HUMAN RIGHTS IN TIMES OF ARMED CONFLICTS

The present contribution deals with the issue of human rights in armed conflicts versus the concept of war. This distinction was made in Article 2, and the same in all four Geneva Convention of 1949. In this article, the distinction is made between the universal system of human rights and the International Humanitarian Law of Armed Conflicts (IHLAC). The difference of application between these two sets of law relies on the fact, that the universal agreements of human rights always apply, both in armed conflict and peace when the IHLAC applies only in times of armed conflicts. There is a difference between them in the regulation. Human rights regulate the relationship between the state and persons under its jurisdiction, regardless of their nationality and the IHLAC applies to states and individuals or armed groups distinguishing between a civilian or a veteran. About the compliance control, it is a different system too, for the IHLAC, it is the ICRC and criminal tribunals, and for human rights, there are different committees of tribunals like the International Court of Justice (ICJ). The exam of the jurisprudence of the ECtHR shows, that it does not make a distinction between a state of war and peace, which is called the humanization of the law of armed conflicts. Also, the very important question of the fragmentation of international law is examined, based on the jurisprudence of the ICJ.

The Impact of Climate-Change-Related Disasters on Africa’s Economic Growth, Agriculture, and Conflicts: Can Humanitarian Aid and Food Assistance Offset the Damage?

This study analyzed the impact of climate-related natural disasters (droughts, floods, storms/rainstorms) on economic and social variables. As the Africa-specific empirical literature is limited, this study used panel data from 1961–2011 on Africa. The study used a panel data regression model analysis. The results showed that climate change-related natural disasters affected Africa’s economic growth, agriculture, and poverty and caused armed conflicts. Among the disasters, droughts are the main cause of negative impact, severely affecting crops such as maize and coffee and resulting in increased urban poverty and armed conflicts. In contrast, international aid has a positive effect but the impact is insignificant compared to the negative consequences of climate-related natural disasters. Cereal food assistance has a negative crowding-out effect on cereal production. International donors should review their interventions to support Africa’s adaptative capacity to disasters. Government efficiency has reduced the number of deaths, and this is an area that supports Africa’s adaptative efforts.

The depiction of war in literature for children. An approach to the topic

Last great-armed conflicts resulted in literary reactions, and after World War ii it was a huge production of children’s literature in order to approach the issue to young readers and help them to understand what happened. It can be considered the prelude of the recent politicization and introduction of different conflicts that children’s literature is nowadays experiencing. When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit (Judith Kerr 1971), Carrie’s War (Nina Bawden 1973) and Good Night Mister Tom (Michelle Magorian 1981) are part of these post-war publications and through their analysis, it is aimed to study how the historical circumstances of the World War II are approached to children. Addressing how their authors represent the conflict, the separation and the family relations that play a crucial role on these works and children literature in general. Analyzing how society of the time is portrayed trough different motifs as the journey, the female figures or the war itself. The techniques they use and how do they overcome a common conflict of displacement, what can help young readers to learn strategies to face their own problems in real life.

The Impact of Climate-Change-Related Disasters on Africa’s Economic Growth, Agriculture, and Conflicts: Can Humanitarian Aid and Food Assistance Offset the Damage?

This study analyzed the impact of climate-related natural disasters (droughts, floods, storms/rainstorms) on economic and social variables. As the Africa-specific empirical literature is limited, this study used panel data from 1961–2011 on Africa. The study used a panel data regression model analysis. The results showed that climate change-related natural disasters affected Africa’s economic growth, agriculture, and poverty and caused armed conflicts. Among the disasters, droughts are the main cause of negative impact, severely affecting crops such as maize and coffee and resulting in increased urban poverty and armed conflicts. In contrast, international aid has a positive effect but the impact is insignificant compared to the negative consequences of climate-related natural disasters. Cereal food assistance has a negative crowding-out effect on cereal production. International donors should review their interventions to support Africa’s adaptative capacity to disasters. Government efficiency has reduced the number of deaths, and this is an area that supports Africa’s adaptative efforts.

Inclusive Education as a Tool For Implementing the Sustainable Development Goals on the Basis of Humanization of Society

The technogenic civilization, despite significant scientific and technical achievements, unfortunately, continues to face problems that entail irreparable consequences. Human activity based on the principle of immeasurable consumption produces an increase in inequality, poverty, hunger, diseases, armed conflicts, and global environmental changes. Weapons of mass destruction pose a global socio-environmental threat. All these trends indicate the need to move to a new level of progress based on sustainability, which in turn requires the formation of a new personality focused on the system of environmental values, and not on the values of the consumer society. Only a society consisting of people with a new worldview will be able to develop sustainably. In this regard, the author’s vision of inclusive education is formed in the study, which is understood as a system with a high integration ability, the role of which is reduced to creating a sustainable society with rational moral foundations. A doctrinal model of the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals is proposed, the core of which is the humanization of society, contributing to moral, economic, social, cultural changes and influencing the life of society, while becoming the driving force of the economic, social and environmental aspects of sustainable development. The author’s approach allows us to expand the scientific vision of the essence and content of inclusive education, to determine the role of humanization in ensuring the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals. The conceptual provisions of the article can be used as the basic foundations of a sustainable development strategy.

Building on Foreign Expertise. Military and Agricultural Experts and the Eastward Expansion of Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century Sweden

In the second half of the sixteenth and the first half of the seventeenth century, the Kingdom of Sweden was almost constantly engaged in armed conflicts with neighbouring kingdoms. Both offensive and defensive wars were characteristic of the Swedish foreign policy from 1550s to 1650s. The same period witnessed the emergence of the Swedish Empire because, due to these conflicts, Sweden was able to acquire new domains in the Baltic region and to expand its territories in both east and south. These geopolitical realities pushed all Vasa kings into multiple projects aiming to rationalise Sweden’s army and its military strategy as well as to develop the acquired areas in various ways. Our article presents two development project examples of this emerging empire (1) Scottish officers (the Swedish Crown acknowledged the military expertise of Scottish troops as well as their officers and tried to harness this experience for Sweden), and (2) the planned modernisation of Ingria through German and Dutch colonisation and agricultural development. The article examines the needs and expertise expectations that the Swedish Crown directed towards these foreign groups. The emergence of Sweden as a European empire did not occur in a geopolitical vacuum. International contacts and the influx of European expertise into Sweden were important factors in the building of the Swedish dominion in the Baltic region. By focusing on these foreign expert groups, one operating in the military world and the other in the agricultural sphere, this article illustrates the functions and roles that the Swedish Crown expected foreign experts to have on the eastern frontier of early modern Sweden.