Comment archive

Friday, 20 Jun 2025
The asylum paradox – yes. But what now?

Stating that the asylum system in Europe is dysfunctional, is hardly a novelty. It’s even been described as contributing to what has been referred to as an “asylum paradox.”

Wednesday, 11 Dec 2024
An Untested Refugee Theory

From late January 2025, the Israeli ban on the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) will come into effect. What does this mean for the rights of the Palestinian refugees, and who will then take responsibility for helping them? In October 2024, the Israeli parliament (Knesset) ...

Wednesday, 14 Aug 2024
Community Initiatives to Mitigate Group Tensions: Reflections from Uganda

Forced displacement places increased pressure on host communities. Refugees are often hosted in resource-scarce areas with high unemployment and poverty. Local, national and international collaboration is therefore crucial to mitigate social conflict and prevent instability from traveling with those fleeing war. Uganda, with its progressive refugee policies, is often presented as a ...

Friday, 2 Feb 2024
Refugee Protection Is Being Eroded

The pledges of USD 2.2 billion for refugees that were secured by Global Refugee Forum in December are a mere drop in the ocean. It can seem that we have reduced refugees to pawns in a political game; a game in which they are unwelcome both in their neighbouring countries ...

Tuesday, 19 Dec 2023
Russia’s Row With Finland Exacerbates Baltic Solitude

Russia’s geopolitical influence is increasingly shrinking in the Baltic Sea region. The most recent episode in the region’s worsening relations with Moscow was the sudden arrival of hundreds of migrants from the Middle East and Africa in November to the busy border crossing between Russia and southeastern Finland (Kommersant, November ...

Thursday, 30 Nov 2023
Unlocking Opportunities: Income Generation for Rohingya Refugees in Bangladesh

The Rohingya are an ethnic group, the majority of whom are Muslim. They have lived for centuries in Myanmar, which is a predominately Buddhist. Rohingya struggle The Rohingya have endured decades of violence, discrimination, and persecution in Myanmar. According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), nearly a ...

Tuesday, 14 Nov 2023
Chronic Refugees: A Burden on Poor Countries

We are continually reminded of how wars result in mass human migrations: think only of Palestine, Syria, Myanmar, Afghanistan, Ukraine and Sudan. In general, poor neighbouring countries shoulder most of the burden of housing these refugees, while rich countries do little to take in their share. The result has been ...

Tuesday, 24 Oct 2023
Lebanon’s Impending Catastrophes

Lebanon is teetering on the brink of an abyss that it is not equipped to deal with. If Hezbollah drags Lebanon into a war, the consequences will be catastrophic for a country that is already deep in economic and political crisis. At the time of writing, Hezbollah, together with Palestinian ...

Thursday, 31 Aug 2023
Six Years as Refugees and Still No Refuge

“What is happening with the Rohingya refugees? We heard so much about all the horrible things, but how are they now?” These are questions I often get when I talk to people about my research. What is the situation for the Rohingya? The situation is terrible. I have visited the ...

Thursday, 25 Aug 2022
Rohingya Refugees Still Desperate, Five Years after a Genocide

Without access to education, work, healthcare, and citizenship, the Rohingya are calling on the world to act. The start of the brutal massacre of the Rohingya people in Myanmar marks its anniversary on 25 August. It has been five years since thousands of men and children were piled up by ...

Tuesday, 12 Apr 2022
Different Responses to Mobility at Europe’s Borders

In the weeks since Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine significant proportions of Ukraine’s population has gone on the move, the majority of whom are internally displaced. By 29th March 2022, 4 million people had fled Ukraine across borders to neighbouring countries: Poland (2 million in 3 weeks), Slovakia, Hungary, Romania ...

Saturday, 5 Mar 2022
Forced Displacement from Ukraine: Notes on Humanitarian Protection and Durable Solutions

The Russian invasion of Ukraine February 24 2022 marks the start of a new displacement crisis. In a statement on February 24, Filippo Grandi, the High Commissioner for Refugees, emphasized that ‘The humanitarian consequences on civilian populations will be devastating. There are no winners in war, but countless lives will ...

Tuesday, 1 Mar 2022
People on the Move in the Face of War in Ukraine

More than half a million people have fled the Russian invasion of Ukraine through the country’s borders to neighbours in Central and Eastern Europe as of 1 March. In a context of war in Europe, and the human suffering it brings, this blog post offers some rough reflections on mobility ...

Wednesday, 24 Nov 2021
European Union-Belarus Border Crisis: Why the narrative of “hybrid warfare” is dangerous

The 2021 EU-Belarus border crisis was preceded by a rapid deterioration of the already strained European Union (EU)-Belarus relations, in most part due to the Ryanair 4978 incident and the concomitant wide-ranging sanctions imposed by the EU on the authoritarian government of the Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, who has often been referred by the media ...

Tuesday, 12 Oct 2021
Migrants Are Dying in the Forests on the EU’s Eastern Borders

The humanitarian crisis on the Poland-Belarus border has claimed several lives. On 30 September, the Polish parliament extended the state of emergency in a three-kilometre-deep strip of land along the border. It is hard to assess the situation in detail, as neither the media nor humanitarian organizations have access to ...

