“Everybody deserves dignity, a place to live and a nationality” - this is the normative approach of the UN Refugee Convention from 1954 as a response to the events of WWII. The convention has set global standards but, undoubtedly, a lot has changed since. According to our guest, Prof. Bidisha Biswas, the convention is not up to date. The valuable idea that there is a collective global responsibility for refugees is not adequate to a reality where the countries that have the most resources to take that responsibility are not the countries that are normally hosting the refugees. 86% of refugees are hosted in developing countries and not in resource-rich countries. The question of who is responsible has to be solved first, otherwise the question of who is a refugee is rather futile. Are countries in the Global North silent about certain circumstances, because they are actually happy about countries in the global south taking refugees? What is influencing refugee and migration policies? Another weakness of the convention is that it does not include climate and economic refugees. Most people are not destined to be famous or become a surgeon — what do we do with “ordinary” refugees who want a better life for themselves and their families? And if we believe in human dignity also during a pandemic, how do we get vaccines in refugee camps? These and more questions will be addressed in our mini series on migration and the pandemic. This episode’s guest Bidisha Biswas joined the research group "Global Cooperation and Diverging Conceptions of World Order" as a Senior Research Fellow at the KHK/GCR21. In addition she is a Professor of Political Science at Western Washington University at the Department of Political Science. She was also a Franklin Fellow in the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor at the United States Department of State. She holds a Doctorate in Government and Politics from the University of Maryland, College Park. Her project at the Centre is focused on the Global Refugee Regime, looking at how refugees are framed in different countries focusing on the South-Asian region, specifically India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, who have not signed the UN refugee convention, but are all sending and receiving refugees to various degrees. She is investigating the conditions under which refugees are seen as being deserving and not deserving of refuge and how that shapes national policies. Since South Asia has no regional framework or any kind of mechanisms for refugees (like Europe, Africa and South America have) she is looking at continental responsibilities, India's leadership in migration policy and regional power shifts. Bidisha’s recent works include: Biswas, B. (2021). Hindu Radicalization and Implications for India. In: Raymond Izarali, M. & Ahlawat, D. (eds.). Terrorism, Security and Development in South Asia: National, Regional and Global Implications (1st ed.), New York: Routledge, 177-192. Bhattacharya, S. & Biswas, B. (2020). International Norms of Asylum and Burden-Sharing: A Case Study of Bangladesh and the Rohingya Refugee Population, Journal of Refugee Studies. Biswas, B. & Deylami, S. (2019). Radicalizing Female Empowerment: Gender, Agency, and Affective Appeals in Islamic State Propaganda, Small Wars & Insurgencies 30(6-7), 1193-1213. Bidisha Biswas' website and twitter account: @Bee_the_Wonk
