Final Destination Countries Research Articles

Transnational drug trafficking in Southeast Asia: identifying national limitations to look for regional changes

Over its fifty years of established existence beginning in 1967, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has expounded its consolidated and integrated model in political relations, economic developments, and cultural values. However, confronted by threats to global security, ASEAN has also faced the complex impacts of transnational narcotics trafficking (TransNT). The study uses grey literature as secondary data to illustrate the current situations of TransNT in Southeast Asia by way of examining drug trafficking starting from the original countries (Myanmar) through the transit points (Vietnam) to final destination countries (Malaysia). Besides reviewing more than four decades of collaboration, the paper analyses ASEAN’s milestones in building its cooperative mechanism and assesses its institutional framework for combatting TransNT with specific initiatives. The study notes the main barriers and practical challenges that constrain the process of regional cooperation. Some brief recommendations are also suggested for further research in the near future to enhance regional cooperation in combatting transnational crimes.

A Way to Europe: New Refugees’ Migration Patterns Revealed

The final destination country for refugees heading to Europe may be a changing one depending on various factors, such as the relocation program at the EU level, their ability to make decisions, geographic factors, finances, available routes, visa options, networks, chance, labor markets, etc., but for many of them their choices are limited. The purpose of this paper is to show how refugees select their destination countries, by looking at similarities across European countries. We aim to explain how country-specific factors may relate to the magnitude of migration flows, employing cluster and network analysis, and connecting meso- and macro-levels. The variables considered in our analysis fall under the four types of factors for host countries described by Van Hear, Bakewell, and Long (2012). Our analysis reveals that host countries in Europe can be grouped into four clusters: (i) Top Destination Economically Performing Countries; (ii) Emergent Destination Countries; (iii) Periphery and Less Economically Performing Countries; and (iv) Outlier Countries.

The Challenges Of Indonesia As A "Quintessential Transit Country" For Refugees: Cases Of Refugees In City Of Pekanbaru

Indonesia is one of the Refugee Transit Countries and one of the largest in Asia. This situation also implies that Indonesia has other responsibilities to protect both its citizens and refugees. However, due to its position as a transit country, Indonesia, unlike final destination countries, does not have an obligation to protect refugees entirely. The purpose of this research is to analyze Indonesia's acceptance of refugees and the challenges it faces. The acceptance of refugees as a transit country and not a final destination for refugees will threaten Indonesia's economic, social, security and other sectors. The number of refugees in Indonesia and their continued detention is still increasing. This study utilizes the norm life cycle theory to determine the Indonesian reasons for accepting refugees. It collects information from focus group discussions or an in-depth interview with some of the NGOs in Pekanbaru, and library research, using qualitative method. Indonesia was found to be in the norm emergence stage and going to the norm cascade, although not entirely in the norm cascade phase. Within this theory, altruism and empathy are the dominant motives for the Indonesian reason to accept the refugees. In the case of the city of Pekanbaru, the challenges faced by Indonesia in dealing with refugees are a lack of service to refugees, particularly in terms of empowerment for the refugees, a high number of refugees imbalanced with detention facilities, and a lack of refugee handling due to the limitation of government policy.

Myanmar

A technical assistance (TA) mission on external sector statistics (ESS) was conducted for the Central Bank of Myanmar (CBM) in Nay Pyi Taw during June 3–5, 2019, as part of the Project on the Improvement of ESS in the Asia–Pacific region. The Project is funded by the Government of Japan; managed by the IMF’s Statistics Department (STA); and implemented by the IMF Capacity Development Office in Thailand (CDOT). The work on verifying reasonable size of coverage adjustments for Myanmar’s imports was addressed during the mission, using bilateral trade data from Thailand and China. Under conservative scenario (i.e., excluding trade through land border check points which potentially involves exports from Thailand and China going through Myanmar onward to the final destination countries), the analysis suggested that Myanmar’s 2018 imports are under-reported by approximately 1.9 billion USD for Myanmar’s imports from Thailand (total discrepancies are 2.0 billion USD), and another 1.9 billion USD for Myanmar’s imports from China (total discrepancies are 4.3 billion USD).1

Migration, Stress and the Challenges of Accessing Food: An Exploratory Study of the Experience of Recent Afghan Women Refugees in Adelaide, Australia.

