The ESIL Interest Group on International Law of Culture is organising a workshop on “Searching Solidarity for Fighting against Cultural Exclusion towards Migrants and Refugees in Europe in Times of Populism” as a side-event to the 2021 ESIL Research Forum organised by the University of Catania. The workshop will take place online on Thursday 15 April 2021.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights clearly sets in its article 13 the right of everyone to leave any country, including their own, and to return to said country. While some would maintain that this right is merely soft law or even has a utopian nature, it is clear that at least in some cases such a right can imply hard law obligations, including those of ius cogens (non-refoulement principle). While international legal scholarship has devoted enormous and much-needed attention to refugee and migrant rights, less attention has been paid to the enjoyment of cultural rights of migrants and refugees, and the connection between culture and the construction of more solidary and cohesive societies. However, issues concerning culture and identity (understanding these issues for the purpose of this CfP in a broad sense, including religion) is crucial in the current context, where populist speeches maliciously give a mistaken portrait of cultural lives of migrants –therefore contributing to the creation of what Oliver Roy called ‘imaginary communities’. These populist pushes ignore developments of International Law in the field of culture of the past decades, and contribute to tearing social cohesion and solidarity between local communities and migrants.
CALL FOR PAPERS (now closed)
PROGRAMME