Climate change is a critical sustainable development issue with implications for the environment, economies and society as we know it. The problem of climate change is caused by some countries in parts of the world that has a direct effect on people and natural resources in other parts of the world. Climate change is the effect of increased production of Greenhouse gases (GHGs). Due to the vast complexity of the climate change regime the study does not attempt to be comprehensive or conclusive. The aim of the study is to critically evaluate and determine the purpose, enforceability, legal nature, shortcomings and strengths of the non-binding Copenhagen Accord and how the international climate change regime will evolve after the Copenhagen Accord. The study starts with a brief explanation of the international climate change regime and its development, including international environmental law principles, specifically the common but differentiated responsibility principle. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) has the ultimate objective to achieve the stabilisation of GHG concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system. The Conference of the Parties (COPs) is the ultimate decision-making and supreme body of the UNFCCC and is authorised to make and implement decisions to promote the implementation of the UNFCCC, it further has the power to adopt new protocols under the UNFCCC and plays a substantial role in the development of new obligations by the parties to the convention. Various COPs, their respective adopted decisions and resolutions which played an important role in the development of the climate change regime are discussed. This includes COP 1 that lead to the Berlin Mandate; COP 3 and the Kyoto Protocol; COP 7 and the Marrakech Accords; COP 11 that marked the entry into force of the Kyoto Protocol; COP 13 and the Bali Action Plan. COP 15 in Copenhagen was internationally expected and intended to be the breakthrough in addressing the post 2012 period. As is evident from the content of this study the result of COP 15 at Copenhagen means different challenges for different countries and the “bottom up” architecture of the accord could help encourage and reinforce national actions. An overview of the effect of the Copenhagen Accord on the climate change regime, with specific reference to COP 16 in Cancun, is then done. The “bottom up” architecture of the Copenhagen Accord was brought into the official UNFCCC process by the Cancun Agreements that were reached at COP 16. The study mostly comprised of a literature study, which reviewed the relevant international environmental law dealing with climate change, taking into account customary international law; international treaties and conventions; government documents, policies and reports; textbooks and academic journals as well as electronic material obtained from various internet sources. / Thesis (LLM (Environmental Law and Governance))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2012

The regional security aspect is becoming increasingly more important within security studies. The United Nations and the United Nations Security Council has expressed an intent to utilize regional organizations as security actors with regards to maintaining international peace and security, with the purpose of achieving a greater sense of legitimacy for conflict resolution. This study aims to explore the possibilities of using such organizations within regions of varying stability, and how this usage can relate to the idea of legitimacy. Based on regional security complex theory, this study seeks to show how regional organizations have been used by the Security Council within different security sectors, and how this usage is affected by the degree of integration within the region. The result of the study show that the idea of legitimacy is easiest to achieve in regions with a mid-level degree of regional integration and concerning questions of political security. The results also show a tendency within the Security Council to use organizations from other regions with higher levels of integration in regions with lower levels of integration, and raises the question if this way of using regional organizations may risk harming the ultimate goal of legitimacy.

An embedded case study investigating the ongoing securitization of migration in the EU from 2014-2020 and the role of legal institutions, in this case the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) in these processes. Securitization Theory is used in combination with Critical Legal Theory to create a framework that attempts to both illuminate the role of the functional actor in Securitization Theory further, and the impact securitization has on legal institutions. It provides explanations for sudden shifts in legal argumentation, especially in cases of high political relevance with the use of Critical Legal Theory. The case of N.D. & N.T. vs. Spain serves as an example of a functional actor providing two contrasting judgments on the same events within a short period of time and opens up discussions about political influences on legal institutions. Securitization and the framing of refugees as existential threats to European identity and culture is one of the many ongoing political processes related to the issue of migration and refuge in Europe. As the political landscape shifts and right-wing populist parties establish themselves in European Member States, illegal pushbacks have become common practice at the outer borders of the EU and are challenged both politically and legally. This study investigated cases of illegal pushbacks to renew criticism against the institutions engaging in and enabling the practice.

