My thesis deals with the legal concept of sovereign Parliament, the very keystone of British constitution according to A. V. Dicey. This model has been challenged both normatively and descriptively. Concerning the normative point of view, concept of unlimited sovereignty is incoherent. Descriptively, courts don't simply take the parliamentary supremacy for granted, even if they say so. Relationship between the Parliament and courts is certainly more complex than Dicey suggested. Goals of this thesis are rather tentative. Since the popularity of this topic among British constitutional lawyers, comprehensive analysis is implausible due to the limited space. This paper aims to gather fundamental theories and disputes regarding the parliamentary sovereignty and its relationship with courts. In other words, it explores connection between the Parliament and courts in contemporary British constitution. First chapter analyses the constitutional conventions, which forms the basics of several other fundamental concepts in UK constitution. It suggests that there are no clear boundaries between law and conventions. Second chapter focuses on the general concept of sovereignty and Diceyan classic theory of Parliamentary sovereignty. There is also a brief explanation of sovereignty's connection to Scot's law....

The aim of this study is to serve as an introduction to the legal issues dealing with the presence of foreign states' armed forces in the territory of the Czech Republic and in any other receiving states' territory. Czech Republic has ultimate sovereignty under international law. It has supreme independent authority over her geographic area and is only restricted by the sovereignty of other states, international law itself and by freely accepted commitments. Chapter One is introductory and defines how as a consequence of its status as a sovereign state, Czech Republic joins international and supranational organisations and is part of many bilateral and multilateral security agreements. Such acts of its free will serve as a complex system of security measures that every state needs to undertake in order to secure its geographic area and its population. National security and safety is linked to international peace and security. One without the other cannot exist. Due to rapid developments and globalised world, the threats to states' security has changed. Nowadays, states need to face not only military threats, but non-military threats as well, such as economical, environmental, social or political challenges. States use multiple instruments for the purpose of overcoming these threats. One of the...

The thesis aims to describe the changing position of a nation state in contemporary economic-political structure as a result of globalization processes. The object of interest is the interrelation of state with transnational actors, but also other states with regard to the concept of competitiveness.

This work assesses the evolving link between drone warfare and the concept of state sovereignty. In doing so, the paper critiques the existing realist and neo- realist discourses that maintain anthropocentric and state-centric assumptions in the analysis of not only the field of Security Studies, but International Relations as a whole. The phenomenon of drone warfare proves the opposite of such assumptions. The role of the state, and indeed the human, is continually decreasing with the involvement of hybrid actors. The drone is the embodiment of complex hybridity combining human and non-human actors alike. To better understand the contemporary execution of sovereignty, particularly in its role of maintaining the monopoly on violence, this paper will explore the premises of post-human perspectives in International Relations. In particular, this paper is inspired by the insights of Actor-Network Theory (ANT), which emphasises equal analysis of human and non-human actors. Sovereignty remains a relevant topic, but through the involvement of hybrid actors, it is devolving into a seemingly arbitrary distribution of violence. The role of human actors in drone warfare is decreasing with the technological improvement of military drones and the military demand for increased drone autonomy. As a result,...

It is a topos of postmodern law and political philosophy to speak about the "change" of the concept of sovereignty, and to put the current forms of state existence in opposition to the "classical" theory of sovereignty. The theoretical content of this "classical" doctrine is too easy identified with the empirical reality of the Westphalian state system and understood as an apotheosis of the autonomous, independent states and legal systems. In this thesis I have therefore tried to investigate the logical core of the doctrine of sovereignty of two important political philosophers of the 17th century, Thomas Hobbes and Samuel Pufendorf. Based on the analysis of the central works of both authors, in the light of the latest research, the work shows that their understanding of sovereignty can only be understood with the help of the analysis of the concept of fictitious (or fictitiously) created artificial (moral) person. Sovereignty is no term for an empiricial force or violence, but the name for an imaginative absolute power that is connected to the artificial sphere of fictitious legal reality which is radically separated from the empirical world. The "sovereign power of the Commonwealth" is related to the fictional character of the state, which is identical to the concept of people (populus). The...

This thesis focuses on the correlation of the UNSC voting behaviour of the People's Republic of China and its foreign policy. China's importance as a global power at the platform of the UN has been rising ever since 1971, the year of China's admittance as a new member of the UN and more importantly also the permanent member of the Security Council with the power of veto. Given that the veto power strongly influences the actions of the UNSC, its use has served as a major indicator of what issues are considered as most unfavourable and threatening to China's national interests and foreign policy goals. This thesis elaborates on the development of the foreign policy of China, which has changed significantly since the year of its acquired UN membership but has also kept many principles, present even before the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949. By specifically concentrating on the individual cast vetoes, also considering the use of a so-called hidden veto and the reasons behind them being cast, this thesis tries to find out, how China has been using its veto power with regards to its declared foreign policy objectives within the UN Security Council.

This work analyses the response in the press towards dramatic works of czech philosopher Ladislav Klíma. This includes specifically the works Matěj Poctivý and Lidská tragikomedie. In the introduction, the author and his philosophy are presented, hereafter there is a description of his dramatic works. Philosophy and drama are intertwined in Klíma's work, which makes his drama somehow unique. This work aims to introduce the author's personality as well as his dramatic work. Following that, it aims to describe the reflections in the press towards several performances, summarize them and make a final statement.

This master thesis deals with the approaches of international actors, especially UN, EU and USA, to the concept of failed states, which are demonstrated on the illustrative example of a state of this category, i.e. Somalia. We think of failed states as a security threat, with which the international community provisionally cannot deal. The master thesis discusses how the international actors deal with this issue in terms of its solution and how they think of the failed states in terms of sovereignty. On the selected case of Somalia it is subsequently illustrated that approaches of selected international actors are not very heterogeneous. The international community agrees to support the central government, although it is not recognized in the whole territory of the state, and endeavors to rebuild a functional state. Although the state is internally totally dysfunctional, its external sovereignty is still recognized.

The thesis deals with the general problematic aspects of posting workers within the European Union in connection with the European Commission's proposal for a revision of Directive 96/71/EC and analyses the structure of selected discourse in the debate on the given proposal. Posting, in this thesis, is regarded as a specific manifestation of the phenomenon of deterritorialization, with an emphasis on posting workers to the Czech Republic. The phenomenon of deterritorialization is considered here in three basic forms: firstly, as the deterritorialization of the modern (European) state, secondly as the deterritorialization of its borders, and thirdly as the deterritorialization of labour. The thesis employs the method of critical discourse analysis and the discourse-historical approach developed by Ruth Wodak. It focuses on an analysis of the social, historical and political context of the issue of posting workers using selected theories dealing with the phenomenon of deterritorialization and posting workers in the EU. The main part of the thesis is an analysis of the reactions and discourse strategies of selected Czech stakeholders regarding the proposal for a revision of Directive 96/71/EC, in particular that of selected government representatives. The aim of the thesis is to demonstrate, using the...

The history of international law, understood as an object of intersubjective reality, reflected various territorial structures of human society. States, as bearers of international law, were made in course of history by wars that they led with each other. On the basis of thought of Carl Schmitt we can distinguish two historical structures of territory: the universal medieval empire and the modern sovereign states. Both of these structures were connected with distinct systems of international law and with distinct concepts of war. Since the turn of 19th and 20th century we can observe signs of decline of the Westphalian system of sovereign states. This process, accompanied by changes in concept of war, began to be fully expressed at the beginning of the 21st century in connection with so called war on terror. On the juridical concepts of war on terror and humanitarian intervention I show decline of the Westphalian system of sovereign states and possible return to the international structure of the medieval empire.