The question regarding what makes child trafficking persistent in conflict and post-war settings has been subject to intense debate. The human trafficking literature makes general conclusions that trafficking is a by-product of civil wars, and in the process child traffickers exploit the breakdown of the rule of law. As such it is perceived that the governance of the problem of child trafficking can be effective whenever peace and stability is realised and when legal frameworks for protecting children are in place. Prompted by these assertions, I conducted a field study in South Sudan, a country emerging from one of Africa’s longest running and most brutal civil wars fought between the government in Khartoum and Sudanese Peoples Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A). The Sudan’s civil wars ended after the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement in 2005. Whilst the termination of the war raised expectations that the international anti-trafficking conventions, treaties and customary laws protecting children would have enforcement powers and would guarantee the rights and safety of the child, the peace failed to deliver on these expectations. Based on empirical data obtained through an intensive micro-level qualitative research conducted in South Sudan over three months, the research findings reveal that a number of challenges pose serious difficulties in enforcing international counter-trafficking legislations and child protection instruments. These challenges are compounded by the interplay of the emerging socio-economic and political development in the post-independent South Sudan.

Established in 1998, the permanent International Criminal Court (ICC) presents fundamental complexities for the concept of state sovereignty, while raising prospects for progressively developing international law and global governance in human security related areas. The Court's distinct history, negotiation and governance properties have significance well beyond international criminal justice. The ICC has broader implications for emerging forms of multilateral and transnational cooperation, the heightened standing and visibility of the individual person within the regulatory and protective precincts of international law, and the evolving role, capacity and disposition of the state in brokering, implementing and enforcing innovative governance arrangements. These analyses cross a number of sub-fields within international relations and global governance scholarship. A transcending dimension of my theoretical approach and intended contributions is the idea of state sovereignty as a meta-constitutive institution that fundamentally structures international law and politics, but is itself subject to subtle normative changes in its qualitative meanings and implications. As an institutional fulfillment of the post-Second World War proceedings at Nuremberg, the ICC strikingly departs from the conventional inter-national law of states. The Court seeks to uphold individual-focused human rights and humanitarian law safeguards, as reflected by the three crimes within its jurisdiction: genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. Its jurisdiction over individual offenders is equally novel. The ICC is 'complementary' to national justice systems, and thus will directly administer justice only when states are demonstrably 'unwilling or unable' to conduct genuine proceedings. This distinct supranational governance format aims to facilitate national legislative and capacity-building measures to enhance the vigilance and effective functioning of domestic legal systems. The Court is the permanent organizational and normative focal point of an emerging program of enforcement and supporting efforts. More broadly, it contributes to the normative ideal and practical realization of a comprehensive and integrated global human security agenda. / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

The aim of this study was twofold; firstly it sought to describe the human security situation of Roma IDPs and IDPs living in collective centers, secondly it tried to create an understanding for how the human security situation can affect IDPs capabilities to develop. The findings of the study were mainly based on a field study conducted in Belgrade, Serbia for two months. The results of the study were that IDPs in collective centers have a poor human security situation regarding basic income, employment, adequate housing and experienced personal security. Roma IDPs suffer from the same insecurities, but in addition also has poor human security in basic education and personal safety. Their stagnant human security situation proved to be the result of the inability to help IDPs by the actors involved in the relief work. Obstacles such as the Serbian government’s policy of return, a society in transition, the status of IDPs, lack of necessary documents together with lack of agency of IDPs and mistrust between different levels of the society, have hindered a positive improvement of IDPs human security situation. Their poor human security situation and their lack of instrumental freedoms in the Serbian society have lead to limited prospects for these two groups of IDPs to develop in the Serbian society.

