Reparative Justice and International Refugee Responsibility-Sharing

Abstract

This chapter explores how the introduction of reparative considerations within international refugee responsibility-sharing schemes might affect both their operation and the prospects for international cooperation on refugee protection overall. The chapter begins by envisaging how the pursuit of reparative justice within these schemes might affect the international distribution of refugees, assuming the full compliance of states. The second main part of the chapter drops this assumption and asks what the effects of a reparative approach might be on the international politics of refugee protection in the much more likely scenario of partial compliance. Souter envisages several potentially perverse incentives this approach may create in this context, before briefly identifying potential ways in which reparative justice for refugees could be pursued without creating these incentives.