Reframing the refugee crisis: from rescue to interconnection

ABSTRACT

In this paper I argue that we should not frame the debate over whether or not we have duties to help refugees in terms of duties of rescue. This way of framing the issue, where Western states are depicted as rescuing refugees from harms unconnected to them, does not adequately represent the reality experienced by refugees in the 21 st century. I suggest that we need a framework that includes the secondary harms experienced by refugees as they try to seek refuge in camps, urban spaces and via asylum. These secondary harms constitute serious violations of human rights and prevent refugees from accessing the minimum conditions of human dignity. As a result, the rescue metaphor is inappropriate and, perhaps more importantly, prevents us from having a proper debate about the obligations of states in general, and Western states in particular, to refugees.

KEYWORDS:

• Refugees
• refugee camps
• structural injustice
• asylum seekers
• resettlement

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

¹ I wish to thank the co-editors of this special issue, Kasper Lippert-Rasmussen and Annamari Vitikainen, for their feedback on earlier drafts of this paper. I would also like to thank the annonoymous reviewers for their very helpful comments and suggestions for improvement. This work has been supported by the Globalizing Minority Rights (GMR) project, Norwegian Research Council (NFR 259017).

² On the roll of capacity as a ground for responsibility, see Miller (2007).

³ To be sure, the effort to provide refugees with the minimum conditions for human dignity must be global. The limited scope of this paper should not be taken as suggesting that only Western states play a causal or remedial role in the refugee crisis.

⁴ Some make an exception if the state is directly implicated in the conflict which caused displacement. For example, Carens points out that after the US’s war in Vietnam caused the creation of millions of refugees, many considered the US to have a strong duty to accept refugees (Carens 2013).

⁵ For a more detaile analysis of the harms refugees experience as they seek refuge, see Parekh (2020).