This study explored the migration and food experiences of Afghani women refugees residing in Adelaide, South Australia for 2 years or less. In-depth semi-structured qualitative interviews were conducted with 10 women between May and September 2017. The data were thematically analysed, and the Social Determinants of Health Framework was used to discuss the findings. Five key themes emerged from the data. In the transition country (Iran/Pakistan), respondents experienced (i) trauma, discrimination and exclusion and (ii) familiar food culture, but food stress. In the destination country (Adelaide, Australia) respondents experienced (iii) a sense of precariousness, (iv) unfamiliar food culture and (v) challenges in accessing halal food. Afghani refugees experienced considerable stressors both in the transition and the final destination country but for different reasons. In the transition country, stresses related to the lack of social services and support, discrimination, racism and poverty seemed to have affected their ability to afford food. In Australia stressors pertaining to socioeconomic, housing and employment precariousness, as well as difficulties in accessing halal foods were identified as challenges. Furthermore, food stress in Australia was associated with the cultural appropriateness of food, the complexity of the food system, and the women’s lack of skills and experiences in navigating the food system. With increasing refugee and immigration flows globally, it is necessary to acknowledge how food and social determinants intersect for refugee immigrants to ensure positive health outcomes.

Onward Precarity, Mobility, and Migration among Latin Americans in London

AbstractContributing to debates around the relationships between precarity, mobilities and migration, this paper examines the nature of precarity among onward Latin American (OLA) migrants as they have moved transnationally to multiple destinations from their homelands to southern Europe and onwards to London across different time periods. Drawing on primary research with over 400 OLAs, the discussion highlights how precarity maps onto onward migration trajectories in fractal rather than linear ways. In moving beyond a continuum approach to labour exploitation, the paper develops the concept of “onward precarity” to capture how migrants negotiate intersecting vulnerabilities in holistic spatio‐temporal ways as they move through different structural contexts across the world from origin, through transition to their final destination country over time. These negotiations are underpinned by multiple agentic tactics that revolve around resilience and reworking strategies as onward migrants traverse wider structures of disadvantage in situ and through mobility in different places.

The role of shared ethnicity in facilitating stepwise migration of educated and skilled individuals: The case of Iranian graduate students in Turkey

In this article, we examine the status of Iranian graduate students as stepwise global skilled migrants who enrol at Turkish universities, but with the intention of moving to their final destination country in the West. Based on survey data we analyse their migration strategies and career plans at mezzo-level, and conclude that more than 72 per cent of respondents can indeed be classified as stepwise migrants. First, Turkey is a preferred intermediate country particularly for migration of Iranian graduate students of Turkish–Azeri ethnolinguistic origins. Second, they use social media to communicate with a global social network of friends to facilitate their move to the final destination country. Third, equipped with accumulated ‘migrant capital’ in Turkey they select a final target country based on its employment prospects, extent of democratic freedoms and the quality of higher education. Finally, while in Turkey, as job seekers they also monitor fluctuations in global demands for skilled workers in their respective disciplines.

Anti-Circumvention of Anti-Dumping Measures: Law and Practice of the United States

Circumvention is a mechanism used by companies to avoid applicable anti-dumping duties on merchandise they seek to ship (David W. Leebron, An Overview of the Uruguay Round Results, 34 COLUM. J. TRANSNAT’L L. 11, 20 (1995)). Companies can use different means to ‘circumvent’ an order, including minor alterations, transshipment, or by shipping parts not subject to the order for assembly in either the final destination country or a third country (ibid.). This has the effect of changing the country of origin for the merchandise, resulting in circumvention of the order.

