Refugee/Humanitarian Emergnc

3 Credits · Level: Graduate, Juris Doctor, Undergraduate

This research seminar will critically examine a number of humanitarian crises, including Afghanistan, Bosnia, Colombia, Haiti (earthquake -2010), Iraq, Philippines (Typhoon Haiyan -2013), Somalia, South Sudan, Syria, Ukraine, West Africa (Ebola-2014), and Yemen. Each of these crises will be analyzed in terms of: their causes; efforts to prevent, respond to and recover from the crisis; the extent to which international legal frameworks were applied and the impact of the crisis on legal principles; the engagement of different actors (from military forces to local faith-based communities); the extent to which humanitarian principles of neutrality, independence, and impartiality were compromised in humanitarian response; the relationship between refugees, internally displaced persons and ‘trapped populations’ as determinants of international attention; and difficult operational issues around access, negotiations with non-state actors, and the relationship between security concerns and humanitarian response.