New Spaces of Hospitality and Sovereignty: Some thoughts on the operation of the Canadian private sponsorship program and the future of human rights protection
An Oppenheimer Chair Brown Bag Lunch Seminar with Ekaterina Yahyaoui-Krivenko.
Abstract
The presentation will analyze the Canadian private sponsorship program in light of the ideas on sovereignty and hospitality developed by Jacques Derrida. The speaker will demonstrate how the private sponsorship program not only resolves certain tensions existing between state sovereignty and refugee protection, but also opens up new spaces for settlement and refuge, which can be imagined independently of state territory and sovereignty.
The speaker will argue that individuals can be bearers of an other sovereignty distinct from that of states and implement international obligations in the area of refugee and human rights law more efficiently than states. The operation of this distinct sovereignty also allows an approximation to the unconditional hospitality as defined by Jacques Derrida.
The speaker will further demonstrate that the private sponsorship program should be regarded as more than just an interesting way of implementing States' obligations. It is also an opportunity for innovative developments in international law that could provide a human face to migration and allow a greater number of people to access the protection to which they are entitled. For this reason, the program needs increased visibility and support as well as continuous reinvigoration despite restrictive governmental policies.
About the speaker.
Ekaterina Yahyaoui Krivenko, Ph.D., D.E.S., LL.M., teaches public international law, human rights, and refugee and migration law at the University of Montreal. Previously, she worked as a legal consultant for the UNHCR. She publishes and researches on refugees, women's rights, Islam, international constitutionalism.
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