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Frozen frontier: uti possidetis and the decolonization of South Asia
The study of uti possidetis in international law has proceeded without any detailed examination of its application to South Asian borders. Yet, the consequences of uti possidetis in the Indian subcontinent offer critical insight into the legal and functional critique levied against the doctrine. The South Asian experience provides evidence that uti possidetis cannot be considered a norm of regional customary international law, confined to Latin America and Africa. Simultaneously, it provides compelling proof of this doctrine’s ruinous impact on self-determination, pointing to its potential for identity-alteration and intra-state violence: consequences that have received scarce attention in legal scholarship. By undertaking a detailed study of the Radcliffe Line in Punjab, this paper makes a prudent attempt to commence filling this gap in the literature by re-centring South Asia in the debate on uti possidetis.
Beyond the boxes: Refugee shelter and the humanitarian politics of life
Humanitarian agencies often reach for new designs and technologies in order to meet basic human needs. In the field of emergency shelter, one of the most widely publicized new designs is the Ikea refugee shelter: a flat‐packed, mass‐produced structure that can be shipped and constructed wherever it is required. This shelter aspires to be a universal solution, but since its formal launch in 2013, it has met with criticism and many challenges in the field. Deployed in political contexts in which people have very different expectations of basic shelter, the Ikea shelter demonstrates the limitations of universal standards, the inequities of humanitarianism, and the entwinement of biopolitics and the politics of life.
Refugee Economies in Addis Ababa: Towards Sustainable Opportunities for Urban Communities
This report examines the precarious economic lives of refugee communities in Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa, and their interactions with the host community. Addis Ababa has only 22,000 registered refugees, out of a national refugee population of 900,000. They comprise two main groups: 17,000 Eritreans and 5000 Somali refugees. Based on qualitative research and a survey of 2441 refugees and members of the proximate host community, we examine the economic lives of the refugee communities and their interactions with the host community. We draw upon the data to consider the prospects for a sustainable urban response in the context of Ethiopia’s adoption of the new Refugee Proclamation in 2019, which appears to provide refugees with the right to work and freedom of movement.
Refugee Economies in Dollo Ado: Development Opportunities in a Border Region of Ethiopia
This report examines the economic strategies of Somali refugees in the cross-border economy of Ethiopia’s Somali region. The five Dollo Ado refugee camps were created between 2009 and 2011 in the Somali Region of Ethiopia. According to UNHCR registration data, they host around 220,000 almost exclusively Somali refugees within a semi-arid and isolated border district within which refugees outnumber the host population. The camps and host community have benefited significantly from the IKEA Foundation’s €75m investment in the camps over a seven-year period. This globally unprecedented level of private sector investment has created a range of new opportunities in education, entrepreneurship, energy, agriculture, the environment, and livelihoods.
The Kalobeyei Model: Towards Self-Reliance for Refugees?
This report outlines a conceptual model and indicators for measuring refugee self-reliance, and applies it to the Kalobeyei settlement and Kakuma refugee camps context. The Kalobeyei settlement was opened in Turkana County in Kenya in 2016 with the intention of promoting the self-reliance of refugees and the host population and delivering integrated services to both. Its development is now guided by the Kalobeyei Integrated Social and Economic Development Programme (KISEDP), led by the Government of Kenya (GoK), the Turkana County Government, UNHCR, and partners. KISEDP envisions a range of innovative, market-based approaches to refugee protection that diverge from the conventional aid model implemented in Kakuma. These include cash-based programmes to meet housing, nutritional and other material needs, training to capitalise on the skills and entrepreneurial potential of refugees and hosts, and agricultural projects to promote dryland farming and household ‘kitchen gardens’. This report is based upon a 3-year study following newly arrived refugees integrated into the new Kalobeyei settlement and the old Kakuma refugee camp since 2016. The newly arrived refugees were allocated between the two contexts based on their date of arrival. In the study, we follow newly arrived South Sudanese refugee in both Kalobeyei and Kakuma in order to compare outcomes over time, and identify what difference the Kalobeyei settlement makes in comparison to the Kakuma model. We also follow newly arrived Ethiopian and Burundian refugees within Kalobeyei. The report covers two waves of data collection with the same randomly sampled respondent population, carried out in 2017 and 2018.
