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International treaties, conventions, and organizations to protect refugees were established in the aftermath of World War II to protect people escaping targeted persecution by their own governments. However, the nature of cross-border displacement has transformed dramatically since then. Such threats as environmental change, food insecurity, and generalized violence force massive numbers of people to flee states that are unable or unwilling to ensure their basic rights, as do conditions in failed and fragile states that make possible human rights deprivations. Because these reasons do not meet the legal understanding of persecution, the victims of these circumstances are not usually recognized as "refugees," preventing current institutions from ensuring their protection.In this book, Alexander Betts develops the concept of "survival migration" to highlight the crisis in which these people find themselves. Examining flight from three of the most fragile states in Africa—Zimbabwe, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Somalia—Betts explains variation in institutional responses across the neighboring host states. There is massive inconsistency. Some survival migrants are offered asylum as refugees; others are rounded up, detained, and deported, often in brutal conditions. The inadequacies of the current refugee regime are a disaster for human rights and gravely threaten international security. In Survival Migration, Betts outlines these failings, illustrates the enormous human suffering that results, and argues strongly for an expansion of protected categories.
Alexander Betts is University Lecturer at the University of Oxford. He is the author of Protection by Persuasion: International Cooperation in the Refugee Regime, Survival Migration: Failed Governance and the Crisis of Displacement (both from Cornell), and Forced Migration and Global Politics, coauthor of UNHCR: The Politics and Practice of Refugee Protection, editor of Global Migration Governance, and coeditor of Refugees in International Relations.
"In Survival Migration, Alexander Betts combines a strong international relations perspective with a detailed bottom-up approach to arrive at well-supported conclusions and appropriate recommendations. His well-researched and deftly analyzed case studies make for compelling reading."—Susan Martin, Donald G. Herzberg Professor of International Migration, Georgetown University, author of A Nation of Immigrants
"In this well-written book, Alexander Betts makes a convincing argument about the pressures on people who flee serious human rights deprivations but do not have official refugee status. Survival Migration has a strong conceptual framework that is amply illustrated with interesting case studies. Its compelling empirical evidence will be valuable to researchers in a number of fields."—Khalid Koser, Geneva Centre for Security Policy, author of International Migration: A Very Short Introduction
"Survival Migration is a study of how the international community treats some of its most vulnerable: persons fleeing for their lives from Somalia, Zimbabwe, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. It is a passionate book disciplined by carefully collected evidence. It is also a powerful argument that global regimes, including the protection of desperate migrants, are implemented or not according to the preferences of national governments. There are important lessons here for the study of global governance and the protection of persons most in need."—Michael Doyle, Columbia University, author of Ways of War and Peace: Realism, Liberalism, and Socialism
"Survival Migration is a very thoughtful and thought-provoking book providing critical guidance on how to enhance a refugee regime under attack. Alexander Betts makes a convincing case for prioritizing a focus on better implementation and stronger domestic institutions rather than new international law to address new causes of flight."—Walter Kaelin, University of Bern, Former Representative of the UN Secretary-General on the Human Rights of Internally Displaced Persons
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