<p>This paper sought to discuss the questions whether refugees have the right to return to their country of origin and whether their participation in the political life of that country may be used as a means to realise their right to return.</p>

This dissertation examines the case of 250-300,000 largely Orthodox Christian refugees who fled Ottoman Bosnia and Hercegovina for the Habsburg Empire during the uprisings of 1875-1878. The violence during this period started out as a peasant uprising, but over the course of three years cascaded into revolts and violence across the Ottoman Balkans and led to a major European diplomatic crisis. The Treaty of Berlin of 1878, which ended the violence, reconfigured the political geography of the Balkans, making the former Ottoman provinces of Montenegro, Romania, and Serbia independent; giving a sweeping autonomy to Bulgaria, and handing over to Austria-Hungary the administration of a nominally Ottoman Bosnia and Hercegovina. Refugees played an under-appreciated role in the international and domestic politics of the period, and this dissertation argues that forced migration was in fact one of the key considerations of Great Power diplomacy. Forced migration offered a means to measure degree of violence, and control over population movement offered a way for empires to lay claims to legitimacy. In a similar manner, philanthropists and international humanitarians used forced migration to build and advocate for their own civic spheres. The dissertation argues that during this period, the modern category of "refugee" was defined as states developed processes to manage refugees domestically and to create international policies for refugee aid and return.

This thesis seeks to better conceptualise how and why there is an absence of international protection for ???environmental refugees???, and to place these findings in the critical geopolitics literature. A poststructuralist framework, drawing on Foucault???s ideas of discourse, subjectivity, power and governance, was deemed most appropriate for this thesis, and provided a means of differentiation from previous literature on ???environmental refugees???. This thesis develops a genealogy of the subject category of ???environmental refugees??? since the 1970s, to better understand how the United Nations, Inter-Governmental Organisations (IGOs), Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) and the media have constructed environmental issues and refugees in texts. Fieldwork undertaken in 2004 enabled me to conduct 45 semistructured interviews with United Nations diplomats and representatives from IGOs and NGOs. Critical scrutiny of these interview texts revealed the constructions of ???environmental refugees??? as various subject identities, particularly in relation to climate change. Pacific ambassadors to the United Nations were also interviewed in 2004 to explore how they negotiated discourses on climate change and ???environmental refugees???, and attempted to articulate their concerns at the United Nations. This thesis contends that an absence of policy at the United Nations to protect ???environmental refugees??? has been produced by a combination of discursive and institutional politics. Unequal power structures at the United Nations have limited the capacity of small island states to lobby and articulate concerns, while subject categories of ???environmental refugees??? have been constructed in ways that alter the terms of debate, evade legal response, or deflect blame away from the perpetrators of environmental damage. Reasons for this policy absence have been the shifting attitudes towards environmental issues and the role of multilateral political institutions. The overall contribution of this thesis is to critical geopolitics, through its examination of the role of multilateralism, representations of environmental issues causing population displacement, and how and why policy absences are created within multilateral institutions such as the United Nations.

<p>This paper sought to discuss the questions whether refugees have the right to return to their country of origin and whether their participation in the political life of that country may be used as a means to realise their right to return.</p>

This thesis seeks to better conceptualise how and why there is an absence of international protection for ???environmental refugees???, and to place these findings in the critical geopolitics literature. A poststructuralist framework, drawing on Foucault???s ideas of discourse, subjectivity, power and governance, was deemed most appropriate for this thesis, and provided a means of differentiation from previous literature on ???environmental refugees???. This thesis develops a genealogy of the subject category of ???environmental refugees??? since the 1970s, to better understand how the United Nations, Inter-Governmental Organisations (IGOs), Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) and the media have constructed environmental issues and refugees in texts. Fieldwork undertaken in 2004 enabled me to conduct 45 semistructured interviews with United Nations diplomats and representatives from IGOs and NGOs. Critical scrutiny of these interview texts revealed the constructions of ???environmental refugees??? as various subject identities, particularly in relation to climate change. Pacific ambassadors to the United Nations were also interviewed in 2004 to explore how they negotiated discourses on climate change and ???environmental refugees???, and attempted to articulate their concerns at the United Nations. This thesis contends that an absence of policy at the United Nations to protect ???environmental refugees??? has been produced by a combination of discursive and institutional politics. Unequal power structures at the United Nations have limited the capacity of small island states to lobby and articulate concerns, while subject categories of ???environmental refugees??? have been constructed in ways that alter the terms of debate, evade legal response, or deflect blame away from the perpetrators of environmental damage. Reasons for this policy absence have been the shifting attitudes towards environmental issues and the role of multilateral political institutions. The overall contribution of this thesis is to critical geopolitics, through its examination of the role of multilateralism, representations of environmental issues causing population displacement, and how and why policy absences are created within multilateral institutions such as the United Nations.

