Suchergebnisse

This paper analyzes the prevailing misconceptions that have defined much of the popular imagination of Private Military Companies (PMCs) since their emergence in large numbers following the conclusion of the Cold War. By illustrating the origins of these misconceptions and the popular binary that they have contributed to, it is apparent that these impressions overlook the less visible ways in which PMCs are capable of altering the security imaginaries of client states. This paper uses a framework of Constructivist security in order to demonstrate that there are certain features of the state's security imaginary as well as the privatized military industry which make it possible for PMCs to shape security threats and the proposed solution for these threats. The result of the collaborative process by which PMCs and states imagine and address security threats is a shared monopoly over the use of violence. While this shared monopoly conveys an external appearance of equality between its component actors, in reality, PMCs have the capability to become more powerful than the state within this relationship. This power imbalance is due to the reliance of the state on PMCs to fulfill its security demands. This paper claims that this relationship has the potential to lessen the state's control over violence, and uses the Iraq War and the specific instance of contractor violence at Nisour Square in 2007 as illustrative of the broader power imbalances that are often concealed within this relationship.

In December 1997, in Kyoto, Japan, over 160 parties to the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (FCCC or Convention) adopted the Kyoto Protocol, which, for the first time, establishes legally binding limits for industrialized countries on emissions of carbon dioxide and other "greenhouse gases." The Kyoto Protocol (the Protocol) is quite complex, reflecting the complicated political, economic, scientific and legal issues raised by human-induced climate change. The result of more than two years of preparatory discussions and eleven days of often-intense negotiations in Kyoto, the Protocol will be opened for signature in March 1998 for one year, although countries may accede to it after that period. It will enter into force ninety days after at least fifty-five parties to the FCCC, encompassing FCCC Annex I parties that accounted in total for at least 55 percent of the total emissions for 1990 of carbon dioxide (CO2) of Annex I parties, have ratified, accepted, approved or acceded to the Protocol.