Thursday, 26 Aug 2021
Contingency Planning in the Digital Age: Biometric Data of Afghans Must Be Reconsidered

The situation in Afghanistan changes by the minute. In this blog post, we want to call attention to a largely overlooked issue: protection of Afghan refugees or other Afghans who have been registered biometrically by humanitarian or military agencies. Having collected biometrics from various parts of the Afghan population, for ...

Friday, 6 Aug 2021
The Plight of Syrian Refugees

The plight of Syrian refugees is worsening day by day. They face increasing pressure in all of the primary host countries. The route to a safe haven in Europe is closed. Returning to a Syria in ruins, where the conflict remains unresolved, is seen by most refugees as far too ...

Thursday, 17 Jun 2021
Agents of Change? How to fulfill the promise of education to refugees

Education in situations of conflict and crisis is central in efforts to protect children and youth in the near-term and fostering peaceful coexistence over the longer-term. But how can education enable individuals and communities to build durable futures when there is great uncertainty about where these futures will be? Education ...

Friday, 19 Mar 2021
Closed Borders, but Continued Migration?

Passing a year on from the massive closure of borders globally in March 2020 offers an opportunity to reflect on migration, borders and the pandemic. What has been the impact of closed borders on international migration? And what do some impacts look like: seasonal work, remittances, risk and recognition? Taking ...

Tuesday, 2 Feb 2021
The Politics of Refugee Relief: UNRWA and the Ongoing Funding Crisis

On 9 November 2020 Philippe Lazzarini, the Commissioner General of UNRWA, tweeted: “I am pained to announce that despite all efforts to raise the resources for @UNRWA 2020, I informed our 28,000 staff that we do not have enough funds to pay their salaries in full this month”. This is ...

Wednesday, 30 Sept 2020
From Moria to the UN Security Council: Norwegian Domestic Politics and Foreign Policy Ambitions

The fire at the Moria camp underlines the depth of the crisis in the international system intended to protect people fleeing their home countries. Under the Refugee Convention, people in need of asylum must be given the opportunity to apply for it. The fundamental flaws in this system weighs heavily ...

Tuesday, 25 Aug 2020
Personal Stories of Home, Belonging, and Refuge at the War Childhood Museum

Entirely unprepared for what I was about to experience, I walked through the thick, dark curtain leading up to the main hallway of the War Childhood Museum. I had stepped into a different realm, one of physical objects telling stories of growing up in wartime. Each had a voice, some whispering and ...

Monday, 20 Apr 2020
The COVID-19 Resettlement Freeze: Towards a Permanent Suspension?

The COVID-19 pandemic has triggered the suspension of international resettlement for refugees. According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the International Organization for Migration (IOM), resettlement-related travel will resume as soon as prudence and logistics permit. Meanwhile, individuals and families that were set to go are in limbo for ...

Friday, 27 Mar 2020
How Will the COVID-19 Pandemic Reshape Refugee and Migration Governance?

This blog post identifies marginalization, legal distancing and the ambiguity of care as the key characteristics of the COVID-19 pandemic response currently reshaping refugee and migration governance. This piece is part of our blog series Beyond the COVID Curve. COVID-19 has quickly changed everything from our daily routines, to the ...

Thursday, 4 Jul 2019
Beyond False Dichotomies in Debates on Migration

Is there really an inherent conflict between pursuing national interests and acting in globally responsible ways on migration? We call for a debate that moves beyond an artificial dichotomy between the “headless heart” and the “heartless head”. A good start would be to acknowledge the salience and value of binding ...

Thursday, 28 Feb 2019
Is Climate Change Denial the Biggest Problem with Trump’s New Panel?

It’s clear the Trump administration takes a skeptical stance toward human-induced climate change, but the recently proposed climate and security panel might pave the way for having their cake and eating it too. Last week news broke that the Trump Administration may assemble a panel on climate change and security, ...

Tuesday, 12 Feb 2019
Climate Change and Conflict Generates Clicks, but What about Scientific Claims?

Does global warming really increase armed conflict? Recently, a new study joined a wave of research (e.g., here and here) that seeks to illustrate the effects of climate change on political violence. The most recent study, published in the journal Global Environmental Change and conducted by Guy J. Abel and ...

Monday, 16 Jul 2018
Record deaths at sea: will ‘regional disembarkation’ help save lives?

Never has it been more dangerous for people in search of protection to make the crossing to Europe. The estimated death rate on boat migration journeys across the Mediterranean has risen from 4 per 1000 in 2015 to 24 per 1000 in the first four months of 2018.

Tuesday, 3 Apr 2018
Popular Anti-Immigration Movements – and the Response of Democracy

All across Europe, we see growing opposition to immigration. Tough measures imposed by governments are limiting immigration but are not having the same effect on opposition to immigration. Mounting polarization is putting Europe’s democracies as well as European cooperation to the test. I recently visited Warsaw, and then travelled on ...

Tuesday, 13 Mar 2018
Will the “October Children” from Afghanistan Get Fair Treatment?

Is Norway’s asylum policy simply strict – or is it also fair and humane? In the coming weeks, approximately 200 young Afghans – the so-called “October children” – will have their cases re-assessed. Originally these children were granted temporary residence permits until they turned 18. Thereafter they were to be ...