Материал: Гольцева О.Ю. Международное право в официальных документах. Под ред. И.А. Горшеневой

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matter for them. Even the decision whether to have children is the decision of men. This whole notion has to be changed in a dramatic way if we are really going to talk about women's rights in Egypt.

Story from BBC NEWS: http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/- /2/hi/in_depth/7689897.stm

OVER TO YOU

Write essays on the following topic.

1.What are the basic principles of Islamic culture and religion concerning human rights in general and rights of women in particular? Is the attitutude to the role of a woman in the Islamic society changing nowadays, in your opinion?

2.What do you know about Hollywood stars activities in the sphere of human rights protection? What peacemakers do you know? What do you understand by peacemaking activity?

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LESSON 14

WAR AND ARMED CONFLICTS

Starting up

Analyze the following quotation.

“These days, our senses are bombarded with aggression. We are constantly confronted with global images of unending, escalating was and violence”.

Margaret J. Wheatley, a writer and management consultant

Debate the following questions.

1.What is war in your opinion?

2.How do you think war start?

3.Who suffers most in armed conflicts and wars?

Exercise 1. Study the information of the chart.

How many armed conflicts took place in the world in 2009? Which regions are the most / the least affected by war? Do you think these conflicts have been resolved or still active?

Geographic Distributions of Armed Conflicts in 2009

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Exercise 2. Read the text and give the definition of the term “war”.

War

War should be understood as an actual, intentional and widespread armed conflict between political communities. Thus, fisticuffs between individual persons do not count as a war, nor does a gang fight… War is a phenomenon which occurs only between political communities, defined as those entities which either are states or intend to become states (in order to allow for civil war). Classical war is international war, a war between different states, like the two World Wars. But just as frequent is war within a state between rival groups or communities, like the American Civil War. Certain political pressure groups, like terrorist organizations, might also be considered “political communities”, in that they are associations of people with a political purpose and, indeed, many of them aspire to statehood or to influence the development of statehood in certain lands.

What's statehood? Most people follow Max Weber's distinction between nation and state. A nation is a group which thinks of itself as “a people”, usually because they share many things in common, such as ethnicity, language, culture, historical experience, a set of ideals and values, habitat, cuisine, fashion and so on. The state, by contrast, refers much more narrowly to the machinery of government which organizes life in a given territory. Thus, we can distinguish between the American state and the American people, or between the government of France and the French nation. At the same time, you've probably heard the term “nation-state.” Indeed, people often use “nation” and “state” interchangeably but we'll need to keep them conceptually distinct for our purposes.

“Nation-state” refers to the relatively recent phenomenon wherein a nation wants its own state, and moves to form one. This started out as a very European trend – an Ital-

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ian state for the Italian nation, a German state for the German people, etc., but it has spread throughout the world. Note that in some countries, such as America, Australia and Canada, the state actually presides over many nations, and you hear of “multi-national societies”. Most societies with heavy immigration are multi-national. Mul- ti-national countries are sometimes prone to civil wars between the different groups. This has been especially true of central Africa in recent years.

… It seems that all warfare is precisely, and ultimately, about governance. War is a violent way for determining who gets to say what goes on in a given territory, for example, regarding: who gets power, who gets wealth and resources, whose ideals prevail, who is a member and who is not, which laws get made, what gets taught in schools, where the border rests, how much tax is levied, and so on. War is the ultimate means for deciding these issues if a peaceful process or resolution can't be agreed upon.

The conflict of arms must be actual, and not merely latent, for it to count as war. Further, the actual armed conflict must be both intentional and widespread: isolated clashes between rogue officers, or border patrols, do not count as actions of war. The onset of war requires a conscious commitment, and a significant mobilization, on the part of the belligerents in question.

It's not just that war is the continuation of policy by other means; it's that war is about the very thing which creates policy – i.e., governance itself. War is the intentional use of mass force to resolve disputes over governance. Ultimately, war is profoundly anthropological: it is about which group of people gets to say what goes on in a given territory.

War is a brutal and ugly enterprise. Yet it remains central to human history and social change. These two facts together might seem paradoxical and inexplicable… War

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and its threat continue to be forces in our lives. Recent events graphically demonstrate this proposition, whether we think of the 9–11 attacks, the counter-attack on Afghanistan, the overthrow of Iraq's Saddam Hussein, the Darfur crisis in Sudan, the bombings in Madrid and London, or the on-going “war on terror” more generally.

Exercise 3. Suggest the Russian equivalents. Make sentences of your own.

War

cold war, warlord, to be at war with, civil war, a warlike nation, war game, World Wars, warhead, war of nerves, warfare, to go to war against/with sb, a war-torn city, the onset of war, warring factions, to declare war on the enemy, war on terror, war crime, to lead to war, on-going war, war criminal, the horrors of war

Exercise 4. Complete these sentences.

1.War should be understood as ___________________

2.War occurs only between ______________________

3.Classical war is ______________________________

4.Civil War is _________________________________

5.The distinction between nation and state is ________

6.The term “Nation-state” refers to ________________

7.Multi-national societies are the ones which ________

8.War is a violent way for determining _____________

9.The onset of war requires _____________________

10.War is the intentional use of mass force to _______

Exercise 5. Match these adverbs with their definitions. Translate them into Russian.