Abstract Obviously, inside mediation through individuals or institutions emerged from the conflict situations becomes an alternative way to end armed conflict as it is regarded to have more local legitimacy with a higher sense of ownership. Surprisingly, researchers in peace and conflict studies have shown more interest to mediation processes dominated by outside mediators, while little has been known about the conditions that contribute to success of inside mediators. This thesis aims to contribute to this understudied research field by answering the question; under what conditions do mediators contribute to the ending of armed conflict in fragile states? In this thesis, I focus on the role of customary leaders, a form of inside mediators. The point of departure of this research question will be the distinction between the mediator’s involvements (Inside vs outside) and how their presence contribute to different outcomes. The variances will be explained with reference to two contending concepts of success and failure of mediation process. Success of mediators’ involvement can be measured by focusing on the following three areas; the initiation of peace process, conclusion of peace process and the sustainability of peace outcomes. The causal argument suggest that mediation processes dominated by inside mediators are more likely to end armed conflicts, as they have  more local legitimacy that can  engender a higher level of ownership, and sustain peace agreements as the actors feel engaged to the peace process. By testing this theory, this thesis applies the structured focused comparison method by selecting three cases of Southern, northwest and northeast regions in Somalia that have developed differently. The empirical findings of this thesis supports the hypothesis testes, as mediation processes dominated by inside mediators in Northeast and Northwest regions displayed a higher level of local ownership and legitimacy than the Southern regions. Finally, further researches on inside mediators success in a different countries is suggested in the future in order to know the level of inside mediators’ effectiveness in ending armed conflict.

Education in conflict settings is a new field of inquiry and there is a paucity of research about this topic as regards the education of children with disabilities. This qualitative study set out to gain insight into how children with disabilities are educated in the conflict setting of Uganda and how it could be improved. This study used a critical, constructivist and grounded research style to generate data. It was critical because its aims and questions focused on addressing the injustices experienced by children with disabilities. It was constructivist as both the participants and myself co-constructed knowledge. It also had some grounded theory features such as emergence and iteration in its methods and tools. For instance, it had three distinct but interrelated stages. The first stage involved an exploratory study which used online methods to gather data from 27 participants who had lived or worked in Uganda. The second stage was an experiential study in two sites in Uganda which used observation and interview methods to collect data from 35 participants. The third and final stage synthesised significant codes and memos constructed from the exploratory and experiential stages into a theory of education. There were four main findings in this study. First, it revealed the nature and extent of the challenges faced by all children living in conflict settings: forced displacement, dehumanisation, rampant poverty and weakened leadership. Second, it discovered that disabled people experienced rejection in their communities and invisibility in the provision of services such as education. Whilst these practices prevailed in non-conflict situations, they were intensified in conflict settings and were counter to the African beliefs on what it meant to be human and live in a community. Third, education in Uganda was likened to disabled people and considered 'creeping' or 'crippled' because of demotivated teachers, disengaged parents, ailing infrastructure and decreasing quality. Fourth and last, participants had visions of educational change which involved modifying it and transforming it into an education that develops conscience in children, reinforces hope and widens opportunities. This research made the following original contributions: generating original data, conceptualising Africanised interviews, and constructing a theory of Africanising education. According to my knowledge I could claim originality to this study in that by 2012, no other study had generated original data on the interfaces between education, disability and conflict in Northern Uganda using a critical, constructivist, and grounded research style. In addition, this research style led to the emergence of Africanised interviews: interviews embedded in the customs and practices of the African people. Importantly, this study led to the construction of a theory which contained critical knowledge on how Africanisation could be thought of and brought about in the setting. Africanisation was understood as the process of using African philosophies such as 'ubuntu' and communalism to transform the 'creeping' education system, reform the colonial curriculum, renew teacher professionalism, mend communities, and re-humanise the relationships between disabled and non-disabled people. Africanisation also entailed decolonising scholarship and this involved quoting African scholars and exposing their philosophies which had been marginalised by Western scholars.

In a world shaped by the simultaneous forces of globalization and fragmentation, very few armed conflicts remain isolated from any foreign involvement and confined to the territory of one State. On the contrary, many begin as internal conflicts that gradually acquire international characteristics of varying degree and nature. Yet, the law of armed conflict forces each such conflict into one of two legal categories: it must either be a non-international, or an international armed conflict. Accordingly, the prevailing approach in the literature is to examine what type of conflict, if any, corresponds to a certain situation in reality at a given time. In contrast, this thesis opts for a dynamic approach, focussing on the combination of factors that transform a prima facie non-international armed conflict into an international armed conflict. It argues that four such modalities of internationalization have emerged thus far: (1) outside intervention; (2) State dissolution; (3) wars of national liberation; and (4) relative internationalization by way of recognition of belligerency, unilateral declarations, or special agreements. Since some situations feature more than two conflict parties, the thesis puts forward an autonomy-based interpretive model, which enables to determine whether such situations should be seen as a single internationalized armed conflict or a number of independent international and non-international armed conflicts. On the basis of this comprehensive map of conflict internationalization, the thesis turns to the effects brought about by this process. It analyses two areas of the law of armed conflict considered to be regulated differently in the two respective types of conflict, namely matters of combatant status and belligerent occupation. It argues that fighters belonging to non-State armed groups participating in internationalized armed conflicts are in principle eligible for combatant status and it proposes an interpretive model for the determination whether they in fact meet the relevant criteria in practice. Finally, the thesis argues in favour of the applicability of the law of belligerent occupation to internationalized armed conflicts. To substantiate this claim, it delineates the temporal, geographical, and personal scope of the law of occupation in such conflicts. In its totality, the thesis analyses the meaning, process, and effects of conflict internationalization and on this basis argues for a particular interpretation of the concept of internationalized armed conflict in international law.

