Air pollution is known to have a range of effects, including those on human health, crop production, soil acidification, visibility and corrosion of materials. This Chapter focuses on the two major impacts of air pollution that have most strongly influenced the development of policies to reduce emissions: those on the natural environment and on human health.

In broad terms, the major impacts of air pollution on the natural environment can be placed into three categories, representing different spatial scales:

• Local impacts of major industrial or urban sources, for example, instances of damage to ecosystems and crop production close to emission sources. Historically, the biggest impacts have been through the direct effects of sulphur dioxide and particles – either around large point sources such as power stations and smelters, or in urban areas with domestic coal burning – and the accumulation of toxic metals in soils around smelters. However, a range of other pollutants from specific local sources can have direct impacts on vegetation.

• Regional impacts of ozone, which is a significant global air pollutant in terms of impacts on vegetation, since high concentrations are found in rural areas.

• Regional impacts of long-Range Transport and deposition of sulphur and nitrogen, which have effects on soil acidity, nutrient availability and water chemistry, and hence on ecosystem composition and function.

The Chapter first considers direct effects of air pollution on vegetation and the visible symptoms of damage that can result, illustrating the spatial variation in damage by reference to national and local studies in the Netherlands.

Air pollution is one of the most important environmental concerns. This is particularly the case in urban areas, where the majority of people live in developed countries and, increasingly so, in the developing regions of the world. It is now widely recognized that air pollution can affect our health as well as the environment. Particles and other pollutants adversely affect the quality of life of critical groups such as children and the elderly, and can lead to a significant reduction in life span (Pope et al. 2002; WHO 2003; Anderson, H.R. et al. 2004).

With rising population, pressure on urban environments is increasing. For example, there is the ever greater demand for travel and the need to increase energy production and consumption. Although other sources, such as industrial pollution, are still a problem in some parts of the world, the greatest threat to clean air is coming from increasing traffic pollution. The link between poor air quality and adverse health conditions is also becoming clearer. Our response to improve air quality in cities at national and local levels, however, is not homogeneous across the globe, with richer nations usually having more stringent and comprehensive pollution management strategies. For example, in the European Union comprehensive legislative frameworks exist to ensure that member states comply with limit values set in the air quality directives and daughter directives (see Directives 96/62/EC, 99/30/EC, 2000/69/EC, 2002/3/EC).

As the nineteenth century was coming to an end, some U.S. citizens thought their country was betraying the freedom-loving dream of its Founding Fathers. The occasion for the dismay was the annexation of the Philippines, despite considerable Philippine resistance, following in the wake of the Spanish–American War of 1898. Early the following year, the philosopher William James wrote, “We are now openly engaged in crushing out the sacredest thing in this great human world—the attempt of a people long enslaved … to be free.”

Although people strongly disagreed on the exact meaning of freedom during the new century (see below, “Debates on Freedom”), it nevertheless remained a cherished goal of individuals, groups, and nations around the globe. Liberty was the name of a leading U.S. anarchist publication at the start of the century. When the future first prime minister of India, Jawaharlal Nehru, was imprisoned by British authorities in his homeland in 1934, he wrote an autobiographical work entitled Toward Freedom. In 1941 U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt gave his “Four Freedoms” speech, in which he proclaimed to Congress that “we look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms.” That same year his wife, Eleanor, and others founded Freedom House, which continued to exist into the twenty-first century, when its website described it as “an independent non-governmental organization that supports the expansion of freedom in the world … [and is] a vigorous proponent of democratic values and a steadfast opponent of dictatorships of the far left and the far right.”

