The Arab Spring led to the overthrow of multiple authoritarian regimes in the Middle East and North Africa and to the flow of arms and fighters from Libya to Western African countries, triggering the crisis in the Sahel and altering the security landscape of the region. The Sahel, a quite stable region, became vulnerable to the rise of terrorism due to political instability, internal conflicts dynamics and power vacuum which led to ungoverned spaces to be seen as safe havens to terrorist groups. The international community, fearing the spread of terrorism, initiated multiple operations in the region such as an UN mission in Mali – MINUSMA – and the French-led intervention in the G5 – operation Barkhane. After 9/11, a change in perception took place and terrorism now came to be seen as a transnational threat to world peace and stability, leading to the inclusion of a new role during peacekeeping operations – stabilisation – achievable by the use of military power. This study, based on secondary data research, aims to understand the transformation of peace and counterterrorism operations in the Sahel region. The study notes that the view of Sahelian states as fragile and weak and due to that the perfect target for transnational terrorism justifies the West interventions in the region. However, even under a development-security nexus, all interventions were carried out with only one purpose – fight against terrorism – as the global war on terror was seen as required to reinstate security in the Sahel. In this sense, MINUSMA can be seen as a laboratory test, also because it was working side by side with French troops which were under a counterterrorism mandate, which goes completely out of UN’s character. This mission created a dangerous precedent as it goes beyond the normal understanding of peacekeeping missions. This thesis argues that the change of peace and counterterrorism operations in the region happened due to the perception of terrorism as a transnational threat and of the Sahel region as a safe haven for the proliferation of terrorism. Moreover, all interventions had Western interests in mind and not even one was focused on addressing the underlying causes of the conflicts such as political instability, climate change and food insecurity which enlarged the humanitarian challenges in the Sahel.

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Syftet med denna studie var att komma till insikt, dels om hur kriget mot terrorismen har präglat diskursen kring det rättfärdiga kriget med dess särskilt utmärkande preventiva krigföring, och dels om huruvida begreppet "illegal kombattant" kan betraktas som legalt eller inte. Denna studie visar hur krigskonceptet har blivit alltmer diffust sedan det kalla kriget och hur attackerna gentemot USA den elfte september 2001 innebar en brytpunkt gällande diskussionerna kring rättfärdig krigföring. Studien visar också att begreppet "illegal kombattant", med dess preventiva syfte, tillvisso skulle kunna betraktas som legitimt i kontext till omfattningen av ovan nämnda attacker men att dess innebörd inte kan betraktas som legalt i vare sig nationell eller internationell bemärkelse. Jag har kommit till denna insikt genom att identifiera en diskursiv företeelse och lyfta fram dess legalitets- och legitimitetsaspekter och genom att identifiera en juridisk företeelse och lyfta fram syftet med dess innebörd med fokus främst på dess legalitetsaspekter. Med en diskursanalys har jag undersökt talet om det rättfärdiga kriget efter den elfte september, och genom en juridisk analys har jag prövat begreppet "illegal kombattant" gentemot nationell och internationell rätt. Dessa två analyser har fogats samman genom en samlad studie av kriget mot terrorismen och dess legalitets- respektive legitimitetsaspekter. / The purpose of this study was to come to realization on how the war on terror has characterized the discourse on Just War with its particularly distinctive preventive warfare, and also on whether the term "unlawful combatant" can be regarded as legal or not. This study shows how the concept of war has become increasingly diffuse since the Cold War and how the attacks against the U.S. on Sept. 11, 2001 represented an inflection point on the discussions of righteous warfare. The study also shows that the term "illegal combatant", with its preventive purposes, to a certain extent might be regarded as legitimate in the context of the magnitude of the above-mentioned attacks but that its content can not be regarded as legal in either a national or international sense. I have come to this realization by identifying a discursive phenomenon and highlighting its legality and legitimacy aspects and by identifying a legal phenomenon and highlighting the purpose and meaning of it, primarily focusing on its legality aspects. With a discourse analysis, I have examined the speach on Just War after September 11, and with a legal analysis, I have tested the notion of "unlawful combatant" against national and international law. These two analyzes have been consolidated in a comprehensive study of the war on terrorism and its legality and legitimacy aspects.

