Institute for International Political Studies

Since its inception, the United Nations has adopted two General Assembly resolutions dealing with the rights of victims: the 1985 Declaration of Basic Principles of Justice for Victims of Crime and Abuse of Power and the 2006 Basic Principles and Guidelines on the Right to a Remedy and Reparation for Victims of Gross Violations of International Human Rights Law and Serious Violations of International Humanitarian Law. The focus of the former was on victims of domestic crimes, while that of the latter is on victims of international crimes; more particularly, gross violations of international human rights law and serious violations of international humanitarian law. The 2006 Principles are, for all practical purposes, an international bill of rights of victims. Their adoption has been hard-fought, but their implementation both at the national and international levels is sure to still face many obstacles. Parallel to this historic development have been decisions by the European Court of Human Rights and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, as well as provisions in the statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC), giving standing to victims in ICC proceedings, but also certain rights of compensation. These parallel developments, as well as others within domestic legal systems, evidence a wide movement towards the recognition of the rights of victims of crime, whether domestic or international, or gross violations of human rights. This article re-traces the historic origin of victims' rights in domestic and international legal systems, focusing particularly on the adoption of the two international instruments mentioned above, and more particularly on the negotiating history of the 2006 Principles. A detailed commentary of these Principles constitutes the centerpiece of this article.

Irregular migration to or across Italy is usually associated with the idea of hundreds, sometimes thousands, of migrants crossing the Mediterranean crammed in long-worn ships barely staying afloat. Such journeys are often taken as evidence of the existence of hierarchically integrated, centralized, sophisticated, worldwide active, criminal cartels. The only problem with such received wisdoms is the fact that it is radically at odd with the available evidence, as it has little to do with the empirical reality of irregular migratory systems. This paper reviews a number of Italian Court files concerning a variety of organizations operating across both land and sea borders. It is shown how such organizations operate within a variety of local specificities and structural constraints. La migration illégale à destination de l'Italie ou passant par ce pays est généralement associée dans l'esprit des gens à l'image de centaines, voire de milliers de migrants traversant la Méditerranée entassés dans de vieux rafiots se maintenant tout juste à flot. On considère souvent que les traversées de ce type sont la preuve de l'existence de cartels criminels qui seraient structurés hiérarchiquement, centralisés, extrêmement bien organisés et actifs au niveau mondial. Le seul problème avec de telles idées reçues est qu'elles ne concordent absolument pas avec les faits dont on dispose et n'ont pas grand chose à voir avec la réalité concrète des systèmes de migration illégale. Cette étude passe en revue un certain nombre de dossiers de tribunaux italiens concernant diverses organisations qui opèrent aussi bien au travers des frontières terrestres que maritimes. Elle montre comment de telles organisations opèrent en tenant compte de diverses spécificités locales et contraintes structurelles. La migración irregular hacia Italia, o a través de Italia, por lo general se asocia a la idea de cientos, a veces miles, de migrantes que cruzan el Mediterráneo en buques atestados de pasajeros, que a duras penas se mantienen a flote. Esos viajes se suelen tomar como prueba de la existencia de carteles delictivos jerárquicamente integrados, centralizados, de avanzada, y activos en el plano mundial. El único problema con esta idea aceptada es el hecho de que contrasta radicalmente con las pruebas disponibles, ya que tiene poco que ver con la realidad empírica de los sistemas de migración irregular. En el presente docu-mento se examinan una serie de archivos de los tribunales italianos relativos a una variedad de organizaciones que operan en las fronteras terrestres y marítimas. Se describe el modo de operación de esas organizaciones en el contexto de una variedad de condiciones locales específicas y limitaciones de tipo estructural.

