The global displacement

WRITTEN BY Cindy J. Smith

In the past year the word "emergency" has so frequently been used to describe the migration phenomenon that the two words are seldom used apart. This is because it is indeed, an emergency. Although migration has occurred throughout history, we seem unprepared to protect the victims. In only one of the many examples, from 1970 to 2010, 1,417 million legal migrants from Africa and 4,287 million from Europe moved to the United States. This does not include the illegal migration.

Migrants as victims: victimological perspectives of human smuggling and human trafficking

WRITTEN BY Michael Kilchling

1. Introduction The ‘refugee crisis’ in Europe touches on fundamental issues of international law, criminal policy, criminology – and victimology. Public perception of and opinions on human trafficking, human smuggling and the situation of migrants in general is in a state of flux; perceptions and opinions are heavily influenced by media depictions and highly dependent on the general political climate of a society.

Migration and social cohesion

WRITTEN BY Will Somerville

Introduction and problem analysis

It is self-evident that large-scale migration of people has consequences for the communities they arrive into. We live in a world that is experiencing growing populations (often with expanding numbers of middle class people who are more likely to move) and that is increasingly interconnected. Most analyses therefore indicate that the majority of countries in the world face increasing people movement, often people moving for short durations and for a range of reasons. Governments will thus increasingly be expected to grapple with the consequences of migration for communities on the ground.

Just numbers and maps? The importance of monitoring trafficking in human beings for the development of evidence based policies

WRITTEN BY Rita Penedo

The United Nations Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons Especially Women and Children, commonly known as the “Trafficking Protocol” (2000), marks the beginning of a harmonized definition of Trafficking in Human Beings (THB), later on consolidated by the Council of Europe Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings (2005) and, more recently, by the Directive 2011/36 of the European Parliament and of the Council on preventing and combating trafficking in human beings and protecting its victims, transposed into the Portuguese legislation in August 2013 and thus revising several internal laws, namely the Article 160.º of the Penal Code (Trafficking in Persons).

Trafficking in persons: victim assistance and protection in Italian criminal proceedings

WRITTEN BY Alessia Lo Conte

It is widely recognized that the main purpose of the criminal justice system does not lie exclusively in punishing offenders, but above all and primarily, in respecting and restoring the human rights, dignity and needs of victims of crime. 1

Escaping climate change: who are the “environmental migrants” in international law?

WRITTEN BY Elena Piasentin

The term “environmental refugees” was used for the first time in 1985, when the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) researcher Essam El-Hinnawi defined these persons as those “who have been forced to leave their traditional habitat, temporarily or permanently, because of a marked environmental disruption (natural and/or triggered by people) that jeopardized their existence and/or seriously affected the quality of their life.”

Mediterranean migration towards Europe: system failure?

WRITTEN BY Karoline Popp

The Mediterranean has historically been a space of exchange, contact, and conquest. Migration – in all directions – has always been part of the cultural, political and economic negotiation around “Mare Nostrum.” Few things, however, have thrown European identities and the European political project into question more than the recent movement of migrants and refugees across the Mediterranean.

Smuggling networks to Europe: a spectrum from organised to disorganised crime

WRITTEN BY Mark Shaw

As Europe struggles to find a coherent approach to its burgeoning refugee and migrant crisis, one set of actors has been universally vilified: the migrant smugglers. While they are not the cause of the current crisis, they have certainly amplified it, and are often responsible for the greatest violations against human rights and protection. Turning attention and public outcry toward the smugglers arguably allows the EU member states to detract – and distract – from their own derogations of their obligations to international law and refugee protection.

Hate speech online: assessing Europe’s capacity to tackle an emerging threat

WRITTEN BY Arthur Brocato

From politically charged headlines to hate-filled interactions on social media, the phenomenon of words being used as weapons has rapidly taken shape in the public sphere within the last decade. Advances in global communication have made it easier for people across the world to stay in touch, exchange ideas, and foster cooperation at all levels of society. Nevertheless, communication technologies can also be used to spread extremist ideologies, racism, xenophobia, and other social ills, while potentially inciting individuals or groups to commit psychological abuse or physical acts of violence in the real world.

Perceptions of ethnic Albanians in New York City and the role of stereotypes in fostering social exclusion and criminality

WRITTEN BY Adriana Michilli and Jana Arsovska

If I awake to look out my window, walk out my front door and to my right, left and for as far as my eyes can see, my once tranquil city is plagued with carnage, bloodshed, strife and civil war would I not seek a safer life just over the mountains or across the sea? The idea of migration being a human right is far too often overlooked in the domains of international security organizations, as domestic governments and global policy makers attempt to fortify parts of the world to populations they have deemed undesirable.

Besides the socio-economic motivation, the charm of the Caliphate among children of immigrants

WRITTEN BY Viviana Premazzi

The importance and characteristics of the phenomenon

The United Nations Resolution 2178 (2014), adopted unanimously by the Security Council, includes, for the first time, a definition of what a “foreign terrorist fighter” is under international law. Foreign terrorist fighters are defined as “[…] individuals who travel to a state other than their states of residence or nationality for the purpose of the perpetration, planning, or preparation of, or participation in, terrorist acts or the providing or receiving of terrorist training, including in connection with armed conflict.”

Institutional child sexual abuse: impacts and responses

WRITTEN BY Basia Spalek, Catherine McCall and Heather Bacon

Many countries are now dealing with cases of large-scale institutional child sexual abuse. The institutional aspects of child sexual abuse include: inadequate procedures to protect children; values that place the reputations of organisations above bringing child sex offenders to justice; marginalization of victims and whistleblowers; failure to involve police authorities to investigate criminality; and people in authority misusing their power to target vulnerable children through paedophile networks and organized crime syndicates. The hidden and insidious nature of institutional child sexual abuse makes it impossible to estimate its true extent.

Implementing Agenda 2030: welcome to the UNSSC Knowledge Centre for Sustainable Development

WRITTEN BY Daniela Cepeda Cuadrado

On 1 January 2016, the Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development and its 17 Goals (SDGs) come into effect. The same day, the UN System Staff College (UNSSC)1 inaugurated the UNSSC Knowledge Centre for Sustainable Development, which is tasked to support the UN system in implementing the new development Agenda through learning, training and knowledge management.

The Post Development Agenda …Somewhere in Armenia

WRITTEN BY Barka Onlus

The travel

It was the beginning of October, we left Turin (Italy) at dawn and after a long stopover in Paris, we landed in Erevan, Armenia’s capital city, late at night. Father Mario, a Camillian, was waiting for us there. He has been living in Armenia for many years and is the administrative manager of a hospital, located in the Ashotsk region, where he oversees the distribution of basic necessities to a population becoming poorer and poorer, daily.