The United States, France and Britain invaded Libya with cruise missiles, stealth bombers, fighter jets and attack jets. In addition, the United Nations and France have been bombing the Ivory Coast to protect civilians. The Responsibility to Protect doctrine, which is being used to legitimate these attacks, is a slippery slope that should be viewed with extreme caution.
The emergence of critical theory and the encroachment of feminist scholarship into IR discourse has highlighted the position of women within the international security framework. Yet, the dominant theoretical perspectives, realism and neorealism have been accused of neglecting the gender variable.
Gender is imperative to our understanding of issues surrounding refugees of war. The use of a gender lens to scrutinise the ways in which people are treated demonstrates the embeddedness of deeply held beliefs about men & women and the roles and responsibilities that they should be fulfilling, according to societal norms.
In recent years the concept of biopower has become central to the study of the social and life sciences; with numerous interdisclipinary research networks established to investigate the reality of biopower, in relation to subjects as diverse as stem cell research, biotechnologies, and the War on Terror.
From afar, the protests in Arab countries seem broadly similar: economic factors – such as the global recession’s impact on migrant remittances, as well as rising food prices – are being cited as the impetus for the revolts. Yet while economic grievances are not irrelevant, the structural meta-narrative, just like the cultural one, is problematic.
For the first three decades after independence in 1960, Cote d’Ivoire was singular in its prosperity and political stability in West Africa. Along with the now stable, democratic, and prosperous Ghana and emergent Nigeria, it has the potential to pull the entire region out of the quagmire of non-ending conflicts.
The Kosovo intervention was the first in history to be justified solely on the basis of human rights breaches by a sovereign state within its territory, which were judged to present threat to international order. The bottom line remains that Belgrade’s sovereignty over Kosovo was first breached and then completely removed by the international community.
The USA is not the only power with key interests in outer space, and will have to pander to other sensitivities in the future. Russia, China, the EU and commercial actors are prevalent in their discussions. We must ask the questions who are we defending from, and to whom are we going to deny the access of space?
While we should scrutinise the ICC’s work in Africa, it is important to recognise that international justice is not the only possible response to atrocity. National and local processes are proving to be vital tools of justice, truth and reconciliation across Africa, more profound and lasting than the prosecution of suspects in The Hague.
When they created the ECJ, the intentions of member states were to create a court which did not underestimate national sovereignty or national interest. However, the ECJ transformed the EU legal system, eventually blocking member state control over the ECJ.
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