[pt] Em países como Irã e China, alguns grupos religiosos tem enfrentado diversas dificuldades no que tange a sua liberdade religiosa, em especial os cristãos, alvo desta pesquisa. Tais restrições envolvem o impedimento de culto, detenções, prisões entre outros, todas estas devido a escolha do cristianismo como religião. Ser cristão nesses países, significa ter muitos direitos básicos privados. Por este fator, o tema direitos humanos também ganha destaque neste estudo. Tais grupos são vistos como ameaças do ponto de vista dos dois governos. Eles representam valores distintos aos expostos pelos líderes. Através dos estudos produzidos pela Escola de Copenhague é possível analisar como os grupos minoritários cristãos se tornaram uma ameaça. Esses estudos, dentro do campo de Segurança Internacional, nos permite analisar a ameaça como um conceito mutável. Ou seja, é possível avaliar como os cristãos se tornaram uma ameaça para os governos iraniano e chinês. Logo o objetivo central é avaliar quando e porque esses grupos se tornaram uma ameaça para esses governos. Através dos estudos da Escola de Copenhague, o caso dos grupos minoritários cristãos no Irã e na China serão abordados como exemplos que comprovem as perspectivas teóricas. / [en] In countries like Iran and China, some religious groups have faced many difficulties regarding their freedom of religion—particularly Christians, the subject of this research. Such restrictions include the forbiddance of worship, detention, and imprisonments among others, all of these because the choice of Christianity as a religion. Being a Christian in these countries means being private of many basic rights. For this factor, the human rights issue is also emphasized in this study. Such groups are seen as threats from the point of view of the both Chinese and Iranian governments. They represent different values than the ones exhibited by their leaders. Through the studies produced by the Copenhagen School is possible to analyze how the minorities Christians groups have became a threat to those governments. These studies, in the fields of International Security, allow us to analyze the threat as a mutable concept. Therefore the main objective is to assess when and why these groups became a threat to those governments. Through the studies of the Copenhagen School, the case of minority Christians in Iran and China are discussed as examples to prove the theoretical perspectives.

The diploma thesis titled Securitisation of Organized Violence in Europe: The Case of Great Britain and Italy deals with the analysis of security discourses in the United Kingdom during the conflict in Northern Ireland and Italy during the war with the Sicilian Mafia according to the securitization theory of the so-called Copenhagen School and their subsequent comparison. The main aim of this thesis is to capture the form of securitization processes in Italy in connection with the local organized crime. To reach this objective the situation in Italy is confronted with securitization processes in Northern Ireland whose conflict is a frequent subject of international relations and security studies. The theory of securitization as a research tool is presented in its original form formulated by the Copenhagen School and is supplemented by numerous criticisms by later securitization theorists. A significant part of the thesis is focused on a thorough analysis of historical and social context of the investigated phenomenon and on capturing of many securitization statements of political actors to which this work is primarily oriented. The discourse analysis is structured into five stages that reflect the most dramatic periods in development of the presented issue. These periods are characterized by the...

This thesis investigates US state level politics framing of the BLM protests during 2020, by inductively identifying frames and then proceeding to study if and on what grounds securitization occurs in these. Press statements, interviews and documents from eight Mayors and Governors in six of the states where the protests have been the most prominent are analyzed. From this material, four frames have been identified: the alienated outsider frame, the constructive rage frame, the limited guardian frame, and the desecuritizing frame. Recent developments in securitization theory investigate human life and dignity as a reference object, making a case for integrating humanitarianism in terms of grounds for justifying extraordinary measures. Three grounds for securitization are investigated empirically in the identified frames: state, social and humanitarian security. The study concludes that whilst both state security and to a lesser degree humanitarian security are detected in the identified frames, societal security seems to be the most prominent. This suggests that large-scale identities are the most common reference objects in the treated context. Further research is encouraged, especially in terms of distinguishing potential frame alignment processes by looking at a greater number of states over a longer period of time.

As a global phenomenon, the outbreak of SARS-CoV-2 has impacted the socio-economic and political life like no other event of the recent past. With over 600,000 fatalities in its member-states, an unprecedented economic recession and damage to the Single Market, the European Union has been hit unexpectedly hard by COVID-19. Through the lens of Securitisation, and more precisely, Collective Securitisation, this thesis has the purpose to examine how the EU and its institutions have responded to the threat that is the spread of SARS-CoV-2, asking ‘Has SARS-CoV-2 been successfully securitised in the European Union?’. By applying a qualitative content analysis to speeches of the European Commission published between January and May 2020 as well as to a European Parliament Plenary debate following the speech of Commission President von der Leyen on April 16th, 2020, the thesis establishes that securitising moves have taken place in the examined timeframe and that they have been accepted by the European Parliament. In accordance with the Copenhagen School framework of Securitisation and Sperling and Webber’s Collective Securitisation model, the thesis concludes that COVID-19 was therefore successfully securitised.