Introduction

What is peace? This essay examines the genealogy of the ‘problem of peace’. This is not as commonly thought caused by the contestation of power by sovereign actors (Carter, 1936, p. xi) but rather by the absence of debate on the conceptualisation of peace, and the consequence of assuming it is a negative epistemology that can never fully be achieved (Rasmussen, 2003, p. 174). Instead, it is generally assumed that the ‘liberal peace’ is acceptable to all. This is essentially what Mandelbaum and others have called the combination of peace, democracy and free markets (Mandelbaum, 2002, p. 6; Duffield, 2001, p. 11; Paris, 2004). These assumptions are also prevalent in most policy documents associated with peace and security issues (United Nations, 2004; International Development Research Centre 2001). The liberal peace is assumed to be unproblematic in its internal structure, and in its acceptance in post-conflict zones, though its methodological application may be far from smooth (Paris, 2004, p. 18–20). Yet, the liberal peace's main components – democratisation, the rule of law, human rights, free and globalized markets, and neo-liberal development – are increasingly being critiqued from several different perspectives.

Purpose and Structure

The purpose of this study is to examine the ongoing legal debate surrounding pre-emptive self-defence. The study examines the legal debate surrounding the regulation of the use of force in the provisions of the Charter of the United Nations. The possible interconnection between pre-emptive self-defence and anticipatory self-defence is explored. The political ramification of the possibility of a weakening of the regulation of the use of force as expressed in the Charter of the United Nations is discussed.

The study is structured into two main sections. The first relates to the Charter of the United Nations and the Articles relating to the use of force and the scholarly debate relating to the key Articles is outlined and assessed. The second is an overview and analysis of the renewed attention and interest in issues relating to the use of force in self-defence in interstate relations, in particular the notion of pre-emptive self-defence and related developments in the post-cold war era particularly after 11 September 2001.

The Charter of the United Nations and the Use of Force by States

The provisions of the Charter of the United Nations

There are three clauses in the Charter of the United Nations that regulate the use of force by the individual member states, namely Article 2(3), Article 2(4) and Article 51. Furthermore, in Article 39 the regulations pertaining to the use of force by the United Nations are outlined.

Introduction

According to the Uppsala Conflict Data Programme (2005) about one-third of all armed conflicts in the post-cold war world era have taken place in African countries (Cited in Harbom and Forsberg, 2005). On a global ratio, Africa in 2004, accounted for 10 out of 30 armed conflicts. Most of these conflicts have been intrastate in nature, but in several cases, as in West Africa and the Great Lakes region, they ‘crossed border’ and mutated into crossborder or the so-called ‘networked’ wars. A lot of these wars have their roots in historically constructed social contradictions and inequities that have alienated large sections of the citizenry, the foreclosure of peaceful change by authoritarianism and repression, and an altered global context following the end of the cold war. Increased transborder flows of people, goods and arms, and decades of misrule and socio-economic crises also contributed to the outbreak of these wars. In most cases, the trigger for the descent into violent conflict lay in the combination of political and economic policies that deepened social contradictions, and resulted in the massive erosion of the state's welfare role(s) and capacities in the face of globally-led reforms.

Rule of Law in Post-Conflict State-Building

The rule of law has been hailed as a panacea for developing and transition countries. Despite the fact that it has now been almost a decade since Carothers (1998, p. 95) wrote ‘[…] one cannot go through a foreign policy debate without someone proposing the rule of law as the solution to the world's troubles’ there are no signs of a rule of law fatigue.

On the contrary, as some commentators recently stated, rule of law ‘is like apple pie and ice cream’, it is a concept that no one can dislike (Stromseth et al. 2006, p. 58). Typically within development cooperation, donors push for rule of law based on two rationales – rule of law is an essential prerequisite for market economy and it enhances protection of human rights (Messick, 1999; Carothers, 2001).

In relation to post-conflict settings, a third rationale can be added, namely rule of law in the achievement and maintenance of peace and security. This is a rather late contribution to the field of rule of law promotion. Stripped to all essentials the argument goes something like this: human rights violations and high levels of insecurity cause conflict and crisis, and if the rule of law is an essential condition for making human rights a justifiable claim, not merely rights on paper, then it is the key strategy for post-conflict recovery.

