Reforming the International Refugee Regime (Copy) (Copy)

Author

Prof Thomas Alexander Aleinikoff, Emmanuel Guerisoli, Leah Zamore

Abstract

The international refugee protection system is at a crossroads. Despite recent reforms, there has been little progress on ameliorating an increasingly intolerable situation faced by the world's 120 million (and counting) forced migrants. What progress has occurred, meanwhile, is threatened at a time of mounting geopolitical conflagration, authoritarian backlash, global economic strife, and climate crisis. This has led many to the view that now is not the time for a major rethink of the system. A stalled arc of protection is preferable to one sent into reverse.

This chapter posits, contrariwise, that now is the time to discuss and debate what new systemic infrastructure—policies, institutions, social mobilizations—is needed to move us beyond status quo maintenance towards new strategies of protection, inclusion, and mobility. To that end, the chapter analyzes the normative and institutional trajectory of the refugee regime’s first seven decades; unpacks the current reform consensus; and proposes a set of ideas for transcending the existing system over time. The chapter ends by considering the role that cities could and should play in adapting the protection paradigm to the era of climate change

Keywords

Arc of protection; International refugee protection system reform; Necessary flight; Environmental mobility; Free Global Cities; Free Global City