Under what conditions are drones effective in protecting civilians in armed conflict? And what shapes support for their use for civilian protection in armed conflict? Drones have been adopted into international peacekeeping operations for the protection of civilians in armed conflict based on the expectation of effectiveness in performing difficult tasks with limited risks. However, in the security studies literature, the question of the effectiveness of drones has been primarily explored within the context of the War on Terror. We know little about drones' effectiveness in non-combat areas like civilian protection in peacekeeping. This dissertation fills this gap by focusing on questions that emerge at the intersection of the fields of emerging technologies, peacekeeping, and civilian protection, political violence, and broader security studies, with the aim of extending this literature and providing policymakers and scholars a framework for conceptualizing emerging technologies for civilian protection in armed conflict. Empirically, it employs qualitative evidence consisting of document reviews, archival work, and expert interviews with officials at the UN headquarters and mission levels, mission intelligence officers, peacekeepers, and humanitarian workers in assessing the effectiveness of drones in peacekeeping for civilian protection. It additionally employs an original survey and a survey experiment among civilian adult populations in the Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo to examine what shapes civilian support for the adoption of drones in peacekeeping. Overall, this dissertation provides valuable insights for both scholars and policymakers who, due to the limited research on this subject, often base assumptions about drone effectiveness in other domains like peacekeeping on their performance in combat contexts.

This study investigates the legal and ethical challenges posed by cyber warfare in the ongoing Russian-Ukraine war. Cyber warfare represents a transition from traditional conflict dynamics, impacting civilian populations and national security without direct physical confrontations. The significance of this research is the inadequacy of current legal norms that govern the rapidly evolving techniques of cyber-attacks which challenge established norms of International Humanitarian Law. Hence, the research question explores how cyber warfare challenges existing legal and ethical norms for civilian protection, and what the broader implications are for the regulation of modern conflicts. Through a qualitative case study approach, the thesis analyses three cases of Russian cyber-attacks on Ukrainian civilian infrastructure: the 2015 attack on the Ukrainian power grid, the 2023 cyber-attack on Kyivstar, and the 2022 Asylum Ambuscade. In the simplified legal framework by Hoffman and Rumsey, these cases were analysed using the Tallinn Manual, and Mary Kaldor’s New Wars theory to highlight the challenges and violations of IHL. The findings conclude that the IHL framework is insufficient for the unique challenges of cyber warfare. Moreover, the study addresses for the revaluation and updating of international legal norms to keep up with the constant development of cyber warfare. In all, this thesis showcases the need for enhanced legal standards that can safeguard civilian populations and maintain international security, contributing to the fields of international law and conflict resolution.

Global demand for peacekeeping is growing, especially in Africa. The United Nations has traditionally been at the forefront of developing peacekeeping theory and practice, and remains the primary operational agency for peacekeeping in Africa. But increasing emphasis is being placed on the African Union to assume greater responsibility for peacekeeping on the continent. The AU is still comparatively new and is in the process of developing its peace and security architecture. Over the past decade, the international community has been supporting African peacekeeping, both to build AU capacity and to provide direct operational support. In 2005 the international community agreed a collective 'responsibility to protect' vulnerable civilians threatened by gross violations of their human rights. And civilian protection is increasingly included in the mandates of peacekeeping missions. Within the context of contemporary complex, multidimensional peacekeeping ('peace support'), civilian protection is not an exclusive operational objective, but is rather one of a number of mandated tasks aimed at establishing more sustainable security as part of a broader peacebuilding goal. The AU has embraced the responsibility to protect principle, adopting a constitutional commitment to protect the rights of vulnerable civilians, including through peacekeeping interventions if necessary. But how capable is the AU in practice to deliver effective peacekeeping to protect civilians? And how appropriate is international support to help realise this ambition?

This thesis examines the approaches taken by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to the protection of civilians during internal armed conflict, both at the level of global policy and at the level of implementation in the Colombian context. The thesis explains how the ICRC and UNHCR approach protection, why each has adopted its particular approach, and how and why the effectiveness of each approach is limited. In doing so, it offers a theoretical framework for explaining the approaches taken by international organizations (IOs) to new tasks within their mandates as well as policy implications for the ICRC, UNHCR and other humanitarian agencies. From a theoretical perspective, this research shows that factors internal to the IO carry greater explanatory power than external factors. Most significantly, when an IO expands into a new issue-area, it frames the new task in terms of the existing tasks within its mandate, replicating the specific goals and the means of pursuing those goals. The extent to which the approach is then adapted to the specificities of the new issue-area depends on the ‘bureaucratic personality’ of the IO, and specifically the extent to which decisions are informed by field-level experience. Internal conflicts by definition include armed non-state actors, and the analysis in this thesis emphasises both their significance in determining civilian security and their neglect in existing approaches to protection. While the ICRC seeks to reduce the threat posed by all armed actors (state and non-state) in its work at the field level, it relies heavily on an international legal framework which prioritises states and this partially undermines its attention to non-state actors at the field level. UNHCR retains a state-centric focus at both the field level and the level of global policy. From a policy perspective, therefore, the thesis advocates greater attention to armed non-state actors both at the level of practice and in the development of protection norms.

The main aim of the master thesis titled "Syria and the concept responsibility to assist: new approach towards conflict resolution?" is to find out whether the extension of the doctrine of responsibility to protect by the concept of responsibility to assist that is based on the support of nonviolent movements could work as a new approach towards conflict resolution and thanks to this it could constitute another way of international assistance and civilian protection in cases when it is the regime that perpetrates the violence against its own population. For this reason the thesis, via the Syrian civil war that offers wide range of internal responses to the violence perpetrated by the regime against civilians, focuses on three different forms of international involvement and assistance. These are the international military intervention under the third pillar of R2P, the backing of domestic violent groups and insurgents and last but not least the assistance to nonviolent movements and civil initiatives in the form of R2A as a potential expansion of the second pillar under the R2P doctrine. These approaches are analyzed with regard to the issues of state sovereignty and moral responsibility to protect civilians that arises from the inconsistency of these two aspects in relation to any kind of...

Global demand for peacekeeping is growing, especially in Africa. The United Nations has traditionally been at the forefront of developing peacekeeping theory and practice, and remains the primary operational agency for peacekeeping in Africa. But increasing emphasis is being placed on the African Union to assume greater responsibility for peacekeeping on the continent. The AU is still comparatively new and is in the process of developing its peace and security architecture. Over the past decade, the international community has been supporting African peacekeeping, both to build AU capacity and to provide direct operational support. In 2005 the international community agreed a collective ¿responsibility to protect¿ vulnerable civilians threatened by gross violations of their human rights. And civilian protection is increasingly included in the mandates of peacekeeping missions. Within the context of contemporary complex, multidimensional peacekeeping (¿peace support¿), civilian protection is not an exclusive operational objective, but is rather one of a number of mandated tasks aimed at establishing more sustainable 4 security as part of a broader peacebuilding goal. The AU has embraced the responsibility to protect principle, adopting a constitutional commitment to protect the rights of vulnerable civilians, including through peacekeeping interventions if necessary. But how capable is the AU in practice to deliver effective peacekeeping to protect civilians? And how appropriate is international support to help realise this ambition?

In my diploma thesis, I focused on the issues related to preparedness in the field of fire protection and the protection of the population in newly established municipalities with extended powers. Within the survey, I sent out 205 questionnaires to the municipalities with extended powers throughout the Czech Republic. In correspondence with the representatives of municipalities with extended powers, I noticed in their responses more than apparent differences, especially in open questions.