IP rights: are vaccines a common good or a luxury product?
By Andrea Visentin, 10th June 2021 Are vaccines a collective good of humanity that should be available equally to everyone, or are they just another product that provides profits to big companies? In other words, can the rules of capitalism be put aside when they go against basic human rights? On 2nd of October 2020,…
Denmark doesn’t want Syrian refugees, because their country is “safe”
By Andrea Visentin, 21st May 2021 On April 21st 2021, about 1000 people gathered outside the Danish parliament to protest against the government’s decision to revoke residence permits of Syrian refugees from the area around Damascus. Between 2020 and 2021, Denmark has revoked or not renewed 380 residence permits of Syrian refugees. Why has one…
European Union against racism: slow progress or stagnant legislation?
By Andrea Visentin, 11th May 2021 Ever since the Race Equality Directive of 29th June 2000, the European Union has followed a top-down approach in the fight against all forms of discrimination: basically all efforts have been going into creating a legislation that would fight individual acts of racism and discrimination. Now, two decades later,…
Human trafficking, a major European issue
It may seem a distant problem, but it is not. According to the last available statistics, in 2017-2018, 14.145 victims of human trafficking were registered in the European Union (excluding the United Kingdom). To put it in perspective, 9.301 victims were registered in North America (United States, Canada and Mexico) in 2018 (latest data available…
“Luxembourg can be a laboratory for sustainability measures” – Interview with François Bausch (Deputy Prime Minister, Minister for Mobility and Minister of Defense of Luxembourg)
In March 2020, Luxembourg became the first country worldwide to provide free public transport. Such revolutionary measure, which is at the same time a part of a mobility plan that started almost ten years ago, brings up a multitude of questions that ECEPAA sought to find an answer to. Why this measure? How can a…
Qatar World Cup 2022: “The FIFA is as responsible as Qatar” – Interview with Emile Franck (Amnesty International)
In late February, The Guardian revealed that, since it was announced that Qatar would host the 2022 football World Cup, over 6,500 migrant workers have died in one of the richest countries in the world. Since 2010, thousands of workers from African and Asian countries (from Nepal, Bangladesh, India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, the Philippines, Kenya,…
Controlled circular migration as a compromise
Migration has been the subject of debate for centuries. Old as humanity itself, migration has always remained one of the most discussed topics worldwide. In 2021, this is not an exception. Even in a world immersed in a pandemic and its economic and political consequences, migration remains one of the most debated subjects. While developing…
Traceability of African material resources, a complicated affair
When it comes to its natural resources, Africa is an extremely rich continent. From the gold mines in South Africa to the coffee and cocoa plantations in Western Africa, including the gold, cobalt and coltan mines in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. However, all these richesses come at a very high price: armed conflicts…
The Negative Income Tax (NIT) and the welfare state, an effective association?
Talks on the Universal Basic Income (UBI) have been around for decades. While it has never been implemented nationwide in any country, calls for UBI remain strong and, over the past year, notably due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the support on the proposal has notably increased. In the United States, for example, apart from the…
To what extent has COVID-19 affected Ethiopians in terms of reduction of remittances and how can this setback be mitigated?
Since its emergence, the COVID-19 pandemic has greatly impacted the global economy and most health systems. Most countries have suffered important setbacks since the start of the crisis. Sub-Saharan countries, although data seems to show that the health crisis has not affected them as much as other epidemics have (and are currently doing), namely Ebola…