Migration

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People move. Some seek the hope of a better future in a new place, others are forced from their homes, spurred by conflict, environmental change, economic instability, or discrimination. While the protection of refugees and asylum seekers is enshrined in international law, migration and movement is both caused by and results in a wide array of human rights impacts. What are the challenges faced by people who migrate and move, and how can human rights guide our societies towards a world where people are respected, protected, and supported regardless of where they come from or where they are going?

 

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Refugee Protection

 

Borders and AI: Human rights–enhancing legal technologies

By: Sean Rehaag
Español

AI does have the capacity to be used to help asylum seekers and other people on the move, despite its current uses.

Uyghurs stuck in the US asylum system have no time to lose

By: Henryk Szadziewski
Español

As of March 2023, delays in most Uyghur cases across the asylum system are due to court date scheduling.

40,000 people arbitrarily deprived of their nationality in Colombia

By: Andrés Besserer Rayas & Maria Fernanda Orozco Naranjo & Sebastian Portilla Parra & Gabriela del Pilar Thiriat Pedraza
Español

Arbitrary cancellation of nationality has serious sociolegal effects that are being documented in Colombia.

Racial hatred on the rise in Tunisia: What is the role of digital platforms?

By: Salma Houerbi
Español | Français

Massive raids and attacks against Black migrants in Tunisia, triggered by a virulent online campaign, recall the urgent need for big tech to scrutinize the human ...

Venezuela: Flourishing in the abyss

By: Rafael Uzcátegui
Español

Venezuela's democratic political and social leadership needs to reflect on its strategies to confront authoritarianism, as well as its strengths and weaknesses, ...

Solidarity, not charity

By: Isabell Sluka
Español

How #LeaveNoOneBehind advocated a reconfiguration of pro-migrant solidarity during the COVID-19 pandemic and what we can all learn from it as we face current and ...

People’s participation in high-level decision-making spaces on regional migration

By: Mara Tissera Luna
Español

Despite long-standing obstacles, Latin American and Caribbean local and national migrant- and diaspora-led associations and organizations have involved themselves ...

Fragility, climate change, and the uncertain lives of agro-pastoralist women and girls in East Africa

By: Holly A. Ritchie
Español

Alongside political and social pressures that agro-pastoralist women and girls face, they must add an urgent one: climate change.

Egalité? Not in France’s refugee policy

By: Jacqueline Parisi
Español

For a country whose founding universalist principles are imbued with humanitarian rhetoric, it’s astounding how egregiously égalité has been violated.

Why business might thwart the UK government’s Rwanda asylum export plan

By: John Morrison
Español

Although the plan was initiated by the government, it seems likely that private enterprises will be asked to play a significant role at all stages of the process.

Child migrants are children first

By: Sarah Damoff
Español

As a matter of human rights, our policies must consider child migrants by their status of child before their status of migrant or litigant.

Why current events in Ukraine (should) raise questions about refugees in Greece

By: Mimi Hapig
Español

The current expressions of solidarity by various European countries towards refugees from Ukraine should reignite the discourse about Europe’s response to refugees ...

Privacy and digital identity: The case of Pakistan’s NADRA

By: Hamza Waqas & Amna Khan
Español

Pakistan’s national ID system is failing to cater to the needs of various marginalized communities, and is a potential threat to citizens’ right to privacy.

Vaccinations and migrant worker lockdowns: COVID-19 and human rights in Singapore

By: Alana Barry
Español

Despite its contributions to the global vaccine effort, Singapore has failed to commit to human rights for its migrant worker population.

Haitian migration through the Western hemisphere: a racial (in)justice analysis

By: S. Priya Morley
Español

A transnational racial justice lens is essential to understand recent Haitian migration through the Americas, but also to develop any future policy responses.

Human rights principles, treaties and mental health: a case study of Greece

By: Jonas Bull & Sacha Feierabend
العربية | Español | Deutsch | Français

How can human rights inform our understanding of mental health support services?

How NGOs in the Global South are developing strategies for protecting asylum-seekers at a time of human rights retrenchment

By: Stephen Meili
Español

At a time when many refugee-receiving nations have ignored their international obligation to protect those fleeing persecution, constitutionalized human rights ...

Reckoning with racism against Black migrants in Mexico

By: S. Priya Morley
Español

Now is the time for Mexico to address the anti-Black racism, xenophobia, and other forms of discrimination that impact Black migrants in the country.

Stopping the abuse in your produce basket

By: Amanda Borquaye
Español

Under the COVID-19 pandemic, governments and consumers have the opportunity to rethink how we look at the human costs that sustain our grocery shopping.

Everyday Cosmopolitanism: clinging to the faith of common humanity

By: Hussein Banai
Español

The process of dialogue, reciprocity, and continual struggle in everyday cosmopolitanism is precisely what positions human rights as an effective bulwark against ...

The pandemic shows that now is the time to end immigration detention

By: Susan M. Akram
Español

Immigration detention is rarely justified and now poses a greater risk to the public given the spread of COVID-19 in ICE facilities.

Refugees and migrants in Ecuador face rising risks among decreased protections

By: Diana Herrera
Español

The pandemic and decreased recognition of refugees in Ecuador are compounding risks to the already precarious lives of asylum seekers.

Protecting freedom from domestic violence and the right to asylum

By: Rachel Freed & Joshua Leach
Español

The restoration of asylum rights to domestic violence survivors in the US illuminates the power of strategic litigation to create positive change—but there are ...

Legal Empowerment during COVID-19: from JusticePower to #FreeThemAll

By: Tyler Walton
Español

Immigrants have decried the use of detention as migration deterrence for years, but the pandemic has given advocates a new touch point in the collective social ...

