https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/64097 Tue, 07 Apr 2026 00:18:36 GMT 2026-04-07T00:18:36Z https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/138561 Title: Israel from within : navigating political identity polorization Abstract: This thesis explores the dialectical relationship between political identity and religious polarization in light of the utilization of religious texts in the formulation of political conflicts in the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in particular. The study examines Jewish religious texts from the Torah and the Talmud and how they are employed in constructing collective identities with completely opposing ideologies within Israeli society. How these texts are subsequently exploited to legitimize extremism, policies of violence, and settlement expansion. Through an analysis of both the discourses of Neturei Karta and the Hilltop Youth, the study reveals that the consequences of this selective interpretation extend beyond religious polarization and division within to fueling and complicating the conflict on the regional level with the Palestinians. The thesis is based on a qualitative methodology that includes both discourse and textual analysis, which reveals the depth of the dynamics of the relationship between religion and politics. Religious texts are not treated and interpreted as a fixed truth, but rather as an open field for the production of political meanings that in turn affect the reshaping of the political and social reality. The research finally clarifies that the process of interpreting texts is part of an ideological struggle that seeks to impose certain perceptions of the structure of national identity and the political scene. Description: Dual Masters; M.SC.CONFLICT ANALYSIS&RES.; M.A. CRMS(Melit.) Wed, 01 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMT https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/138561 2025-01-01T00:00:00Z https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/138558 Title: COVID-19 and health security in Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco : the impact of health diplomacy, trust and necropolitics on contagion and conflict Abstract: The COVID-19 pandemic provided a large scale, real time “stress test” that fostered structural violence, reduced trust, and fomented conflict, while highlighting the importance of health security, trust, and necropolitics, and providing strong incentives to build regional cooperation in the Mediterranean and worldwide. In Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco, the pandemic has cost lives, livelihoods, and even political freedom. A case comparative analysis of how health diplomacy, trust, and necropolitics impacted COVID-19 outcomes, and the relationship between trust – in government, in science, and in fellow citizens – and COVID-19 outcomes, healthcare capacity, economics and democratization in Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco can illuminate opportunities for the conflict resolution field to reduce conflict and improve outcomes in future pandemics. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, national security was rarely focused on health security, health diplomacy, or science diplomacy. Likewise, the conflict resolution field has not focused on these areas either. In the COVID-19 pandemic, health diplomacy – as a subset of science diplomacy – played a major role in conflicts over scarce healthcare resources such as Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), ventilators and especially vaccines. The conflict resolution field likewise has previously paid scant attention to pandemics despite impacts on conflict worldwide. The COVID-19 pandemic can be viewed 1) as a conflict itself, that increased structural violence and was framed as a “war;” 2) as a factor and often major factor in creating and driving conflicts; and 3) as an incentive to engage in conflict resolution. A focus by the conflict resolution field on pandemics could help could save lives, resolve conflicts, and address structural violence. What has become clear is that underlying COVID-19 pandemic outcomes has been the issue of trust, and its relationship to leadership, science, economic performance, politics and democracy, as well as COVID-19 infections and deaths. Despite preparedness efforts ranging from non-existent to more robust efforts to develop healthcare infrastructure and secure resources – vaccines, hospital beds, equipment, trained medical personnel – the pandemic revealed how political leadership, social, and economic factors – necropolitics - were at least as impactful on infection rates and deaths. Research has shown trust – political trust, interpersonal trust, and trust in science – was closely correlated with pandemic outcomes, not only health but economic and political outcomes as well. While a multi-faceted appreciation for pandemic informs this paper’s approach, the focus is on science diplomacy, necropolitical, and conflict resolution perspectives. The goal of this paper is to highlight how health diplomacy both failed and succeeded in Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco; how political structures and necropolitics impacted health, economic and political outcomes; and how trust was a major factor in driving – but also being driven by – COVID-19 outcomes, economic performance, and democracy itself. The failure of health diplomacy to ensure timely access to high quality COVID-19 vaccines, and the success of health diplomacy in ultimately securing vaccines for Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco, along with the failure of political and healthcare systems in these three countries to distribute vaccines effectively and equitably are examples of how the pandemic increased structural violence and decreased trust. In Tunisia’s case, this led to a return to authoritarianism. The COVID-19 pandemic made clear addressing transnational health security threats that can destroy trust, undermine economies, and destabilize democracies requires effective health diplomacy, trust-building, and conflict resolution. Description: Dual Masters; M.SC. CONFLICT ANALYSIS&RES.; M.A. CRMS(Melit.) Wed, 01 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMT https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/138558 