1,721,100 research outputs found
Autodeterminazione dei popoli e nuove forme di colonialismo
No full textThe Race to Land is generally understood as the phenomenon of large-scale investments in land by foreign investors, both public and private, particularly in developing and East European countries. Although, prima facie, the practice of land grabbing could be considered in compliance with the exercise of permanent sovereignty of States over natural resources, the phenomenon hides several dark sides, to the point that some commentators have raised the risk of the emergence of a new
colonialism. Particularly worrying is the dubious compatibility
of this practice with current international law norms and, specifically,
with the principle of self-determination. Starting from
the normative meaning of the latter, examined in its economic
dimension, this paper aims at investigating its potential applicability
to the particular case, both in terms of the subjects
entitled to exercise the right of self-determination and the existence
of protection tools available to the beneficiaries
LA SOVRANITA' PERMANENTE DEGLI STATI SULLE RISORSE NATURALI ED IL FENOMENO DEL LAND GRABBING
Full text linkIn seguito alla crisi dei prezzi dei prodotti alimentari tra il 2007 ed il 2008, é emersa sul panorama internazionale una nuova pratica, definita sinteticamente "land grabbing" (letteralmente accaparramento delle terre). Con tale espressione si indica, in prima approssimazione, l'acquisizione o l'affitto in larga scala di terre destinate ad uso agricolo, da parte di investitori stranieri pubblici e privati. Il fenomeno è concentrato prevalentemente nei Paesi in via di sviluppo e, in modo particolare, in Africa. I Pvs, spinti dalla necessità di liquidità ed infrastrutture, hanno posto in essere un politica favorevole agli Investimenti Diretti Esteri, consentendo l’acquisto o l’affitto di terra fertile, per corrispettivi o canoni piuttosto esigui e termini contrattuali particolarmente estesi (generalmente ricompresi in un range temporale tra i trenta e novantanove anni). La conclusione di tali contratti di investimento è formalmente indirizzata alla produzione di materie prime per il fabbisogno alimentare ed energetico dei Paesi d’origine. Prima facie,
essi sembrerebbero un “normale” esercizio della sovranità permanente
dello Stato di destinazione sulle proprie risorse naturali, che detiene il pieno diritto di regolarne lo sfruttamento. Nella fattispecie, emerge, infatti, in modo preponderante il ruolo degli Stati ospite. Le transazioni si svolgono in maniera formalmente legittima e vengono veicolate dallo Stato recipiente, le cui autorità nazionali o regionali concludono leciti accordi con gli investitori.
Numerose perplessità sorgono, però, in merito alla compatibilità di tale pratica con il diritto internazionale vigente. Simili investimenti presentano, infatti, un alto potenziale di rischio a carico delle popolazioni del Paese ospite, in particolare sotto il profilo dell’accesso alla terra, e quindi dell’approvvigionamento alimentare. È possibile che sulle terre oggetto d'investimento insistano già coltivazioni o allevamenti di comunità rurali, che utilizzano la terra in virtù di consuetudini o diritti d'uso, cui solitamente é collegato un minor livello di tutela rispetto ai titoli formali di proprietà, peraltro piuttosto rari. In alcune regioni del mondo, i soggetti titolari risultano quindi particolarmente vulnerabili, considerata la difficoltà di azionare i loro incerti diritti sulla terra e di ottenere, di conseguenza, un’adeguata protezione giurisdizionale. Egualmente preoccupante, sotto il profilo ambientale, é la tendenza, nell'implementazione di questo tipo d'investimenti, a sfruttare la terra per la coltivazione di biocarburanti o la realizzazione di vasti appezzamenti di monoculture, che riducono, evidentemente, la possibilità di mantenere una diversificazione ambientale adeguata.
Una volta accertata la rilevanza giuridica del fenomeno della corsa alle terre ed averne individuato una qualificazione autonoma, il lavoro si propone, quindi, di valutare la questione della legittimità dell’esercizio della sovranità permanente da parte del Paese di destinazione, quando l’alienazione di porzioni di territorio oggetto d’investimento si esplichi in modalità tali da generare le esternalizzazioni negative brevemente accennate: l’esercizio della sovranità da parte dello Stato non può, infatti, prescindere da precisi obblighi che su di esso gravano ai sensi del diritto internazionale, inerenti alla tutela dei diritti umani, da una parte, ed alla protezione dell’ambiente, dall’altra.After the outbreak of the food price crisis in 2007 – 2008 a new practice, known as land grabbing, has emerged on the international scene. The race to land is generally understood as the phenomenon of large-scale investments in land by foreign investors, which include both States and private companies, especially in developing countries. Driven by the necessity to attract foreign capital and finance infrastructure projects, developing countries have implemented favorable Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) policies, thus allowing the purchase or lease of fertile land lots, for rather meager rental prices and long terms (usually ranging from thirty to ninety-nine years) . Formally, these investments are directed towards the production of raw materials, necessary to address food and energy requirements, in particular for those countries which are net importers of agricultural products. The host State may well then decide to conclude lawful deals with the investors towards this aim. Prima facie, therefore, the conclusion of investment contracts in land apparently reflects the host country’s exercise of permanent sovereignty over its natural resources, which has the full right to regulate the exploitation thereof. Nevertheless the analysis of the phenomenon of land grabbing raises some doubts in relation to the compatibility of this practice with current international law norms. Such investments potentially carry a number of high risks to the population of the host country, in particular in terms of access to land and food supply. It is likely, in fact, that on the land subject to a given investment, there may already exist crops or herds of rural communities, who use the land by virtue of custom or usage rights, usually granted a lower level of protection if compared to the formal titles of ownership, rare at best in most developing countries. In some regions of the world, the holders are therefore particularly vulnerable to displacement, given the difficulty to exercise their uncertain land rights and to obtain, as a result, adequate judicial protection. Equally worrying, environmentally, is the implementation of investment contracts aimed at exploiting land to farm biofuels or realize large plots of monoculture, thus reducing the possibility to keep adequate land biological diversity.
After the analysis of the juridical significance of land grabbing and the identification of its autonomous legal characterization, the thesis examines the question of the legitimacy of the race to land with regards to the exercise of permanent sovereignty over natural resources by the host country, especially in those cases where the alienation of land generates considerably negative externalities on the local population: sovereignty cannot, in fact, be exercised without due regard to the specific obligations incumbent upon States under international law, related, in particular, to the protection of human rights and the environment
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Full text linkWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
koamabayili/VECTRON-author-checklist: VECTRON author checklist
No full textWe have done our best to complete the author checklist relating to the use of animals in the hut study. Note that the objective for the hut study was to evaluate the IRS treatment applications for residual efficacy against Anopheles mosquitoes, including the local An. coluzzii mosquito population. Cows were only used to attract mosquitoes into the huts and no tests were carried out directly on the cows. The author checklist is intended for use with studies where experiments are carried out on animals, which is why we have had such difficulty in completing this for the hut study, as many of the questions do not relate to how the cows were used
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