Resumé Prohibited means and ways of conducting armed conflicts - conventional weapons The theme of this thesis is "Prohibited means and ways of conducting armed conflicts - conventional weapons". Given that it is a very broad topic, this thesis focuses on restrictions on the use of certain conventional weapons. Conventional weapons are all weapon systems which cannot be included among the weapons of massive destruction. The first part is focuses on the historical development of the law of war - it is one of the oldest international public law at all. The following section discusses its basic principles which are, in fact, the very base of all prohibitions applied. It is the principle of humanity, the principle of military necessity, the principle of prohibition of non- discrimination, the principle of proportionality and the principle of prohibition of causing excessive injuries and unnecessary suffering. The next section deals with the various conventions prohibiting or restricting use of certain conventional weapons, those which were adopted at the turn of the 20th century. Attention is paid to the St. Petersburg Declaration (1868), being the first international document prohibiting the use of one particular type of conventional weapons, and then to some documents adopted at the 1st and the 2nd Hague...

The thesis deals with the armed conflict phenomenon of past several years - unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV). Despite the fact that the present deployment of UAVs is often presented as a revolutionary, it is possible to track down the roots of remotely controlled planes without crew on board back to the years short after the Second World War. Today's versions of UAVs represent this historical concept brought to perfection thanks to the modern technologies. Their deployments raise legitimate considerations whether they may represent prohibited mean of warfare in terms of humanitarian law or whether their usage is not in contrary to law of armed conflict. This thesis aims to identify those differences between UAVs and traditional piloted aircrafts that may cause different legal classification of the UAVs to the traditional piloted aircrafts. First chapter includes short historical background which may bring interesting connections with political atmosphere after Second World War. It is also pointed out that the concept of unmanned aircrafts is not new. This chapter also includes technical facts and details about current modern UAVs like Predator, Reaper or Global Hawk which may serve for an easier legal analysis. Second chapter deals with the definitions and differences between two main types of armed...

- SEXUAL VIOLENCE IN ARMED CONFLICT - THE ROLE OF THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURTS The purpose of this thesis is to describe the phenomenon of sexual violence against women in armed conflicts and to describe the influence of the international criminal courts in understanding of this phenomenon. Sexual violence appears in almost every armed conflict. Until the establishment of the international criminal courts in the ninetees the issue of sexual violence against women in armed conflict was overlooked. The prohibition of such treatment was existing, for example The Hague Convention or The Geneva Convention, however no efficient sanction mechanism to punish the perpetrators was existing. The violence against woman was moreover understood as her honour attack without any consequences for the community and the society as a whole. It was a private crime. Mass violation of the human rights in the area of Former Yugoslavia and Rwanda made the United Nations to begin with prosecuting and punishing such treatment. Rape and other forms of sexual violence was recognized as a war crime and the crime against humanity on the basis of the judgements of the international criminal courts. Rape can, under certain circumstances, fulfill the fact of the case of genocide. The international criminal courts strongly made...

La Côte d’Ivoire, pays d’Afrique de l’Ouest prospère et stable depuis le début de l’indépendance de 1960, bascule dans une longue et douloureuse guerre, le 24 décembre 1999, à la suite d’une mutinerie de soldats. S’en suit alors un intense ballet diplomatique visant à rétablir la paix et la Côte d’Ivoire assiste alors à plusieurs tentatives de médiation internationale. Cette recherche vise à comprendre la notion de succès en médiation en proposant de modéliser le conflit ivoirien à partir d’un modèle de la théorie des jeux, celui du dilemme du prisonnier. / Often cited as a model of peace and stability, Ivory Coast, a West African economic powerhouse, was embroiled in a civil war in September 2002 that disrupted the institutional order. During this time, the country was divided into the Southern and Northern zones. The former, a coastal area, is referred to as the "Governmental Zone". The Northern is the area that was captured in September 2002, by a few thousand army mutineers. Between the two North and South divide lies the buffer zone called the Zone de confiance, which served as a military buffer zone between the North and the South. How did the division occur? How did the several mediation work? Could we ensure that the signing of a peace agreement guaranteed a mediation success?

