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The Future of International Cooperation
Reflecting our aspirations for the journal, the inaugural edition invites empirical and theoretical consideration on the future of international cooperation. In the aftermath of the divisions created by the invasion of Iraq and the questions raised about the future relevance of the United Nations, mapping the contours of inter-state collaboration and identifying the bases of global governance is crucial to the prospects for peace and security. Whether ‘coalitions of the willing’ or regional structures will supersede global responsibility-sharing, whether religious divides will polarise the West from the Islamic World, or whether the United Nations will adapt through initiatives such as the High-Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change, are amongst the key questions that make ‘The Future of International Cooperation’ so germane for reflection and debate.
Human Security
The concept of ‘human security’ represents a challenge to the Cold War assumption that ‘security’ should be understood in purely state-centric and militaristic terms. Rather, it recognises, firstly, that the ultimate referent object of security should be the individual, whose well-being is not necessarily coterminous with the security of the state. Secondly, it highlights that the sources of threat to individuals go far beyond inter-state conflict to include, for example, internal conflict, human rights abuses, communicable disease, environmental disasters, poverty and malnutrition.1
Editorial Introduction: The International Politics of Oil
The papers [in this issue] are diverse and wide ranging, touching upon an array of seemingly unrelated themes from very different theoretical perspectives. Collectively, however, they highlight two things. Firstly, the range of approaches taken in this issue to analyse the international politics of oil highlights that the pursuit of sustainable and secure energy supplies is at the heart of world politics, intersecting with just about every significant contemporary global challenge. That a special edition on the international politics of oil can cover so much ground is an indication of how wide ranging the consequences of ongoing hydrocarbon dependence are and the challenges this presents for humanity. Secondly, and perhaps most significantly, it shows how much can be learnt about the changing nature of politics through the study of oil. Because oil represents a crucible for exploring the intersection of political economy, development, foreign policy, and international cooperation, it offers a starting point for asking more profound questions about the changing nature of contemporary world politics and how it should be conceptualised by academia. In that regard the papers in this special edition are as much about ‘international politics’ as they are about the ‘international politics of oil.’
Book Review: The Ethics and Politics of Asylum: Liberal Democracy and the Response to Refugees
As the first book length study engaging with the ethical and normative debates surrounding asylum, Matthew Gibney's work represents a significant and path-breaking achievement. Its clear focus on the competing moral claims of citizens and refugees within the context of the entrance policies of liberal democratic states, although inevitably Northern-centric and liable to treat the question of asylum in isolation from the rest of the refugee regime, allows the book to respond to an analytically distinct question in a highly nuanced way. Recognizing the politicized nature of such debates, Gibney goes beyond engagement with the questions posed by moral philosophy, integrating them with his equal mastery of political theory and the empirical issues raised by the forced migration literature, to produce a work which is not only intelligent, readable and provocative, but has genuine relevance and real-world applicability.
Conference Report: The Politics, Human Rights and Security Implications of Protracted Refugee Situations
The two-day workshop, sponsored by the Alchemy Foundation and the United Nations University, brought together a range of experts from UNHCR, the World Bank, NGOs, states and academia with the aim of developing a framework for comprehensive solutions to protracted refugee situations (PRSs). The eventual output from the workshop will be an edited volume and a policy briefing paper that is intended to influence states, intergovernmental organizations and the work of the new Peace-Building Commission. The workshop divided into two parts: the first day on thematic papers, and the second on case studies. The thematic papers considered the relationship between asylum policy and PRSs, historical precedents, durable solutions, the relationship between PRSs and conflict and security, and the roles of humanitarian actors, development actors, and civil society. The case studies included contributions on the situation of Afghan, Somali, Southern Sudanese, Palestinian, Bhutanese, and Burmese refugees. The papers themselves are to be published in book form by the middle of 2007. This summary highlights the main discussions and the way in which they have advanced the debate on PRSs. Reflecting the aim of the project, which is primarily to influence policy and to effect change, the summary divides into three areas: conceptual, normative and institutional, and political.
Logging and legality: state crime theory meets green criminology
Over the past decade, “crimes” against the environment have assumed, albeit falteringly, a new moral imperative. This article examines recent attempts to regulate, police, and criminalize one major environmental crime, the international trade in illicit timber, by contrasting local with global responses to the trade. The article examines issues of legality and sustainability; the role and sometimes problematic nature of civil society responses–domestic and transnational; and the impact of regulatory and state capture on the market. The focus of the article is an exploration of the interplay between the local and global in the context of a shifting moral and legal framework.
