AMIS Post Doc Martin Lemberg Pedersen interviewed by Information

AMIS affiliate interviewed by Information on the relation between the Refugee Convention, states' border control and migrant fatalities in the Mediterranean (in Danish).

In a comment, Dr. Martin Lemberg-Pedersen from AMIS argues that it is more pertinant to criticize states than international conventions, for the 25.000 migrant fatalities since 1993. Through visa restrictions and carrier sanctions, EU states have closed down legal paths of migration, thereby pushing the entire market into the hands of smugglers. He also discusses how asylum processing in regions of origin could undermine the smuggling industry, but that EU states do not seem eager to embrace this solution. Moreover, if it was implemented, a risk could be that EU states would simultaneously try to free themselves from the responsibility for asylum processing on their own territories. Finally, Lemberg-Pedersen acknowledges that conventions can be discussed and reformed, and suggest looking at how the 1969 OAU Convention and the 1984 Cartagena Convention, for, respectively Africa and Latin America, both work with wider definitions of refugeehood than the 1951 Refugee Convention.

See more: http://www.information.dk/507437