What does protection from persecution look like during a pandemic?

By: Kathryn Hampton
Español | Français

Policy decisions to exclude asylum seekers due to the pandemic are neither predetermined nor inevitable: we have a choice.

First UN human rights decision on climate migration—a modest step forward

By: Deborah Casalin
Español

For the first time, a UN body has decided the case of a climate migrant, and in doing so strengthened the duty on states to address climate change because it poses ...

Chechens pay a high price for the securitisation of Europe’s migration policies

By: Marta Szczepanik
Español | Русский

The case of Chechen nationals is an example of how the securitisation of migration policies—the return policy in particular—puts migrants at risk of severe violations ...

Rethinking solutions to the Rohingya refugee crisis

By: Brian Gorlick
Français | العربية

The Rohingya refugees are unlikely to be able to return home anytime soon. We need to look at other options to allow them to rebuild their lives and communities.

Turkey’s fast fashion is rising on the backs of Syrian refugees

By: Salma Houerbi
Español | العربية

Weak labour legislation in Turkey, paired with brands that put profits before people, is causing harmful working conditions that exploit refugees.

Values-based collective action helps resist the criminalization of compassion

By: Rachel Freed
Español

Humanitarian workers giving aid to migrants are being threatened and in some cases imprisoned. But compassionate assistance for imperiled people in all settings ...

Family separation: a flashpoint in the global migrant crisis

By: Brian Root  & Rachel Schmidt

Situations of inhumane treatment and abuses of power are where we need human rights the most, and the family separation issue in the United States is symptomatic ...

The US role in forced migration from the Middle East

By: Azadeh Shahshahani
العربية

American foreign policy is at the root of forced migration from different parts of the world, and human rights advocates must address the problem at its heart.

Refugee politics from the local to the international

By: Sarah Stroup

The Trump administration is affecting refugee politics from small towns to the world stage, and activists have a long road ahead.

New approach to refugee protection must prioritize self-sufficiency

By: Mallory Mroz

A new approach to refugee protection needs to draw on the principles of self-sufficiency to prevent aid dependency and let refugees work so that they contribute ...

Self-interest argument for refugee admission backfires in Japan

By: Saul Takahashi 
日本語

Japan fails to protect refugees—but arguing it should do so because its aging society needs new immigrants hasn’t worked.

Accounting for human rights: lessons from Syria

By: Sean Luna McAdams
Español

If refugee advocates don’t shine a light on budgets, it will be nearly impossible to ensure sustained support for refugee protection efforts.

Migrants are driving innovative campaigns for female refugees in Germany

By: Claudia Bollwinkel
Deutsch

Activists are using a multi-van in Germany to help female refugees cope with violence and harassment.

Broader view shows path to refugee reform

By: David James Cantor
Español

The refugee regime extends well beyond the 1951 Convention, and a broader contextual view is necessary in debates about change.

Crisis in Europe exposes failing refugee protection regime

By: John Torpey

The refugee protection regime works if it remains limited to those genuinely fleeing persecution — though the Syrian crisis proves again that ways must also be ...

Without adequate reflection, new refugee solutions risk failing

By: Chris Dolan
Français

We have to stop pushing new refugee solutions without assessing where we have succeeded and failed so far.

Statelessness as forced displacement

By: Kristy A. Belton

When we think of forced displacement, we don’t usually think about the stateless. But we should.

Is a reformed Refugee Convention a solution?

By: Neva O. Öztürk & Cavidan Soykan
Türkçe

The Refugee Convention was designed for an earlier era, but there seems little will to update its provisions to meet today’s reality.

Burden-sharing: Utopian dream or principled pragmatism?

By: Irene Khan 
Français

Global burden-sharing schemes won’t solve the refugee crisis – experience shows tailored, regional arrangements grounded in principled pragmatism are the best way ...

Refugee protection is politics

By: Roni Amit & Loren B. Landau
Français

The best refugee legislation in the world will have little effect when those seeking protection are characterized as security risks.

Syria continues to bleed while the Middle East closes its doors

By: Susan M. Akram
العربية

Host states impose greater restrictions on refugees’ rights at least partly because Western states aren’t fulfilling their responsibilities.

The struggle for sans-papiers human rights

By: Upendra Baxi

Protecting the rights of refugees and migrants requires a response based in hospitality not hostility.

Political realities challenge refugee reform

By: Bill Frelick
Français | Español

Does anyone really have the authority to bind states to accept their fair share of global refugee burdens and responsibilities?

The duty to rescue: a new paradigm for refugee protection

By: Jean-François Durieux
Français | Español

The refugee protection regime needs reform, but this requires new international approaches that go beyond the Refugee Convention.

Putting on the pressure: domestic constituencies and refugee policy

By: Emily Arnold-Fernandez
Français | Español

As long as states do not face pressure from their own constituencies, domestic refugee policy is unlikely to change.

Rediscovering a winning formula for refugee protection

By: James Milner 
Français | Español

State cooperation can only solve the refugee crisis if states actually want to cooperate. And evidence shows that they don’t.

Improve refugee protection by managing it better

By: Tim Finch 
Français | Español

The disorder and tragedy inherent in large-scale, spontaneous refugee flows is not inevitable—what we need is a managed protection regime.

Refugee reform must become a global project

By: Alex Neve
Español | Français

Many different states are implicated in the wars and human rights violations that provoke refugee crises, which means they must also be part of the solution.

A global solution to a global refugee crisis

By: James C. Hathaway 
Français | Español | العربية

If implemented as intended, the UN Refugee Convention points the way to a truly global solution to the refugee crisis.

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