Refugees and minorities some conceptual and normative issues (EGP)

Journal of Applied Philosophy

There are more refugees than many states have a duty to accept. As a result, many states are permitted to accept only some refugees and not others. This raises the question of how states should select these refugees. I defend the claim that states should resettle the worst‐off refugees, and maximize the number of refugees gaining a sufficiently decent life. When resettling the worst off conflicts with maximising the number gaining a sufficiently decent life, states should select refugees to maximise aggregate benefits, with benefits holding greater weight the further refugees are from a sufficiency threshold. The only exception to this rule is when it entails wrongful discrimination, in which case states should only follow this rule if victims of discrimination benefit and consent to its implementation.

Ethics & Global Politics, 2020

Faced with the worst displacement crisis since the second world war, many states are unlikely to accept as many refugees as they ought, and very few are likely to accept more than they are required. Accordingly, though some refugees will be admitted, many with sound claims will thus be wrongfully rejected. Are some ways of wrongfully rejecting refugees less objectionable than others? If 'yes', is it then morally justifiable to give priority to refugees who flee from worse forms discrimination or persecution of minority groups than refugees who flee less severe forms of discrimination? In the abstract, this might seem like a reasonable position. Yet, many have found it objectionable to give priority to Christian refugees from the Middle Eastespecially without a similar scheme for Muslim refugees from countries where they experience comparable forms of discrimination. Furthermore, giving priority to refugees on the basis of the degree to which they experience discrimination and persecution in the countries from which they flee might involve drastic divergences from present patterns of asylum admittances. For instance, given the widespread and severe discrimination women and homosexuals face in many parts of the world, should such refugees be given priority, considering fewer men and heterosexuals would then be admitted? Some might reject the very idea of sorting refugees who all merit asylum into different groupstriage for refugees as it were. And some may instead reject the particular principle of risk of persecution for the distribution of asylum, on the basis of this principle's implications. If so, which alternative or additional principles should regulate the admission of refugees? This symposium aims to tackle such issues by addressing the question: What role ought minority protection play, and, more generally, what are the right principles of admitting and rejecting refugees when asylum, whether permanent or temporary, is under-supplied in a non-ideal world? What are the implications for the present situation given the correct answer to the previous questions? And should we at all consider prioritizing among refugees? If not, why not? 1 Each paper in this symposium addresses one or more of the issues above. Before presenting the content of the symposium, let us briefly explain how we conceptualize the prioritization of refugees in the non-ideal context of a world that does not give asylum to all refugees who should, morally speaking, receive it.

2024

When states cooperate in refugee protection and implement a scheme with fixed rules allocating refugees to host states, should they consider refugees' interests and preferences regarding where they receive protection? This paper briefly examines the kinds of preferences and interests that are relevant to both refugees and states before discussing the moral principles determining the respective weight that should be attributed to them. We conclude that states must adhere to some minimal constraints concerning the consideration of refugees' concerns, and should promote some further moral goals that go beyond these constraints. Finally, we suggest a scheme that meets all the moral demands we argued for and seems feasible without posing serious threats to the destination states.

