Migration Issues

Migration Issues: Labour, Global Justice, Dialogue

During history, human beings have always migrated because of significant differences between one area and another. But the rising number of people fleeing and moving in today's world differs from any migratory movement in the past because of the specific actual international context. Today's world is a world characterised by an ever increasing unequal distribution of economic, social and personal life chances, opportunities, security and welfare. This reality urges us to put the phenomenon of (forced) migration and its accompanying phenomena, such as trafficking, smuggling, prostitution and modern slavery in a more comprehensive framework which takes into consideration contemporary political and social theory, yet moves forward to normative considerations and ethical analysis. CEVI's research activities in the field of worldwide migration and refugees are inspired by one common goal: to contribute to the (re)development of explicit ethical argumentations for truly human global asylum, refugee and migration policies, based on normative standards that go beyond place-and time-specific judicial and political arrangements characteristic for an exclusive procedural normative approach.

The domain of Global Justice has substantially grown over the past twenty years, with important contributions from various fields such as political philosophy and International Relations. Practical issues such as poverty reduction and migration have received significant attention.

Labour issues however, although connected to poverty reduction and migration, have been underrepresented as explicit issues tackled within global justice debates.

CEVI aims at drawing attention to labour issues emerging as explicit justice issues within the context of globalization.

CEVI was a partner of an ESF (ECRP I) funded program on 'Trafficking for the purposes of non-sexual labour exploitation'.

In November 2009, CEVI organised a conference on 'Labour & Global Justice' focussing on normative policy assessment and labour migration experiences.