The discussion of ethics, corporate responsibility and its educational dimensions focuses primarily on CSR, corporate citizenship and philanthropic theory and practise. The partnership between Microsoft Corporation and UNHCR was launched to help the victims of the Kosovo crisis, at the same time as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation gained momentum, and in particular, at the same time as Microsoft experienced a decrease in stock value. This case study sheds light on a decade of Microsoft Corp. efforts to align (...) business objectives with refugee aid, by use of corporate expertise and company revenues. As a leader in technology and corporate citizenship, can Microsoft bridge the digital divide for the disadvantaged and arouse the unlimited potential of tomorrow’s leaders, as the company claims in its communications? Is the partnership beneficial to UNHCR, in line with corporate objectives of “doing big things” and “doing good”? (shrink)

The discussion of ethics, corporate responsibility and its educational dimensions focuses primarily on CSR, corporate citizenship and philanthropic theory and practise. The partnership between Microsoft Corporation and UNHCR was launched to help the victims of the Kosovo crisis, at the same time as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation gained momentum, and in particular, at the same time as Microsoft experienced a decrease in stock value. This case study sheds light on a decade of Microsoft Corp. efforts to align (...) business objectives with refugee aid, by use of corporate expertise and company revenues. As a leader in technology and corporate citizenship, can Microsoft bridge the digital divide for the disadvantaged and arouse the unlimited potential of tomorrow’s leaders, as the company claims in its communications? Is the partnership beneficial to UNHCR, in line with corporate objectives of “doing big things” and “doing good”? (shrink)

Under the UNHCR definition of a refugee, set out in the 1967 Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees, people fleeing their homes because of natural disasters or other environmental problems do not qualify for refugee status and the protection that come from such status. In a recent paper, "Who Are Refugees?", I defended the essentials of the UNHCR definition on the grounds that refugee status and protection is best reserved for people who can only be helped by (...) granting them refuge in a safe state for an indefinite period of time, and argued that this does not include most people fleeing from natural disasters. This claim is most strongly challenged by possibility of displacement from climate change. In this paper I will explore to what degree the logic of the refugee convention, as set out in my earlier paper, can and should be extended to those fleeing the results of climate change, and will argue that the logic of the refugee convention tells in favor of extending refugee protection to a portion of those who must flee their homes because of climate-change related environmental problems. (shrink)

Cryopreservation presents the possibility of circumventing irreversible death through the body’s extreme cooling. Once cooled, this ‘cryon’ is then stored at sub-zero temperatures until medical kno...

Multiple states are at risk of becoming uninhabitable due to climate change, forcing their populations to flee. While the 1951 Refugee Convention provides the gold standard of international protection, it is only applied to a limited subset of people fleeing their countries, those who suffer persecution, which most people fleeing climate change cannot establish. While many journalists and non-lawyers freely use the term “climate refugees,” governments, and courts, as well as UNHCR and many refugee experts, have excluded most climate (...) refugees from the Convention as a matter of legal interpretation. In our 2015 paper, “Unable to Return in the 1951 Refugee Convention: Stateless Refugees and Climate Change”, we sought to reopen the debate on “climate refugees” by arguing that some climate refugees qualify under the 1951 Convention as it is currently written (even if they are not persecuted): those who are stateless and are unable to return to their country of origin because climate change has rendered it uninhabitable. Our interpretation, however, has been rejected by Goodwin-Gill and McAdam (2021) and by Foster and Lambert (2019), which explicitly responds to our paper. Here, we address and respond to their arguments, and develop a new supplementary one, drawing on the principle of systemic integration, as enshrined in Article 31(3)(c) of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties. (shrink)

The global space is in need of creative solutions to the challenges posed by those seeking, and deserving of, asylum. In some democratic states, experiments in permitting citizens to have a greater role in selecting refugees for admission are underway; in this article, I consider the conditions that must apply to any citizen‐selection scheme, in order for such a scheme to be morally acceptable. I begin with an account of the way in which citizen‐selection schemes – usually called ‘sponsorship programs’ (...) – operate presently. I then offer a justification for engaging citizens in refugee resettlement in general, as well as in selecting specific refugees for admission in particular, and then identify several conditions that must attend any permissible citizen‐selection scheme. I defend this account from two objections: (1) that states should be the primary, and indeed only, agent that selects refugees for admission and (2) that citizens will inevitably use problematic criteria in selecting refugees for admission, so they should be denied the right to do so. I conclude with some proposals for how a citizen‐selection scheme can be crafted to respond to this latter worry, including an outline of an exception clause that permits citizens to make the case that some refugees ought to be resettled, even if not specially selected by the UNHCR for resettlement priority, including especially family members and friends. (shrink)