Abstract Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have played a crucial role in conducting Search and Rescue (SAR) operations off the Libyan coast, assisting almost 120,000 migrants between 2014 and 2019. Their activities, however, have been increasingly criticized. The accusation that NGOs facilitate irregular migration has escalated into investigations by Italian and Maltese courts and various policy initiatives restricting non-governmental ships and their access to European ports. Although all NGOs investigated to date have been acquitted, the combination of criminal investigations and policy restrictions that has taken place in Italy since 2017 has severely hindered non-governmental SAR operations. Given the humanitarian repercussions of reducing NGOs’ presence at sea, the merits and shortcomings of the arguments underlying the criminalization of non-governmental maritime rescue warrant in-depth research. To that end, this article fulfils two interrelated tasks. First, it provides a genealogy of the accusation against NGOs and the ensuing combination of legal criminalization, policy restrictions, and social stigmatization in restraining their activities. Second, it uses quantitative data to show that empirically verifiable accusations like the claim that NGOs serve as a pull factor of migration, thereby causing more people to day at sea, are not supported by available evidence. By doing so, our study sheds new light onto the criminalization of humanitarianism and its implications.

Le terme " politisation " est sollicité de manière récurrente pour des problématiques de science politique et de sociologie, dans des contextes et à propos de réalités très différentes : politisation de la nature, de la paysannerie, des sondages, de l'administration, de la religion, des militaires, des jeunes, politisation de quartiers, politisation...

Within the growing amount of literature on short-term rentals, which has started to increase in the past three years, research has focused mainly on world tourism cities, and intuitively on the cores of cities. Additionally, the economic actors serving as suppliers in the short-term rental sector are too often taken for granted. While existing research confirms the growing presence of real estate agencies and transnational investors who own or manage a significant number of apartment buildings with a purely corporate aim, what is more controversial is that which happens on the other side of the market: local homeowners becoming short-term rental sector suppliers. Focusing on the Italian city of Turin, the article contributes to this debate by exploring the profiles and economic lives of middle-class Airbnb ‘hosts’. Drawing on a set of in-depth interviews, the article provides a categorization of different types of, what we call, ‘marginal hosts’, and an analysis of their specificities and narratives. The study, carried out at a neighbourhood level, shows that the interplay between post-crisis austerity, which has impacted on occupations and income, homeownership and platform capitalism have provided new value-extraction opportunities. We will conclude by arguing that social class should be more specific to the analysis of short-term rental sectors, simultaneously underlining the need for further systematic research on suppliers.

Several recent studies have shown an increase in political consumerism (boycott and buycott) and a tendency towards a new ‘politics in the supermarket’. These developments are usually seen as a transformation of forms of political action towards more individualized participation forms. Little attention has focused on the role of social movement activity in this transformation. In this contribution, which is based on a case study of political consumerism in the clothing sector in Switzerland, I fill this gap by analysing the ways in which political agency and mobilization shape political consumerism. I suggest taking into account the role of campaigning – that is, intentional and coordinated collective action and framing activities – as an incentive, if not a determinant, of individual political consumption. I show how different contentious performances mobilize citizens and consumers and make the consumption and production of clothing a public and political issue. I analyse the mobilizing strategies of a campaign regarding action repertoires and framing activities and ask how they contribute to provide political content to consumer products, creating a venue for political participation in the marketplace.

The evaluation of defense mechanisms represents one of the most promising fields in the psychodynamic-oriented empirical research on personality disorders (PDs). This study examines the association between DSM-IV PDs and defense mechanisms. We evaluated a sample of 50 adult outpatients seeking personality assessment and psychotherapeutic treatment. PDs have been assessed using the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV Personality Disorder, version 2.0. Defense mechanisms have been evaluated by a group of trained clinical psychologists and psychiatrists (interrater reliability from .61 to .95) using Perry's Defense Mechanism Rating Scale. Our results support the hypothesis that some defense mechanisms underlie PDs and that defenses call for further attention as we assess PDs.

