Abstract
In Asylum as Reparation, Souter goes beyond the question of “What do we owe to refugees?” and asks: “What makes certain states responsible for displacement and refugees?” How would different forms of responsibility and obligation toward refugees change the international politics, institutions, and systems of asylum and refugee protection?” Most importantly, Souter brings together issues of asylum and reparation by highlighting how we can rethink asylum beyond the dominant humanitarian paradigm in theory and practice.
Souter's main argument in the book is that states should consider and provide asylum as a form of reparation whenever they are responsible for the mass displacement and the resulting generation of refugees. Part I outlines and compares the humanitarian function of asylum in contemporary political theory and practice and its reparative functions.
Under the current system, set up as a result of the 1951 Refugee Convention, states know that they can avoid providing asylum unless refugees arrive at their borders. On the contrary, under a reparative responsibility-sharing model, states would act knowing that they must offer protection to any refugees they create, whether they arrive at their borders or not. This knowledge would affect states’ decision-making in any possible refugee-generating scenario. Thus, reparative asylum would also have a deterrent function, unlike the current asylum schemes that function to provide immediate relief and protection after a refugee-generating crisis takes place.
Part II outlines the necessary conditions under which states should offer asylum as a form of reparation. In Souter's view, responsibility is triggered when (1) an external state causes a refugee's lack of state protection, (2) a refugee is at risk of unjustified harm or experiencing unjustified harm, (3) provision of asylum by the state in question is the most fitting form of reparation available, (4) the external state has the capacity to offer asylum as reparation. Souter also notes that while all states should work toward developing the necessary capacities, at times, some states might experience resource constraints or reach their capacity of absorbing additional refugees. Part III discusses the normative and ethical implications of reparative asylum for the states and international refugee responsibility-sharing initiatives at the domestic and international levels.
Souter also discusses how reparative asylum would be different than the current approach as it broadens the scope of eligibility for asylum by including not only individuals fleeing due to a well-founded risk or fear of persecution, but also individuals fleeing due to climate catastrophes. It also creates space for refugees’ choice. For example, in Chapter 6, Souter argues that refugees should be able to choose between asylum and other forms of reparation in addition to the freedom of choice of the state of asylum. He highlights the importance of refugees’ roles as active claimants in reestablishing the agency and dignity of individuals unjustifiably harmed by external states’ actions.
While wars and military interventions cause most cases of mass displacement, Souter also discusses the cases where the cause of displacement is climate change or historical injustices. The arguments about the relationship between colonial legacies and displacement are particularly intriguing. Here, Souter gives the example of the Rwandan genocide and Belgium's role in contributing to the conditions that led to the genocide and the resulting refugee crisis and displacement of three million Rwandans in 1994. Under the current system, state actions that directly cause or contribute to displacement do not make that state more responsible for protecting refugees than any other state. For example, as Souter highlights, the worst offenders of excess carbon emission are not more responsible for protecting climate refugees than the lowest emitters of the world.
This book has great potential to stir new discussions, policy debates, and advocacy efforts regarding the ethics of asylum and states’ reparative duties toward refugees. Although the book does not detail how reparative asylum would work in practice regarding the legal and institutional arrangements or does not explicitly discuss cases related to the increasing trend of externalizing asylum processes, it has great potential to add to these debates. Relatedly, the book may offer new perspectives on refugee deals such as the European Union–Turkey Deal or the United Kingdom–Rwanda Agreement, which offer financial incentives to return refugees from Turkey to Greece and from the United Kingdom to Rwanda.
Asylum as Reparation is an ambitious book that innovatively depicts and rethinks asylum as a form of reparation without making the readers forget about the existing understandings of asylum almost solely based on its humanitarian function. It successfully politicizes and historicizes asylum, a subject treated as apolitical and ahistorical whenever tragic photos of refugees hit the global headlines with calls for humanitarian assistance. As such, it is of interest to students and researchers of ethics of immigration and asylum, political theory, and migration studies. Also, refugee rights advocates and practitioners who aim to learn more about the political and historical foundations of refugee schemes and to build a bridge between existing humanitarian policies of asylum and more just refugee policies based on ethical considerations of reparative justice will certainly find this book inspirational.