Integrative paradigms, marginal reality: refugee community organisations and dispersal
In Britain, the dispersal system for asylum-seekers, introduced in April 2000, has been widely criticised for its negative impacts, upon both asylum-seekers and the regions to which they were dispersed. This article addresses the effects of dispersal on refugee community organisations (RCOs) through two principal aims, the first of which is to outline the effects of dispersal upon RCOs in selected fieldwork locations. Three themes are examined: the growth in refugee communities outside London, the constraints of funding regimes and the politics of community representation in the local policy environment. The second aim, developed through the presentation of our fieldwork material, is to establish a critical perspective on the role and function of RCOs. We question the assumed integrative role of RCOs as interpreted in the policy and academic literature, and we underline the importance to the integration process of informal networks in refugee communities. A central strand of our argument is that the analysis of RCOs needs to be firmly anchored within the broader context of migrant incorporation operating in Britain. We conclude that the dispersal arrangements serve as a model of inclusion and representation for RCOs which is heavily conditioned by the broader race relations and multicultural framework. Far from promoting the integration of refugees, this framework may rather perpetuate a condition of institutionalised marginality for refugee groups.
Social capital or social exclusion? The impact of asylum-seeker dispersal on UK refugee community organizations
Based on UK fieldwork in the West Midlands, Manchester and Liverpool and London, the paper explores the impacts of asylum-seeker dispersal on the formation of refugee community organizations (RCOs). An outline of policy precedes discussion which demonstrates how dispersal has consolidated a solid core of established RCOs in London, whilst stimulating a regional periphery of volatile semi-secure and insecure RCOs competing for shrinking financial support. The main part of the paper challenges the prevailing paradigm of RCOs as formally constituted organizations of social capital which crucially mediate the process of integration. This traditional role and rationale has been sacrificed for largely short-term, defensive tasks in a hostile policy environment. Despite their proliferation, RCOs resist institutionalization within both the state apparatus and their community networks.
The minority within the minority: refugee community-based organisations in the UK and the impact of restrictionism on asylum-seekers
Since the mid-1990s, policies and legislation for refugees and asylum-seekers have become increasingly restrictionist in the UK. Disentitlement to housing and welfare benefits and fragmented service delivery have caused widespread social exclusion and destitution amongst asylum-seekers. The article examines some of the consequences of these policy shifts for refugee community-based organisations (RCOs). The article shows how, on the margins, RCOs have articulated the needs and expanded their activities for their client groups in an increasingly constrained policy arena. However, the vital resources that RCOs could provide are often as neglected and marginalised as the groups they serve. Financial and legal constraints to RCO action have resulted in pragmatic responses, a generally poor quality of service provision, very limited access to public resources, lack of co-ordination and networking, and limited professional capacity. These shortcomings are underpinned by institutional and structural determinants which the 1999 Immigration and Asylum Act reinforces. These flaws in the current framework of provision are explored. Some ways in which practice can be improved are outlined. Pessimistically the article concludes that, despite the rapid increase of demand for RCO services, the scope for major repositioning of RCOs away from the margins is unlikely.
Sheltering on the margins: social housing provision and the impact of restrictionism on asylum seekers and refugees in the UK
The impact of increasingly restrictionist policies for asylum seekers and refugees is reviewed from the perspective of social housing provision. This paper examines the instruments used to enact these policy shifts. The consequences are explored in terms of the social exclusion and destitution created by disqualifying most asylum seekers from access to local authority housing, by disentitlement to housing and welfare benefits and by fragmenting service delivery. The pragmatic restructuring of housing provision is then examined. The role of housing associations, who are increasingly significant providers for this client group, is reviewed. Financial and legal constraints to action have resulted in pragmatic responses, a generally poor quality of service provision, inadequate access procedures, lack of co‐ordination and networking, and limited institutional capacity. The paper explores these flaws in the current framework of provision and the ways in which practice can be improved to overcome them. However, it is concluded that the 1999 Asylum and Immigration Act, implementing the government's comprehensive review of asylum policy, is likely to compound poor service delivery and social exclusion, whilst failing to achieve the main objective of restrictionism and deterrence.
Reconceptualizing the myth of return: continuity and transition amongst the Greek–Cypriot refugees of 1974
The contrasting concepts of refugee transition and the myth of return are used to investigate some of the strategies and processes by which refugees adjust to the meaning of exile, the dilemmas of their status and, especially, the meaning of home. The paper is based on longitudinal data collected over the last decade from Greek-Cypriot refugee households in Cyprus. The paper argues that refugees seek to retain, to a greater por lesser degree, the social and cultural attributes of the past, whilst adjusting to future needs in exile and aspirations of return. This relationship is mediated by the present conditions of exile—refugee assistance programmes and the political discussions about return. Since the refugees are cut off from the material and symbolic representation of the past, this is reconstructed and preserved in a mythical form which becomes the basis for subsequent strategies of adjustment and transition examined in the paper. Two contrasting positions are suggested—‘reproduction’ of the myth and ‘replacement’ of the myth—which are associated with contrasting aspirations of ‘belief’ in return and ‘hope’ of return. The pape examines some of the consequences of the strategies used to reconstruct the triangular relationship between the pase, the future and the present.
