With DeZIM-Fellow Nicholas Van Hear, Deputy Director, The Centre on Migration, Policy, and Society (COMPAS), University of Oxford

Organized by: Interdisziplinäres Zentrum für Integrations- und Migrationsforschung (InZentIM) and Käte Hamburger Kolleg / Centre for Global Cooperation Research (KHK/GCR21)

Date: 9th May 2019, 4:30 p.m.

Venue: Universität Duisburg-Essen, Campus Essen, Gebäude R14 R02 B07 (Hörsaalgebäude)

Over the last four years, since the peak of the refugee/migration crisis in 2015-16, the global north has stumbled between welcoming and closing itself to new waves of migration. With more than 65 million people currently uprooted within or outside their countries, and with many of them in limbo for years at a time, the search is on for solutions to the problem of mass displacement. Towards the end of 2018, the international community agreed global compacts on migration and refugees, but while the aims are worthy many wonder if much will come of them based on the record of similar international agreements so far. Nor is there much confidence that the current refugee architecture is up to the task: the three conventional solutions to displacement—repatriation of refugees, their local integration, or their resettlement—seem unable address the challenge on the scale needed. Only a small proportion of the displaced find their situation resolved through such pathways: most languish in camps or are self-settled in cities in precarious and constrained circumstances for years and even decades at a time without legitimate means of making a living or leading a decent life.