Thesis (M.A.)--Boston University / As the title of this thesis indicates, this work deals with the former Italian Colonies during the period of 1945-50. Economically speaking all three territories are of little value. Their importance lies in the strategic position they occupy. All three, Eritrea, Libya except for the Fezzan, and Italian Somaliland came under British Military Administration on or before 1943. In 1945 the Council of Foreign Ministers took up the problem, but due to disagreement among the Big Four (United Kingdom, United States of America, France and the Soviet Union), and due to the many and sometimes unfounded claims of some other nations, the problem of the Italian Colonies defied solution. Despite the initial failure, the Council of Foreign Ministers did not give up hope, but instead it kept on working on the problem till 1947 when the Big Four powers, in the Treaty of Peace with Italy, made the latter country renounce all rights and claims to its former possessions in Africa and at the same time agreed to hand over the problem to the United Nations General Assembly in case of failure to agree among themselves within one year of the coming into force of the Treaty of Peace with Italy. [TRUNCATED]

Thesis advisor: Hiroshi Nakazato / This paper is an attempt to study the United Nations through the lens of organizational theory, and in particular, the theoretical framework as outlined by Allison and Zelikow in Essence of Decision, in order to understand the implementation patterns of the UN in regards to the Brahimi Report as reported and analyzed by the Henry L. Stimson Center. The findings of this report conclude that the UN is capable of change as demonstrated by its ability to comply with certain Brahimi Report recommendations, but is resistant to change, due to the structure of the organization. This does not mean, however, that it is fundamentally unable to do so. Attempts at reform must be able to circumvent these obstacles through targeted, direct action, for the Brahimi Report recommendations which received the highest implementation ratings were those incremental organizational reforms that targeted specific aspects of peacekeeping operations. Resistance to change within the UN, be it on behalf of individuals, departments, or Member States, is a huge obstacle to change, further compounding the obstacles to reform that the UN faces simply as an organization. Future reforms must thus be framed in a way that specifically grasps the attention of the groups/members involved in the reform, making the issue as pertinent and sensitive to them as it is for the success of UN peace operations in general. / Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2007. / Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: International Studies. / Discipline: College Honors Program.

Thesis advisor: M. Brinton Lykes / Most recent figures indicate that approximately one in five children in the United States is poor (Children’s Defense Fund, 2010; Moore et al., 2009). Thus, the United States ranks considerably below other Northern Hemisphere nations in indices of both child poverty and child well-being (Rainwater & Smeeding, 2003; UNICEF, 2007). Moreover, while the United States has not ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), this treaty has been central in reframing policy and practices towards reducing child poverty in some other Northern Hemisphere nations. Many authors and activists have suggested that US nonratification of this Convention is based on “American exceptionalism.” This paper examines these claims – and counterclaims – and explores, through comparisons with several other Northern Hemisphere nations, how the Convention on the Rights of the Child, if ratified and implemented through US policy and practice, could play a significant part in tackling child poverty in this nation. / Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2011. / Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: International Studies Honors Program. / Discipline: International Studies.

Thesis advisor: James Cronin / This dissertation argues that British officials attempted to use the legacies of British administrative and imperial structures embedded in twentieth century international institutions to define a new world role for Britain after the Second World War. This role, they determined, would be based in international, administrative, and technical experience and expertise. The concept of an international civil service, loyal to the aims of the international organization they served, was first proposed by British diplomats at the League of Nations and based in the British concept of a politically neutral civil service. After the Second World War, British officials hoped that the legacies of their earlier influence - including administrative structures, ideologies, and a large cadre of officials trained through the British civil service in international administrative and technical affairs - would allow them to remain influential in the administration of the new international organizations despite Britain’s diminished postwar status. They were initially successful in this endeavor, with high rates of representation across the ranks of the United Nations, particularly in social and economic fields. Over time, facing political opposition in the General Assembly over their remaining colonial holdings, British officials hoped that their support for the United Nations – particularly as embodied in their representation in the international civil service – might redeem their international image. However, British interests saw increased competition with those of the United States, Soviet Union, and the global South as the United Nations grew over the course of the 1950s and 1960s. Moreover, principles of equitable geographic representation in the international civil service meant that as membership in the United Nations grew, British representation declined. By the early 1970s, British officials abandoned their earlier hopes of maintaining an outsized role at the United Nations. Examined in this way, the international civil service served as a microcosm for Britain’s own standing in the world as well as one way that British officials actively attempted to manipulate that standing. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2016. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: History.

Thesis advisor: Hiroshi Nakazato / The Iraq War began on March 30, 2003, prompted by the US-led invasion of Iraq. This major, long-lasting conflict resulted in a drastic increase in the number of internally displaced Iraqis as well as Iraqi refugees. The resulting stream of Iraqi refugees is known as the Iraqi refugee crisis. This thesis first conducts a literature review the field of refugee studies, including a review of major theoretical works. From this review emerge theories and frameworks governing the root causes of refugee crises and the resulting consequences. Within the context of the Iraq War, this thesis then analyzes the policy response of the United States to the Iraqi refugee crisis. This analysis is comprised of various models of factors and variables that influence national and international refugee policy. The conclusion suggests that national security considerations, bureaucratic tension due to a principal-agent relationship between Congress and the president, as well as wider foreign policy and Iraqi-US relations, were the major factors that influenced the US policy response. Eventually, additional moral and ethical considerations provoked a change in policy, making the United States more receptive to Iraqi refugee admissions. In doing so, this thesis presents the US policy response against the backdrop of the United Nations Convention and Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees, the body governing the international refugee regime. It suggests that compliance with its mandate has become increasingly difficult, as the landscape of refugee flows has evolved over the twentieth century. / Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2013. / Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: International Studies Honors Program. / Discipline: International Studies.

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Japan has maintained a low profile in its diplomacy since the end of World War II, relying heavily on the United States for its security and prosperity. The cold war structure allowed Japan to maintain its passive foreign policy behavior. By the end of 1980s, West-East confrontations largely ended and global issues such as arms control, environmental problem, human rights, economic development, and ethnic conflicts became the main international concerns. It was expected that in this changed world environment, Japan as an economic power, would take on a more active international role. Yet Japan has not shown any significant political initiative despite of its willingness to contribute to international peace and prosperity. The primary purpose of this thesis is to identify the underlying factors that have kept Japan from being a strong voice and taking initiatives in world affairs. This study presents Japan's official guidelines on global issues as its foreign policy. The guidelines indicate that Japanese foreign policy is too general and broad; it aims at cooperation with everybody. Japan's foreign-policy behavior is represented by its voting behavior in the United Nations General Assembly. Inasmuch as it has adopted a U.N.-centered diplomacy, I believe that Japan's voting in the U.N. delineates its foreign-policy behavior. A statistical method of factor analysis I apply in this study delineates Japan's stance and voting cohesion issue by issue. The voting maps reveal Japan's ambivalent stance on most of the issues. Japan's voting pattern often does not follow its idealistic guidelines. The study further inquires into the discrepancy between Japan's foreign policy and its foreign-policy behavior. The main reasons seem to stem from its dependent security relations with the United States, the close economic ties with Asian countries and the oil-producing Middle East states, and historical constraints in relations with Asia. In addition, Japan's ambiguous foreign policy guidelines are themselves a factor which creates the discrepancy. These factors prevent Japan from independently reacting to international incidents. Yet given its financial and technological advances, Japan could play a leading role within the framework of international organizations, especially on global environmental issues.

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.