GILDS-Discussion with Frau Prof. Neha Jain, Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law

Prof. Neha Jain, Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law:

'The Market Metaphor in Refugee Law and Policy'

Post-World War II international refugee policy is not only politicized, but increasingly marketized. In recent decades, legal scholars confronting anti-immigrant backlash have advanced sophisticated market models as the next-best solution to the global crisis in refugee protection, on the thought that states in the Global South might be induced to take refugees, for a price, with humanitarian benefits. In these transactions, states agree to receive migrants in exchange for some legal tender, including cash, commodities, financial aid, military equipment, or political support. Such deals are increasingly embraced by regional actors and countries, like the European Union, United States, Denmark, Italy, and Israel. Scholars proposing such market models have claimed that, by channeling states’ comparative advantage and self-interest, the overall quality of refugee protection would improve. But the turn to market-logic has obscured, rather than enhanced, responsibility for refugee protection. The lecture identifies the turn to marketization as a phenomenon in international refugee policy and argues that both its champions and critics underestimate its corrosive effects. Transactional migration management schemes proposals borrow from and replicate colonial era practices that shield states from public and institutional accountability. They also commodify asylum seekers as widgets to be distributed among reluctant states and communicate their negative value for the communities that house them. Drawing on the experience of mobilization efforts by often overlooked actors in the refugee protection regime, the lecture advocates leveraging existing tools in domestic and international law to resist the normalization of market thinking in international refugee policy.