Violence and other human rights abuses continue to force desperate people to migrate in search of protection. However, governments from the West are withdrawing from the international legal duty to provide potentially indefinite protection to refugees who arrive at their borders. The challenge is to reconceive refugee protection in a way which is reconcilable with the legitimate concerns of modern states, but which does not sacrifice the critical right of at-risk people to seek asylum.
The essays in this study offer a response to the concerns of many states that refugee protection has become no more than a ""back door"" route to permanent immigration, and that its costs are not fairly apportioned among states. Drawing upon the research of international migration scholars, this volume explores the shift to a robust and empowering system of temporary asylum, supported by a pragmatic system of guarantees to share both the costs and human responsibilities of refugee protection.