_This article discusses some of the normative bases for the recent (2020) Norwegian policy prioritizing LGBTIQ+ refugees in refugee admissions. It argues that, when properly interpreted, this policy is compatible with the UNHCR vulnerability selection criteria but is not independently supported by it. Combined with some of the broader moral principles guiding refugee admissions – including both state-based and refugee-based reasons in refugee resettlement – the article provides qualified support for the Norwegian policy of LGBTIQ+ refugee prioritization. Drawing from (...) some of the specifics of LGBTIQ+ refugee resettlement and integration, the article nevertheless points to certain limitations of such a policy in so far as refugees’ own agency is concerned. The article emphasizes the need to listen to refugees’ own voices in the selection and resettlement processes, including cases where the default position of LGBTIQ+ prioritization may be overridden by LGBTIQ+ persons’ own interests in being resettled elsewhere__._ _Keywords_: LGBTIQ+, Norwegian refugee policy, priority setting, refugee selection, LGBTIQ+ integration. (shrink)

In 2018 more people than ever—70.8 million—were fleeing war, conflict, and persecution, according to a report from the UNHCR. This was the first time the figure exceeded 70 million. Internal refuge...

This study explores positive migrant storytelling in non-governmental organizations’ advocacy campaigns. We focus on the practices and implications of leveraging storytelling towards charity organizations’ institutional goals. Drawing upon critical discourse studies and narrative studies, we propose a critical storytelling approach that pays attention to the specific nature of storytelling as a discourse practice in itself. We focus on a UNHCR human-interest story of refugee displacement and subsequent integration into the UK. We employ the heuristic concept of positioning that calls (...) for analysis at different, though interrelated levels of narrative activity, to explore how affect is mobilized and the specific identity categories and affect types that are created for migrants and their hosts. We then situate these identity positions in wider dominant discourses of migrant integration. We show that the story foregrounds emblematic refugees, worthy of hosts’ support as well as relationships of dependence between migrants and the host society as requisites to successful integration. We argue that the ways in which an individual refugee story gets mobilized as an exemplary story reveals canonized forms of positive migrant storytelling emerging in the UK context that end up invoking dominant power asymmetries in relation to migration and British integration. (shrink)

In 2012 there are 76 countries of the world still criminalising same-sex sexual acts between consenting adults. In seven of those countries homosexual acts are punishable with death penalty (i. e., Mauritania, Sudan, the northern states of Nigeria, the southern parts of Somalia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Yemen). Homophobic (transphobic) attitudes are also frequent in many societies. However, the LGBT asylum seekers are frequently left outside the refugee definition due to many refugee qualification and procedural problems in LGBT cases. Criminalisation, (...) state protection against non-state persecution, concealment of sexual or gender identity, internal protection were discussed in the previous article ‘The Refugee Qualification Problems in LGBT Asylum Cases’ by Laurynas Biekša2. In this article the authors aim to describe the main procedural problems in LGBT asylum cases (i. e., credibility assessment, late disclosure, country of origin information and reception) and propose their solutions. Guiding European and international standards are laid down in the Reception Directive3, Qualification Directive4, Procedures Directive5 and UNHCR Guidance Note6. Today these standards should serve as a starting point for identifying the problems LGBT asylum seekers may have during their asylum procedures and for finding possible solutions. (shrink)