A one-year effective reproduction number of the 2014–2015 Ebola outbreaks in the widespread West African countries and quantitative evaluation of air travel restriction measure

The 2014-2015 Ebola outbreak in West Africa is the largest and longest Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) outbreak in the history, and the virus has escaped across countries and continents via air travel in this outbreak. The interpolated data from WHO Ebola situation reports were used to estimate number of weekly infectious individuals and daily effective reproduction numbers (Rt) in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. A stochastic dynamic model was performed to estimate the risk of EVD importation into the top 20 final destination countries of air travelers departing from within the three epidemic countries, and the effectiveness of air travel restriction was subsequently evaluated. The daily Rt was estimated at 0.72-1.32 in Guinea, 0.62-1.38 in Liberia and 0.81-1.38 in Sierra Leone. The peak of EVD importation probability was observed in early November 2014 and the restriction of air travel may mitigate the risk up to 67.7% (95% CI 66.6-68.7). Our results suggest that restriction of air travels is effective in reducing the risk of EVD importation but controlling of the virus at the original affected countries is vitally more important for preventing inter-terrestrial dissemination of EVD.

Box model of migration channels

We discuss a mathematical model of migration channel based on the truncated Waring distribution. The truncated Waring distribution is obtained for a more general model of motion of substance through a channel containing finite number of boxes. The model is applied then for case of migrants moving through a channel consisting of finite number of countries or cities. The number of migrants in the channel strongly depends on the number of migrants that enter the channel through the country of entrance. It is shown that if the final destination country is very popular then large percentage of migrants may concentrate there.

Illegal Immigration, Foreign Aid, and the Transit Countries: Table 1.

This article examines the problem facing an advanced, final-destination country as it seeks cooperation from its less-well-off neighbors to impede unauthorized, third-country migrants from transiting their territories. With that aim, it transfers aid to the transit countries in support of their border-control efforts. Aid recipients, however, may have an incentive to divert resources to border security objectives other than immigration control. We characterize the donor’s optimal allocation of aid between the transit countries and the optimal use of aid by the latter in the Nash equilibrium. These values of the policy instruments are subsequently compared with those in an equilibrium where the transit countries (i) compete for a share of aid, (ii) collude to maximize joint welfare, and (iii) follow the donor who moves first. (JEL codes: F22).

Controlling Illegal Immigration: On the Scope for Cooperation with a Transit Country

AbstractWe consider the implications of cooperation with respect to immigration control between a final‐destination country (D) and its poorer neighbor (T). Assuming that the latter serves as a transit country for undocumented immigrants, a key question is how much aid should D provide to T for the purpose of strengthening its immigration controls. The problem for T is to determine what proportion of aid to use strictly for immigration control rather than trying to meet other border‐security objectives. We examine the Nash equilibrium values of the policy instruments of both countries and compare them with those which are optimal when international cooperation on immigration control extends to maximization of joint welfare. We also consider a two‐stage game in which D first decides on how much aid to transfer to T, with the latter subsequently choosing how to use it.

Is immigration the answer to the aging problem in the lowest-low fertility countries? An introduction

For nearly a century, Italy was a country of emigration. Due to the European economic crisis of 1973-74 and the subsequent closure of the borders in the traditional immigration countries, Italy became a final destination country of immigration, with currently about 5 million immigrants. Nowadays, the immigrant component tends to reduce the "excess" of elderly in the Italian population. The question whether immigration could be a solution to the prolonged low fertility levels, preventing or mitigating the aging of the population in the short, medium and long term, has generated broad scientific debate. Antonio GOLINI, Emeritus Professor, Sapienza University of Rome, Viale Regina Elena, n. 295, 00161-Roma, Italy. E-mail: antonio.golini@uniroma1.it . Eros MORETTI, Full Professor of Demography, Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche e Sociali, Polytechnic University of Marche, Ancona, Italy. E-mail: e.moretti@univpm.it .