The IFHV in cooperation with Medizinische Flüchtlingshilfe Bochum and medico international has taken the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the Geneva Refugee Convention to dedicate an entire digital lecture series to the complexity and multi-layered nature of the human challenge of flight and migration. Carried out over the winter term 2021/2022 in a total of eight events, we ask “70 years of Geneva Convention – a reason to celebrate?” and try to shed light on central aspects of the global refugee regime.

Within this lecture series, a critical perspective is of importance, which should be inherent to science anyway, but in the case of refugee research has a very special character. After all, 80% of the world's refugees are in the Global South, but 80% of the research published on refugee issues comes from scholars in institutions in the Global North.

We intend to therefore pay special attention to the "decolonization debate" and counter this imbalance by including voices from the Global South and the female researchers there. We have been in close contact with LERRN, the Local Engagement Refugee Research Network, to support our endeavor https://carleton.ca/lerrn/.

Our first lecture is titled “The History and Development of International Refugee Protection” and will take place next Thursday, October 28^th2021 from 16:30 to 18:00 CET via Zoom.

We are pleased to have Phil Orchard from University of Wollongong in Australia and Rez Gardi from The Centre for Asia Pacific Refugee Studies in New Zealand with us, to discuss the history of international refugee protection from the League of Nations to the UN and from Fridjof Nansen to Filippo Grandi. Explaining the work of the UNHCR and the development of the UN Geneva Refugee Convention (GRC), adopted in 1951 and extended in 1967, we will have a closer look on how refugee protection changed throughout the centuries? How did World War I lead to a milestone in codification of refugee protection, and why did refugee protection rapidly fail during World War II? What kind of developments led to the GRCs 1967 protocol and to changes of UNHCRs mandate throughout the 2nd half of the 20th century? How did the protection system develop during the recent decades?

We cordially invite you to join us for this first event. Please register here -> https://ruhr-uni-bochum.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_R2AIOLYgQryXAeQefGstKg