This article considers the meanings attached to refugeehood, repatriation and liberal citizenship in the twentieth century. Refugees are those who have been unjustly expelled from their political community. Their physical displacement is above all symbolic of a deeper political separation from the state and the citizenry. ‘Solving’ refugees’ exile is therefore not a question of halting refugees’ flight and reversing their movement, but requires political action restoring citizenship. All three ‘durable solutions’ developed by the international community in the twentieth century (...) – repatriation, resettlement and local integration – are intended to restore a refugee's access to citizenship, and through citizenship the protection and expression of their fundamental human rights. Yet repatriation poses particular challenges for liberal political thought. The logic of repatriation reinforces the organization of political space into bounded nation–state territories. However, it is the exclusionary consequences of national controls over political membership – and through this of access to citizenship rights – that prompt mass refugee flows. Can a framework for repatriation be developed which balances national state order and liberal citizenship rights? This article argues that using the social contract model to consider the different obligations and pacts between citizens, societies and states can provide a theoretical framework through which the liberal idea of citizenship and national controls on membership can be reconciled. Historical evidence suggests that the connections in practice between ideas of citizenship and repatriation have been far more complex. In particular, debate between Western liberal and Soviet authoritarian/collectivist understandings of the relationship between citizen and state played a key role in shaping the refugee protection regime that emerged after World War II and remains in place today. Repatriation – or more accurately liberal resistance to non-voluntary refugee repatriation – became an important tool of Cold War politics and retains an important value for states interested in projecting and reaffirming the primacy of liberal citizenship values. Yet the contradictions in post-Cold War operational use of repatriation to ‘solve’ displacement, and a growing reliance on ‘state-building’ exercises to validate refugees’ returns demonstrates that tension remains between national state interests and the universal distribution of liberal rights, as is particularly evident when considering Western donor states’ contemporary policies on refugees and asylum. For both intellectual and humanitarian reasons there is therefore an urgent need for the political theory underpinning refugee protection to be closely examined, in order that citizenship can be placed at the centre of refugees’ ‘solutions’. ☆ The article is based on a paper given at a workshop on Citizenship organized by the Centre for History and Economics and held at Robinson College, Cambridge on 14–15 July 2008. It draws largely on archival research undertaken for my Ph.D., The Politics of Refugee Repatriation in the Twentieth Century, which was completed in July 2009 at the University of Cambridge. My particular thanks to Melissa Lane and Matthew Gibney for their help in developing these arguments, and to the archivists at UNHCR and the League of Nations Archives at UNOG. (shrink)

Assesses the success of the two humanitarian interventions in the Balkans – Bosnia in 1995 and Kosovo in 1999 – from the perspective of humanitarian organizations. It argues how, ironically, the effectiveness of organizations such as UNHCR can dissuade powerful states from taking the necessary steps to address the root causes of massive human rights violations. Slow and ambiguous action from the international community can raise false expectations on the part of suffering civilians, and embolden those who commit atrocities. (...) The author argues that the political, military, and humanitarian strands of interventions are always closely interwoven, and draws a series of lessons from the Balkans experience: the need for the international community to act early, credibly, and consistently; the importance of preserving the identity of a humanitarian operation; the imperative to end the impunity of those who orchestrate and commit massive violations of human rights; and the importance of engaging the United Nations. (shrink)

ABSTRACTTurkey hosts the world’s largest community of displaced Syrians. According to UNHCR, there are more than 3 million registered Syrians in Turkey as of 2018. Since the beginning of the conflict in Syria in 2011, Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party has followed an open-door policy, which was accompanied by a discourse emphasizing religious solidarity and humanitarian values. However, the arrival of Syrian refugees has become entangled with the existing identity debates and conflicts in Turkish politics. The AKP’s discourse (...) on Syrian refugees has become intertwined with its positive self-representation as the defender of all oppressed people and its attempts to reconstruct the Turkish nation along more Islamic lines. The article analyses parliamentary debates and presidential speeches in order to unravel AKP discourses on Syrian refugees. Drawing upon the Discourse Historical Approach in Critical Discourse Analysis, the article puts forward two arguments. First, the refugee issue has become a constitutive component of AKP identity and a discursive tool to reconstruct the nation along more Islamic lines. Second, Turkey’s refugee policy has become a source of pride and enabled the AKP to claim moral superiority both vis-à-vis the West and its political opponents at home. (shrink)

At the time of writing, the UK Government’s ‘Illegal Migration Bill’1 had started progressing through the House of Commons. The Bill will enable the removal of people who have come to the UK seeking asylum by ‘illegal’ routes, including via the dangerous Channel crossing in small boats.2 That duty would apply whether a person makes a protection claim, human rights claim or is a victim of modern slavery or human trafficking. Asylum seekers risk crossing the Channel because there are very (...) few, if any, safe and lawful ways to reach the UK. At least 60% of the people who have made the crossing last year would be recognised as refugees through the asylum process.3 The Bill will also give the UK Secretary of State a follow up duty to deny people arriving by ‘illegal’ routes access to the asylum system and to permanently deny them legal status in the UK, this includes leave to remain and citizenship. On the 24 March, the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights wrote to both Speakers of the UK parliament, stating ‘… the Bill would have serious consequences both for the rights of refugees, asylum seekers and migrants in the UK, and for the upholding of the UK’s international obligations more generally. The UNHCR [UN Refugee Agency] has already stated that the Bill is in clear breach of the UK’s obligations under the 1951 …. (shrink)

