Globalization and the Geopolitics of Forced Migration

The 1951 Convention on the Status of Refugees and its 1967 Protocol gives a clear notion of international refugee protection. It is meant to be the main legal source for international protection. Yet the states and other actors exercise international protection not only according to the Geneva Convention, but also out of concern for their national, geopolitical interests, and historical notions of who deserves protection. States also engage in international politics in order to get recognition for their particularistic notions of international protection.

Thus, since the very beginning of the 1951 Refugee Convention, there is an international struggle on how to define a refugee, the rights of the refugees, and how to protect refugees. The struggle became even more intense after the United Nations' adoption of the Global Compact on Refugees (2018) and the Global Compact on Safe, Orderly, and Regular Migration (2018). The result is a stronger politicization of the human right to asylum despite the existence of binding international and national laws.

This course aims to provide an in-depth understanding of (i) which notions and interpretations of international protection exist in the international arena and how these align with the 1951 Refugee Convention, (ii) why states politicize the international refugee law, (iii) how states manage to incorporate their particularistic notions of refugee into refugee protection without openly violating the international refugee law, (iv) how this affects the human right to asylum, and (v) which measures would be required to ensure that states comply with the 1951 Refugee Convention, which they are signatories of.

A student who has completed the course should have the following learning outcomes defined in terms of knowledge, skills and general competence:

Knowledge

This course will give the students knowledge of:

• Different state approaches to international protection, their justifications, and how they align with the existing international law
• Why and how states insist on implementing the international refugee law in their own ways
• Politicization of the international refugee law and the tensions between attempts to globalize international protection policy and states' geopolitical  interests

Skills

Students who successfully complete this course will be able to:

• meticulously see, interpret, and understand the different international protection paradigms behind observed political actions in the international arena
• assess to what extent observed international protection measures at different geopolitical scales comply with the political intentions behind the international refugee law
• evaluate and advise policies and measures to global and regional entities (UN, EU, AU) about how to encourage states to better comply with the international refugee law