This webinar is part of a series of webinars organised by the SCSC with scholars from around the world. The themes of the webinars will be centered around the topic of the polarities of crisis in the global world, where crisis is simultaneously understood as an area of contestation and control. The prospective themes include “health and crisis”, “climate and crisis”, “corruption and crisis”, “universities and crisis”, gender and crisis”, and others.
The webinar will be held on 1 March 2021, 14-16 (CET), chaired by Thomas Gammeltoft-Hansen, Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Copenhagen, Denmark.
COVID-19 has had a profound impact on migrants and refugees the world over. Their pre-existing vulnerabilities were immediately exacerbated as national health systems were often overwhelmed and many disease control measures were either inaccessible to them or had disproportionate socio-economic effects. But migrants and refugees have also been framed as prima facie causes for the transboundary spread of the virus, and public health exception and derogation clauses in both national and international refugee and human rights instruments have been used to block their entry, suspend asylum processing, or trigger deportations. Indeed, the strategic mainstreaming of global health regulations into border regimes points to the emergence of a ´pandemic law´ that encroaches upon already fragile transnational legal regime complexes, with the potential to upend or hollow out existing frameworks for migrant and refugee protection. Taking the refugee situation in Brazil, especially at its border with Venezuela, as a reference point, we illustrate how such a ´pandemic law´ has fundamentally altered a border regime that had previously emerged into a de facto cross-border humanitarian safe zone in the interstices of national jurisdiction and international refugee.
Panelists:
Isadora Gonçalves, Doctoral researcher, Department of Law, Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro (PUC-Rio), Brazil.
Florian Hoffmann, Professor, Department of Law, Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro (PUC-Rio), Brazil.
Discussant: Thomas Gammeltoft-Hansen, Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Copenhagen, Denmark.
To attend, please join the zoom event at the date and time of the webinar:
https://ucph-ku.zoom.us/j/67977117435?pwd=bHlSS0xZYzlhVmozeTVFelNCc0tadz09
Meeting ID: 679 7711 7435
Passcode: 153401