The Geneva Conventions under Assault

Outrages committed during violent conflict and as part of the 'war on terror' are not only an affront to human dignity -- they also violate the Geneva Conventions. This book examines recent high-profile cases of repeated and open abuse of the Conventions. The contributors explore why these and related violations of international humanitarian law cannot be viewed as anomalies, but must be regarded as part of a pattern which is set to undermine the Geneva Conventions as a whole. The contributors argue that an international system in which there is diminishing legal restraint on the use of force means that the world will become less secure and more volatile, even for those in the most powerful countries. Individuals everywhere face the prospect of a horrifying vulnerability. This is the first scholarly yet accessible work to consider the meanings of outrages such as the normalisation of torture, as well as the worrying new normative, technical and tactical developments that challenge the purpose and standing of the Geneva Conventions

A constructivist account of Pakistan's political practice in the aftermath of 9/11 : the normalisation of Pakistan's participation in the 'war on terror'

This research is concerned with Pakistan's participation in the US-led 'war on terror' in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of September 11th, 2001. The study seeks to explain how Pakistan's state practice in the aftermath of 9/11 was normalised and made possible. In explaining the state practice, the study draws on a constructivist conceptual framework; which is further enhanced by incorporating key theoretical insights from critical realism. In the first instance, the study proposes that Pakistan's participation in the 'war on terror', seen as a set of actions and practices, was an outcome of a specific domestic political discourse. This discourse enabled and legitimised the state's alliance with the US and its abandonment of the Taliban regime. Secondly, the study is concerned with explaining why the particular discourse emerged in the shape and form that it did. In this context, the argument is that a depth 'critical realist' ontological inquiry can reveal underlying and enduring global and domestic social structural contexts, and traces of agential influence as connected to the discourse. Consequently, this study conceptualises Pakistan's actions in the context of the 'war on terror' as emerging from a multi-causal complex in which discourse, structure and agency are complicit. The study represents a departure from realist readings that emphasise a mono-causal relationship between the US and Pakistan. Instead, this research uses a synthesis of critical realism and constructivism to add a fresh perspective in terms of how we may conceptualise Pakistan's political practice in this instance.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Metaphor in contemporary British social-policy : a cognitive critical study of governmental discourses on social exclusion

This thesis explores the ideological role of metaphor in British governmental discourses on 'social exclusion'. A hybrid methodology, combining approaches from Corpus Linguistics, Critical Discourse Analysis and cognitive theories of metaphor, is used to address how social exclusion and other metaphors are deployed to create an ideologically vested representation of society. The data consists of linguistic metaphors identified from a 400,000+ word machine-readable corpus of British governmental texts on social exclusion covering a ten year period (1997- 2007). From these surface level features of text, underlying systematic and conceptual metaphors are then inferred. The analysis reveals how the interrelation between social exclusion and a range of other metaphors creates a dichotomous representation of society in which social problems are discursively placed outside society, glossing inequalities within the included mainstream and placing the blame for exclusion on the cultural deficiencies of the excluded. The solution to the problem of exclusion is implicit within the logic of its conceptual structure and involves moving the excluded across the 'boundary' to join the 'insiders'. The welfare state has a key role to play in this and is underpinned by a range of metaphors which anticipate movement on the part of the excluded away from a position of dependence on the state. This expectation of movement is itself metaphorically structured by the notion of a social contract in which the socially excluded have a responsibility to try and include themselves in society in return for the right of (temporary) state support. Key systematic metaphors are explained by reference to a discourse-historical view of ideological change in processes of political party transformation.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceBISA and CSVGBUnited Kingdo