ABOUT THE TOPIC: The talk, based on Betts' new book, will explore the challenge of responding to new drivers of cross-border displacement that fall outside the existing refugee framework. Rather than beginning with particular causes of displacement – whether environmental change, food insecurity, or generalized violence – it offers a human rights-based framework through which to critically consider who, in a changing world, should be entitled to cross an international border and seek asylum. Based on extensive fieldwork, it grounds its analysis in an exploration of contemporary flight from three of the most fragile states in the world: Zimbabwe, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Somalia. It explains the massive variation in national and international institutional responses in the neighboring states, arguing that politics rather than law ultimately determines how the refugee regime is implemented in practice.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER: Alexander Betts is University Lecturer in Refugee Studies and Forced Migration at the University of Oxford. His research focuses on the international politics of refugees, migration, and humanitarianism, with a focus on Sub-Saharan Africa. His recent books include: Protection by Persuasion: International Cooperation in the Refugee Regime (Cornell University Press, 2009); Refugees in International Relations (with Gil Loescher, Oxford University Press, 2010); Global Migration Governance (OxfordUniversity Press, 2011); and Survival Migration: Failed Governance and the Crisis of Displacement (Cornell University Press, 2013). He has worked as a consultant to UNHCR, OCHA, UNDP, IOM, UNICEF, and the Council of Europe, and received research grants from the MacArthur Foundation, the Leverhulme Trust, and the Economic and Social Research Council. He has also held teaching and research positions at Stanford University and the University of Texas at Austin. He is Director of the Humanitarian Innovation Project (www.oxhip.org).

CISAC Co-Director Tino Cuéllar talks about how borders shape our society and how they impacted a young boy who was born just a few blocks from the U.S. border-- himself.

The Europe Center's 2-day multidisciplinary dialogue on migration -- the subject of great and growing consequence in the contemporary world. Conference participants from a wide range of theoretical, case-study, and comparative approaches will address the phenomenon of population movement and the experience of migration in its various qualities.

The agenda for this conference is below.

Co-sponsored by the University of Vienna, the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center, and the Center for International Security and Cooperation