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Protracted refugee situations and regional and host state security
This article examines the long‐stating importance of refugee issues in international politics and underlines the changing emphasis given to these issues by policy makers and academic researchers, both in the immediate post‐Cold War and post‐9/11 periods. The authors then address the manner in which the relationship between forced migration and state security has been addressed in the past decade. The article highlights how this area of research continues to over‐emphasize the migration‐related security of Western states and the presence of armed elements in refugee movements in the Third World. In contrast, the literature largely neglects the security concerns of states hosting protracted refugee populations. Ironically, chronic refugee situations in regions of refugee origin constitute the overwhelming majority of the world's refugee population.
Refugees as grounds for international action
The orthodox definition of international security puts human displacement and refugees at the periphery. In contrast, Refugees and Forced Displacement demonstrates that human displacement can be both a cause and a consequence of conflict within and among societies. As such, the management of refugee movements and the protection of displaced people should be an integral part of security policy and conflict management. Refugees and forcibly displaced people can also represent the starkest example of a tension between human security where the primary focus is the individual and communities and more conventional models of national security tied to the sovereign state and military defence of territory. This book explores this tension with respect to a number of pressing problems related to refugees and forced displacement. It also demonstrates how many of these challenges have been exacerbated by the war on terror since September 11, 2001. The analysis of conflict and human displacement has changed, particularly concerning the links between security and migration. In seeking to address the nexus between security concerns and migratory flows, Refugees and Forced Displacement argues for a reappraisal of the legal, political, normative, institutional and conceptual frameworks through which the international community addresses refugees and displacement.
The missing link: the need for comprehensive engagement in regions of refugee origin
Asylum policies in Britain and in the countries of its EU partners are failing to cope with the demands made upon them. With migration pressures mounting and opportunities for legal immigration to many EU states restricted, larger numbers of potential migrants are turning to alternative means of entry and access, namely irregular migration and asylum channels. The responses of states to these challenges have been to adopt more restrictive policies and practices that have considerably changed the balance between immigration control and refugee protection. While states have the right to control entry and enforce their borders, the restrictive measures that have come to dominate policy-making and recent immigration enforcement initiatives in Britain and its European partners do not sufficiently discriminate between asylum seekers and other kinds of migrants, thereby failing to safeguard the right of refugees to seek protection. Current British proposals to move asylum seekers to 'safe areas' in regions of origin fail to understand the burdens, pressures and priorities of countries in the regions, fail to ensure effective protection for those in need, and are unlikely to deliver the UK policy objective of substantially reducing the numbers of illegal entries to Britain. What is needed is an approach that reduces the number of individuals seeking protection in Europe while maintaining the European tradition of providing asylum to those in genuine need. The 'missing link' in asylum policy that would respond both to the concerns of states and to the protection needs of refugees is more comprehensive engagement in regions of refugee origin. It is in this way that western asylum countries, including the UK, may best address the challenge of providing international protection to victims of persecution and respond to their own concerns about asylum.
Iraq: Refugees, Be Prepared
The pitiful sight of many thousands of Iraqi refugees moving into the mountains on the Turkish border after the 1991 Gulf war touched prime ministers and presidents worldwide. The policy of safe havens was born. But planning for any new refugee crisis is woefully inadequate.
War in Iraq: An Impending Refugee Crisis? Uncertain Risks, Inadequate Preparation and Coordination
As military and diplomatic plans develop for a US-led attack against Iraq, there has been little public discussion about the possibility of a mass exodus of Iraqi refugees as a consequence of this conflict. Nor has there been any consideration given to the implications of a refugee crisis on the security and stability of Iraq’s immediate neighbors in the Middle East. This is surprising, because for the last decade or more there have been massive cross-border flows of Iraqi refugees to neighboring states, creating regional instability and imposing social and economic strains on host countries. Iraqi nationals have also been among the highest number of asylum seekers in Europe. There is also surprisingly little public discussion of the current state of preparedness for a humanitarian crisis in Iraq. Yet, as past humanitarian crises clearly demonstrate, early planning for the uncertainties of military action, especially a refugee crisis, is essential.
State Responses to Refugees and Asylum Seekers in Europe
Few, if any phenomena affecting Western Europe as a whole since 1945 have been more far-reaching in their immediate effects or more potentially destabilizing to politics and society over the long term than the accumulative experience of immigration. Messina and his contributors analyze why the major immigrant-receiving states of Western Europe historically permitted and often abetted relatively high levels of postwar migration, and they assess how contemporary governments attempt to govern immigration flows and manage the domestic social and political fallout which it inevitably yields. The central purpose of the volume is to address these questions within the context of the decision-making logics that have demonstratively governed postwar migration to Western Europe in each of its three distinct, but interrelated waves or phases-labor migration, family migration, and humanitarian or forced migration. Messina demonstrates that postwar migration to Western Europe, in all of its phases, has been governed by a set of mutually reinforcing and mostly compatible logics. Of these—the economic, the humanitarian, and the political—the political has predominated over time and is likely to continue doing so into the indefinite future. A major cross-disciplinary analysis that will appeal to political scientists, sociologists, and general researchers and scholars of ethnicity, race relations, and comparative public policy.