Doing Business in Kakuma: Refugees, Entrepreneurship, and the Food Market
This report draws upon a business survey with food retailers to assess the impact of the ‘Bamba Chakula’ model of electronic food transfers and business contracts. The Kakuma refugee camps have become popularly associated with entrepreneurship. In 2016, the Kalobeyei settlement was opened 3.5 kms away from the Kakuma camps, with the intention of promoting the self-reliance of refugees and the host population, and delivering integrated services to both. Its development is guided by the Kalobeyei Integrated Social and Economic Development Programme (KISEDP), which offers a range of innovative, market-based approaches to refugee protection that diverge from the conventional aid model implemented in Kakuma. There have been few studies that examine the emergence of refugee-led markets at the business level, whether in the Kakuma camps, in the Kalobeyei settlement, or elsewhere. In order to address this gap, our research aimed to study one particular sector: the food market. This sector is of particular interest because it is such a significant part of economic life in refugee camps, and because it is heavily shaped by the modalities of food assistance provided by the international community. Kakuma is currently undergoing a gradual transition from in-kind food assistance to cash-based assistance, and as an interim step, it has introduced a food provision model called Bamba Chakula.
Research in Brief: Avoiding refugee status and alternatives to asylum
This new research brief outlines why, in the context of a specific displaced population in Uganda, individuals choose to avoid the asylum system, and what alternatives they both pursue and would prefer to it. Their responses point towards a practical set of changes that could significantly enhance protection within the asylum system in this context. But they also point towards a preference for legal pathways to regularising individuals’ statuses that are discrete from the refugee regime and its labels. The brief is based on research conducted with Eritreans in Kampala in late 2016.
Integration of resettled Syrian refugees in Oxford: preliminary study in 2018
This working paper presents findings from the first phase of research on Understanding the Integration of Syrian Refugee Families in Oxfordshire, based at the Refugee Studies Centre at the University of Oxford. The study aims to understand the ways and degrees to which Syrian refugee families who came to Oxfordshire via the Syrian Vulnerable Person Resettlement Scheme (SVPRS) are adapting to their new lives in the United Kingdom. In response to the Syrian refugee crisis and calls for countries in the Global North to do more, the UK government launched the SVPRS in 2014. In 2015, the then prime minister David Cameron announced intentions to resettle 20,000 Syrian refugees from the Middle East and North Africa to the UK by May 2020 through the SVPRS. By the end December 2016, 5,454 refugees had been resettled in the UK through this scheme, spread across 200 local authorities. This study seeks to investigate the integration processes experienced by these Syrian families, with the aim of highlighting policy implications for local authorities and refugee-supporting agencies. At the inception of data collection in 2018, a total of 28 families had been received in Oxford via SVPRS. For this initial round of research, we conducted semi-structured interviews with 14 families out of the 28, and also interviewed staff members from Oxford City Council, community-based groups, and refugee-assisting NGOs between January and July 2018.
Theorizing the refugee humanitarian-development nexus: a political-economy analysis
This article theorizes development-led responses to large-scale, protracted refugee crises—a significant gap in our understanding given the remarkable speed with which international donors and humanitarian and development actors have engaged with this approach. The article is in two parts. The first sketches the emergence and characteristics of development-led responses to contemporary refugee crises, largely embodied in the 2018 Global Compact on Refugees and the Comprehensive Refugee Response Framework. The second, and main, part theorizes the structural determinants and interests that are driving this international engagement, locating this in development theory popular in the 1970s to 1990s—the core-periphery/metropole-dependency model of economic dualism. I argue there are remarkable parallels with this model and how we might theorize the current refugee-response regime that subordinates impacted countries to economic-development and containment conditions applied by the advanced ‘imperial’ donor countries of the Global North. The limited capacity of the ‘empire’ to fight back concludes the article.
