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Calling for a right to resettlement ahead of UN refugee summit 1
- Human Rights and Migration, Op-ed
- 17/09/2016
During a meeting on how to manage refugees’ expectations, I was reprimanded by my superiors for adding to my introduction in resettlement interviews with refugees that there is no recognized right to resettlement. This is certainly not a shock to most people, but it was a shock to the people I interviewed. It certainly made them upset to hear it. My superiors said it was cruel. Working for a small aid organization, we turned down many in need refugees asking for financial, legal, and medical assistance, and yet none of that was deemed cruel.
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What use is gas if we have no water?4
- Environment and Energy, Op-ed
- 15/09/2016
As shale gas shipments cross the Atlantic to Scottish shores, the contentious fracking debate may re-ignite calling the Scottish Government to lift its moratorium under the guise of economic and energy security. This should be seen only as a ruse when sustainable options exist that do not needlessly add to an increasing global water crisis.
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Saving lives or shirking responsibility? – Scrutinizing “Operation Sophia”1
- Human Rights and Migration, Op-ed
- 14/09/2016
According to IOM, up to June 2016 more than 2500 migrants have lost their lives in the Mediterranean Sea in an attempt to flee hunger, persecution, and war. As an effort to fight the business model of migrant smugglers and save lives at sea, the EU has initiated EUNAVFOR Med, also known as Operation Sophia, in June 2015.
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Chronicles of Nauru: Outsourced 0
- Human Rights and Migration, Op-ed
- 13/09/2016
Australia’s refugee policy has been a festering wound for the past three years. On August 10th the wound exploded when The Guardian revealed 2,100 reported incidents of the offshore detention centre in Nauru. Most of the attention has been rightly devoted to the abuses themselves. Yet, at the same time it occludes a more widespread, global problem: the risks of outsourcing.
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A Suggestion for the EU’s Global Strategy and the Resolution of the Georgian/South Ossetian Conflict 0
- International Relations and Global Affairs, Op-ed
- 12/09/2016
Last June, beclouded by Brexit, the EU launched its new Global Strategy. The strategy focuses on a number of issues and has opened a possibility for the EU to re-evaluate previous, and improve future, engagements. A case in need of a re-evaluation is the conflict in Georgia. Here the EU promotes state-building as the foundation for peace. The presence of Russia, however, drastically impedes the success of such an approach.
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Turkish coup d’état: a failed test for the EU 1
- International Relations and Global Affairs, Op-ed
- 12/09/2016
In the aftermath of the abortive Putsch orchestrated by the Turkish military, the EU finds itself in a slippery position in the attempt to offset its geopolitical concerns against the upholding of the values it promotes as a normative power. The Union’s leaders have not understood neither the substance of the golpe nor its implications, whereas the EU’s own role in the scenario should be much more pivotal.
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