This article is about the rights of the Roma in Sweden and the level of discrimination that Roma are facing. The aims and objectives of the article is theoretical and practical understanding of the situation of the Roma and their human rights through our research and analysis of reports from international organizations, civil society organizations, deep interviews and data from the collected 57 questionnaires. The data is collected during the two study visits in November 2016 and February 2017. The article (...) sumarises the actual situation of the Roma in Sweden and shows new data I have collected while visiting Göteborg, Stockholm, Vänersborg and Trollhättan. I did 4 deep interviews with representatives from Civil Right Defenders, Kronan School and members from UNHCR Sweden. The interviews were composed out of 22 questions about the current condition of Roma in Sweden, implemented projects for improving the Roma human rights, discrimination, police harasment, Roma register, legal remedies against discrimination, financial benefits if persuing education, non-governmental organization working for and with Roma, equitable representation of Roma in the state bodies, affirmative actions, Romani political parties, allocated funds for projects improving the Romani situation, system of minority right protection, equality of Roma among the Swedish citizens. The questionnaire about discrimination is composed out of 15 questions about the forms of discrimination, feeling or witnesing discrimination, discrimination in delivering services, discrimination in employment, and reporting discrimination. (shrink)

The question of detention of asylum seekers is specific due to the special situation of detainees (persons who have experienced human rights violations and apply for asylum in receiving country) and due to peculiarities of detention itself (persons have not committed crimes, but come or stay illegally because they have been forced to do so by fleeing from human rights violations). Therefore, lately it raises many discussions at the European level. Sooner or later, discussions influence national laws, as after adopting (...) the EU directives their provisions must be properly transposed into national laws. This article describes the recent documents: the study in Lithuania, the UNHCR guidelines, the EU developments, the Lithuania judicial practice. The authors of the article discuss the latest amendments of the Law on the Legal Status of Aliens (entering into force on 1 February 2012) related to detention of asylum seekers after the transposition of the provisions of the Return Directive. The practice of the Supreme Administrative Court of Lithuania when applying the new detention-related provisions is also reviewed in the article. The authors do not agree with the position of the Supreme Administrative Court of Lithuania that the provisions of the Return Directive are applicable to asylum seekers. The authors pay attention to the case-law of the European Court of Justice, the preamble of the Return Directive and its legal relations with the EU asylum directives. At the end, the conclusions are drawn as to the way that the provisions of the Law on the Legal Status of Aliens should be interpreted in the light of the purposes and provisions of the European Union directives. In order to avoid contradictory practice and at the same time ensure the interests of public order in Lithuania, Article 113(7) of the Law on the Legal Status of Aliens could be applied. (shrink)

The article reviews the peculiarities of distance learning platforms usage in law enforcement educational institutions during the Covid-19 pandemic. Distance learning at U.S. Federal Law Enforcement Training Center, which is based on the Online Campus have been substantiated. Particular attention is paid to topical issues of training on such online training mod-ules of the Campus: crime scene, driving training, drugs, firearms, health, interviews, investigation, law, topography, maritime training, personal security, technical means, terrorism, stopping vehicles, etc. There are also programs to (...) study the courses "Small Arms" and "Use of Force" in the online training modules of the Campus. The specifics of professional training of border guards in Asian countries have been revealed: the use of platforms of law enforcement agencies; focus of training on the devel-opment of basic competencies and the ability to solve problem situations; the opportunity to take online courses for all categories of staff at a con-venient time; creation of a three-level round-the-clock system of functioning of training of specialists. Peculiarities of professional training of border guards of European countries have been outlined considering the usage of both the platforms of institutions and joint platforms of international organizations, namely: web platform Virtual Aula of Agency FRONTEX; CEPOL DL web platform; European Coast Guard Training platforms; ILIAS EU Mission EUBAM; Connect & Learn UNHCR; UNODC and others. Special attention is paid to the capabilities of the Virtual Aula web platform for training teachers, instructors, external experts, etc. Web platform Virtual Aula of Agency FRONTEX presents up-to-date information on educational programs conducted in Europe. Characteristics of distance learning platforms usage in higher law enforcement educational institutions in Ukraine have been presented. Distance learning course of the English language for border guards have been developed and implemented. Considerable attention is also paid to the disclosure of online assessment of knowledge: the test of self-control on the topics, modules, and procedure of final assessment. (shrink)

One of the stated aims of the “2008 Policy Plan on Asylum” by the European Commission is increased ‘responsibility sharing’ between Member States with respect to asylum seekers. Luc Bovens and Günperi Sisman assess the extent to which UNHCR outcome data reflect these aims between 2006 and 2011 – from the end of the first phase of the Common European Asylum System until the latest available data. They find that Greece, Portugal and Spain take on very low responsibility for (...) asylum seekers per capita and per unit of GDP. Eastern European states do poorly per capita, but do much better per unit of GDP. There is also an overall trend towards greater responsibility sharing for acceptances and stocks per unit of GDP. (shrink)