Abstract The arrival of rotting boats crowded with hundreds of individuals exhausted by a difficult crossing in wretched conditions is a powerful image too often seen in the Italian newspapers. In the majority of cases, the sea crossing is only a small part of a long and eventful journey. The cross-Mediterranean flow of migrants without papers originates on the southern and eastern shores of the Mediterranean Sea, but it includes migration from several continents. Many Mediterranean countries have become transit routes as the main objective of the sea journey is to cross the most protected border, that of the Schengen area. In these countries migrants become clients of illegal organizations: they pay for a service and subject themselves to rough treatment, with high risk for their personal safety. The article reconstructs the routes and the organization of the travels which irregularly cross the Mediterranean Sea to reach Italy. Different migration flows and their evolution are presented: the case of short crossings from Albania at the beginning of the 1990s; the departures from Turkey, Syria and Lebanon at the end of the 1990s; the passage from the Suez Canal; the long-distance journeys from West Africa; and finally the landings in Lampedusa, from Libya, which is currently the most favoured route. Focus is placed on the organizations that run the illegal entry routes, and on the institutional reactions at play to stop these irregular movements, considering both the Italian and the international sides. Acknowledgements This article is a revised version of P. Monzini, Il traffico dei migranti per via marittima: il caso dell'Italia, in: F. Pastore, P. Monzini & G. Sciortino, L'Italia promessa, geopolitica e dinamiche organizzative del traffico dei migranti verso l'Italia, CeSPI Working Papers, 9. Available at http://www.cespi.it/PASTORE/Wp9-cnr.pdf, result of a study carried out for CeSPI, Rome. Notes 1 The main measures adopted in Italy to manage regular migration and reduce irregular migration have been introduced by the two legislative acts: Law No. 286/98 (Napoletano-Turco Actm 1998), and Law No. 189/2002 (Bossi Fini Act, 2002). 2 See Camera dei Deputati 2005 for a detailed description of the main results of that policy. A list of the governmental agreements is available at http://itra.esteri.it/default1.asp. 3 Interview: SCO (Central Operational Services), State Police, Rome, 5 June 2003. 4 Out of a total of 46,481 immigrants apprehended, 22,418 of these boat people were caught at the Apulian borders in 1998, according to the Ministry of Interior, Immigration Service and Border Police, Department of Public Security, 2000. 5 Cf. Pastore (Citation1998) for an analysis of the four different phases of the flow of migration from Albania. According to some estimates, at least 5–600,000 persons left the country between 1990 and 2000, representing 40 per cent of the population aged between 19 and 40 (ICMPD, 2000: 84). 6 Criminal Proceedings 1897/93 RGNR, Prosecution Office of the Lecce Court. 7 Cf. Criminal Proceedings 1887/93 RGNR, Prosecution Office of the Lecce Court and Criminal Proceedings 316/97 RGNR, Prosecution Office of the Lecce Court. 8 Data provided from Lecce Police Headquarters. In 2000 there were 13,793, in 2001 6,702, in 2002 3,067 and 64 in 2003. 9 Interview, Lecce Prosecution Service, 6 November 2003. 10 In rare cases, Albanian citizens living in Italy were used: cf. Criminal Proceeding 2008/97, Prosecution Office at the Lecce Court. 11 Criminal Proceeding 3084/96, Prosecution Office at the Lecce Court, and DIA 1999. 12 Interview: Lecce Police Headquarters, 30 June 2003. 13 Interviews, Lecce Prosecution Service, 6 November 2003 and Finance Police, 6 October 2003. 14 Interview: Magistrate of Direzione Investigativa Antimafia, 4 September 2006. 15 The case, and the authorities' indifference, are described in Bellu, Citation2005. 16 Three complex inquests have been examined in detail: Criminal Proceedings 4469/01 RGNR Lecce Court; Criminal Proceedings 4514/2000 RGNR Crotone Prosecution Service; Criminal Proceedings 3892/2000 RGNR, Reggio Calabria Court. The latter resulted in 54 detention orders being issued. 17 Interview: Lecce Police Headquarters, 30 June 2003. 18 Interview: SCO (Central Operational Services), State Police, Rome, 5 June 2003. 19 Between 2000 and 2003 the Finance Police alone arrested 14 Turkish citizens in Apulia and 52 in Calabria. 20 Information from confidential source. 21 The port of Crotone became the final destination of 33 ships made of iron and wood, used for transporting passengers, between June 1997 and 24 January 2002. Keeping and eventually destroying these hulks creates problems for the port authorities. 22 Interview with a senator who has expertise in this area, 28 May 2003. Also Ciconte (2003: 160) hypothesizes that Calabrian clans allow the Turks traffickers to land in return for similar favours regarding drugs. 23 Interview: Ragusa Prosecution Service, 22 July 2003. 24 Interview: SCO (Central Operational Services), State Police, Rome, 5 June 2003. 25 Interview: Agrigento Prosecution Office, 22 July 2003 26 Interview: Finance Police, 6 October 2003. 27 Interview: Finance Police, 6 October 2003, Interview: SCO (Central Operational Services), State Police, Rome, 5 June 2003. 28 Cf., for example Criminal Proceedings 1990/2003 RGNR, Prosecution Office of the Agrigento Court. 29 Viviano Bolzoni, 'My time in the hands of the slave merchants', la Repubblica, 12 June 2003: 3. 30 Interview: SCO (Central Operational Services), State Police, Rome, 5 June 2003. 31 According to Fortress Europe, an on-line press review, 6,016 migrants have died in the Mediterranean Sea since 1988; see http://fortresseurope.blogspot.com,

