The current EU refugee crisis threatens the viability of the Schengen borders and raises questions about the future of the European Union and the possibility of a Brexit. This colloquium will explore Europe’s special situation, geographically and juridically, the meaning of the crisis for the future of the Union, as well as the challenges posed by the current situation to upholding post-WW II transnational human rights. This will be an interdisciplinary discussion among lawyers, political and social scientists, and historians on refugee and asylum law and rights today.

Organized by Seyla Benhabib, Eugene Meyer Professor of Political Science and Philosophy at Yale University and Senior Scholar in Residence at the Columbia Center for Contemporary Critical Thought, and Bernard Harcourt, Isidor and Seville Sulzbacher Professor of Law at Columbia University, and Director, Columbia Center for Contemporary Critical Thought

1:00pm

Introduction by Seyla Benhabib

Panel I: The Contemporary Refugee Crises

Alexander Aleinikoff, Columbia University

On the Movement of Refugees from the Mid East toward Europe and Elsewhere

Saskia Sassen, Columbia University

A Massive Loss of Habitat: How to Factor this into Migration Policy

Ayten Gundogdu, Columbia University

On the right to have rights: Migrant deaths and the question of personhood

Stefanos Geroulanos, New York University

Concepts Available and Unavailable for Understanding the ‘Refugee’ ‘Crisis’

3:00pm

Panel II. The Dystopia of the Right to Movement

Daniel Kanstroom, Boston College Law School

Is Expulsion ‘Different?’: Reflections on Refugees, Rights, and Return in Europe and the US

Turkuler Isiksel, Columbia University

Europe’s perverse mobility regime

Stathis Gourgouris, Columbia University

The Internally Catastrophic Logic of Fortress Europe

Adam Tooze, Columbia University

The Refugee crisis and the bio-politics of the Eurozone

5:00pm

Concluding Reflections and Discussion with all Panelists

Moderated by Seyla Benhabib and Bernard E. Harcourt

6:00pm

Reception

Sponsored by the Columbia Center for Contemporary Critical Thought, the European Institute, the Maison Française, and Columbia Global Centers—Europe