Magister Legum - LLM / This paper will explore the history of the outbreak of religious related violence in Nigeria and the response of Nigeria and the African Union to the acts of the Boko Haram group both legally and procedurally. The intervention of the ICC as a viable option to combat the scourge of the group will also be examined. Other options such as trial in the Court of third States under the principle of universal jurisdiction and a special court jointly facilitated by the States involved will also be assessed.

Doctor Legum - LLD / Children have been committing crimes during times of war and other armed conflicts since time immemorial. Yet, it is only over the last few decades that cognisance is being taken of child soldiers as a type of juvenile. The unfortunate sight of a child holding a gun has become a familiar picture throughout armed conflicts, especially in Africa. Both boys and girls are used as child soldiers and they can be as young as 5 years old. They are mainly regarded as victims of crimes under international law and are therefore usually rehabilitated once they have been disarmed and demobilised. Notwithstanding their need for rehabilitation, it is a fact that child soldiers commit some of the most egregious crimes under international law. They receive military-style training and are presumably not afraid of killing and carrying out orders. Yet it is recognised that generally they do not have the same level of maturity as adults. The reality of child soldiers who join armed forces therefore presents complex legal questions in the face of contemporary international criminal law principles which, on the one hand, afford protection to all children, and on the other, unequivocally call for the prosecution and punishment of those who are individually responsible for committing crimes under international law. Consequently, various safeguards need to be upheld to ensure that the best interests of the child are maintained once a child soldier is held criminally responsible. This thesis analyses the extent to which child soldiers can be prosecuted under domestic and international law, as well as the implementation of alternative measures to prosecution. The thesis proposes that a case-by-case approach should be considered when child soldiers are prosecuted for crimes under international law, thereby investigating and analysing the often distinctive circumstances related to their crimes. / German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD)

This thesis proposes a new perspective on Malaysian Chinese studies by exploring issues of identity formation refracted through the lens of contestations of war memory, communal history and state-sponsored national history. In multiethnic Malaysia, despite persistent nation-building programs towards inculcating a shared Malaysian national identity, the question as to whether the Chinese are foremost Chinese or Malaysian remains at the heart of Malaysian socio-political debates. Existing scholarship on the Malaysian Chinese is often framed within post-independent development discourses, inevitably juxtaposing the Chinese minority condition against Malay political and cultural supremacy. Similarly, explorations of war memory and history echo familiar Malay-Chinese, dominant-marginalised or national-communal binary tropes. This thesis reveals that prevailing contestations of memory and history are, at their core, struggles for cultural inclusion and belonging. It further maps the overlapping intersections between individual (personal/familial), communal and official histories in the shaping of Malaysian Chinese identities. In tracing the historical trajectory of this community from migrants to its current status as ‘not-quite-citizens,’ the thesis references a longue durée perspective to expose the motif of Otherness embedded within Chinese experience. The distinctiveness of the Japanese occupation of British Malaya between 1941-1945 is prioritised as a historical watershed which compounded the Chinese as a distinct and separate Other. This historical period has also perpetuated simplifying myths of Malay collaboration and Chinese victimhood; these continue to cast their shadows over interethnic relations and influence Chinese representations of self within Malaysian society. In the interstices between Malay-centric national history and marginalised Chinese war memory lie war memory silences. These silences reveal that obfuscation of Malaysia’s wartime past is not only the purview of the state; Chinese complicity is evident in memory-work which selectively (mis)remembers, rejects and rehabilitates war memory. In excavating these silences, the hitherto unexplored issue of intergenerational memory transmission is addressed to discern how reverberations of the wartime past may colour Chinese self-image in the present. The thesis further demonstrates that the marginalisation of Chinese war memory from official historiography complicates the ongoing project of reconciling the Malaysian Chinese to a Malay-dominated nationalist dogma.