Introduction

Nepal is poised on the verge of a historic and precarious precipice. Nepal, having suffered from a more than decade long armed conflict with devastating impacts on the social and political foundations of the country, is on the verge of peace. Although in size, Nepal is only 855 km from east to west and 193 km from north to south, and populated by 24.2 million people, it is situated between India and China, having potentially large geopolitical and strategic impacts on world politics. Members of the Maoist insurgents are poised to become part of the mainstream political structure. Yet, if they were to be dissatisfied with the peace process and stage a coup for example, strong reactions would come from both of its neighbours. The way in which Nepal chooses to solve its conflict and address the primary and secondary causes of it, certainly has implications for leaders and international security policy experts with interests in countries with similar preconditions; they can potentially learn from the Nepali case, and avoid thousands of unneeded lost lives.

At the writing of this chapter, peace talks between the Maoist talk team and the Seven Party Alliance (SPA) were underway. Although the appointment in August 2006 of Mr Ian Martin, Personal Representative of the United Nations Secretary General in Nepal for Support to the Peace Process (a choice hailed by all parties to the conflict) the inability of the parties to advance on topics such as the role of the monarchy and the management of arms and armies, has led to untenable peace and a future with potential further violence.

Introduction

There are around 12 million refugees around the world today. The total population of concern to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), including asylum seekers, internally displaced persons (IDPs) and stateless persons, is nearly 20 million, many of whom are displaced as a result of armed conflict (US Committee for Refugees 2006; UNHCR 2006). There are three types of durable solutions to refugee situations: return/repatriation, local integration and resettlement in a third country. Repatriation has over the past twenty years become the distinctively most important solution, preferred by the UNHCR as well as most host states. Having long been the ideal solution only in theory, in the mid-1980s repatriation started to be endorsed as the ideal solution also in practice, and today the other two solutions – local integration and resettlement – are applicable to less than 1 per cent of the world's refugees (Chimni, 2003, p. 195; 2004).

In an Agenda for Peace, under the heading ‘Post-conflict peace-building’, Boutros-Ghali (1992, Para 55) included refugee repatriation among factors that will help to consolidate peace after war. In 1997, then High Commissioner Ogata (1997, p. vii) wrote that ‘peace-building requires just solutions for refugees and displaced persons.

China is today facing a war against drugs, a war that has been threatening the very fabric of the state. The drug threat emanates from multiple sources ranging from states in its periphery, regional criminal networks to domestic actors, such as local triads, which account for the bulk of the production and sale of narcotics in China. As China gradually opens up, the drug problem is becoming increasingly serious and threatens China's progress, especially in the field of health, economy and public security. This development is driven by the rapid economic development and the creation of a strong consumer base in China for narcotics. As seen in Central Asia, Afghanistan and some Southeast Asian states, economies seriously affected by the narcotics trade usually have a worsened health situation with the increase in HIV/AIDS, Hepatitis C and other drug related diseases (Swanström and Cornell, 2006, pp. 10–28). There have also been cases of ‘narcotisation’ of states leading to political instability (Cornell, 2006, pp. 37–8; Swanström, 2007). They are usually associated with decreased competitiveness of the national economies as drug related industries offer steady incomes in states with high unemployment and where few opportunities exists for a secure income, at the legitimate market. One of the most problematic effects in such states has been weakening of the state apparatus by the criminal networks that deal with drugs. Such networks thrive in weak states where they exercise control over the political elite or simply become a part of the elite.

Introduction

Is the implementation of a peace agreement a severe obstacle for peace? Conventional wisdom holds that the failure to implement peace agreements is an important explanation of the recurrence of war. Much scholarly work has been devoted to how the design of peace agreements can pave the way for peace. In this regard, power sharing is seen as a viable solution to end civil war. Agreement on the sharing of power is a concession by warring parties that can be seen as a sign of credible commitment. Such concessions often entail compromises on how political, territorial and military power is to be shared or divided in a future form of governance. However, the implementation of such power-sharing pacts has only to a limited extent been the focus of quantitative analysis. This chapter presents new data, namely the IMPACT dataset, to fill up this empirical deficit within the literature on post-civil conflict settlements. The IMPACT dataset contains data on internal armed conflict settlement provisions in 83 peace agreements struck in the period of 1989–2004. It includes data on the most important components of a peace agreement, with regard to the contested incompatibilities, namely political, military and territorial pacts. Furthermore, it includes unique data on to what degree such pacts were implemented following the signing of a peace agreement.