Journal of Applied Philosophy, 2020

All persons have a right to seek and find asylum. 1 Arguably, the international community, or the states that comprise it, has a duty to provide such asylum. In the present circumstances, such rights of refugees, or the duties of the receiving states, are not always fulfilled. Not everyone is able to seek, let alone find, asylum, and many refugees, all deserving of asylum, are left unprotected, living in permanent limbos in camps and shelters or with other precarious, even illegal statuses. This symposium addresses the following question, which the prevailing nonideal circumstances of refugee protection give rise to: What, if any, are the acceptable principles for selecting refugees for admission in circumstances where not all refugeesdeserving of asylumare admitted? 2 The answers one gives to this question depend on a variety of factors. These include one's definition of a refugee, one's understanding of the present refugee regime, as well as the broader normative views one has on the functioning of the international order, or, for that matter, morality in general. In the political philosophical literature on 'refuge', 3 the question of 'who is a refugee' has been of central importance. The UN Refugee Convention defines a refugee as 'a person outside their country who has a well-founded fear of persecution owing to their race, nationality, religion, political opinion, or membership of a particular social group'. 4 This definition, with its persecution requirement, has, however, been criticized for being too restrictive in terms of identifying those persons in desperate need of international protection. 5 Accordingly, many political theorists and, in practice, many international aid organizations have adopted broader definitions that do not limit refugees to only persons fleeing persecution but may also include other persons fleeing, e.g. war or famine, or other sources of severe human rights violations. 6 The scope of the definition of a refugee plays an important role also to our present question of refugee prioritization, as it is often used to identify that group of people from which the admitted refugees are selected. Of the articles in this symposium, both Kieran Oberman's and Mollie Gerver's entries begin with an explicitly broad definition of a refugee, thus allowing the selection principles to apply, not only to refugees fleeing persecution but also to other vulnerable groups in need of international protection. While neither Patti Lenard's nor Bouke de Vries's entries engage explicitly with

Ethics & Global Politics, 2020

This article argues that there is no general 'yes' or 'no' answer to the question of whether states may permissibly use group-based criteria to permanently resettle refugees from certain contexts. Indeed, I argue that this question only makes sense with respect to a range of narrowly circumscribed scenarios. And, even though it may appear that states have wide discretion with respect to refugees in these scenarios, the way that these scenarios have arisen and continue to be maintained casts doubt upon even this limited conclusion Nevertheless, consulting both the history and practice of international refugee law can help us understand why some particular forms of group-based prioritizations are foreclosed. Such attention to practice based details also sensitizes us to the solution structure (and historic interest constellation) behind refugee law, as well as those institutional tweaks and patches that could actually stand a chance of making a marked difference.

The notion of "minority" does not have a universally accepted definition. There are several definitions of concept of minority. Althogh there is not a universally definition of minority, minorities have some rights and rights of minorities are protected in international framework by several international treaties.

2019

Refugee policies are the policies that are most sensitive to times of crisis. Refugee outcomes are largely determined by the immigration policies that they face in host nations during times of conflict. Political scientists have answered the question, "How is refugee policy formed?" and have arrived at the two avenues by which refugee policies are formed. These two avenues are isolated government action and public opinion. Few have examined the possible causal forces behind the actions taken within each avenue. This analysis aims to shed light on the forces that drive isolated government action such as security concerns and ideology held by government officials, as well as the forces that drive public opinion such as racial and cultural differences and the perceived economic impact of refugees acceptance in the host nation. The exploration of these possible causal factors can help to isolate similarities across nations, crises, and time. If similarities are present, then it is possible to formulate effective solutions that target these causal factors.

Ethics & International Affairs

2006

This article shows that the refugee burdens among Western states are also very unequally distributed and that this constitutes a problem not only for individual states, but also for the EU as whole. It argues that despite many obstacles, the development of regional or international burdensharing regimes is indeed desirable. Attempts to explain or justify steps towards such a system do not have to rely solely on notions of solidarity but can be justified by more traditional interest-based motivations. However, it suggests that the EU’s main burden-sharing initiatives which rely largely on policy harmonisation will not achieve the Union’s objectives in this area. It will be argued that market-based burden-sharing mechanisms need to be explored further and that such market driven policies when combined with policy harmonisation and quota-based initiatives are likely to contribute to a more equitable, efficient and effective refugee burden-sharing system. Paper prepared for the conferen...

This paper posits that prejudice plays a significant role in the lack of resolve to develop and implement effective responses by the United States and other western governments to refugee populations in developing countries. This discourse examines the construction of racism and prejudice in the United States towards persons of African descent and other persons of color against the backdrop of two phenomena in the 21 st Century. The first is the growing recognition in security literature that human security and global security are interdependent. The second is the realization that one of the greatest human security challenges is the large, ever-increasing refugee population in developing nations and Eastern Europe. Interrelated concepts of: group status, stereotyping, system-justifying beliefs and social identity theory will be included in this discourse.