Browsing by Author "Kuutamo, Sini"

Over the past 10 years, France has been combatting terrorism though several military interventions in Africa, and especially in the Sahel region. However, over the past years, the French presence has gotten increasingly unpopular and sovereignty claims by the African states grow stronger, which has led to the interventions being shut down one by one, beginning from the intervention in Mali. This thesis gets acquainted with the central political rhetoric and legal justifications offered by France for its military intervention in Mali between 2013-2022. Furthermore, the identified justifications are compared against the global counterterrorism rhetoric and the surrounding legal debates concerning interventionism. The thesis finds that the French counterterrorism rhetoric combined political and legal justifications together in such a way that correlates with the global counterterrorism rhetoric. The findings enhance our understanding on how unilateral military interventions can utilise the global counterterrorism rhetoric in a manner that challenges especially international law on the use of force.