Adèle Garnier

Migration Management and Humanitarian Protection: The UNHCR's ‘Resettlement Expansionism’ and Its Impact on Policy-making in the EU and Australia

Since the late 1990s, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has been a key actor in the resurgence of refugee resettlement in global debates on asylum and refugee policies. This article investigates the dynamics of the international organisations ‘resettlement expansionism’ within the UNHCR as well as its impact on policy-making. Firstly, it analyses how the UNHCR has increased its expertise production and dissemination as well as its operational focus on resettlement. Secondly, it assesses the policy-making impact of the UNCRs ‘resettlement expansionism’ in two distinct contexts: the elaboration of the EUs new joint resettlement scheme and the recent increase of resettlement places by 40% in Australia, a traditional country of resettlement. Lastly, it discusses potential implications of this research in regards to the evolution of the global refugee regime and, more conceptually, to the study of knowledge production and expertise in migration and refugee policy.

Transnational student-migrants and the state

book applicable in other places? And will they be able to support fieldworks and analysis managed elsewhere? This book is able to speak to scholars but also policy makers and social service workers. It provides knowledge that is immediately applicable to changing the ways in which migrants are perceived and judged. It advocates the need to understand the complexity migrants bring with them – instead of being a liability, they could become a very powerful element for positive integration and settlement in their new societies. It suggests that the human, social, and emotional complexity that migrants bring with them could be a source of opportunities rather than a source of risks. To consider people as persons and not as labeled boxes could be a way to foster better integration pathways and to improve the understanding of rights and duties on both sides.