Non-State Actors & Normative Change: Refugee Protection Beyond the State

• In Event: Beyond, Within and Across States: Considerations on Immigration and Migration

Abstract

This project examines the politics and ethics of forced migration from both a historical and normative perspective. The project begins with the pragmatic observation that of all the fields of migration governance it is the area of forced migration that is among the most developed in terms of norms and institutions. Yet at the same time, there is increasingly widespread recognition that the regime is in trouble, besieged by decreasing funding and fractured cooperation, which has created growing protection gaps. While the current ‘migration crisis’ undeniably raises profound moral concerns, there is a clear lack of political motivation among states to reform their legal responsibilities toward refugees, as underscored by the inconclusive results of the 2016 UN summits on Refugees and Migrants. Moreover, some scholars have warned that attempting to entirely remake the refugee system anew under current circumstances would, if anything, likely weaken extant obligations and standards of protection. This poses a fundamental dilemma for normative theorists of forced migration: How can we practically address the ethical claims of refugees, given the unwillingness of states to act as agents of change? To address this impasse, I propose an alternative strategy that relies on expanding our analytic focus by moving ‘beyond’ an exclusive concern with the state. I do so by drawing attention to the historical role non-state actors outside the state have played in expanding the provision of refugee protection. By looking beyond the state, this project draws on work in international relations and migration studies to show how global institutions can represent significant sites of normative transformation in responding to the moral claims of refugees.

Author

• Kiran Banerjee, University of Toronto