Asylum, Refuge, and Justice in Health

We are, as of May 2019, witnessing yet another “caravan” of people fleeing violence in Latin America, bonding together to reach the territory of safer states in the North. Similarly, in the fall of 2015, Europe experienced the movement of many refugees fleeing war, persecution, and grave human rights violations in Syria. These new waves of people on the move have raised anew important questions about asylum and refuge: who should be able to claim asylum? Should the fear of persecution be sufficient, or do asylum seekers need to show that they have actually suffered it? And maybe most controversially, how should asylum-granting states respond to the plight of those asking for asylum on their territory?

The moral principles guiding asylum and refuge are different from the rules usually regulating immigration, which are based on the principle of territorial sovereignty that allows nation-states to discriminate and select among those who hope to immigrate. Asylum and refuge instead call upon nation-states to provide refugees with a new home, protect human rights, and over time, provide access to the social, political and civic rights that characterize membership. Included in the list of human rights, I will argue, is the provision of the means for individual physical and psychological well-being.