Project description
Studying the consequences and legal implications of vulnerability in protection seekers
The concept of vulnerability is increasingly used to guide global protection policies. However, it has yet to be clearly conceptualised and its practical consequences and legal implications are still not thoroughly understood. Adopting a critical and comparative approach, the EU-funded VULNER project aims to address these deficiencies by focusing on forced migration. To do this, it will study how some countries' protection regimes deal with the vulnerabilities of people seeking protection. The analysis will involve two complementary perspectives: first, how protection seekers' vulnerabilities are assessed and addressed by decision-makers; second, how protection seekers experience the various forms of vulnerability. The project's results will help to shed light on the concept of vulnerability and how it should inform global protection policies.
Objective
‘Vulnerability’ is increasingly used as a conceptual tool to guide the design and implementation of the global protection regime, as illustrated by the 2016 New York Declaration for Refugees and Migrants and the subsequent adoption of the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration and of the final draft of the Global Compact on Refugees. However, ‘vulnerability’ lacks a sharp conceptualisation and still needs to be accompanied by a thorough understanding of its concrete meanings, practical consequences and legal implications. This research project aims to address these uncertainties from a critical and comparative perspective, with a focus on forced migration. It will provide a comprehensive analysis of how the ‘protection regimes’ of select countries address the vulnerabilities of ‘protection seekers’. The select countries are in Europe (Belgium, Germany, Italy, Norway), North America (Canada), the Middle East (Lebanon) and Africa (Uganda and South Africa). The analysis adopts two different yet complementary perspectives. First, the way the ‘vulnerabilities’ of the protection seekers are being assessed and addressed by the relevant norms and in the practices of the decision makers will be systematically documented and analysed through a combination of legal and empirical data. Second, the various forms and nature of the concrete experiences of ‘vulnerability’ as they are lived by the protection seekers, including the resilience strategies and how they are being continuously shaped in interactions with the legal frameworks, will be documented and analysed through empirical data collected during fieldwork research. Ultimately, the very notion of ‘vulnerability’ will be questioned and assessed from a critical perspective. An alternative concept, such as ‘precarity’, may be suggested to better reflect the concrete experiences of the protection seekers.
Fields of science
Keywords
Programme(s)
- H2020-EU.3.6. - SOCIETAL CHALLENGES - Europe In A Changing World - Inclusive, Innovative And Reflective Societies Main Programme
- H2020-EU.3.6.1.3. - Europe's role as a global actor, notably regarding human rights and global justice
- H2020-EU.3.6.1.2. - Trusted organisations, practices, services and policies that are necessary to build resilient, inclusive, participatory, open and creative societies in Europe, in particular taking into account migration, integration and demographic change
Call for proposal
H2020-SC6-MIGRATION-2018-2019-2020
See other projects for this callSub call
H2020-SC6-MIGRATION-2019
Funding Scheme
RIA - Research and Innovation actionCoordinator
80539 Munchen
Germany