Some other(ed) 'refugees'?: women seeking asylum under refugee and human rights law
Chapter in ‘Research Handbook on International Refugee Law’ edited by SS Juss. This chapter explores three issues that arise from a consideration of women’s claims for recognition as refugees under international refugee law (IRL), subsidiary protection and/or protection from refoulement under international human rights law (IHRL). The first issue considered is women’s access to protection. Attention is drawn to the increasing numbers of women seeking protection, and the gendered impacts that Europe’s ‘re-bordering’ has on those women who are forced to undertake ‘illegalised’ and, therefore, ever-more dangerous journeys. The second issue considered is the scope of protection offered to women seeking protection from gender-based violence under IRL and IHRL. The chapter concludes with a consideration of a recent success: developments in IHRL that seek to improve the way that women’s claims for protection are determined.
Research in Brief: Exploring assumptions behind ‘voluntary’ returns from North Africa
In recent years, the International Organization for Migration (IOM), with funding from European states, has implemented ‘humanitarian’ return programmes for migrants stranded in North Africa – termed Assisted Voluntary Return programmes. It has been assumed that the risk of further mistreatment, together with ‘reintegration’ projects, will convince returnees to remain in their country of origin, or that, if not persuaded to stay, returnees will at least decide to obtain a visa to travel – which will ultimately lead to safer migration. In the latest RSC Research in Brief, Dr Anne-Line Rodriguez (RSC Early Career Fellow, now Leverhulme Early Career Fellow, School of Politics and International Relations, Queen Mary University of London) presents ethnographic research conducted with returnees in Senegal that challenges these assumptions about ‘voluntary’ returns. It found that many returns from North Africa following ill-treatment are undertaken by migrants’ own means, without IOM support, and that despite the abuses they endured in North Africa, many returnees formed new plans of migration upon return. Further, leaving with a visa appeared unrealistic due to the costs involved. New dangerous routes are therefore likely to be taken by many returnees in the future, rather than migration becoming safer.
Protection for forcibly displaced Afghan populations in Pakistan and Iran
Respectively the second and fifth largest refugee hosting countries world-wide, Pakistan and Iran between them accommodated 2.343 million registered Afghan refugees in 2017, and an estimated further two to four million undocumented Afghans. Characterised by cycles of repatriation, deportation and subsequent episodes of re-exile, it constitutes both the second largest refugee situation globally and one of the world’s dominant protracted refugee situations. Thus both countries have carried a substantial burden since 1979 and, despite their own economic and developmental challenges, have made considerable efforts to accommodate the Afghan population and to afford minimum standards of protection. Against this background the report investigates the legal, governance and policy frameworks for the rights and protection regimes for the Afghan population in both countries (including both recognised refugees and other forcibly displaced without a formal protection status). Key protection benchmarks (refugee status determination (RSD) and protection, repatriation and deportation, freedom of movement, right to work, and access to education) are deployed. These benchmarks establish important prerequisites for refugee livelihoods and economic well-being, significant in situations of protracted displacement such as the Afghan’s experience in Iran and Pakistan. The overall aim is to clarify the complex international and domestic legal protection frameworks and contingent rights related to this population. The findings provide a platform for humanitarian and development actors to tackle key operational challenges and to enhance their advocacy for improved protection guidelines and strategies for the Afghan population in exile in these two countries.
Protection for forcibly displaced Afghan populations in Pakistan and Iran - Briefing Note
With 2.5 million registered Afghan refugees between them, Pakistan and Iran are respectively the second and fifth largest refugee hosting countries world-wide. In addition these two countries host, in total, an estimated undocumented Afghan population of between 2 and 3 million, the majority of whom are likely to have been forcibly displaced. Characterised by cycles of exile, repatriation, deportation and subsequent episodes of re-exile, globally this constitutes both the second largest and one of the world’s dominant protracted refugee situations. Given the length of the displacement crisis, the majority of displaced Afghans have been born in exile in Pakistan and Iran. Both countries have therefore carried an enormous burden over many decades and, despite their own economic and developmental challenges, have made considerable efforts to accommodate the Afghan population and to afford minimum standards of protection. Against this background, the aim of this briefing note is to describe and provide key stakeholders with an up-to-date overview of the complex legal, governance and policy frameworks for the protection and contingent rights of the Afghan population (including both recognised refugees and other forcibly displaced Afghans without formal protection status), residing in Pakistan and Iran. Based only on a desk study analysis which synthesises available documentation and secondary data, it is important to emphasise that this briefing note has not benefitted from primary data collection, such as interviews with key stakeholders, which would have provided a more detailed and nuanced account of these conditions.
