Praise for James Souter’s book

The reviews are in!

CCPT member James Souter’s book, Asylum as Reparation: Refuge and Responsibility for the Harms of Displacement, argues that states have a special obligation to offer asylum as a form of reparation to refugees for whose flight they are responsible. It shows the great relevance of reparative justice, and the importance of the causes of contemporary forced migration, for our understanding of states’ responsibilities to refugees.

In International Migration Review, Fulya Felicity Türkmen writes: “Asylum as Reparation is an ambitious book that innovatively depicts and rethinks asylum as a form of reparation without making the readers forget about the existing understandings of asylum almost solely based on its humanitarian function. It successfully politicizes and historicizes asylum, a subject treated as apolitical and ahistorical whenever tragic photos of refugees hit the global headlines with calls for humanitarian assistance.”

In the Journal of Refugee Studies, Daniel Sharp writes: “Souter offers a highly intricate and novel framework for understanding an important class of asylum claims, which greatly advances debates about the theory and practice of refugee protection. This framework shines a clear light on the range of ways in which external states whose actions foreseeably cause displacement fail to honour their obligations towards refugees.”

In a review for Perspectives on Politics, Patti Tamara Lenard writes: “Souter’s careful theoretical analysis adds to [the] literature a clear-eyed understanding of how a robust account of reparative obligations can inform a morally defensible response to refugees in many if not most cases. … It is the work of someone who is a real expert in the wide range of theoretical and legal work that has been done in this space. Scholars in these fields will learn much from Souter’s Asylum as Reparation.”

In a review for International Affairs, Serena Clark writes: “The author takes complex political theories and makes them accessible to technical and non-technical audiences—a substantial strength of the book. In addition, Souter’s clear and concise language makes the book ideal for scholars, practitioners and students who are interested in the topics presented.”

And, in Global Justice: Theory, Practice, Rhetoric, Rebecca Buxton writes: “Souter offers a novel, important, and powerful contribution to the political theory of refuge”

Read the book’s Introduction for free via White Rose Research Online!