In the mid-1980s, the National Resistance Movement (NRM) established in Uganda what it claimed was a new type of electoral politics, which soon came to be known as ‘movement’ or ‘no-party’ democracy. While party activities became subject to strict limitations, the NRM tried not to exacerbate political opposition by letting parties ‘exist’ as independent entities. Thus, in what is best conceived as a hegemonic system, minor political organizations are allowed a minimal presence so long as they do not constitute an effective challenge to the ruling Movement organization. This article investigates empirically the state of Uganda’s historical political parties - the Uganda People’s Congress and the Democratic Party - and shows that the specific organizational forms and strategies that the two parties have adopted are a direct response to the no-party framework and the hegemonic context.

Italian government policies concerning foreign immigration have to be understood in the context of laws on nationality. Since the time of unification, Italian laws on nationality have been closely determined by policies on emigration and immigration. As a result, the laws regarding the nationality status of Italian emigrants returning from abroad, and for foreign immigrants in Italy, have on the whole been determined by the procedures adopted for the acquisition or deprivation of Italian nationality. This is a subject that has not been studied and this article reconstructs the principal stages in the development of Italian nationality laws from the early twentieth century to the present. This reveals that Italian nationality law treats Italian emigrants and foreign immigrants in very different ways. Both the legal system and government policy has in the past been extremely generous towards the former and has made both the preservation and the reacquisition of nationality relatively easy for Italian nationals, even before there were practical motives for this (e.g. the right for Italians living overseas to vote). When it comes to foreign immigrants, however, Italian law is amongst the most restrictive in western Europe. The article concludes by arguing that this underlying imbalance is a major but largely ignored weakness in Italian democracy.

Elections do not always advance democratisation, yet they can. We outline a democratisation-by-elections model according to which the opportunities for political change opened up by each electoral round build on previous election-related democratic progress. We focus on Nigeria, interpret the recent executive turnover in light of previous elections, and set the country within the comparative context of Africa's democratisation. Using a new Africa Leadership Change dataset, we use election-related events to examine the diverse routes that African regimes have taken since 1990. The analysis highlights two major syndromes: democratic stagnation and recession. In a sizeable group, however, the institutionalisation of democracy has been making gradual progress. While there is no predetermined way to advance democracy, the reiteration of elections can be instrumental in such advancement.

(2005). Beyond enlargement. The European neighbourhood policy and its tools. The International Spectator: Vol. 40, No. 1, pp. 7-20.

