Cookies on this website

We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. If you click 'Accept all cookies' we'll assume that you are happy to receive all cookies and you won't see this message again. If you click 'Reject all non-essential cookies' only necessary cookies providing core functionality such as security, network management, and accessibility will be enabled. Click 'Find out more' for information on how to change your cookie settings.

Alexander Betts writes in The Observer

On Sunday, Professor Alexander Betts penned an op-ed for the ‘Comment is free’ section in The Observer. Within this he illustrates how “current policy responses bypass engagement with long-term trends”. He states, “The world as a whole lacks a vision for how to respond to the changing nature of displacement. So much of the current “crisis” is not a crisis of numbers but a crisis of politics.”

He identifies “Five major gaps in the refugee regime… which require long-term policy development at national, regional and global levels.” These are: 1) Access – how are people supposed to claim asylum when arriving spontaneously in a country equates to ‘illegal’ entry?; 2) Responsibility-sharing by states; 3) Survival migration – many people leaving fragile states fall outside the 1951 convention definition but are still essentially not ‘voluntary’ migrants; 4) Markets – recognizing that refugees can self-reliant and not a ‘burden’ if policies allow; and 5) People not in need of international protection – wherein “we have to accept that the price of asylum is a low level of non-removable people who are not in need of protection.”

Read the op-ed in full >>

Related content

Alexander Betts People

Related news & media content News & Media