No Exit: Preventing Exit to Prevent Entry
Professor Audrey Macklin (Professor & Rebecca Cook Chair in Human Rights Law, University of Toronto Faculty of Law)
Thursday, 06 February 2025, 5pm to 6pm
Seminar Room 3, Oxford Department of International Development, 3 Mansfield Road, Oxford OX1 3TB
Hosted by Refugee Studies Centre
RSC Public Seminar Series, Hilary term 2025
Series convened by Professor Tom Scott-Smith and Professor Catherine Briddick
**Please note this seminar takes place on a Thursday, not the usual Wednesday**
About the seminar
Enlisting states of origin or transit to prevent exit from their own territory has become a tool of extraterritorial migration control for industrialized liberal democratic states. This article first explores the practical erosion of the right to leave any country since the demise of communism, focusing on arrangements between EU member states and select African states of origin or transit. I then document the legitimating function performed by the anti-smuggling and search and rescue regimes in effacing the human right to leave. I conclude by situating exit restrictions in a wider European project of promoting, building and supporting border infrastructure in the name of development and capacity building in select African countries. This permits reflection on what the contemporary use of exit restrictions signifies for the equation of border control and sovereignty, and for mobility more generally.
The seminar will be followed by drinks in the Hall.
Registration not required.
All enquiries should be directed to rsc-outreach@qeh.ox.ac.uk.