ICI is pleased to share this update from our former ICKCBI Student Fellow Sreya Sen on her recent work around global refugee issues. Below is an excerpt from her latest piece.
Workshop on Power and Influence in the Global Refugee Regime, 23 to 25 September 2015, Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada: A Report
Sreya Sen
Sreya Sen is a Doctoral Fellow at University of Calcutta. She participated in the workshop as an International Student Rapporteur along with Dacia Douhaibi (York University).
A workshop on “Power and Influence in the Global Refugee Regime” was organized by the Migration and Diaspora Studies Initiative at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada from 23 to 25 September 2015. The workshop considered how power and influence may be observed and studied within the global refugee regime before taking into consideration the influence of various states, international organizations, NGOs and other actors within the global refugee regime.
The workshop took off with the presentation of a background paper on “Understanding Power and Influence in the Global Refugee Regime” by workshop host Dr. James Milner, Professor of Political Science, Carleton University. The paper drew from literature on global governance and international regimes and proposed analytical tools which may explain or be used to observe power and influence in the global refugee regime. It also presented a framework for understanding power and influence in the global refugee regime that would stimulate discussion over the three days of the workshop.
The workshop then proceeded to consider the role of various actors and their influence within the global refugee regime, beginning with states such as the US, Australia, India and also looked at the role of a number of non-state actors. (UNHCR, IOM, NGOs). The first session of the workshop was chaired by Martin Geiger (Carleton University) and began with Gil Loescher (University of Oxford) giving a talk on “The History of UNHCR’s Changing Power and Influence”. His paper explored the history of the UNHCR’s changing influence and power in the global refugee regime over the past sixty years, looking at under what circumstances and where, the UNHCR had influenced decisions concerning refugee assistance and protection. Jeff Crisp (University of Oxford) spoke about “UNHCR and the Global Refugee Policy Process”, examining the processes through which policies are formulated within the UNHCR and the various factors which influence the evaluation and implementation of these policies. Megan Bradley (McGill University) presented on “IOM: What role in the forced migration regime?” She looked at the factors which explain the dramatic growth of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) since 1988 and the relevance of this growth for the global forced migration regime.
You can read the full article by Sreya Sen at Refugee Watch Online here.