No Refuge : Ethics and the Global Refugee Crisis Ethics and the Global Refugee Crisis

Abstract

This book confronts the ethical dimension of the global refugee crisis. When most people think of the global refugee crisis, they think of Syrians crossing the Mediterranean in flimsy boats into Europe or caravans of Central Americans arriving at the US border. Yet behind these images there is a second crisis: refuge itself has all but evaporated for millions of people fleeing persecution and violence. Refugees have only three real options—squalid refugee camps, urban slums, or dangerous journeys to seek asylum—and none of these provide access to the minimum conditions of human dignity. No Refuge makes visible to readers the crisis that refugees experience in the twenty-first century: for refugees, there is no refugee. The author argues we must adopt a moral framework that incorporates the harms refugees experience both as they flee their home countries and as they seek refuge elsewhere. It’s crucial, she thinks, that citizens understand the crisis for refugees as they seek refuge and the role our states have played in this crisis in order to develop more just responses in the future. Both drawing from and transcending other philosophers’ approaches to the morality of refugee policy, the book demonstrates that countries have a moral obligation to address the political structures that prevent refugees from accessing to the minimum conditions of human dignity. An adequate response to the crisis must include ensuring the rights and dignity of refugees wherever they are.