The Hague – ESI at panel on securing refugee rights: “What Rights and In Whose Interest?”

8 December 2021
Video: Commissie Meijers

ESI’s Gerald Knaus spoke at a panel on refugee rights organised by the Meijers Committee on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the Refugee Convention.

The panel’s focus were recent European and international policy initiatives aiming to protect refugees in third states. How should they be assessed? What are the aims of these policies? And in whose interests are they being pursued - of refugees, hosting states, or rather the donor countries themselves? And what are the effects of centring development programmes on refugee reception rather than other challenges faced by host communities?

The other speakers were Alexander Betts (Oxford University – keynote) and Tineke Strik (MEP – Greens – respondent). The panel was moderated by Janna Wessels, assistant professor of migration law, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and member of the Meijers Committee.