Unexploded Ordnance (UXO) contamination presents a considerable level of danger in almost all post-conflict environments. Globally there are a vast amount of casualties every year. However, accurate numbers of casualties is hard to obtain both globally and locally. The purpose of this thesis is to examine how UXO affects Human Security in Lao PDR. The methodology used is a theory consuming empirical and heuristic method. The thesis is a case study that does not attempt to generalize but to understand and analyze the relation between UXO and Human Security in the context of Lao PDR. The theory used in the thesis is Human Security based on the concept of the 1994 UNDP Human Development Report. The findings of the thesis make clear the connection between UXO contamination and lack of Human Security in Lao PDR. The direct and indirect consequences of UXO contamination are explored. Finally, the thesis works at a broader societal level where the links to poverty and development are illustrated.

United Nations (UN) peacekeeping principles affect all peacekeeping, thus it is important to under-stand their development. Many important changes in peacekeeping concern robustness and human security. This paper investigates developments in these two areas and their interrelation by means of a literature review, document analysis and case studies of two contemporary UN peacekeeping mis-sions. It identifies three generations in UN peacekeeping marked by changes in human security and robustness and relates these changes to the concept of sovereignty. Further, it identifies human secu-rity as the main motivation behind increasingly robust UN peacekeeping and finds that robust peacekeeping can, but does not necessarily, lead to greater human security.

No / There has been a recent rise in optimism about Africa's prospects: increased economic growth; renewed regional and national political commitments to good governance; and fewer conflicts. Yet, given current trends and with less than eight years until 2015, Africa is likely to fail to meet every single one of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Home to almost one-third of the world's poor, Africa's challenges remain as daunting as ever. Despite highly publicized increased growth in some economies, the combined economies of Africa have, on average, actually shrunk and are far from meeting the required 7 per cent growth needed to tackle extreme poverty. A similar picture emerges from the analysis of Africa's performance on the other MDGs. In a world where security and development are inextricably connected in complex and multifaceted ways, Africans are, as a result, among the most insecure. By reviewing a select number of political, security and socio-economic indicators for the continent, this analysis evaluates the reasons underlying Africa's continuing predicament. It identifies four critical issues: ensuring peace and security; fostering good governance; fighting HIV/ AIDS; and managing the debt crisis. In assessing these developmental security challenges, the article recalls that the MDGs are more than time bound, quantified targets for poverty alleviation¿they also represent a commitment by all members of the international community, underwritten by principles of co-responsibility and partnership, to an enlarged notion of development based on the recognition that human development is key to sustaining social and economic progress. In recent years, and often following failures, especially in Africa, to protect civilian populations from the violence and predation of civil wars, a series of high-level commissions and expert groups have conducted strategic reviews of the UN system and its function in global politics. The debate has also developed at the theoretical level involving both a recon-ceptualization of security, from state centred norms to what is referred to as the globalization of security around the human security norm. There has also been a reconceptualization of peacekeeping, where the peacekeeping force has enough robustness to use force not only to protect populations under the emergent responsibility to protect norm, but also enough conflict resolution capacity to facilitate operations across the conflict¿development¿peacebuilding continuum. This article opens up a discussion of how these ideas might be relevant to security regime building and conflict resolution in African contexts, and suggests how initiatives in Africa might begin to make a contribution to the theory and practice of cosmopolitan peacekeeping.

No / This article explores the implications for human rights and human security arising from the development and use of weapons employing certain toxic chemicals, termed incapacitating chemical agents (ICAs), ostensibly intended for law enforcement operations. Publicly accessible information clearly indicates that China, Israel and the Russian Federation have acquired or developed ICA weapons, and that such weapons are either in the possession, or have been used by law enforcement or security services, of those countries since the coming into force of the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) in 1997. Although there is evidence of potentially applicable dual-use research in additional states, the full nature and purpose of such research, in certain states, is unclear as are the intended applications to which it will be put. Following a survey of state practice, existing obligations upon states derived from relevant international law are examined, specifically the CWC and applicable human rights instruments. Whilst existing international law certainly severely constrains and arguably prohibits the development, acquisition and use of such weapons for law enforcement, there are areas of contested interpretation, which need to be urgently addressed by the international community.

