The ICC-African Relationship: More Complex Than a Simplistic Dichotomy

The International Criminal Court’s (ICC) legitimacy, as an independent and unbiased international criminal court, has been brought into question, for all 30 official cases opened to this date are against African nationals. The ICC-African relationship is often framed in this excessively simplistic dichotomy: either the ICC is regarded as a Western neo-imperial colonial tool, or as a legal institutional champion of global human rights, rid of the political. Nevertheless, each obfuscates the complexity of this relationship by purporting either extreme. Rather, it is the legal framework of the ICC that necessitates selectivity bias against nationals from developing countries, in particular, African states. The principle of complementarity and the United Nations Security Council’s (UNSC) referral power embedded in the ICC’s legal framework, allows for African nations to be disproportionately preliminarily examined, investigated, and then tried, while enabling warranted cases against nationals from developed states to circumvent such targeting. Therefore, the primary issue lies not in cases the ICC has opened, but in the cases it has not.

Impact Evaluation of Alternative Irrigation Technology in Crete: Correcting for Selectivity Bias

The interest in promoting food and water security through development projects has led to the need to evaluate the impact of these projects. This study evaluates the impact from transitioning to a modern irrigation technology. Deciding to adopt or not an alternative irrigation technology (sprinklers) is not necessarily a random determination. Therefore, selection bias can be present and this can lead to biased estimates. In this study, we apply methodological specifications to correct for self-selectivity biases. Then, we measure and compare the technical efficiency scores from adopters and non-adopters. The empirical application uses data covering 56 small-scale greenhouse farms in Crete (Greece) for the cropping years 2009-2013. The results reveal that the average technical efficiency for farmers who adopted sprinkler irrigation is lower than the group of non-adopters, when the presence of selectivity bias cannot be rejected. This implies that either the farmers need more time to incorporate the know-how of the newly acquired technology or they become less motivated after the adoption. Consequently, agricultural water saving technologies need to be promoted in combination with support to the farmers, so they can cope with the lower performance in the first years after adoption.

Welfare migration or migrant selection? Social insurance participation and rural migrants’ intentions to seek permanent urban settlement in China

The welfare system can be a crucial factor in the urban settlement of rural migrants, but its effects are difficult to determine because to do so one must distinguish the effect of welfare entitlement from the effect of ‘migrant selectivity bias’, which widely exists in cities in developing countries. Using survey data from 15 Chinese cities, this study examines the ways in which social insurance – the most critical social welfare package in China – affects rural migrants’ urban-settlement intentions. The results show that there is a ‘migrant selectivity bias’ in Chinese cities, that is, rural migrants who are better off socio-economically are more inclined to participate in social insurance and are more inclined to pursue permanent urban settlement. Meanwhile, social insurance participation is significantly and positively related to rural migrants’ urban-settlement intentions, and this positive relation remains even after we discount the effect of ‘migrant selectivity bias’ in the analysis. We argue that, for rural migrants in China, the effect of social insurance participation on urban settlement intentions closely resembles that experienced by those who move to migration-managed regimes. We conclude that the Chinese government should establish a more inclusive social welfare system to enable rural migrants to permanently settle in cities.

PERKEMBANGAN TINGKAT PENGEMBALIAN INVESTASI PENDIDIKAN DI JAWA TIMUR TAHUN 2015 DAN 2018

Pendidikan memberikan banyak manfaat bagi tenaga kerja salah satunya berupa penghasilan pada saat memasuki pasar kerja. Pengembalian manfaat pendidikan yang diukur dari penghasilan sering disebut dengan tingkat pengembalian investasi pendidikan. Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mengetahui perkembangan tingkat pengembalian investasi pendidikan di Jawa Timur pada tahun 2015 dan 2018. Data yang digunakan adalah data Survei Angkatan Kerja Nasional (Sakernas) Jawa Timur tahun 2015 dan 2018. Estimasi tingkat pengembalian investasi pendidikan dilakukan dengan Metode Model Seleksi Heckman yang memodifikasi Model Fungsi Penghasilan Mincer untuk mengatasi sample- selectivity-bias. Hasilnya adalah tingkat pengembalian investasi pendidikan di Jawa Timur pada tahun 2015 dan 2018 pada umumnya meningkat, kecuali pada jenjang pendidikan tinggi.

Effects of Climate Shocks and Climate Adaptation through Livelihood Diversification on Gendered Welfare Gaps in Northern Ghana

Globally, addressing poverty levels and inequality remained one of the topmost priorities and has been accorded the first position in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Although Ghana as a whole is faring well in poverty reduction over the past decades, poverty levels and inequalities remains high in the northern parts. This study analysed the gendered welfare gap and the effects of climate change and livelihood diversification on the welfare gap. Through multistage sampling, 432 households were selected and interviewed using a questionnaire. A selectivity bias corrected Oaxaca Blinder model was estimated using household per capita consumption expenditure as a measure of households’ welfare. The result shows that there is a significant welfare gap of $45.85 (GH₵211.85), an equivalent of 11.4% between male headed and female headed households. Controlling for selectivity bias revealed that the observed gender welfare gap was underestimated. Livelihood diversification had positive significant effect on the explained component of gender welfare gap. Climate change/variability had positive significant effect on welfare gap through the explained component and a negative significant effect through the unexplained component. Therefore, observed climate change and variability led to an increase in gender welfare gap by 64.62%, while the unobservable returns from climate factors contributed to a reduction in gender welfare gap by 193.26%. Since addressing unobservable climate factors is limited, there is the need to improve the climate characteristics of women. Although livelihood diversification is a necessary condition, policies such as training and education that would ensure that females also have higher returns from such strategies are sufficient to address gender welfare gaps. To improve the welfare of farmers in the midst of climate change, animal rearing should be promoted among maize crop farmers. Similarly, government’s policy of one district one factory should consider improving agro-processing opportunities in the region into commercial activities.

Non-coordinative metal selectivity bias in human metallothioneins metal–thiolate clusters

Mammalian metallothioneins MT-2 and MT-3 contain two metal–thiolate clusters through cysteine coordination of d10 metals, Cu(i) and Zn(ii), and isoform-specific non-coordinating residues control their respective zinc– and copper–thionein character.