Grounding the Components of an Ethical Response to Refugees
Dr Bradley Hillier-Smith (University of St Andrews)
Wednesday, 04 March 2026, 5pm to 6pm
Seminar Room 1, Oxford Department of International Development, 3 Mansfield Road, Oxford OX1 3TB
RSC Public Seminar Series, Hilary Term 2026
Series convened by Professor Tom Scott-Smith and Professor Catherine Briddick
About this talk
With extensive and volatile disagreement on the existence and extent of the obligations of states in the Global North towards refugees, this talk will seek to develop an understanding of the grounds of specific obligations that states owe to refugees. These obligations will then constitute the components of an ethical response. The talk aims to highlight the limitations of the dominant philosophical approach to understanding obligations to refugees – the duty of rescue approach – to reach a new understanding. It will first analyse certain state practices used in response to refugees including border violence, detention, encampment and containment, which the duty of rescue approach fails to sufficiently engage with, in order to ground states’ negative duties towards refugees. It will then analyse specific harms and injustices refugees face as a result of their displacement, which the duty of rescue approach fails to sufficiently engage with, in order to ground states’ positive duties towards refugees. Taken together these negative and positive duties constitute the foundational elements of an ethical response. The talk will then briefly explore what this ethical response might look like and how it may be possible in practice.
About the speaker
Bradley Hillier-Smith researches, teaches, and writes political, moral, and legal philosophy at the University of St Andrews. His research specialises in applied political ethics, global justice, and human rights, with a specific focus on migration ethics and obligations to refugees. He is the author of The Ethics of State Responses to Refugees (Routledge 2024), and numerous journal articles on topics including understanding injustice against refugees, the grounds and implications of human rights, and the limitations of a right to control borders. Bradley is also a charity worker, former long-term Calais camp volunteer, and political campaigner advocating for the rights and settlement of refugees in the UK.
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