This chapter introduces mandates in mediation and provides a rationale for why we need to study them if we want to understand the process of mediation. The chapter also provides a list of Nordic mediation interventions stretching over a period of over seventy-five years. Mediators are individuals. Yet an overwhelming majority of those individuals who act as mediators between warring parties do so as representatives of what we here call a mandator – an organization, a country or countries, or both – that has sent them to mediate, and mediators can utilize the connections, reputation, leverage, and resources that the mandator possesses. The link between the mandator and the individual is the mandate. The mandate comprises the goal, instructions, and authority that together create the foundations for all that the mediator sets out to do. Still, despite their fundamental role in the mediation process, previous research on international mediation is largely silent on how mandates create the framework for the mediation efforts.

This chapter develops a conceptual framework in order to understand the role of mandates in the process of mediation. It draws on what previous mediation research has theorized in terms of mandates and tries to develop a broader basis for how mandates can be systematically taken into account when studying mediation processes. It provides a definition of mediation mandates and explores how mandates might affect the various phases of the mediation process. A mediation mandate is an externally given formal or informal authorization to a third party for what it could/should do concerning settling or managing a threatening, ongoing, or stalemated armed conflict. We show how mediation mandates may differ depending on whether they originate from the conflict parties or externally to the conflict. The mandate is one of the key ways in which the trilateral relationship between sending organizations, conflict parties, and individual mediators are regulated. Mandates also vary in terms of being explicit or implicit as well as general or specific.

More than 40,000 people went missing in the ex-Yugoslavia armed conflicts where the fate and whereabout of almost 10,000 of them is still unknown. Since then, various initiatives at the national and the regional level have been made to carry out search and identification processes, but the reparative mechanisms available to families of persons who disappeared have remained underdeveloped, and largely differs within the region. This chapter sheds a light on the recent legislative developments and a jurisprudence in the ex-Yugoslav republics that used to be the most affected by conflict; Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia and Serbia (Kosovo and Metohija), focusing on the differences in the level of the international obligations for the states in the Region arising from both: different ratification status of relevant international law instruments and the different status in terms of the EU accession processes. The special attention was paid to the direct and ex-tempore applicability of those international law instruments, considering the complexity of the constitutional organisation of the states, but also the different time frames which the states apply when define ‘the state of war’.

The rules of war, formally known as international humanitarian law, have been developing for centuries, reflecting society’s moral compass, the evolution of its values, and technological progress. While humanitarian law has been successful in prohibiting the use of certain methods and means of warfare, it is nevertheless destined to remain in a constant catch-up cycle with the atrocities of war. Nowadays, the widespread development and adoption of digital technologies in warfare, including AI, are leading to some of the biggest changes in human history. Is international humanitarian law up to the task of addressing the threats those technologies can present in the context of armed conflicts? This chapter provides a basic understanding of the system, principles, and internal logic of this legal domain, which is necessary to evaluate the actual or potential role of AI systems in (non-)international armed conflicts. The chapter aims to contribute to the discussion of the ex-ante regulation of AI systems used for military purposes beyond the scope of lethal autonomous weapons, as well as to recognize the potential that AI carries for improving the applicability of the basic principles of international humanitarian law, if used in an accountable and responsible way.

Chapter 11 examines the role of institutions. Specifically, it explores how institutions can be undermined by rent-seeking activities that bias decision-making toward suboptimal alternatives and consume valuable resources. Furthermore, this erosion of institutions leads to a decline, or at best stagnation, in the standard of living of the society by diverting a significant portion of productive forces. The chapter presents two models of war in which the armed conflict is produced by resource inequality (the book also acknowledges other types of causes of war like ethnic, religious, etc.) and offers recommendations on how to prevent them. Specifically, a one-sided transfer of resources from wealthy to less developed countries may provide incentives for peace even in the absence of enforceable agreements.

Chapter 3 proposes an original conceptual framework built on gender and security studies and supported by existing international legal standards and norms to reframe the interpretation of the refugee definition and better reflect the nature of violence in armed conflicts. In doing so, it reasserts the Refugee Convention as the cornerstone of international protection. This chapter claims that the ongoing dynamics of violence in situations of armed conflict provide a more valuable lens to interpret the Refugee Convention definition where persons flee armed conflicts as it focuses on the nature of violence, including its continuum, features, application, direction, motivation and impact. A micro-level analysis of this type also enables the identification of gender dynamics that are essential in understanding violence in armed conflicts. The framework outlines the knowledge that should be incorporated into the process of interpreting the refugee definition to ensure effective protection of refugees fleeing armed conflicts. The chapter is broken down into the characteristics of contemporary armed conflicts and how these features relate to the refugee definition, including the temporality of armed conflicts, the rise of non-state actors, weak states, and the objectives, gendered strategies and tactics of fighting parties.

Chapter 2 reviews the international and EU legal frameworks that apply to the international protection of persons fleeing contemporary armed conflicts from a gender perspective. The chapter explores the relationship between international law and armed conflicts, then turns to the interaction between international refugee law, international humanitarian law and international criminal law. The chapter emphasises the role of international human rights law in recognising the context of armed conflicts for the protection of human rights from a gender perspective. It then examines whether the Refugee Convention definition applies to persons fleeing armed conflicts in accordance with the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (VCLT) , but also more broadly whether international refugee law is able to fulfil its purpose of international protection in light of the changing characteristics of contemporary armed conflicts. The central claim of this chapter is that interpreting the Refugee Convention definition to ensure the effective protection of persons fleeing contemporary armed conflicts requires the incorporation of existing knowledge found in conflict and gender literature. This interpretative obligation is then discussed in the context of EU Member States (MS) acting within the EU legal order.

The Introduction sets out how the number of forcibly displaced persons in the world is the highest ever recorded. Violence associated with armed conflict has become the main cause of forced displacement in the twenty-first century and most refugees are fleeing armed conflicts. Most asylum seekers in the European Union (EU) originate from Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq. However, there are many misconceptions whether persons fleeing armed conflicts are refugees as defined by the Refugee Convention. This book is thus an enquiry into the continued relevance of the Refugee Convention and examines the extent to which asylum appellate authorities in the EU take into account the changing nature of contemporary armed conflicts. The book also explores how the Refugee Convention may be interpreted in a manner that better responds to the changed nature of contemporary armed conflicts from a gender perspective, thus reconceptualising the concept of the refugee. The Introduction sets out the conceptual notions adopted in the book, such as the importance of distinguishing between violence and armed conflicts, the research methodology and sampling of 320 asylum appeal decisions from Belgium, Denmark, France, the Netherlands, Spain and the UK. Finally, it sets out the structure of the book.

This chapter demonstrates that drone programs – the combination of legal narratives, shifts in military strategy, and technological change – bring about an anywhere war. Combat drones have been deployed against non-state actors extraterritorially, including on the territory of non-belligerent states, because of the presence on those territories of members of terrorist groups. To allow this, drone programs have involved the creation of concepts such as “outside areas of active hostilities” or “outside hot conflict zones.” These non-legal concepts posit that jus in bello applies wherever the belligerent is, including on the territory of a state where the hostilities are not taking place. This practice, accompanied with supportive legal and political rationales, has sparked a heated debate among scholars on the geographical scope of armed conflicts under the jus in bello. Departing from the normative discussion for or against a geographical limitation of conflicts, the chapter shows that there is no such a thing as a legal geographical limitation of conflicts in the law and that its absence is exploited by drone programs, whose technological features eventually create the prospect of an anywhere war taking place wherever the enemy is.