Global responses to refugees: what is the world thinking?

On the 28 June 2016, the Kaldor Centre hosted a conversation with Dr Jeff Crisp and Professor Jane McAdam on the implications of this year’s international summits to address global displacement.

With the largest numbers of people displaced than at any time since the Second World War, the international community is struggling with the question of how best to respond. This year, a series of global talks has been convened to tackle this intractable question. They included the recent World Humanitarian Summit held in Istanbul in May, and the upcoming Summit on Refugees and Migrants convened by the UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-Moon, on 19 September. In this seminar, Dr Jeff Crisp and Professor Jane McAdam discussed the key issues at play, what has been achieved by these global talks to date, and the prospects of success for the September summit.

A podcast from the event is available via iTunes.

Dr Jeff Crisp has held senior positions with UNHCR (Head of Policy Development and Evaluation), Refugees International (Senior Director for Policy and Advocacy) and the Global Commission on International Migration (Director of Policy and Research). He has also worked as an academic, journalist and in the NGO sector. Dr Crisp has first-hand experience of refugee situations throughout the world and has published, lectured and broadcast extensively on refugee-related issues. He holds a Masters degree and PhD in African Studies and Political Science from the University of Birmingham. He is currently a Research Associate at the Refugee Studies Centre, University of Oxford, an Associate Fellow at Chatham House, and an Honorary Professor at the School of Global Studies, University of Sussex.

Professor Jane McAdam is Scientia Professor of Law and Director of the Andrew & Renata Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law at UNSW.  She is a non-resident Senior Fellow in Foreign Policy at The Brookings Institution in Washington DC, a Research Associate at Oxford University’s Refugee Studies Centre, and an Associated Senior Fellow at the Fridtjof Nansen Institute in Norway. Professor McAdam publishes widely in international refugee law and forced migration, with a particular focus on climate change and mobility. She is Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Refugee Law, the leading journal in the field.  She serves on a number of international committees, including as Co-Rapporteur of the International Law Association’s Committee on International Law and Sea-Level Rise, and has provided expert advice to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the International Organization for Migration, the World Bank, and the World Economic Forum.  She holds a doctorate in law from the University of Oxford, and first class honours degrees in law and history from the University of Sydney.