Syftet med den här studien var att komma till insikt om huruvida Bushadministrationens ageranden kring behandlingen av internerna i det nordamerikanska fånglägret på Kuba kan betraktas vara legala eller inte. Mina analyser visar att USA har brutit mot internationella såväl som nationella lagar.Jag har kommit till denna insikt genom att identifiera de viktigaste handlingarna – och dess syften – i anslutning till USAs ageranden och genom att jämföra dessa med internationell rätt och med USAs nationella lagar och avtal. Tre handlingar har stått i fokus; upprättandet av fånglägret på Kuba, med syfte att eliminera fångarnas konstitutionella skydd genom att internera dem utom USAs landsgränser; instiftningen av begreppet "illegal kombattant", med syfte att tillintetgöra internernas krigsfångestatus och därmed det internationellrättsliga skydd som tillfaller krigsfångar genom krigets lagar och; den hårda fysiska och psykiska behandlingen av fångarna, med syfte att erhålla information för att förhindra terrorism.Med en juridisk arbetsmetod har jag således prövat dessa handlingar mot USAs konstitution och mot instiftningen av nya nationella lagar, mot Genèvekonventionerna med dess tilläggsprotokoll och mot FN-konventioner. / The purpose of this study was to come to realization on whether the Bush administration's conduct regarding the treatment of inmates in the American prison camp in Cuba can be considered legal or not. My analysis shows that the U.S. has violated international and national laws.I have come to this realization by identifying the most important single actions – and their purposes – related to the U.S. conduct, and by comparing them with international law and U.S. national laws and agreements. Three single actions have been in focus; the establishment of the prison camp in Cuba, with the purpose to eliminate the prisoners' rights to constitutional protection by detaining them outside U.S. land borders; the establishment of the term "unlawful combatant", with the purpose to eliminate the prisoners' POW status, and thus the international legal protection accruing prisoners of war within the laws of war and; the rough physical and psychological treatment of the prisoners, in order to obtain information to prevent terrorism.With a legal method of working, I have thus tested these actions against the U.S. Constitution and the establishment of new national laws, against the Geneva Conventions and its additional protocols, and against UN conventions.

<p>This dissertation examines the (critical) security effects that US Foreign Policy, and in particular the War on Terror (WOT), has had on East and Southeast Asia. This dissertation also articulates an innovative critical security approach that requires a post-structuralism based in Stephen K. White’s notion of “weak ontology,” and further demands a historically and geographically contingent method of immanent critique that allows us to grapple with the politics and ethics of actually occurring security logics. <em>As</em> a form of immanent critique rooted in a weak ontological understanding of critical security, this dissertation asks- and answers- the following question(s): What can a critical security analysis tell us about security/insecurity that a more conventional realist-based security analysis cannot? And more specifically, what can a critical security analysis tell us about the impact that the WOT has had on both state and non-state actors in East and Southeast Asia? In other words, <em>operating as an immanent critique</em> in the context of empirical examples in East and Southeast Asia, this dissertation demonstrates that forms of insecurity were constructed and/or abetted by the WOT itself, understood as a hegemonic security narrative, and that these forms of insecurity occurred in concert with the practice of traditional forms of state-centric security.</p> <p>This dissertation contributes to scholarship in two significant ways. First, it seeks to remedy the relative paucity of <em>critical</em> security analyses focused on East Asia and Southeast Asia. Second, this dissertation demonstrates- using the weak ontological immanent critique approach that it outlines- that a deconstructive critical security analysis based in post-structuralist commitments need not be anathema to engagements with pragmatic problems and security issues, nor should it have to preclude the possibility of enacting the politics and ethics that are required to theorize alternative security logics.</p> / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

<p>This study considers the pedagogical significance of mourning and remembrance in the context of the commemorative culture surrounding the “9/11” attacks on America, which have stimulated recent explorations of what it might mean to commit to ethical remembrances of the dead. Critical of “9/11” memorial discourses that provide justifications for heightened “homeland” security and military mobilization in the “War on Terror,” this project not only addresses the educative force of memorial-artistic responses in creating meaning out of mass deaths, but also dissociates the concept of the public memorial as foremost an apparatus of the state, private corporations, and other institutions which seek to use memorials towards amnesiac or ideological objectives. Analyses of the memorial responses addressed in this project unpack how particular modes of remembering “9/11” and its victims are themselves reflections upon the meanings and objectives of collective remembrance. The project first explores the “September 11^th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows” organization and how it negotiates the ways public sentiment is mobilized “in the name of” victims and their families. Through an analysis of Art Spiegelman’s <em>In the Shadow of No Towers</em>,<em> </em>I examine the capacity of graphic narrative to bear witness to traumatic events and speak to their legacies in non-hegemonic ways. Lastly, the project explores how Samira Makhmalbaf’s film <em>God, Construction and Destruction</em> calls for the re-evaluation of strategic memorial practices that risk reducing “9/11” remembrance pedagogies to universalizing modes of remembrance that further subjugate already marginalized communities. Stimulated by such memorial responses that interrogate conventional practices and assumptions of collective remembrance, the project argues that the public remembrance of “9/11” is a crisis of and for education: that is, an important occasion to seek and call for modes of remembrance and sites of pedagogies that foster an openness to the critical and transformative force of historical trauma.</p> / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

The function of a journalist is not only to inform but also to investigate. Since the public has a right to information, jurists need to protect journalists that report from dangerous war-torn regions in order to keep the world informed. As the primary reliable source and often eyewitness to humanitarian atrocities a journalist has a duty to report such atrocities. There has for several decades now been uncertainty regarding the fact whether journalists should be granted special protection or not. On the one hand it is argued that journalists should be protected in terms of humanitarian law due to their humanitarian function, the service that they render in facilitating the free flow of information to the world and the role that journalists play in society. On the other hand, some argue that the protection of journalists is not the responsibility of the international community but rather their individual national governments or local news organisations. / Jurisprudence / LL.M.