The chapter is structured in the following way. We begin by discussing literature on durable peace and peace agreements, and formulate four expectations based on this research.

The development of a new AU peace and security architecture attracts much interest today from academic and policy communities alike. Various organizations, not least the UN, are zealously debating the nature of such institutional structures and what best role external actors can play to support and bolster them. Many interesting changes are underway with regards to African security sector reform, combating terrorism and small arms proliferation as well as early warning frameworks. I will focus specifically on one aspect – peacekeeping and peacebuilding capabilities, where there has been a prominent change in emphasis from the Organization of African Unity (OAU) to the AU. Before the end of the cold war the OAU had started putting human beings more and more at the centre of their management of peace and security issues. I provide a broad account of how the OAU was severely constrained in doing so. The AU, since its succession to the OAU in 2002, has continued this transformation in concerns and priorities. As well as elucidating and explaining some background factors to why the AU has started couching its conflict resolution mechanisms in human security language, I analyse to what extent the AU can be an actor for the promotion of human rights and human security. This increasing importance can be seen in many ways but I will focus specifically on the cases of the African Union peace missions in Darfur, Sudan and in Burundi.

This chapter examines the vexed issue of the place for Arab Islamic movements, such as Palestinian Hamas – The Islamic Resistance Movement – within democracy and democratic peace. Some analysts would claim that Arab Islamic movements have no place within democracy, due to Islam's inherent incompatibility with democracy (see Sörensen, 1993; Huntington, 1993; Tibi, 1998; Kramer, 2001; Spencer, 2005). Spencer asserts that in Islamic law, all non-Muslims are considered inferior to Muslims. Another claim often aired is that Islam constitutes a threat to the basic values of the West, including its democratic mode of governance. Others contradict these claims, highlighting democratic, grassroots level structures that Islamic organizations have built throughout history (Esposito and Voll, 1996; Midlarsky, 1998). Furthermore, the democratic popular political culture of the (mostly) religious Arab masses, in contrast with the undemocratic political structures of their governing regimes, forms the setting within which Islamists must act. (Goddard, 2002; Tessler, 2002; Inglehart, 2004) Hamas's election victory in January 2006, handing it control of the Palestinian parliament, is the first time that an Arab Islamist party has ascended to power democratically in the Arab world.

Introduction

Since mid-1990s the United Nations and other multilateral organizations have through the establishment of international transitional administrations assumed responsibility for governance of war-torn territories. United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) is one of the bold experiments in internationally supported post-conflict state reconstruction, democratization and peacebuilding. International transitional administrations, such as UNMIK can be regarded as unparalleled opportunities to exert a normative influence and mould the state in reconstruction into a peaceful, liberal democracy. When the United Nations itself assumes a governing role, there is a temptation to demand the highest standards of democracy, human and minority rights, the rule of law etc. However, UNMIK was established through democratically deficient international processes and it is obviously not a representative democracy and should therefore not be held to the standards of a liberal democratic state. Yet, the mission is mandated to promote democracy and build democratic institutions of governance in Kosovo. How can liberal democratic norms be diffused in war-torn societies? What affects the ability to adopt norms of liberal democracy in societies that lack democratic culture? Through what means and channels is the UN promoting liberal democratic norms in Kosovo? To what extent are the Kosovars adopting these norms?

Taking the social constructivist assumption about norms and practices as mutually constitutive, this chapter sets out to explore the discrepancy between UNMIK's norm advocacy and practice of democracy.