This thesis aims to uncover key factors shaping patterns of forced human mobility within and across borders. A panel dataset was constructed covering 161 countries during 2009 - 2021. The dataset includes country-level statistics on internally displaced persons and cross-border refugees, as well as indicators capturing economic, sociopolitical, and climate/environmental conditions in each country. Leveraging this multidimensional dataset, a gravity-type migration model was estimated to infer how different factors may operate in tandem in driving internal displacements and refugee migration. For internal displacements, conflict, age-dependency ratio, arid environment, and economic conditions play key roles. For cross-border refugee migration, political instability is a primary driver, followed by climate vulnerability, lower urbanization, and socioeconomic factors. The findings imply the mechanisms underlying human mobility can be complex, differing depending on whether the movement is within or across borders. Such difference underscores the need for comprehensive modeling approaches that can recognize refugee migration as a multi-stage process from initial displacement to onward migration and identify distinctive drivers at each stage of mobility.

[pt] As mudanças contextuais no curso histórico das práticas emergenciais e as possibilidades discursivas delas emergentes têm permitido a diversificação dos atores e do modo com que é feita a entrega da ajuda humanitária. As noções de neutralidade, humanidade e proteção que permeiam o humanitarismo são manejadas de acordo com distintos princípios e interesses. Ao longo do século XX e adiante, o conjunto de significantes que se referia à prática da assistência humanitária deu oportunidade para que novos discursos fossem capazes de criar outras articulações para o que se compreende como humanitário ou ação humanitária. O progressivo agenciamento das Empresas Militares ou de Segurança Privada (EMSPs) neste campo é parte desse fenômeno e desafia o espaço que, na concepção das agências humanitárias tradicionais, se supunha desmilitarizado. A dissertação analisa como se deu o processo discursivo de abertura às EMSPs e como a emergência do novo humanitarismo contribuiu para o cenário de disputas políticas que visam legitimar uma determinada cadeia discursiva em detrimento de outras narrativas no que se propõe como campo geral da discursividade humanitária. / [en] The contextual changes in the historical course of the practices of emergency and the discursive possibilities resulting from that, have yielded the diversification of actors and the way in which the humanitarian aid is delivered. The notions of neutrality, humanity and protection that pervade the humanitarianism are managed in accordance to different principles and interests. Throughout the twentieth century and on, the set of signifiers referring to the practice of humanitarian assistance have opened up the opportunity for new discourses to be creating other articulations to what is understood as humanitarian or humanitarian action. The progressive agency of Private Military or Security Companies (PMSCs) in this field is part of that phenomenon and defies the space that, according to the traditional humanitarian agencies, was supposed to be demilitarized. The dissertation examines how the discursive process of openness to PMSCs have taken place and how the emergence of the new humanitarianism contributed to the scenario of political disputes that seek to legitimize a particular discursive chain rather than other narratives within what I propose as the general field of humanitarian discursivity.

This study analyzes two British-led police reforms in Sierra Leone from 1945-1961 and 1998-2007, exploring how reinterpretations of sovereignty, security and statehood affected strategies of statebuilding over time. Tracing the effects of reform from the first to the second period, it focuses on three practical questions facing reformers: what kind of coercive capacity the police should be invested with (force); where they should be and for what purposes (territoriality); and in what relation they ought to stand with nonstate policing actors (legitimate authority). A key finding is that reinterpretations of security and sovereignty to center on internal threats and state-society relations served to channel more international attention and resources to police forces in weak states. From a relatively restricted field whose impulses came from policing experiences in other colonies and in Britain, recent post-conflict police reforms were informed by knowledge about economic growth, social mobility and global security. However, strategy was muddled when donors committed to conflicting agendas entered the fray. As a result, the latest reform was profoundly shaped by negotiations of the meaning of key concepts like ‘security’. The second part of the study draws on insights about reform to address debates on intervention and sovereignty. Against the image of Western-led interventions suspending local sovereignty, it is argued that the colonial legacy allowed the Sierra Leonean government to prolong and deepen the recent intervention. Contrary to the image of Sierra Leone’s international relations as exploitative and personalized, the study explores how policing became a field where new and legitimate links with the outside world were established after reform.