Já há mais de cinquenta anos, a Colômbia vem sendo palco de uma persistente luta armada. Porém, só no início dos anos 1980 foram iniciados processos de paz com as guerrilhas para tentar pôr fim ao conflito. Esta dissertação tem como objetivo comparar dois desses processos: o primeiro, durante o governo de Belisario Betancur (1982-1986); o segundo, no governo posterior de Virgilio Barco (1986-1990). Partindo de uma revisão da literatura sobre o tema, tentamos apontar para as limitações da mesma e, a partir disso, propor uma interpretação alternativa para o estudo das negociações. O problema central, portanto, é entender porque esses dois governos decidiram optar pela solução política do conflito em vez da solução militar. Para tanto, parte-se da análise dos principais regimes políticos na Colômbia durante o século XX, assim como do período conhecido como La Violencia e do surgimento das primeiras guerrilhas revolucionarias. Trata-se de entender a crise política dos anos 1980, cuja solução implicou recuperar o monopólio estatal da violência, desmobilizar as guerrilhas e possibilitar sua transformação em partidos políticos e sua participação em contendas eleitorais. O pano de fundo do processo é o desmonte da Frente Nacional e o início da abertura democrática do regime político. Ao inscrever as negociações em um contexto mais amplo de democratização e disputa política, é possível identificar mudanças do regime, oferecendo, com efeito, uma análise alternativa para os estudos acerca dos processos de paz. / Armed struggle in Colombia has existed for more than fifty years but it was only at the beginning of the 1980s when, in an attempt to end the conflict, peace negotiations with guerrillas were initiated. The goal of this dissertation is to compare two of those peace processes: the first, held under President Belisario Betancur\'s Administration (1982-1986), and the second one, under President Virgilio Barcos Administration (1986-1990). Upon reviewing existing literature on this subject, we have tried to highlight their limitations and, consequently, to propose an alternative interpretation for the study of peace negotiations. The key issue is then to understand why both Administrations chose a political solution to the conflict rather than a military one. Thus, the starting point is an analysis of the main political regimes in Colombia during the 20th century, as well as of the period of La Violencia and of the emergence of the first revolutionary guerrilla groups. The matter is to understand the political crisis of the 1980s, the solution of which meant recovering the state monopoly of violence, demobilizing the guerrillas and enabling their transformation into political parties and participation in competitive elections. The background of such process is the dismantling of the political regime known as Frente Nacional (National Front) and the beginning of the so-called democratic opening. By embedding the negotiations in such a broader context of democratization and political confrontation, it is possible to identify the regimes changes and alterations, thus providing an alternative reading for the study of peace processes.

Já há mais de cinquenta anos, a Colômbia vem sendo palco de uma persistente luta armada. Porém, só no início dos anos 1980 foram iniciados processos de paz com as guerrilhas para tentar pôr fim ao conflito. Esta dissertação tem como objetivo comparar dois desses processos: o primeiro, durante o governo de Belisario Betancur (1982-1986); o segundo, no governo posterior de Virgilio Barco (1986-1990). Partindo de uma revisão da literatura sobre o tema, tentamos apontar para as limitações da mesma e, a partir disso, propor uma interpretação alternativa para o estudo das negociações. O problema central, portanto, é entender porque esses dois governos decidiram optar pela solução política do conflito em vez da solução militar. Para tanto, parte-se da análise dos principais regimes políticos na Colômbia durante o século XX, assim como do período conhecido como La Violencia e do surgimento das primeiras guerrilhas revolucionarias. Trata-se de entender a crise política dos anos 1980, cuja solução implicou recuperar o monopólio estatal da violência, desmobilizar as guerrilhas e possibilitar sua transformação em partidos políticos e sua participação em contendas eleitorais. O pano de fundo do processo é o desmonte da Frente Nacional e o início da abertura democrática do regime político. Ao inscrever as negociações em um contexto mais amplo de democratização e disputa política, é possível identificar mudanças do regime, oferecendo, com efeito, uma análise alternativa para os estudos acerca dos processos de paz. / Armed struggle in Colombia has existed for more than fifty years but it was only at the beginning of the 1980s when, in an attempt to end the conflict, peace negotiations with guerrillas were initiated. The goal of this dissertation is to compare two of those peace processes: the first, held under President Belisario Betancur\'s Administration (1982-1986), and the second one, under President Virgilio Barcos Administration (1986-1990). Upon reviewing existing literature on this subject, we have tried to highlight their limitations and, consequently, to propose an alternative interpretation for the study of peace negotiations. The key issue is then to understand why both Administrations chose a political solution to the conflict rather than a military one. Thus, the starting point is an analysis of the main political regimes in Colombia during the 20th century, as well as of the period of La Violencia and of the emergence of the first revolutionary guerrilla groups. The matter is to understand the political crisis of the 1980s, the solution of which meant recovering the state monopoly of violence, demobilizing the guerrillas and enabling their transformation into political parties and participation in competitive elections. The background of such process is the dismantling of the political regime known as Frente Nacional (National Front) and the beginning of the so-called democratic opening. By embedding the negotiations in such a broader context of democratization and political confrontation, it is possible to identify the regimes changes and alterations, thus providing an alternative reading for the study of peace processes.

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