The aim of this paper is to find out whether the securitization theory of the Copenhagen School is applicable outside euro-american space. This topic is chosen because of the contradicting opinions of theorists regarding the universality of the theory. Many authors criticize also the disregard of the process, context, pictures or physical actions. The theory is applied in societal sector in Egypt on nine cases including human rights non-governmental organizations, political opponents, critics and asylum seekers. The development of securitization, implementation of extraordinary measures, results and impact of the securitization are monitored in these cases. Attention is paid also to the fact whether securitization took into consideration context, process and whether pictures and physical actions played any role and what role it was. Method used in the paper is instrumental case study. It aims at the explanation of narrowly defined case on the basis of the theory. In the stated cases the threats to identity are presented as "others", alien and with the exception of one case as "Western" which means different from the Egyptian identity. The implementation of extraordinary measures to deal with the threats then becomes legitimate. The main contribution of the paper is the finding that the...

The research focus of this study is to investigate the ways in which the so-called European refugee crisis has been socially constructed as number one urgent matter for the European community in the years between 2015-2017. Noting the unprecedented rise of the public support for far-right parties in the European polls, the goal of this study is to understand and conceptualize the ways in which the refugee crisis has been presented as an existential threat by the right-wing political leaders in the Netherlands, France and Germany, three core European members, which held elections in 2017. This has been done by utilizing the theoretical framework, composed of the Copenhagen School, as well as the categorization framework which builds upon the results from previous literature on the topic of the securitization of migration. In addition, by utilizing critical discourse analysis this study probes the hypothesis that regardless of the magnitude of the crisis, the securitizing discourses are largely revolving around four overarching realms: the identity, criminological, political and economic realm. The findings infer that the securitizing discourses of the right-wing leaders in the Netherlands, France and Germany in relation to migration are identical and are revolving around the aforementioned domains, regardless of the countries’ political landscape.

Nørrebro är Köpenhamns (Danmark) mest befolkningstäta stadsdel. Det är även stadsdelen med betydligt minst offentlig grönyta per person. Offentliga grönytor är fundamentala komponenter i urbana ekosystem (World Health Organization, 2019). De är bland annat viktiga för den fysiska och mentala hälsan, hjälper att filtrera skadlig luftförorening, skapar en tillflyktsplats från stadens buller och är en trygg plats för social interaktion och rekreation (ibid.). Trots detta har den lilla parken Folkets Park i Indre Nørrebro varit en återkommande källa till konflikter mellan Köpenhamns kommun, som länge ville bygga bostadshus på ytan, och invånarna i närområdet, som har kämpat för att bevara sin enda lilla gröna yta.Denna uppsats ska undersöka Folkets Park i Nørrebro där fyra manifestationer mellan 1971 och 2014 granskas med fokus på människans rätt till staden. Mänsklig agens och de sociala, politiska och fysiska strukturer som påverkar denna agens analyseras i förhållande till invånarnas kamp för att få utforma sin egna stadsmiljö. Genom att granska fyra manifestationer under Folkets Park ständigt pågående liv kommer vi utforska parkens varierande kvalitéer och de relationer invånarna i området har och har haft till parken. Detta för att se hur olika aktörers handlingar förhåller sig till och påverkas av de socio-politiska strukturer som berör Folkets Park. Även de fysiska strukturer, som är i ständig förändring i Folkets Park, och hur strukturerna påverkas av de olika aktörernas handlingar, analyseras för att öka en platsspecifik förståelse av Folkets Park. Tillgång till gröna rum ska vara en mänsklig rättighet, men till vilken grad och för vilka människor dessa rättighet faktiskt gäller är inte alltid tydligt. / Nørrebro is the most populated borough in Copenhagen, Denmark. It is also the borough with by far the least amount of public green spaces per person. Public green spaces are fundamental components for urban ecosystems (World Health Organization, 2019). They are important for the physical and mental health, help filter out harmful air pollution, gives refuge from noise pollution and offers a safe place for social interaction and recreation (ibid.). Despite all this, the little park Folkets Park in Indre Nørrebro has been a recurring source of conflict between Copenhagen Municipality, who wanted to use the space for more housing, and the inhabitants in the area, who have fought to keep their one, small public green space.This thesis will examine Folkets Park in Nørrebro, where four manifestations between 1971 and 2014 will be considered, focusing on people’s right to the city. Human agency and the social, political and physical structures that affect that agency are analysed in relation to the inhabitants fight for the right to shape and reshape their own urban environment. By investigating four manifestations during Folkets Park’s continuing life, we will examine the park’s varying qualities and the relationship the inhabitants have and have had to the park. This is done in order to understand how actions by the different actors relate to and are affected by the socio-political structures that influence Folkets Park. The physical structures, that are constantly changing and emerging in Folkets Park, and how these structures are affected by the actions of the different actors, is also analysed in order to further improve a site specific understanding of Folkets Park. Access to green spaces should be a human right, but to what degree and to which humans these rights actually apply isn’t always very clear.