Suchergebnisse

AbstractThe creation of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in 1998 marked a substantial advance in the effort to ensure all perpetrators of mass atrocities can be brought to justice. Yet significant resistance to the anti-impunity norm, and the ICC as the implementing institution, has arisen in Africa. The ICC has primarily operated in Africa, and since it sought to indict the sitting Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir in 2008 resistance from both individual African states and the African Union has increased substantially. We draw on the concept of 'norm antipreneurs', and the broader norm dynamics literature, to analyse how resistance has developed and manifested itself, as well as the potential effects of this resistance on the anti-impunity norm. We conclude that the antipreneur concept helped us structure and organise analysis of the case – suggesting it could be usefully deployed in other similar cases – but that this case also suggests that antipreneurs do not always enjoy substantial defensive advantages. We also conclude that African resistance to the ICC has substantially stalled the advance of the anti-impunity norm, a finding that has significant implications for the wider effort to reduce mass atrocity crimes in the contemporary era.

Systemism and social mechanisms, as articulated by Bunge, are concepts with great potential for application to assessment of research progress. This study will use the conceptual tools made available by systemism and social mechanisms to evaluate the International Crisis Behavior (ICB) Project as a scientific effort toward the greater understanding of crises in world politics. Systemism and social mechanisms are articulated as key concepts in the quest for scientific progress. The goals and basic characteristics of the ICB Project as a scientific venture then are described. The ICB Project is assessed in terms of how well it lives up to standards for scientific progress. Finally, conclusions and ideas about future research are presented. The basic finding of this study is that the ICB Project is quite successful in meeting the standards for scientific progress entailed by the concepts of systemism and social mechanisms.

REMAP-CAP, a randomized, embedded, multifactorial adaptive platform trial for community-acquired pneumonia, is an international clinical trial that is rapidly expanding its scope and scale in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Japan is now joining REMAP-CAP with endorsement from Japanese academic societies. Commitment to REMAP-CAP can significantly contribute to population health through timely identification of optimal COVID-19 therapeutics. Additionally, it will promote the establishment of a national and global network of clinical trials to tackle future pandemics of emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases, in collaboration with multiple stakeholders, including front-line healthcare workers, governmental agencies, regulatory authorities, and academic societies.

It is statistically proven that high labour productivity ensures the competitiveness of the territory, the level and quality of life of the population. Therefore, policy makers are taking measures aimed to improve labour productivity both on national and regional levels. This policy needs scientific justification, so methodological issues are becoming more acute every day. The article presents a critical analysis of international experience in evaluating and analysing labour productivity indicators. The methods are classified and described in the article; the advantages and disadvantages of the methods are identified. In addition, the article provides examples of the empirical application of these methods.

This report starts by presenting the international and Italian context of international remittance flows in the past decade, as a general framework of the study (chapter two). The connection between the labor market integration of migrants with the more general economic trends in their destination countries is a crucial issue in the current academic and political debate. Trends and impacts of the economic crisis reflect themselves in micro-behaviors and affect also the transnational activities of migrants. Chapter three presents the objectives of the research and the related survey design and sampling techniques for the fieldwork, while a specific methodological note is added at the end of the report on the fieldwork phase. Chapter four focuses on empirical findings from the analysis of the 480 interviews collected. After a brief description of demographic and economic conditions of interviewed migrants, the core of this section is devoted to the analysis of migrants' attitudes and behaviors in sending remittances, in engaging in investments and savings, and to explore changes across time and according to their occupational status at destination. In light of the global commitment to the reduction of remittance costs as a part of a more comprehensive strategy to foster the migration and development nexus, a specific section deals with remittance service providers and remittance costs revealing still room for improvement for the development of a competitive and transparent remittance market. The conclusive chapter highlights the main empirical findings and suggests further lines of analysis on migratory models, migrant economic integration and transnationalism from the collected empirical evidence.