Guidelines for Assessing the Impacts and Costs of Forced Displacement
This part of the Guidelines is an overview of the proposed methodology for assessing the impacts and costs of forced displacement. It provides the background and context for the methodology and presents a summary of key principles in the approach. Section 1 explains why the Guidelines were developed – to meet the need for enhanced understanding and evaluation of the economic and social aspects of forced migration. This section also introduces the flexible approach we recommend to using the Guidelines, requiring adaptation to local circumstances and needs. Section 2 explains key aspects of the approach, such as the need to combine quantitative and qualitative methods, and the main areas of use of the Guidelines. It summarises the benefits of agency collaboration and of pragmatic approaches to making the best use of available data.
Study on impacts and costs of forced displacement: state of the art literature review (volume II)
Since the 1970s, academics, practitioners and policy-makers from across the humanitarian and development fields have increasingly recognised the need to utilise rigorously collected and analysed data to develop appropriate responses to contexts of forced displacement. This report presents a comprehensive review of over 480 articles and reports published over the past forty years which analyse qualitative and quantitative data pertaining to the impact of displacement on the following key stakeholders: displaced populations (refugees and internally-displaced people); host populations; host state; country of origin and stayee population in the country of origin; and the international community.
Introduction: Bedouin in Lebanon: Migration, Settlement, Health Care and Policy
The populations of the Middle East have experienced particularly rapid socio-economic change over the past 40 years, due largely to the consolidation of the nation-state after the break-up of the Ottoman Empire at the close of WWI. The basic social, political and cultural rights of the pastoral populations (the Bedouin) of this region have been largely ignored, however, in part due to their remoteness and inaccessibility, but also because of the very fact of their mobility and physical marginality. With a few exceptions - such as Jordan and Saudi Arabia - cultural differences between the mobile Bedouin and the settled urban and agrarian populations have translated over time into development of discriminated minorities. The Bedouin way of life has come to be regarded as backward and primitive; in some places their very authenticity as part of the nation-state has been questioned as they fail to ‘Modernise’ at the same pace as surrounding populations. Thus in Lebanon the majority of Bedouin are ‘stateless’ without papers and live beyond the ‘boundaries’ of government services. Their mobile way of life is largely a thing of the past, but their sense of tribal belonging remains strong. Their desire for nationality papers reflects a wish to end their marginalisation and statelessness and be able to access government services.
Liberal democratic states and responsibilities to refugees
In this article I employ the resources of political theory to examine and provide an answer to the question of how liberal democracies should respond to the claims of refugees to enter and reside in their territory. I begin by considering questions of value: I argue that a convincing ethical ideal must strive to balance the competing claims of citizens and refugees. Moving to issues of agency, I show that any standard must also accommodate itself to the difficulties of predicting the consequences of entrance, the responsibilities states currently accept, and the way that politics constrains the efforts of states to assist refugees. I conclude by proposing the principle of humanitarianism as a way of reconciling the demands of value with those of agency. I argue that adherence to this principle would improve the refugee policies of liberal democratic states.
Caring at a distance: (im)partiality, moral motivation and the ethics of representation – asylum and the principle of proximity
Article 1 of the 1951 Geneva Convention furnishes a common and universal definition applicable to all refugees irrespective of their state of origin. However, I will argue that international refugee law—or at least its key principle, the principle of non-refoulement—introduces a morally arbitrary criterion for determining the responsibilities of states: a refugee’s proximity to an international boundary. The role of this criterion, moreover, is one factor in explaining why the current refugee regime is in crisis. Acknowledging the desirability of moving towards a less partial international system, I will outline some of the difficulties associated with creating an international system where all refugees matter to us and matter equally.
The state of asylum: democratisation, judicialisation and the evolution of refugee policy in Europe
In this paper, Dr Gibney examines the relationship between increasing government restrictiveness towards asylum seekers and the growing entanglement of states in human rights law that restrains their activities. The argument he makes about the relationship between the two applies best to European states, encumbered by European and EU human rights legislation, especially after the Treaty of Amsterdam. However, much of this paper is of broader relevance to other liberal democratic states, and the examples he uses draw freely from non-European countries.
Security and the ethics of asylum after 11 September
"Security", the philosopher John Stuart Mill wrote in 1861, "is the most vital of all interests." “On it", he argued, "we depend for all our immunity from evil, and for the whole value of all and every good, beyond the passing moment". On 11 September, the citizens of Western countries had the truth of Mill’s words brought spectacularly home to them. This lesson unleashed some lamentable consequences. The attacks of that fateful day led to war; war created refugees; refugees fled in search of asylum. The first two months of the war against the Taliban resulted in the movement of some 130,000 refugees, most of whom found a kind of rough asylum in neighbouring Pakistan. Pakistan’s borders had remained relatively open to refugees in part because of pressure by UNHCR for the country to serve as a humanitarian refuge for the course of the crisis. Yet while Pakistan was expected to offer more asylum during the course of the ‘war on terror’, all signs were that Western states would be offering less.