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Thesis (MPhil (Political Science))--University 2010. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This dissertation’s primary focus is why torture is used when torture is not an effective means of gathering intelligence. To answer this question the argument for the use of torture, commonly known as the ticking time bomb argument, is discussed. Due to psychological and physiological processes during torture interrogation it was found that torture cannot be relied upon to deliver truthful information. Torture was also found to adversely affect the institutions that are needed for its establishment. After torture has been found to be of no utility in terms of the appropriation of information the question of why torture is still used is answered by means of discussing societal dynamics as well as the political process surrounding torture. On the societal front it was found that American public opinion towards torture is ambivalent. The reason for this includes a host of socio-psychological factors such as the in-group out-group bias as well the War on Terror as a political ideology in its own right. The notion that anybody is likely to torture is also explored by means of discussing the Milgram’s Obedience Experiment as well as the Stanford Prison Experiment. On the political front the notion that the abuses at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay were the work of a few bad apples is dispelled since it formed part of a deliberative political process that tried to make torture a legitimate foreign policy measure. The reason for the existence of this process is the failure of international and domestic checks and balances. On the international front U.S. unilateralism as foreign policy principle is cited as the reason for the ineffectiveness of international measures to stop torture. On the domestic front the permanent rally around the flag effect due to the permanent state of mobilization in the War on Terror is cited as the reason for the failure of domestic checks and balances. The lessons learnt from the research enables the creation of measures on how to stop torture even when it is found that the necessary political will is not present within the Obama administration. In the absence of political will it must be manufactured by means of the actions of civil society, the free press and the international community. It was found that the most effective means would be the creation of a committee of inquiry to create the political memory of the use of torture and how it was established. Additionally a memorial must be erected as well seeing that inquiries create political memories but they do not sustain it. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Hierdie tesis se fokus is om na te vors waarom marteling gebruik word as dit nie ‘n effektiewe wyse is om inligting in te win nie. Om hierdie vraagstuk te beantwoord word die argument vir die gebruik van marteling naamlik die tikkende-tydbom-argument bespreek. Asgevolg van sielkundige en fisiologiese prosesse tydens ondervragings wat gebruik maak van marteling kan daar nie op marteling staatgemaak word om die waarheid op te lewer nie. Dit was ook bevind dat marteling die instansies, wat nodig is vir die gebruik daarvan, op ‘n negatiewe wyse beïnvloed. Nadat daar vasgestel is dat marteling geen nutswaarde aangaande die inwinning van informasie bied nie word die vraagstuk waarom marteling steeds gebruik word beantwoord. Op die samelewingsvlak kan daar gestel word dat die Amerikaanse samelewing onseker is oor of marteling gebruik moet word al dan nie. Verskeie redes vir hierdie opinie word aangevoer waarvan die in-group out-group bias en die Oorlog teen Terreur as politieke ideologie slegs twee daarvan uitmaak. Dat enige persoon in staat is tot marteling onder die regte stel omstandighede word ook bespreek na aanleiding van die Milgram’s Obedience Experiement en die Stanford Prison Experiment. Op die politiese vlak is daar vasgestel dat die menseregteskendings in Abu Ghraib en Guantanamo Bay nie die werk was van slegs `n paar indiwidue was nie, maar deel uitmaak van ‘n doelbewuste politiese proses wat marteling as ‘n legitieme buitelandse beleidskwessie wil afmaak. Die rede waarom die beleidsproses bestaan kan toegeskryf word aan die mislukking van inter- en intranasionale wigte en teenwigte. Op die internasionale vlak kan daar gestel word dat die Verenigde State se unilateralistiese modus operandi die rede is vir die mislukking van internasionale maatreëls teen marteling. Op die intranasionale front kan daar gestel word dat die Amerikaanse publiek verkeer in ‘n permanent rally around the flagtoestand asgevolg van die permanent mobilisasie in die Oorlog teen Terreur. Uit die lesse wat geleer is uit die navorsing kan daadwerklike stappe gedoen word om die gebruik van marteling stop te sit alhoewel die Obama-administrasie se politiese wil ontbreek. Met die tekort aan politiese wil moet die politiese wil geskep word deur die burgerlik samelewing, the vrye pers asook die internasionale gemeenskap. Daar was gevind dat die mees effektiewe wyse om marteling stop te sit sal deurmiddel van ‘n kommissie van ondersoek wees. Die kommissie se doel sal wees om te bepaal hoe marteling tot stand gekom het en ‘n politiese herinnering te skep. Daar moet ook ‘n bykomende maatreël wees, naamlik die oprigting van ‘n monument aangesien kommissies van ondersoek politiese herinneringe skep maar nie in stand hou nie.