Not Duties but Needs - Rethinking Refugeehood (original) (raw)

To Define a Refugee: Clarifications of the Term That Escapes Definition

PROCEEDINGS OF THE INSTITUTE FOR EUROPEAN STUDIES, JOURNAL OF TALLINN UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY, 2010

The concept of refugee lacks a generally accepted definition both in international law and political science literature. Some authors view refugees as only a contemporary phenomenon, but the existence of norms regulating asylum in Ancient Greece or medieval Europe suggests otherwise. Even if the definition of ‘asylum’ is tied to that of ‘refugee’, they are different concepts. A refugee is a real person; to define a refugee is to establish a category that describes the common aspects of a certain way of movement; to define asylum is to establish the normative regulation regarding this movement.

The modern state, the citizen, and the perilous refugee

Journal of Human Rights, 2004

This paper presents an argument against using singular notions of refugee in research. By mapping the historical and contemporary relationships between refugeehood and citizenship and by outlining the norms and ontologies underpinning the mainstream academic notions of refugee, I aim to show the deficiencies of singular notions. As an alternative, I propose conceptualizing the refugee based on multiple norms. My overall argument against singular notions of refugee is that they fail to identify and recognize certain human sufferings which are constitutive ofthe refugee condition. This is also true for the 1951 Geneva Convention's singular definition of a refugee. The theoretical and ethical shortfalls of singular approaches arise from this failure in spite ofthe fact that protection of human rights is their earnesdy declared goal. More specifically, the problem of singular approaches is that they are primarily derived from particular citizenship ideals, political visions and images of person. The predicament is that different citizenship ideals construe different couplings between citizenship and refugeehood. Sufferings that are recognized as the fundament ofthe refugee condition vary between paradigms. When refugeehood and citizenship are conceptually tied to each other, human sufferings that constitute the refugee condition are conceived in terms of citizenship ideals' ontological assumptions rather than actual human sufferings. Defining the refugee in terms of citizenship ideals is, thus, detrimental to social analysis. By tying the notion of refugee to normatively defined citizen ideals, one detaches it from human rights. The coupling between citizenship and refugeehood substantiates aporetic questions such as whether states should prioritize their obligations to their citizens or assume their responsibility for refugees. Only when the refugee is defined in terms of citizenship ideals and 'as a function ofthe interstate system' (Sassen 1999) can such questions be vindicated. However, the foundation of refugee rights is the idea of universal human rights, which predates the emergence of citizenship (Betten and Grieff 1998). The question is not about states' having to choose between their citizens' claims and foreigners' claims; it is about choosing between citizens' claims for a better life and refiigees' claims for a life at all. This is a choice between citizens' rights obtained in exchange for their performance of some duties and individuals' inalienable natural rights which they have by virtue of being humans. Citizenship rights and human rights are thus two substantially different orders of rights which are not comparable, although receiving states' citizens may perceive the emotional, cultural, social, and economic consequences of protecting refugees as a threat to their own well-being. By conceptualizing the refugee in terms of citizenship, one trivializes and misses this crucial point about the refugee condition. When the question is put as a choice between a better life and a life at all, we are in the domain of individuals' inalienable human rights.

Our Responsibilities to Refugees

Proceedings of the 2018 ZiF Workshop “Studying Migration Policies at the Interface between Empirical Research and Normative Analysis, 2019

The paper explores the basis of the responsibilities we owe to refugees. That we have such responsibilities is a very widely shared intuition: the need of those fleeing from persecution seems to call out for a response on our part. But what exactly are our obligations to such people? Who are they owed to and why do we have them? The paper argues in favour of a human rights approach to refugee protection that includes the requirement of the implementation of a burden sharing scheme

On What Matters for Obligations to Refugees

Journal of Controversial Ideas, 2024

Rindermann et al.'s article concludes that certain refugees may have a lower IQ and as a result may not provide as significant an economic contribution to host states compared to the average citizen, and so may be an economic cost. This commentary first casts doubt on this conclusion. It then, and most importantly, demonstrates that even if this conclusion were true, it would be irrelevant insofar as it would have no moral or legal significance in mitigating or defeating obligations towards refugees. The commentary shows that any normative view that IQ and economic contributions can mitigate or defeat obligations to provide protection has unacceptable implications. The commentary then demonstrates that legal and moral obligations to refugees are in no part contingent on IQ and economic contributions and to suppose otherwise would simply represent a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature, grounds, and weight of obligations towards refugees. Hence, supposed IQ or economic contributions are entirely irrelevant to, and cannot undermine the strength of, refugees' claims to protection nor states' obligations to provide it.

Beyond Persecution: A Moral Defence of Expanding Refugee Status

International Journal of Refugee Law, 2018

It is an open secret that many people commonly referred to as ‘refugees’ in popular discourse are not ‘refugees’ within the meaning of the 1951 Convention and 1967 Protocol relating to the Status of Refugees. For a person is only a ‘refugee’ as that term is defined in the Convention and Protocol if, inter alia, he or she flees persecution. In turn, those not fleeing persecution lack a comparably entrenched right under international law not to be forcibly returned to the threats they fled. Given the pressing humanitarian considerations and political tensions created by this aspect of international law, we should question anew whether it is just. The most influential criticism of it has been presented by Andrew Shacknove, who argued that justice demands instead that refugee status be afforded to the broader class of people fleeing serious threats subject to human control. Yet Shacknove’s critics typically argue that his proposal should be resisted because: (1) unlike the persecuted, those facing threats other than persecution can generally be assisted in their own countries; and (2) expanding refugee status would place undue burdens on States, the persecuted, or both. However, this article will demonstrate that neither of these objections justifies refusing to extend refugee status. That is, they do not justify the refusal to extend a comparably entrenched status under international law as is enjoyed by Convention refugees to people fleeing threats other than persecution. Nevertheless, the article further argues that Shacknove’s proposal is itself too limited. Rather than depending on whether the threat one flees is subject to human control, refugee status should depend instead on the severity of the threat one flees and the likelihood that it will materialize if one returns.

Refugees and responsibilities of justice

This essay develops, within the terms of the recent New York Declaration, an account of the shared responsibility of states to refugees and of how the character of that responsibility effects the ways in which it can be fairly shared. However, it also moves beyond the question of the general obligations that states owe to refugees to consider ways in which refugee choices and refugee voice can be given appropriate standing with the global governance of refuge. It offers an argument for the normative significance of refugee's reasons for choosing states of asylum and linked this to consideration of a refugee matching system and to refugee quota trading conceived as responsibility-trading, before turning to the issue of the inclusion of refugee voice in relation to the justification of the norms of refugee governance and in relation to the institutions and practices of refugee governance through which those norms are given practical expression. " We commit to a more equitable sharing of the burden and responsibility for hosting and supporting the world's refugees. "