I also suggest that it is through Nietzsche’s politics of nihilism that we can begin to think about radical critical interventions that resist such a dangerous mode of politics. / Graduate

Security and race have historically been entangled in the politics of nation-building, whereby national security discourses have constructed the ‘public’ whom it should protect as ‘white’ while demonizing persons of colour as a threat to that public. In the current war against terrorism, these racialized discourses, underwritten by a colonial logic, have materialized through the symbolic and literal displacement of Muslim persons. Under this imperative of national security, both existing and novel legislations have either been suspended, contorted, or implemented to be used against Muslims, or anyone who visibly appears Muslim. Security certificates are one of such judicial tools. This thesis seeks to explore the experiences of securitization, analyzing how this legislation strips the subjects of the security certificate program of their legal rights and social connectedness. To explore this, I interviewed three of the five men from the ‘Secret Trial Five’ cases and some of their family members. I investigate how securitization manifests in the lives of those who have been securitized, exploring the practices that are used to maintain and reinforce the othering and the displacement of Muslim populations.

No description available.

Essay in Political Science, Advanced Course, by Christoffer Hagström “The Bush Administration´s view on international cooperation and international law and political-theoretical traditions influence on the administration´s foreign policy” Supervisor: Jan Olsson The purpose of this paper is to analyze the American foreign policy, particularly with regard to international cooperation and international law. The two following research-questions are used in order to fulfil the purpose: (1) what is the Bush-administrations´s view of of the place for international cooperation and international law in American foreign policy?, and (2) how does the administration´s foreign policy correspond to dominant political-theoretical thought-traditions? The traditions used are: liberalism, realism and neoconservatism. The sources of the study mostly include literature and policy-documents. The author conducts qualitative and quantitative content analysis of the Bush-administration´s policy document National Security Strategy of the United States from March 2006. First the document is summarized based on different criteria followed by categorizations of ideas connected with realism, liberalism and neoconservatism in the document. In the quantative analysis value-words that are appropriate for the various traditions is chosen. The frequency of those words can be seen as indications of the influence of the traditions in the thoughts of the Bush-administration, but is mostly seen as a complement to the qualtative analysis. The main conclusions of the paper are that the Bush-administration most often wish to act according to international law and to cooperate with other actors internationally in the long run, it may even be necessary. In the short run however, it may act outside the parameters of international organizations and international law in order to accomplish foreign policy-goals. Matters related to the security of the American state and people is considered much more important than international cooperation and law. Liberalism seems to be the tradition that has most affected the Bush-administration´s foreign policy. It is followed shortly thereafter by realism and neoconservatism seems to have had the least influence on the the thought-traditions. All of the them has been active in the making of the foreign policy.

This thesis examines the foreign policy of the 44th President of the United States of America, Barack Obama. A significant theme of Barack Obama's candidacy for presidency was "change"; more specifically change in policy from previous administration. Therefore, the thesis looks at the changes brought about by President Obama once he was elected. First, we look at foreign policy of the United States under President George W. Bush, then we look at foreign policy-related assertions of Barack Obama during his candidacy, and lastly we look at the actual policies of the new administration, with particular focus on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, drones and extrajudicial killing, Guantanamo detention facility and extraordinary rendition, and NSA surveillance.

Using narrative research study founded in social constructionism, I explored the lived experiences of thirty Afghan humanitarian aid workers in Kabul, Afghanistan, to discover how they experienced the war on terror. Ten participants were individually interviewed and their stories, personal experiences, perceptions, and voices have been presented in this study. I also facilitated a focus group of twenty Afghan NGO directors, and their views are echoed in the study. The participants represented a diversity of different humanitarian service specialties that cater to Afghan individuals, communities, and government agencies in areas such as education, human rights and good governance, food and shelter, to building bridges and infrastructural development. Based on a critical review of existing literature, the interviews addressed significant issues that affect humanitarian aid workers in complex political emergencies. I investigated the sociocultural contexts and structural conditions that enable and inform the personal narratives. There were six main themes that emerged from the participants’ narratives and each main theme had an average of three sub-themes. The resulting themes were: Security/Insecurity; Funding; Trust; Abandonment; Achievement; and Interventionism. From the analysis of the storied narratives of thirty Afghan humanitarian aid workers in Kabul, Afghanistan, this study was able to create better understanding of how conditions from the war on terror create high-risk environments that expose humanitarian aid workers to kidnappings and violent attacks.

