4th Global Conference
Wednesday 2nd May - Saturday 5th May 2007
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Conference Programme, Abstracts & Papers
Session Nine: Protection. Transitory, Illusory
or Reality?
Chair: Peter van der Kruit
Rights and Duties of the Individual to disobey Manifestly Illegal
Orders under International Law
Hitomi
Takemura
Irish Centre for Human Rights, National University of
Ireland, Galway, Ireland
This paper provides an overview of the individuals’ human
rights and duties to disobey flagrantly illegal orders under international
law in case of a controversial war.
Today it is incumbent upon not only
State but also the individual to both uphold and implement international
human rights and humanitarian law. After the mass atrocities during
World War II, the international community has put a great deal of effort
into protecting and ensuring human rights, partly through the development
of international human rights law. In this sense, individuals have
become both the holder of rights and the bearer of duties within the
framework of international law.
In situations where countries participate
in illegal actions, contravening international humanitarian law, or
in an illegal conflict contrary to public international law, to what
extent must the individual disobey these illegal actions or the illegal
conflict per se? The
answer to this question requires an examination into several facets
within public international law, namely international criminal, humanitarian,
human rights and refugee law. This paper mainly examines the duty of
the individual to disobey flagrantly illegal orders in accordance with
customary international humanitarian law and international criminal
law.
Despite the duty of the individual to uphold international human
rights and humanitarian law, it is not clear how he or she can fulfil
this duty within his or her own nation. While the supervising bodies
of international and regional human rights law witnessed numerous individual
cases of conscientious objection, there is no international human rights
treaty clearly setting out the right of the individual to conscientious
objection. The right to conscientious objection on the basis of a jus
ad bellum (laws to war) violation and a jus in bello (laws
in war) violation will be discussed.
Western Soldier’s Combat motivation
in UN Peacekeeping
Daniel
Blocq
Department of International Law, the Netherlands Defence Academy,
The Netherlands
Mandates for United Nations peacekeeping operations in Africa and South America have become more robust since the delivery of the Brahimi Report in 2000. Contrary to before, soldiers are since unmistakably expected to use force to protect local civilians during those peacekeeping missions. One fundamental question that follows from this expectation is whether peacekeeping soldiers are actually ready to kill and risk their lives to protect these local civilians or foreign nationals. The United Nations administration has explicitly requested western states to increase their contribution of soldiers to robust peacekeeping operations. But are these western soldiers morally and psychologically prepared for the job in Africa or South America? This paper identifies a moral psychological tension between the traditionally nationalist orientation in western armed forces on the one hand and cosmopolitan demands of peacekeeping operations in Africa and South America on the other hand, which could be problematic in relation to the willingness to fight to protect local civilians.
International Security and the Paradox
of Proximity in the Coverage of War in Cyberspace
Lucas
Walsh
Institute for Citizenship & Globalisation,
Deakin University, Melbourne, Australia
This paper reflects on the ways that convergent information and communications technologies (ICTs), such as the Internet, are transforming international relations by facilitating a de-centring of conventional political relations. The use of convergent ICTs by state and non-state actors produce a number of paradoxes of proximity as political relations are transformed. Four paradoxes are explored: the democratisation and control of mass media; the paradox of passive intervention; the blurring the real with the unreal through a theatricalisation of war; and the promotion of insecurity to securitise state objectives. The author argues that on one level these technologies “democratise” the politics of war by liberating access to, and production of, information about war, while on another level the State coopts ICTs to facilitate new forms of mass mobilisation for war.