Roundtable on The Asylum Crisis, Civil War, and Social Rights

The Raoul Wallenberg Institute of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law, in collaboration with the Law Faculty at Lund University and the Laureate Program on Civil War, Intervention, and International Law at Melbourne Law School, will host an academic roundtable on The Asylum Crisis, Civil War, and Social Rights in Lund on 30-31 May 2016.

Since the summer of 2015, we have been witnessing the idea of solidarity in asylum protection beginning to unravel in Europe, with the recent attacks in Paris and Brussels intensifying pressures to restrict freedom of movement and close borders. The purpose of this roundtable is to consider how academic researchers might take up the challenge of making sense of the asylum crisis domestically, regionally, and globally. While researchers are regularly called upon to act as commentators on or critics of ongoing developments, it is often difficult to find ways of taking up those assignments without being trapped within rigid debating frameworks. At the same time, the intensified negotiations between states and institutions around humanitarian and security questions, the domestic political manoeuvring on issues of migration and diversity, emergency exemptions from existing norms, and a raft of new policy proposals appear to provide a wealth of material for comprehension and critical analysis. The aim of the roundtable is to situate the asylum crisis within a broader field than that of migration and refugee politics alone, exploring the links between this crisis and the challenges to the social state in Europe and beyond, the conduct of interventions in civil wars in the Middle East and North Africa, and the possibilities offered by a renewed focus on social rights and inclusion in the European project. The roundtable will explore what new research questions are suggested by the ongoing asylum crisis, and how scholars in law and the humanities might imagine ourselves contributing to the public debate around these questions.

The roundtable will be convened by Anne Orford, Gregor Noll, and Morten Kjaerum.

Anne Orford is the newly appointed Raoul Wallenberg Visiting Chair of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law at Lund University, and Redmond Barry Distinguished Professor, Michael D Kirby Chair of International Law, and Kathleen Fitzpatrick Australian Laureate Fellow at Melbourne Law School.

Gregor Noll is the Chair of International Law at the Faculty of Law, Lund University.

Morten Kjaerum is the director of the Raoul Wallenberg Institute of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law.