Across the globe, people are moving, fleeing conflict and repression, seeking opportunity, or adapting to climate and environmental changes.
An April 10 academic conference in the World Forum of Perry World House (PWH) at the University of Pennsylvania will bring the public together with academics and policymakers to think about diverse population movements and how governments, societies, and institutions can respond.
The 2018 Global Shifts Colloquium, “Prospects for Institutional and Policy Reform on International Migration and Refugees,” is free and open to the public. Information and registration are at https://globalshifts2018.eventbrite.com.
“Refugee flows and the treatment of refugees is a core component of our Global Shifts research theme,” says William Burke White, Richard Perry Professor and inaugural PWH director. “The theme is particularly timely in a world where refugee flows continue, national governments are often unwilling or unable to meet the needs of refugees, and international institutions appear ill-equipped to deal with the challenge.”
A keynote address by Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, United Nations high commissioner for human rights, will highlight the conference. Al Hussein has been a vocal critic of human-rights abuses around the world.
Prior to becoming high commissioner, he held senior roles in the Jordanian government, as the country’s permanent representative to the U.N. and as ambassador to the United States. Jordan has been at the forefront of addressing many refugee issues.
“The high commissioner is committed to strengthening migration and refugee policies that protect the dignity and rights of all people, and this same commitment also serves as a motive for the Global Shifts research theme and colloquium,” says Katelyn Leader, PWH program manager.
The conference will open with a morning session on the role and responsibilities of journalists and the media in reporting on refugees and migration issues.
Trudy Rubin, columnist for The Philadelphia Inquirer, will moderate the discussion with panelists Graeme Wood, national correspondent for The Atlantic and PWH Visiting Fellow; Sasha Polakow-Suransky, deputy editor at Foreign Policy; Sarah Stillman, staff writer at The New Yorker and director of the Global Migration Project at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism; and Bill Orme, U.N. representative for the Global Forum for Media Development.
In the afternoon, a session on the protracted displacement of refugees will feature Barbara Rijks, head of the International Organization for Migration’s mission-coordination unit in Baghdad; Saskia Sassen, a sociology professor at Columbia; and Edward Kallon, U.N. resident coordinator in Nigeria.
Closing the day, Yasmine Mustafa, CEO of ROAR for Good, and former Philadelphia city solicitor Sozi Tulante, a lecturer at Penn Law, will discuss their experiences with forced migration and immigration policy in Philadelphia and the U.S.