This thesis seeks to better conceptualise how and why there is an absence of international protection for ???environmental refugees???, and to place these findings in the critical geopolitics literature. A poststructuralist framework, drawing on Foucault???s ideas of discourse, subjectivity, power and governance, was deemed most appropriate for this thesis, and provided a means of differentiation from previous literature on ???environmental refugees???. This thesis develops a genealogy of the subject category of ???environmental refugees??? since the 1970s, to better understand how the United Nations, Inter-Governmental Organisations (IGOs), Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) and the media have constructed environmental issues and refugees in texts. Fieldwork undertaken in 2004 enabled me to conduct 45 semistructured interviews with United Nations diplomats and representatives from IGOs and NGOs. Critical scrutiny of these interview texts revealed the constructions of ???environmental refugees??? as various subject identities, particularly in relation to climate change. Pacific ambassadors to the United Nations were also interviewed in 2004 to explore how they negotiated discourses on climate change and ???environmental refugees???, and attempted to articulate their concerns at the United Nations. This thesis contends that an absence of policy at the United Nations to protect ???environmental refugees??? has been produced by a combination of discursive and institutional politics. Unequal power structures at the United Nations have limited the capacity of small island states to lobby and articulate concerns, while subject categories of ???environmental refugees??? have been constructed in ways that alter the terms of debate, evade legal response, or deflect blame away from the perpetrators of environmental damage. Reasons for this policy absence have been the shifting attitudes towards environmental issues and the role of multilateral political institutions. The overall contribution of this thesis is to critical geopolitics, through its examination of the role of multilateralism, representations of environmental issues causing population displacement, and how and why policy absences are created within multilateral institutions such as the United Nations.

This thesis seeks to better conceptualise how and why there is an absence of international protection for ???environmental refugees???, and to place these findings in the critical geopolitics literature. A poststructuralist framework, drawing on Foucault???s ideas of discourse, subjectivity, power and governance, was deemed most appropriate for this thesis, and provided a means of differentiation from previous literature on ???environmental refugees???. This thesis develops a genealogy of the subject category of ???environmental refugees??? since the 1970s, to better understand how the United Nations, Inter-Governmental Organisations (IGOs), Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) and the media have constructed environmental issues and refugees in texts. Fieldwork undertaken in 2004 enabled me to conduct 45 semistructured interviews with United Nations diplomats and representatives from IGOs and NGOs. Critical scrutiny of these interview texts revealed the constructions of ???environmental refugees??? as various subject identities, particularly in relation to climate change. Pacific ambassadors to the United Nations were also interviewed in 2004 to explore how they negotiated discourses on climate change and ???environmental refugees???, and attempted to articulate their concerns at the United Nations. This thesis contends that an absence of policy at the United Nations to protect ???environmental refugees??? has been produced by a combination of discursive and institutional politics. Unequal power structures at the United Nations have limited the capacity of small island states to lobby and articulate concerns, while subject categories of ???environmental refugees??? have been constructed in ways that alter the terms of debate, evade legal response, or deflect blame away from the perpetrators of environmental damage. Reasons for this policy absence have been the shifting attitudes towards environmental issues and the role of multilateral political institutions. The overall contribution of this thesis is to critical geopolitics, through its examination of the role of multilateralism, representations of environmental issues causing population displacement, and how and why policy absences are created within multilateral institutions such as the United Nations.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 2007. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (p. 103-115).

Conflict in Africa remains one of the continent’s principal development challenges. The human, economic and development costs of conflict are immense. A peaceful and secure environment remains the greatest priority for ordinary Africans across the continent. However, this often remains a mirage for many as violent armed conflicts continue to take its toll on many ordinary citizens, often, displacing them as refugees. Some refugees remain in very a deplorable refugee camps that offer them no prospects of decent livelihood for many years. With fear that they would be persecuted upon return to their countries of origin and often the delays in finding solutions to political violence, refugees remain in a protracted situation. A Protracted refugee situation means that refugees have lived in exile for more than five years with no immediate prospect of finding a durable solution to their plight by means of voluntary repatriation, local integration or resettlement. Thousands of refugees who fled violent conflicts in the West Africa and other parts of Africa have lived for more than a decade in the Krisan and Buduburam refugee camps in Ghana. A situation that can be termed protracted. This paper investigated the perceptions of local Ghanaians, Refugees of Krisan Refugee Camp and Government Official on the integration of refugees in Ghana. Krisan Refugee Camp which was built in 1996, particularly, houses about 1,700 refugees from nine countries: The Democratic Republic of Congo, Congo Brazzaville, Côte d’Ivoire, Chad, Liberia, Sierra Leone and The Sudan. The refugees have lived with the indigenous people of Krisan village for more than a decade and thus offered the best case for the investigation. The researcher used qualitative triangulation method to collect data. That is, he observed the refugees, the local people and supervisors of the refugee camp who made up the sample population. The researcher was able to conduct a face to face in-depth interview and studied necessary documents that informed the study immensely. Thematic data analysis revealed economic and employment opportunities, security, cultural and social networking and finally good counselling on the three traditional durable solutions as the themes greatly impacting on the integration of refugees in Ghana. A number of recommendations are made to inform the management and integration of refugees in Ghana and in Africa in general.