The implementation of preparedness strategies to prevent and mitigate the impact of global health threats poses several challenges. It should promptly identify cross-cutting drivers of pandemic threats, assess context-specific risks, engage multiple stakeholders, and translate complex data from multiple sources into accessible information for action. This requires a coordinated, multidisciplinary and multisectoral effort engaging systems that, most of the time, work in isolation. The One Health (OH) approach promotes the collaboration and communication among different disciplines and sectors, and could be applied across the preparedness phases at national and international level. We discuss here gaps and needs in preparedness strategies, which can benefit from the OH approach, and a set of actionable recommendations, as shared with the G20-2021 with a dedicated Policy Brief. The discussion adds to the current debate about OH operationalization and promotes a paradigm shift towards coordinated prevention and preparedness strategies for early assessment and management of global health threats.

A survey on the 6-month prevalence of depression in the Italian community was performed using the modified-Mini-International Neuropsychiatric Interview (MINI) administered with a computer-prompted interview to a panel of 5566 individuals, which aimed to validate the results of a previous similar survey and evaluate the socio-economic consequences of the illness. Prevalence of major depression and minor depression accounted for 10.8% and 3.3% of the cases, respectively, thus confirming the previous results (8.0% and 2.9%, respectively). Major depression was 1.4-fold more prevalent in females compared to males, while minor depression was 2.6-fold more prevalent in males, thus confirming the previous results (1.3% and 1.6%, respectively). The majority of subjects of all MINI depression categories, including major depression (62.7% versus 83.9% of the minor depression and 82.3% of the depressive symptoms subjects), did not consult any healthcare professional with respect to their symptoms. Among the major depression subjects undergoing medical consultation, 34.2% of were not prescribed any therapy or intervention, while only 36.8% reportedly started a drug therapy (22.3% with an antidepressant). More than twice as many major depression subjects had at least three physician visits and drug therapies and more than three-fold as many had at least four instrumental examinations in the preceding 6 months compared to no depression subjects. Loss of work or global activity longer than 1 week was reported by approximately four-fold as many major depression subjects compared to no depression subjects. These results provide evidence for a higher frequency of under-recognition of depression as a medical illness in Italy compared to other European countries, while confirming the evidence from other countries on the small proportion of subjects with disabling symptoms who receive treatment, particularly specific treatment with antidepressants, and on the direct relationship between the impairment induced by the depressive symptoms and global healthcare resources use, as well as of work and activity days lost.

The 6-month prevalence of depression in the Italian community was evaluated by means of the modified-Mini-International-Neuropsychiatric Interview (MINI) administered with a computer-prompted interview to a representative panel of 3550 individuals. Major depression and minor depression accounted for 8.0% and 2.9% of the cases, respectively. Major depression was 1.3 times as prevalent in females (compared to males), while minor depression was 1.6 times as prevalent in males. Prevalence of major depression was maximal (11.9%) in subjects aged 30-49 years, and minimal (4.1%) in subjects aged 60 years or older. These results confirm prevalence figures for depression in the community reported with the modified-MINI for other European countries, and support the use of telematic data acquisition for health-related general population surveys.

If we look back at the past two decades, timing seems to point to a close connection between democratic reforms and economic growth in sub-Saharan states. Most countries in the area introduced multiparty politics and made dramatic – if incomplete – democratic progress between 1990 and 1994. Quite strikingly, it is exactly from 1994 to 1995 (and particularly from 2000) that the region began to undergo a period of significant economic progress. Because of the undeniable temporal sequence experienced in the region – that is, first political reforms, then economic growth – some observers pointed to a nexus between democratic progress and economic performance. But is there evidence in support of a causal relationship? As of today, no empirical research has been conducted on the democracy–growth nexus in the early twenty-first century's so-called “emerging Africa”. To fill this gap, we discuss the different arguments claiming an economic advantage of democracies, we present our theoretical framework and carry out an empirical analysis of the growth impact of political regimes in 43 sub-Saharan states for the entire 1980–2010 period. Our findings confirm that African countries, many of which had long suffered the combination of authoritarian rule and predatory practices, derived some economic dividends from democratic progress.

