Refugee protection: ‘here’ or ‘there’?

Policymakers in states of the Global North are in the privileged position of having a genuine ethical choice concerning whether to devote their resources to providing refugee protection in their territory (for example, by enabling safe passage of refugees to their borders and offering generous resettlement opportunities) or to prioritize resourcing refugee protection in the Global South. For these policymakers the question ‘Should we protect refugees here or there?’ posed in this global context represents a real, and not merely a notional, ethical challenge. The primary focus on this paper is the ethical dilemma confronted by the conscientious policymaker in the Global North concerning where (and how) to support refugee protection. A secondary focus is the ethical dilemma faced by conscientious policymakers in the Global South in relation to the global context and the issues confronted both Northern and Southern policymakers in their distinct regional contexts.