Submitted by Filipe dos Santos (fsantos@pucsp.br) on 2018-04-11T11:52:15Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Marilu Aparecida Dicher Vieira da Cunha Reimão Curraladas.pdf: 1435915 bytes, checksum: 247c6449ad2d4eeedbf47f0a2d08f3d9 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-04-11T11:52:15Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Marilu Aparecida Dicher Vieira da Cunha Reimão Curraladas.pdf: 1435915 bytes, checksum: 247c6449ad2d4eeedbf47f0a2d08f3d9 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2018-03-09 / The present research aims to reflect on the current scope of the concept of state sovereignty in relation to International Refugee Law and the possibility of pointing to the expansion and renewal of the means of protection offered by International Law as a necessary way to safeguard the person human being characterized by its intrinsic dignity, regardless of its State of origin or nationality. In order to do so, the analysis of the philosophical and juridical evolution of the concept of human dignity seeks to provide critical insights on the role played by international law in the face of the positivization of human rights and the philosophical basis of the dignity of the human person that permeates relations to defend the need to broaden the current scope of the concept of state sovereignty and, at the same time, limit its exercise, still based on an international society and its old paradigms. It is therefore proposed to establish a true international community, specifically with regard to refugees, to act in cooperation and with joint responsibility both in the reception of these people and in the search for and implementation of solutions of a global nature for this problem that affects the world as a whole. This sets the tone for the choice of theme and development of this research, since States, within the current international configuration, cannot be attributed the prerogative to evade this common responsibility under the claim of sovereignty. To that end, it is proposed to reformulate the conception of sovereignty of the State which, by adding the solid limit of respect for the dignity of the human person and establishing within the sphere of competence and responsibility of each State the first function of guardianship of human rights, has the necessary configuration that contemporaneity demands in the construction of the human person as an effective subject of law in the international scope / A presente pesquisa tem por escopo trazer uma reflexão acerca do atual alcance do conceito de soberania estatal frente ao Direito Internacional dos Refugiados e da possibilidade de se apontar para a expansão e renovação dos meios de proteção oferecidos pelo Direito Internacional como via necessária à salvaguarda da pessoa humana caracterizada por sua intrínseca dignidade, independentemente de seu Estado de origem ou nacionalidade. Para tanto, partindo da análise da evolução filosófica e jurídica do conceito de dignidade da pessoa humana, busca-se subsídios críticos acerca do papel desempenhado pelo Direito Internacional diante da positivação dos direitos humanos e da base filosófica da dignidade da pessoa humana que permeia as relações internacionais para se defender a necessidade de ampliar o atual alcance do conceito soberania estatal, e, concomitantemente, limitar o seu exercício, ainda baseado em uma sociedade internacional e seus antigos paradigmas. Propõem-se, assim, o estabelecimento de uma verdadeira comunidade internacional, especificamente no que diz respeito aos refugiados, a atuar em cooperação e com responsabilidade comum tanto no acolhimento dessas pessoas quanto na busca e efetivação de soluções de caráter global para essa problemática que afeta o mundo como um todo. Esta reflexão configura o mote para a escolha do tema e desenvolvimento desta pesquisa, uma vez que aos Estados, dentro da atual configuração internacional, não se pode atribuir a prerrogativa de se esvair dessa responsabilidade comum sob a alegação de exercício da soberania. Nesse intuito, propugna-se pela reformulação da concepção de soberania do Estado que, ao agregar o sólido limite do respeito à dignidade da pessoa humana e ao estabelecer dentro da esfera da competência e da responsabilidade de cada Estado a função primeira de tutela dos direitos humanos, passa a ter a necessária configuração que a contemporaneidade demanda na construção da pessoa humana como um efetivo sujeito de direito no âmbito internacional