This thesis consists in a critical analysis of international law’s traditional historical narrative about the prohibition of the use of force. Most contemporary textbooks teach that this prohibition was a creation of the twentieth century, and that beforehand States were free to resort to armed force against each other unconstrained. Positive international law, the story goes, was ‘indifferent’ to the use of force – it did not prohibit it but did not authorize it either, which meant that, in practice, States could do as they pleased. ‘Reality’ as it stems from historical sources, however, appears much more complex. In fact, not only did the vast majority of nineteenth century authors claimed war and measures short of war to be strictly ring-fenced by international law, but it also seems that States quasi-systematically felt the urge to justify their actions when they employed force against another nation. Starting from the observation of this discrepancy and using tools of history, sociology, anthropology and social psychology, the present research seeks to understand the roots of the ‘indifference’-narrative and how it became the commonly accepted version of the history of the use of force in international. / Doctorat en Sciences juridiques / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

No abstract available. / Dissertation (LLM)--University of Pretoria, 2012. / gm2014 / Centre for Human Rights / unrestricted

The thesis examines altering of Israeli strategic subcultures and their influence on strategic decision-making. It expands the body of literature on strategic culture. The strategic culture influences the decisions regarding when, if and how to use force. The three cases in this thesis encompass strategic decision-making in regard to Iran, Hezbollah and the Syrian civil war. The strategic culture takes a form of particular strategic subculture, which expresses a preference for a particular kind of strategic behaviour. Israeli strategic culture is examined thoroughly throughout its history in the context of strategic culture. The strategic culture and its aspects are described on the background of evolving "national security doctrine." The changes in the strategic culture are correlated with the shifts in the strategic environment and with the evolution of new military technologies and strategies of waging war.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

Several questionable officer involved shootings and perceived abuses of authority disproportionately involving minority citizens have resulted in public outcry, protests, and nationwide scrutiny of police in recent years. The resulting police legitimacy crisis has prompted agencies to rapidly equip officers with body-worn video cameras (BWCs). BWC advocates lauded the findings of an early study that attributed significant reductions in use of force incidents and citizen complaints to the devices and it is this and a handful of other short-term studies upon which the claims of these benefits are predicated. However, subsequent research has produced mixed findings and the sustainability of any reductions remains questionable. The limited knowledge concerning the impact of BWCs on the aforementioned outcomes is problematic considering the potential negative impact of unrealistic expectations and the expense of BWC program maintenance. The objective of this dissertation is to address gaps in the extant research by exploring the impact of an incremental deployment of the devices on the frequency and severity of use of force incidents and the frequency and outcome of citizen complaints while controlling for staffing, volume of officer-initiated enforcement contacts, and the Ferguson incident. Utilizing 86-months of secondary data collected from the Newport News, Virginia Police Department (NNPD) a vector autoregressive multivariate time series analysis indicates that BWCs were a significant factor in a substantial sustained reduction in use of force and a substantial sustained increase in exonerated complaint dispositions at the NNPD.

The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of organizational policy changes within the Use-of-Force Continuum on taser usage and officer's perceptions of taser effectiveness. Tasers have been used by police since the 1970s and their use is increasing as the technology has improved. Data reveals that tasers are beneficial for controlling non-compliant suspects while preventing serious injuries and rarely has their use resulted in death. Much of the public controversy surrounding tasers centers on when and how often officers deploy them. Use of force data from 890 police citizen encounters during a two-year period was analyzed to examine how changes in organizational policy have affected taser deployments and how policy changes have affected taser use. The study's findings support that after the policy change, the frequency of taser use by officers decreased, while the levels of suspect resistance encountered by officers increased. The frequency and severity of suspect injuries did not change and the numbers of officers injured in use-of-force encounters also did not change. Survey response data from officers were compared to archival data, which revealed that while officers perceive an increased risk of harm to themselves as a result of the organizational policy change that was not supported in the findings. Officers did not perceive an increased risk of harm to suspects which was supported in the archival data findings. Officers also expressed a belief that the organizational change that placed the taser at a higher level on the Use-of-Force Continuum is appropriate for most use-of-force encounters. This study concludes with future directions and trends for taser use in law enforcement.

Death in custody elicits accusations and emotional outbursts by the victims' families, community, activists and the general pubic. These controversial cases have become a regular feature in the news. Using thematic analysis, I examine news reporting on the deaths of two racialized individuals with mental illness at the hands of law enforcement officers in Ontario in 2016. This study draws on the concepts of framing and narratives to examine how news media reporting of law enforcement deaths involving racialized men suffering from mental illnesses may produce conflicting narratives and frames. The news media's coverage of such incidents presents various narratives and frames in an attempt to assist the general public in making sense of the incident. Journalists' quoted sources and their messages resulted in the frames that were found in this study. These frames included opposing views on the use force, the influence of race and mental illness, injustice, and uniqueness of the event. Similarly, the narratives included comments and discourses on the event, how people make sense of what happened and why it happened the way it did, and what can be done to prevent these issues from recurring. Narratives about the identities of both victims and law enforcement agents, the nature of law enforcement work, and system change were also included. The different narratives and frames that appear in news reports of law enforcement brutality cases may create a polarized community with a section of the citizenry agreeing with and supporting these frames while the other section opposes them. The use of force, a contentious issue, is visible to the public and frequently elicits competing claims that serve to frame it as a necessary part of law enforcement work or as brutality that primarily targets the vulnerable in society. This study is significant because it investigates narratives and frames in order to fully comprehend and appreciate the contrasting discourses surrounding the use of deadly force by law enforcement against racialized men with mental health issues in Ontario.

Outrages committed during violent conflict and as part of the 'war on terror' are not only an affront to human dignity -- they also violate the Geneva Conventions. This book examines recent high-profile cases of repeated and open abuse of the Conventions. The contributors explore why these and related violations of international humanitarian law cannot be viewed as anomalies, but must be regarded as part of a pattern which is set to undermine the Geneva Conventions as a whole. The contributors argue that an international system in which there is diminishing legal restraint on the use of force means that the world will become less secure and more volatile, even for those in the most powerful countries. Individuals everywhere face the prospect of a horrifying vulnerability. This is the first scholarly yet accessible work to consider the meanings of outrages such as the normalisation of torture, as well as the worrying new normative, technical and tactical developments that challenge the purpose and standing of the Geneva Conventions.