Political Obligations of Refugees

Abstract

AbstractIn the literature on refugees, scholars generally focus on obligations that states have toward refugees, but do not address obligations refugees themselves bear to their new countries. While this situation has been remedied to some extent in recent literature, scholars have not provided an adequate explanation why these obligations hold. We explore the moral basis of refugees’ obligations, with special attention to the need to extend traditional principles of political obligation to address it. We consider two categories of refugees. Obligations of “settled refugees,” who attempt to integrate into new societies, are largely encompassed by traditional Westphalian norms of state–citizen relationships and grounded in consent and fair play. Refugees in camps exist farther outside of the traditional Westphalian categories. Most notable for them are divided political obligations—stemming from the divided nature of camp governance—grounded mainly by principles of fair play and natural duties of justice.