2025-01-01T00:00:00Z https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/137782 Title: Reimagining crimes against humanity : confronting impunity for crimes against migrants in peacetime under article 7 of the Rome statute Abstract: For over a decade, scholars and civil society actors have argued that violations of migrants’ rights at the borders of, and within, several states of the so-called Global North amount to crimes against humanity under Article 7 of the Rome Statute. Yet, impunity persists, and border violence continues. This thesis critically examines how the legal framework of crimes against humanity can and should respond to the widespread, systematic violence targeting migrants in peacetime. It explores why the International Criminal Court (ICC) has failed to sufficiently engage with such cases, and argues that a combination of historical misinterpretations, structural impunity, and doctrinal gaps has hindered criminal accountability. It then proposes a strategy to overcome barriers to prosecution. A key normative contribution of the thesis is its call to reimagine crimes against humanity. It proposes interpreting Article 7 through the lens of its desired law (lex desiderata) rooted in the pre-1945 vision of universal civilian protection unrestrained by the wartime nexus. This reinterpretation seeks to restore the broader, morally grounded scope originally envisioned for crimes against humanity and to reassert its relevance in peacetime contexts, particularly its potential application to migration governance. This thesis introduces a novel interdisciplinary methodology by applying conceptual frameworks from Peace and Conflict Studies (PCS) to reinterpret crimes against humanity under International Criminal Law (ICL). This interdisciplinary inquiry takes a unique perspective on the crimes’ structural and state policy dimensions, reassessing the scope of Article 7. This PCS-informed lens on violence under Article 7 provides tools to understand crimes against humanity as the norm that criminalises structural violence in legal terms and thereby bridges the gap between the disciplines. Integrating PCS into ICL further enables the reconceptualisation of the so-called ‘migration-crisis’ as a protracted, structural conflict, triggering international legal scrutiny. Drawing on the combined normative and methodological insights, this thesis develops two practical approaches designed to support prosecutorial action by the Office of the Prosecutor (OTP) at the ICC. These approaches aim to overcome legal and operational barriers to prosecution by clarifying the applicability of Article 7 to peacetime contexts and addressing the role of passive state policies and structural impunity in sustaining such violence. The concept of crimes against humanity possesses significant potential for protecting civilians from state or organisational abuse of power at all times. Realising the concept’s full capacity allows it to fulfil its desired scope as a universal legal code ensuring protection during armed conflict and in peacetime, irrespective of the civilians’ nationality or any other characteristic. The findings of this study, although derived from the phenomenon of migration, aim to refine the broader understanding of crimes against humanity and contribute to confronting impunity in all peacetime contexts. By applying an original normative perspective and unique interpretative lens grounded in PCS, this study makes a substantive contribution to the doctrinal development of ICL. Description: Ph.D.(Melit.) Wed, 01 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMT https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/137782 2025-01-01T00:00:00Z https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/132389 Title: Comparing direct and indirect action PMCs : case studies in regulated and unregulated environments, with a focus on western Ukraine Abstract: Blackwater, Executive Outcomes, and the Wagner Group are the names of at least a few institutes foremost in the global community’s perception of the private military company (PMC) pantheon. Mired in controversy from their conception, PMCs and their mercenary forebearers have borne and continue to bear the pressure of massive public scrutiny, particularly relating to the ethics and morality of their at least semi-soldiers-for-hire operating philosophy. Yet, as an institution, despite waves of change throughout the centuries, the PMC, in whatever format it happens to take at the time, remains an influential, if occasionally blacklisted, force in both domestic and international relations. With the perennial challenges they face on the moral and ethical front, how can this be the case, particularly bearing - as they do in modern times unlike any other - the brunt of international scrutiny and condemnation, especially by particularly vociferous members of the Liberal International Order (LIO)? The answer is simple: private military companies have managed to remain relevant and effective. They will continue to remain a steadfast institution in the global system because they are an effective tool wielded by state and non-state actors alike to address otherwise unmanageable problems and scenarios using a unique set of skills and capabilities. In what this work terms non-Western, unregulated scenarios, the Direct Action PMC remains the format of choice by employers primarily due to the lack of backlash their use is likely to entail. By contrast, since the 1990s, Western rules-based democratic countries, as states particularly vulnerable to such negative public pressure, have gradually moved towards a new approach: the Indirect Action PMC. Today, the difference between the two approaches is stark. In the battlefields of Ukraine, Direct Action PMCs have traded blows, with the result that Moscow’s companies remain standing and Kyiv’s have crumbled. Ill-adapted to the regulated environment of Western Ukraine, Kyiv’s DAPMCs are essentially a spent force. However, the future of IAPMCs is bright, and their integration into Kyiv’s battle plans may prove a decisive step in securing Ukraine’s victory. Description: Dual Masters; M.SC.CONFLICT ANALYSIS&RES.; M.A. CRMS(Melit.) Wed, 01 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMT https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/132389 2025-01-01T00:00:00Z