Abstract This paper examines how the corporate social responsibility performance of the acquirer firm, measured with the environmental, social and governance score, is related to postmerger operating performance, by analysing 796 merger operations that took place between 2011 and 2018. The analysis was carried out by first considering the full sample and then dividing the sample into three subsamples: acquirer companies with an environmental, social and governance score below the median, acquirer companies with a rating above the median and finally those companies considered to have a very high score (over 80). To support the results obtained from this analysis, a machine learning technique was subsequently applied to the data. The results obtained from the analysis demonstrated that acquiring companies with a high environmental, social and governance rating manage to generate a significant improvement in operating performance postdeal after the merger, whereas this is not the case for companies with a low score or for companies with a score of above 80. These results seem to demonstrate that although a high environmental, social and governance score can have a positive impact on postmerger operating performance, this only true up to a point. A possible explanation for this could be that the costs involved in integrating and aligning the culture of the two merging companies increase when there is the need to maintain a high score.

International audience

Abstract In an ongoing epidemic, the case fatality rate is not a reliable estimate of a disease’s severity. This is particularly so when a large share of asymptomatic or pauci-symptomatic patients escape testing, or when overwhelmed healthcare systems are forced to limit testing further to severe cases only. By leveraging data on COVID-19, we propose a novel way to estimate a disease’s infected fatality rate, the true lethality of the disease, in the presence of sparse and partial information. We show that this is feasible when the disease has turned into a pandemic and data comes from a large number of countries, or regions within countries, as long as testing strategies vary sufficiently. For Italy, our method estimates an IFR of 1.1% (95% CI: 0.2% – 2.1%), which is strongly in line with other methods. At the global level, our method estimates an IFR of 1.6% (95% CI: 1.1% – 2.1%). This method also allows us to show that the IFR varies according to each country’s age structure and healthcare capacity.

Les élections législatives marocaines de septembre 2002 , premier scrutin organisé sous le règne de Mohammed VI. ont été l'objet de nombreuses espérances et conjectures de la part des observateurs comme des élites politiques marocaines. Au-delà de cet horizon d'attentes, fait de représentations multiples des évolutions du régime et concentré sur le face-à-face entre la monarchie et les partis politiques, quelles lectures proposer de ce scrutin ? Que nous apprennent les expériences multiples vécues au cours de la campagne, du vote et de ses lendemains ? Cet ouvrage collectif renoue avec une sociologie électorale quelque peu délaissée ces dernières décennies dans le pays, où la dimension compétitive de l'élection reste soumise à caution. Les différentes contributions qui le composent mettent l'accent sur les logiques de représentation et de mobilisation qui traversent le moment électoral, en rendant compte de la pluralité des acteurs : ceux qui occupent le devant de la scène, comme ceux qui s'activent dans les coulisses. Faisant varier les échelles, elles s'intéressent à ce qui est donné à voir, à entendre, à espérer et aux mises en scène du politique. Elles en examinent les répertoires discursifs, gestuels, visuels, parfois musicaux. Par delà les petits et les grands enjeux affichés, cet ouvrage espère ainsi éclairer, au prisme du moment électoral, les restructurations d'un ordre sociopolitique. Loin d'affirmer que « rien ne change » ou que l'épreuve des urnes est mystificatrice, il considère des transformations en pointillé de la représentation politique, des manières d'aller au peuple, de voter ou de s'abstenir. Il explore les luttes symboliques auxquelles se livrent les candidats pour définir l'excellence politique, pour délimiter les frontières de la notabilité et du militantisme. Il observe la reconfiguration des relations de clientèle et de proximité. En filigrane, une question se pose : l'un des enjeux fondamentaux des tribulations de la scène électorale marocaine ne serait-il pas d'étendre, pour les uns. et de retarder, pour les autres, l'exercice effectif du suffrage à des catégories jusque-là exclues de la représentation ? Ont contribué à cet ouvrage : Mounia Bennani-Chraïbi, Myriam Catusse. Hsain Ilahiane, Rémy Leveau. Jean-Claude Santucci, Victoria Veguilla et Lamia Zaki.