Title
Seeking Asylum in the UK but Getting Rwanda Instead: Externalization and its Implications for the International Refugee Protection Regime
Abstract
Since the turn of the millennium, externalization seems to be trending in most countries of the Global North. Numerous forms of externalization practices have taken shape. Their implications for the global refugee protection regime, however, have not been adequately grasped. Hence, this thesis undertakes a critical policy analysis of the novel case of the United Kingdom which recently concluded an Asylum Partnership Treaty with Rwanda. The aim is to explore what externalization means for the international refugee protection regime. It takes on a regime-approach, consulting both primary and secondary sources. By adding comparative perspective through the cases of Australia and the European Union, the exploratory case study argues that externalization ultimately leads to a loss in the quality and strength of protection provided to those in need of it; a stabilization and further differentiation of center-periphery relations between the participating states; and an overall destabilization of the regime as a whole.
Keywords
Externalization, United Kingdom, Rwanda, Refugee Protection Regime, Critical Policy Analysis
Author
Svenja Lichtenberg
Universities
Universität Osnabrück & Malmö University
Year
2024