UNHCR and World Politics: State Pressures and Institutional Autonomy
This article situates the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) within the context of world politics. States remain the predominant actors in the international political system. But this does not mean that international organizations like the UNHCR are completely without power or influence. Tracing the evolution of the agency over the past half century, this article argues that while the UNHCR has been constrained by states, the notion that it is a passive mechanism with no independent agenda of its own is not borne out by the empirical evidence of the past 50 years. Rather UNHCR policy and practice have been driven both by state interests and by the office acting independently or evolving in ways not expected nor necessarily sanctioned by states.
Protection and Humanitarian Action in the Post Cold War Period
In recent years, several influential commentators have stated or strongly implied that the advanced industrial democracies are today being overwhelmed by a host of problems - including rapid population growth, the breakup of multi-ethnic states, environmental degredation, and increasing economic differentials between the "developing" and "developed" worlds - for which no effective solutions are at hand. The migration-inducing potential of these post-Cold War developments has been a particular source of concern. This volume provides a counter-catastrophic view of developments and a more sober and balanced assessment of the challenges the United States and other industrial democracies face in the sphere of international migration than that offered in recent years. The first part is devoted to a diagnosis of the problem, revalution of the notion of a "migration crisis" by examining the likely consequences of population growth, environmental degredation, and political conflict in the developing and post-communist worlds. Special attention is also given to the manifestations of these forces in the western hemisphere where they may have direct consequences for immigration to the United States. In the second part the implications for U.S. policy are considered, ranging from promotion of democracy and development of strategies for minimizing international migrations and refugee flows to the intricacies of humanitarian relief and intervention when preventive measures prove ineffective.
Protracted refugee situations: politics, human rights and security dimensions
Over two-thirds of the world’s refugees are trapped in protracted refugee situations, struggling to survive in remote and insecure parts of the world. This volume brings together a collection of eminent scholars and practitioners to explore the sources, nature and consequences of these situations and the record of the international community’s attempts to find durable solutions. On this basis, the volume presents new thinking to address protracted refugee situations that incorporates security and development—as well as humanitarian—actors and attempts to reconcile the policy difficulties which have obstructed progress for many years.
Introduction: continuity and change in global refugee policy
This special issue of the Refugee Survey Quarterly brings together a selection of thepapers from the conference on “Understanding Global Refugee Policy” organized by the Refugee Studies Centre to celebrate its 30th anniversary. One of the many notable themes to emerge from the conference was the extent to which that period hasengendered continuity or change in global refugee policy. How has the agenda changed? Has the nature of the challenges facing policy-makers shifted over the last three decades? Has refugee policy become more politicised? Has finding solutions to refugee situations become more difficult? To what extent are main actors different? Is it still a fundamentally state-centric policy field? How have the main forums and institutions within which policy is made changed? The papers in this collection offer a window onto that question of continuity and change. In doing so, they address a range of important emerging themes and cover a wide set of geographical regions.
Introduction: Refugee and forced migration studies in transition
Book description: Refugee and Forced Migration Studies has grown from being a concern of a relatively small number of scholars and policy researchers in the 1980s to a global field of interest with thousands of students worldwide studying displacement either from traditional disciplinary perspectives or as a core component of newer programmes across the Humanities and Social and Political Sciences. Today the field encompasses both rigorous academic research which may or may not ultimately inform policy and practice, as well as action-research focused on advocating in favour of refugees' needs and rights. This authoritative Handbook critically evaluates the birth and development of Refugee and Forced Migration Studies, and analyses the key contemporary and future challenges faced by academics and practitioners working with and for forcibly displaced populations around the world. The 52 state-of-the-art chapters, written by leading academics, practitioners, and policymakers working in universities, research centres, think tanks, NGOs and international organizations, provide a comprehensive and cutting-edge overview of the key intellectual, political, social and institutional challenges arising from mass displacement in the world today. The chapters vividly illustrate the vibrant and engaging debates that characterize this rapidly expanding field of research and practice.
Human rights and forced migration
Chapter 18 in the book Human Rights: Politics and Practice. In this book, edited by Michael Goodhart, a team of international experts combine the latest theoretical developments with unrivalled coverage of the practical and political dynamics of human rights. Throughout the text, helpful features support students' learning, challenging them to think critically and to question their own assumptions.
Refugees and Internally Displaced Persons
Chapter in: The Oxford Handbook of International Organizations (edited by Jacob Katz Cogan, Ian Hurd, and Ian Johnstone) About the book: Virtually every important question of public policy today involves an international organization. From trade to intellectual property to health policy and beyond, governments interact with international organizations in almost everything they do. Increasingly, individual citizens are directly affected by the work of international organizations. Aimed at academics, students, practitioners, and lawyers, this book gives a comprehensive overview of the world of international organizations today. It emphasizes both the practical aspects of their organization and operation, and the conceptual issues that arise at the junctures between nation-states and international authority, and between law and politics. While the focus is on inter-governmental organizations, the book also encompasses non-governmental organizations and public policy networks. With essays by the leading scholars and practitioners, the book first considers the main international organizations and the kinds of problems they address. This includes chapters on the organizations that relate to trade, humanitarian aid, peace operations, and more, as well as chapters on the history of international organizations. The book then looks at the constituent parts and internal functioning of international organizations. This addresses the internal management of the organization, and includes chapters on the distribution of decision-making power within the organizations, the structure of their assemblies, the role of Secretaries-General and other heads, budgets and finance, and other elements of complex bureaucracies at the international level. This book is essential reading for scholars, practitioners, and students alike.