International humanitarian law, international criminal law and international human rights law all share the common goal of seeking to regulate the behavior of international actors in relation to the three most serious offences under international law - genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. International legal rules, processes and institutions within these three areas of law represent the international community's ongoing quest to address and prevent the commission of these crimes - to create "a more humane world under law." International law has therefore been relied upon as the primary - arguably exclusive - mechanism for prescribing rules of conduct and for enforcing prescribed rules. It is clear, however, that the legal framework alone has not been able to bridge the gap between internationally agreed standards and substantive practice on the part of international actors. That international law comprises only a partial solution to the problem of human rights atrocities is well recognized. It is argued here that the international community's preoccupation with international law as the means for regulating State and individual behavior in this area has in fact contributed to continuing problems of non-compliance as much as it has assisted in engendering compliance with the law. In other words, law is as much a part of the problem as it is a part of the solution. It is argued that the international community must look beyond the law, to non-traditional, informal influences operating alongside the law, in order to move towards the goal of effective enforcement of the law prohibiting genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. Based on Constructivist thinking, four key strategies - departures from traditional Positivist-Realist conceptions of the international legal system - are suggested as focal points for enhancing compliance with the laws in this area, these being: active differentiation between the target subjects of the law; utilization of the dual power of international humanitarian law; employing social norms and ethical values as motivations for compliance with the law; and embracing the informal compliance-inducing activities and powers of non-state actors. Applying these strategies to the humanitarian law enforcement project, a reversal of traditional perceptions of the influence of ethics and law in relation to individual and State target subjects respectively, is proposed as a future direction for enhancing compliance and furthering the prevention project in relation to genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. / Law, Peter A. Allard School of / Graduate

"Although the concept of human rights is not new, it has never attracted more attention than today. However, contrary to the tremendous growth of concern for the international protection of human rights, Rwanda was visited by three main deplorable waves of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. Therefore, while the study is based on the premise that the primary duty of preventing these international crimes lies with the state, it will be argued that the secondary duty lies with international organisations like the UN and the AU. Both organisations could have averted or minimised the atrocities that occurred in Rwanda. Accordingly the study aims to address four issues. First, it attempts to review the weaknesses of the UN and OAU in their human rights monitoring and promotional fucntion derived from international human rights instruments. Second, it seeks to investigate the shortcomings and the failures of these two organisations in intervening to stop the Rwandan genocide. Third, it attempts to examine the UN's and AU's current handling of the cases of genocide as a preventive mechanism against gross human rights violations in Rwanda. Finally, the study will attempt to see if the failures seen in Rwanda are reflected in the current responses of the UN and the AU. The study presupposes that the 1994 Rwandan genocide, although not altogether inevitable, would not have been so comprehensive had the UN and the OAU/AU not developed a culture of impunity in the genocide of 1963 and 1973. One way assume, too, that the suffering could even have been minimized had there been active measures taken by these two organisations. This thesis proceeds on the premise of a problem that the vacuum that still exists under the Rwandan situation, both pre- and post-1994 genocide, as well as the weakness of the response from the UN and AU, is also abetting the current genocide in Sudan and countries with a volatile situation, like the Democratic Republic of Congo and Burundi." -- Introduction. / Thesis (LLM (Human Rights and Democratisation in Africa)) -- University of Pretoria, 2004. / http://www.chr.up.ac.za/academic_pro/llm1/llm1.html / Centre for Human Rights / LLM

"It is an accepted norm of international law that sitting heads of state have immunity from criminal prosecutions. A head of state is normally entitled to immunity from prosecution anywhere, even after he or she is no longer the head of state. However, in recent years we have witnessed the dramatic shift from this customary international law principle where some jurisdictions have been arresting, or threatening to arrest, former and sitting heads of state in order to institute criminal prosecutions against them. There is, however, no uniformity in the application of this action. Those jurisdictions that determine who is to be arrested or prosecuted are so selective that not all those alleged to have committed these crimes are arrested or prosecuted. On the other hand, existing jurisprudence on this subject is not firm in its application. This problem, therefore, calls for harmonisation of the application of the principle of immunity for heads of state in order to make international law reflect the real consent of states. ... The study is divided into four chapters. Chapter one addresses the background on which the study is premised, outlines the statement of the problem, objectives and their significance and the literature review. Chapter two discusses the principle of immunity as developed by prominent international lawyers, courts decisions and other generally applied principles in international law. Chapter three takes the practical application of the principle of head of state immunity against criminal prosecution in interantional law. This involves an examination of the application of the principle from selected national jurisdictions and by the International Court of Justice. Chapter four concludes the discussion and provides for necessary recommendations on the way forward." -- Introduction. / Thesis (LLM (Human Rights and Democratisation in Africa)) -- University of Pretoria, 2004. / Prepared under the supervision of Dr. Henry Onoria at the Faculty of Law, Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda / http://www.chr.up.ac.za/academic_pro/llm1/dissertations.html / Centre for Human Rights / LLM

