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- Winther, Pontus, 1971-
(author)
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International Humanitarian Law and Influence Operations : The Protection of Civilians from Unlawful Communication Influence Activities during Armed Conflict
- 2019
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Contemporary armed conflicts are not only fought with physical means and methods. Increasingly, in order to achieve military and political objectives, parties to armed conflicts use communication activities to influence individuals. Armed groups such as ISIS use online propaganda to instil terror and recruit new fighters to their cause. In Syria and other conflict zones, medical personnel, aid workers and journalists are subjected to verbal threats and other types of intimidation. In the conflict in Eastern Ukraine, politicians are publicly discredited by having their pictures displayed on electronic billboards and being labelled as war criminals, while civilians are misled by false messages into assisting the opposing party with identifying targets for artillery fire.At the same time, communication is also used to increase the security for civilians in armed conflict. For example, parties to armed conflicts have an obligation to issue warnings before launching attacks on military objectives that may affect the civilian population. Thus, although communication activities can be used to increase security for civilians in armed conflict, they may also cause physical and mental harm to civilians.This prompts a question of law: Where does the boundary lie between prohibited and lawful use of communication activities as a means of influencing civilians in armed conflict? The purpose of this thesis is to answer this question. It sets out to examine what protection international humanitarian law provides civilians in armed conflict in relation to communication influence activities.In the thesis, it is suggested that international humanitarian law contains a substantial—albeit fragmented—body of principles and provisions protecting civilians from harmful communication influence activities. It is further suggested that, in order to correctly define this protection, the material, personal, geographical and temporal scope of application of international humanitarian law must be properly taken into consideration.
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| 2. |
- Engdahl, Ola, 1967-
(author)
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Protection of Personnel in Peace Operations : The Role of the 'Safety Convention' against the Background of General International Law
- 2005
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- The 1994 Convention on the Safety of United Nations and Associated Personnel (Safety Convention) was the first multilateral convention to deal specifically with the protection of personnel engaged in peace operations. It should be viewed against the background of the increasingly volatile environments in which peace operation personnel were required to operate at the beginning of the 1990s.Protection, for which a host government is responsible for securing for personnel in peace operations, may be categorised as a general and a special protection. The former includes, for example, human rights law and international humanitarian law. The latter comprises privileges and immunities accorded to agents of states or organisations.The contribution of the Safety Convention is mainly one of interstate penal law co-operation. States parties are obligated to co-operate in order to effectively prosecute the perpetrators of stipulated crimes. The protection afforded by the Safety Convention may therefore be categorised as being part of an emerging legal regime against impunity. The Safety Convention’s scope of application, however, has been criticised and at the time of writing an additional protocol was being discussed within the framework of an Ad Hoc Committee. This committee has met annually since 2002.Current peace operations often include a regional dimension. The multifunctional character of such operations requires a wide range of personnel, from military forces to civilian contractors. They are often based upon Chapter VII of the UN Charter and charged with enforcement capabilities.An effective protection needs to address the specific challenges surrounding such operations. Some of these challenges, identified in this study, include the need to broaden the scope of application of the Safety Convention and the interplay between the rules of peace and war as well as responsibility and accountability of protected personnel. It is also contended that there is a need for an effective implementation of existing rules, and a careful development of so-called status-of-forces agreements applicable in peace operations.
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| 3. |
- Ericson, Marika, 1977-
(author)
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On the Virtual Borderline: Cyber Operations and their Impact on the Paradigms for Peace and War : Aspects of International and Swedish Domestic Law
- 2020
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Contemporary disputes between states contain elements of psychological and information operations, intelligence operations and cyber operations as well as methods for physical use of force. Cyber operations may use, or contribute to, all of these different techniques and methods combined and can be focused on intelligence gathering, preparation of networks for future attacks, sabotage or on preventing access to information. States are also not alone as actors in cyberspace, non-state actors are continuously updating and reinforcing their abilities and capabilities and the dividing line between cyber operations that are a crime conducted by a non-state criminal and operations conducted by states have become increasingly blurred.International law, and Swedish domestic law, is built up around two foundational paradigms for peace and war. The paradigms are founded on the concepts of statehood, sovereignty and security. Situations, especially threats to states, are to be sorted into either the paradigm for peace or the paradigm for war and are through the division into paradigms also regulated by separate legal frameworks. There is in law no acknowledged state in between.This thesis explores the virtual borderlines of the paradigms for peace and war. It suggests that cyber operations is one development challenging the paradigms for peace and war. It further suggests that states are beginning to form their responses to cyber operations. States are defining cyberspace in terms of territory and sovereignty and they play on thresholds for breaches of sovereignty, interventions and use of force. They in essence structure and argue for a legal space in between the paradigms for peace and war.The thesis also takes the findings from research conducted on international law and views the findings from a Swedish domestic law perspective. Sweden adheres to a strict division of threats and situations into paradigms for peace and war. There is no state of emergency in Swedish constitutional law, the paradigm for peace is applied fully until a situation is defined as war or danger of war. The question for law is how to make this bipolar system function where threats cannot be sorted into either peace or war anymore.
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