Aliens, refugees, migrants: how to define a refugee?

In: Beiträge aus dem Fachbereich Pädagogik 92,3

Abstract

It is generally accepted by the community that nations have obligations to protect refugees. The origins of the legal and moral obligations towards refugees is beyond the scope of this paper. It suffices to point out that helping refugees is a valance issue. Like promoting peace and cleaning up the environment, helping refugees has primarily advocates. However, there is frequent and at times bitter disagreement as to how one should approach this issue in practice. Among the most disputed issues are (1) hammering out a definition of a 'refugee', (2) determining who defines and implements this definition, (3) halting the flow of refugees, and (4) creating an international regime to effectively deal with refugees. The purpose of this paper is to present and discuss various definitions of what is a refugee as a precondition of both, political analysis and political action. The controversy of defining a refugee is deeply entangled with the sovereignty of individual nations. The paper concludes by offering an alternative perspective for analyzing the current international refugee crisis.