"The international community is divided in respect of what actually occurred in Darfur. There are differenct views on the conflict. Some reports show that the conflict cannot be characterised as genocide, but rather atrocities, namely war crimes and crimes against humanity. Yet others indicate that, apart from crimes against humanity and war crimes, there was also genocide in Darfur. Still other reports indicate that the Darful conflict is characterised by 'ethnic cleansing'. Clearly there is a disagreement on what happened in Darfur. ... This study poses a critique to past studies on the Darfur conflict on the question of genocide. It analyses facts about the conflict in relation to the law on genocide so as to find out whether facts can meet the definition of the crime of genocide. The study is limited to the legal issue - whether genocide was committed in Darfur between 2003 and 2004. It does not intend to introduce the background to the conflict; rather, facts are only applied in the legal arguments. ... This work has four chapters. Chapter one is an introduction to the study. Chapter two discusses material elements of genocide and determination of a protected group. Chapter three discusses intent to commit genocide and poses a critique to past studies on Darfur. Chapter four shows conclusion and recommendations." -- Introduction. / Thesis (LLM (Human Rights and Democratisation in Africa)) -- University of Pretoria, 2005. / Prepared under the supervision of Dr. Paolo Comoane at the Faculty of Law, Universidade Eduardo Mondlane, Maputo, Mocambique / http://www.chr.up.ac.za/academic_pro/llm1/dissertations.html / Centre for Human Rights / LLM

No description available.

In the context of debates about the causal role that new media technologies did or didn’t play in the 2011 Arab uprisings, my dissertation conversely examines some of the diverse and contradictory ways new media technologies have been used and their power envisaged during revolution and war in Syria since 2011. Exploring various contexts of use, I consider how the same technologies have been understood to ground divergent political projects, to produce contradictory affective responses, and to mint antithetical epistemic values. I ask how technologies come to be seen as answers to social and political problems; and I give an account of the social and political questions asked of a technology as it moves through geographies, institutional settings, or historical moments. By investigating the infrastructural, epistemological, and affective dimensions of the Syrian revolution and war and the work of its media activists I develop a conceptual analysis of political possibilities and their foreclosure in Syria over the past decade. My dissertation draws on 18 months of ethnographic fieldwork in Turkey, Lebanon, France and Germany (2018-2020) among communities of humanitarian, media and digital forensic activists involving two different but connected things. First, following activists as they move, across borders, in and out of organizations, and in and out of activism. Second, following images as they move, also across borders, in and out of contexts of use, and in and out of use. These two movements happen at different intensities and speeds, and with different levels of friction, marked by the politics of access to Syria. Based on interviews with a range of actors invested in the use of new media technologies, I give an account of how and why Syrian activists persevered with their political projects and technological practices despite having little hope of success. Second, amidst widespread scholarly interest in humanitarian intervention, I argue that the governmental practice of stabilisation, despite congruences with the practices of human rights video and forms of humanitarian intervention, has served as a distinct form of intervention in the wake of the ‘War on Terror’. Third, amidst widespread arguments that the Syrian uprising was a failed democratic revolution, I argue that the uprising should be considered on the basis of its central demand for dignity, while tracing the career of the concept in a debate amongst Syrian intellectuals over the “right to a dignified image”. Finally, by participating in a digital forensic investigation, I give an account of the legal, technical and political hurdles that would have to be overcome to turn open source content into legally felicitous evidence in a possible future war crimes tribunal.

This thesis will explore the relationship between war crimes trials and communication for development by utilising the Gibril Massaquoi trial as a case study. Mr Massaquoi, a Sierra Leonean national accused of committing war crimes and crimes against humanity allegedly committed during the Second Liberian Civil War, was residing in Finland, and therefore tried by Finnish authorities under universal jurisdiction. The growing importance of universal jurisdiction - the practice that allows States to prosecute individuals accused of international crimes independently from nationality and the location where the crimes were committed – raises important questions of process ownership, localisation, and social change.  Universal jurisdiction cases are often prosecuted in temporally and geographically distant countries from where the alleged crimes were committed. Whilst they are extensively debated in legal studies, this thesis will analyse the matter through a communication development lens.  With a focus on those few selected journalists that had the opportunity to witness the trial for its Liberian stretch, I will use their experiences to draw lessons learned and future avenues to explore for cases of this nature from a communication for development approach.