GIR Colloquium Series

Refugeehood Reconsidered: The Central American Migration Crisis

Presenter: Stephen Macedo (Laurance S. Rockefeller Professor of Politics at Princeton University)

A02, Room 650 and Zoom

Abstract: There may be no area of public policy in advanced Western states more fraught with deep moral and practical dilemmas than those associated with migration.  The world now has more refugees than any time since World War II: 65-70 million by some estimates. Countries like Australia and the United States have general humanitarian duties and more specific obligations under international law to those who make credible claims for asylum.  The scope of these depends partly on the question: “who is a refugee?” I explore the lively debate on that question, and the additional issue of reparative obligations arising from climate change and past state policies that have unjustly harmed sending countries.  Further complicating the question of what we ought to do, even for progressive policymakers, is the looming threat of right-wing populist backlash.

Photo by David Peinado