Refugee Markets

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Overview

This presentation analyses the ways in which the post-World War II international refugee policy is not only deeply politicized but is also increasingly marketized. Drawing on a series of recent refugee policies introduced by regional actors and countries such as the EU, UK, Israel, Denmark, and Australia, Jain claims that they represent a shift from the notion of a refugee protection-centered regime founded on a sense of shared moral commitment to a transactional market approach to international refugee policy. She argues that this marketisation of the international refugee regime may be successful in overcoming some of the defects of the current system, such as the tyranny of geography that puts some states at the frontline of refugee flows. But it will do so at the cost of importing new tyrannies that alter the meaning of the regime.

Neha Jain is Professor of Public International Law and Co-Director of the Academy of European Law at the European University Institute. She is on special leave from her position as Associate Professor at the University of Minnesota Law. Jain’s scholarship focuses on public international law, human rights law, criminal law, and comparative law.

Jain has been a Wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiterin at the Max Planck Institute for Foreign and International Criminal Law and held fellowships at the Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Study, the Danish National Research Foundation’s Centre of Excellence for International Courts, and the Lauterpacht Centre for International Law. She has also served as a visiting professional in the Chambers Division of the International Criminal Court. Jain is a member of the Executive Council of the American Society of International Law. She is Managing Editor of AJIL Unbound and serves on the editorial boards of the European Journal of International Law and the Criminal Law Forum.