Refugee Camps in the Global South as an Instrument of Global Refugee Containment: A Conversation with Professor Ralph Wilde

Many cross-border forced migrants are in economically underprivileged states, many in camps, often long-term. Camps are supposed to be means of providing “temporary protection,” pending a “durable solution” of voluntary return, integration in the host state, or resettlement. But where voluntary return has not been possible, camps have become an additional de-facto durable solution. This has happened because economically privileged states are opposed to a numerically significant resettlement of forced migrants in their countries, requiring such people to be “contained” in the global south. Many critics of camps as violations of human rights law call for the durable solution of host-state integration to be implemented. This presentation argues that such approaches are misconceived when they ignore the link between containment in camps and global-containment, and the role of international law in enabling the latter. The conversation will be moderated by Professor Kristen Stilt, Faculty Director of the Program on Law and Society in the Muslim World and Professor of Law.

Hosted by the Program on Law and Society in the Muslim World, the Human Rights Program at Harvard Law School, the Harvard Immigration and Refugee Clinical Program, and HLS Advocates for Human Rights.