La thèse porte sur la mise en scène de la guerre dans les entraînements militaires aux États-Unis. Elle étudie des faux villages moyen-orientaux qui servent pour l’entraînement de pré-déploiement en Irak et en Afghanistan. On retrouve ces villages sur diverses bases militaires, comme au National Training Center (NTC) de Fort Irwin (Californie), où une douzaine de faux villages afghans et iraquiens ont été construits depuis 2007 dans le contexte de la contre-insurrection afin de préparer les troupes aux guerres de type urbaines et asymétriques. Dans ces environnements immersifs, l’armée américaine tente de reproduire les paysages socioculturel et religieux où se tiennent les missions : mosquées, salons de thé, marchés extérieurs, maisons traditionnelles forment le décor. Afin de préparer les soldats au terrain humain, une rencontre culturelle est simulée entre eux et la population locale à travers des jeux de rôle. Des acteurs, qui sont parfois d’origine afghane et iraquienne, sont embauchés pour jouer la population locale, ce qui servirait à prévenir un certain « choc culturel » anticipé sur le terrain et augmenter la sensibilité culturelle des soldats. Des experts de l’industrie du cinéma comme des pyrotechniciens et des artistes-maquilleurs participent également à ces simulations pour les rendre plus « réalistes » à travers leurs effets spéciaux. La thèse étudie les rationalités et les technologies à l'œuvre dans les faux villages et les manières dont elles soutiennent cette mise en scène « culturelle » de la guerre. Elle examine les pratiques matérielles et discursives des performances qui s’y déroulent. En quelles instances les exercices de simulation s’inscrivent-ils dans un régime de représentation racialisé? Comment l’orientalisme américain est-il articulé dans ces espaces? Quels mythes politiques et discours dominants circulent dans ces géographies fictives? La thèse problématise la représentation et la production de savoirs sur l’autre. Ce faisant, elle participe à la discussion sur l’altérité entamée par plusieurs courants théoriques et champs disciplinaires dont elle s'inspire, notamment les cultural studies, les critical race theories et la critique postcoloniale. L’analyse est basée sur une observation de courte durée au NTC. Le Centre offre des visites guidées de la base qui permettent au public d’assister à une journée d’entraînements dans les faux villages. J’ai participé à deux reprises à ces « NTC Box Tours ». J’ai également mené des entrevues semi-dirigées avec plus de vingt vétérans d’Iraq et d’Afghanistan afin de discuter avec eux de leur expérience d’entraînement de pré-déploiement et du rôle de la culture dans les simulations militaires. / The thesis looks at the performance of war in military training in the US. It studies the mock Middle Eastern villages that are used for Iraq and Afghanistan pre-deployment training. These villages are found on several military bases such as the National Training Center of Fort Irwin (California), where a dozen of oriental towns were implemented since 2007 in order to prepare the troops for urban and asymmetrical type of warfare in the context of counterinsurgency. In these immersive environments, the US military tries to reproduce overseas sociocultural and religious landscapes: mosques, tea rooms, street markets, traditional houses and so on form the set. To prepare the soldiers to the human terrain, a cultural encounter between them and the local population is simulated through role play. Actors, sometimes from Iraq and Afghanistan, are hired to enact the local population. This is said to prevent an anticipated “culture clash” on the ground and raise cultural awareness amongst the soldiers. Experts from the filmmaking industry such as pyrotechnics and makeup artists also take part in these simulations – working to make them more “realistic” through their special effects. The thesis examines the rationalities and technologies at stake in the mock villages, and the way they sustain the « cultural » mise en scène of war. The research interrogates the material and discursive practices of the performances taking place in the mock towns. In what instances are the simulation exercices anchored in a racialized system of representation; how is the American orientalism being rearticulated in these spaces; what political myths and hegemonic discourses are circulating in these fictive geographies? The thesis problematizes the ways of knowing and representing the other. Therefore, the research takes part to the discussion on otherness initiated by diverse theoritical accounts and academic fields, such as cultural studies, critical race theories, and postcolonial critique. The analysis is based on a short observation at NTC. The Center offers guided tours of the base, allowing the general public to attend to one day of training in the mock villages. I participated twice in these “NTC Box tours”. I also conducted semi-directed interviews with more than twenty Iraq and Afghanistan veterans, in which they share with me their experiences of pre-deployment training and their thoughts on the place of culture in military simulations.