In praise of dependencies: dispersed dependencies and displacement
Re‐conceiving or re‐framing the humanitarian consequences of displacement in terms of ‘dispersed dependencies’, a term drawn from the field of mental health, sheds light on the disruptive experience of displacement and on relations with other displaced people, hosts, states and humanitarian actors. Dependency for a person is neither a problem nor abnormal; independence is in effect about having a viable set of dispersed dependencies. This description, when applied in the context of disaster or displacement, challenges some humanitarian attitudes and offers some positive directions for humanitarians seeking to engage in assistance that is sustainable, contextual, and focused on human choice and dignity.
Politics resettled: the case of the Palestinian diaspora in Chile
Resettlement needs to be better understood as a political event and process. Along with repatriation and local integration, it is considered one of three traditional ‘durable solutions’ for refugees, with ‘success’ typically assessed by whether resettled refugees are provided with the tools they need to achieve ‘integration’ in their new ‘host-state’. Yet, how much do we understand resettlement beyond these policy-oriented categories? It is no secret that resettlement is an inherently political tool at the national and international level. And with increasingly stricter immigration policies in the West, attention has shifted to emerging resettlement actors, such as Latin American countries, to fill protection gaps. Although states are essentially in full control over who they admit, they are not the only actors with distinct (political) interests in relation to being engaged and involved in resettlement processes. The gradual withdrawal of states from resettlement has been followed by the creation of alternative roles for civil society. For example, migrant(/refugee) communities provide assistance to others from that group to adapt in their new host countries and are essentially portrayed as resources for integration akin to any NGO. Overall, there is a lack of understanding about what this ‘co-national resettlement support’ represents for refugees and their communities alike, and about the (political) significance of such support. In 2008, 117 Palestinian refugees were resettled to Chile from Iraq. In parallel to the ‘formal’ implementation of the project by the Chilean Government, UNHCR and their NGO partner the Vicaría, the long-settled Palestinian community supported their ‘compatriots’ by providing material and cultural resources. To merely focus on the relation of these practices to integration would obscure the fact that this participation was also highly politicised. Rather than positing the engagement of the ‘Chilean-Palestinian’ community as static and essentialised, this paper delves deeper into the motivations, worries and political repercussions that characterised their involvement in resettlement. It focuses on how the project was negotiated, framed and performed at both macro and micro levels by various actors within and peripheral to the Palestinian community in Chile. By conceptualising Chilean-Palestinians as a ‘diaspora’, I argue that the arrival of Palestinian refugees was an event where different (re-)formulations of (Chilean-)Palestinian identity and politics were centre stage. By using this project as a case study and applying diaspora theory as a framework, it becomes possible to elucidate the politics of resettlement and move beyond mere policy and state-centric considerations.
Diplomacy with memory: how the past is employed for future foreign policy
This article suggests that there exists an alternative form of international political behavior between countries who share a common traumatic past: diplomacy with memory. Diplomacy with memory manifests itself as an official, diplomatic team performance that aims at conveying a certain historic image for the purpose of achieving rational aims on the international stage. In a first step, a theoretical and empirical framework is developed that highlights diplomacy with memory as a strategic diplomatic action that does not conform with mainstream IR models of state behavior. In a second step, the new theoretical model is tested on two selected postconflict scenarios: The bilateral negotiations between West Germany and Israel, and between Austria and Israel about eventual reparation payments to the Jewish state in the early 1950s. Extracting the core elements of the diplomacy with memory from these historical examples, this paper suggests amending the toolkit of traditional diplomatic strategies with memory in order to better explain state behavior in other postconflict situations as they emerge.
The EU’s commitment to combatting violence against women: rhetoric or reality?
Background The EU has, at its heart, a legal commitment to combat discrimination, including that based on sex, and to promote gender equality. It has however, been subject to sustained and justified criticism for its failure(s) to live up to these commitments, particularly in relation to its treatment of migrant and refugee women. The announcement by the Commission in 2016 that the EU would sign and conclude (ratify) the Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combatting Violence Against Women (the Istanbul Convention) was, therefore, warmly received by activists and academics alike.