Event sponsored by David Melding AM

Gorwel invites you to attend: Refugees: What do we owe them and why?

With Professor Phillip Cole – University of Bristol

Europe is facing deep challenges in its collective response to the numbers of people seeking shelter within its borders from conflicts and instability in North Africa and the Middle East. The response by specific nations has challenged the International Convention on Refugees and some are suggesting that even the limited rights embodied in that Convention have to be rolled back. In this talk Prof Cole will look at the Convention and what exactly it says in terms of our obligations to those seeking refuge, and at the ways in which it is being challenged.

Prof Cole will also examine the situation in Wales, where the Assembly government has consistently been more supportive to asylum seekers than the Westminster government, and at the Welsh Refugee Coalition’s specific proposals for how the Assembly should respond to what is a growing international crisis. Should, for example, the asylum support system be devolved? Should Wales become a Nation of Sanctuary, and what would that entail?

Speaker biography: Phillip Cole is a Senior Lecturer in Politics and International Relations at the University of the West of England, Bristol, and is a Trustee on the board of the Welsh Refugee Council. He was awarded a Professorship by the University of Wales, Newport, in 2010 for his work on international migration, which includes Debating the Ethics of Immigration: Is There a Right to Exclude?, co-written with Christopher Heath Wellman and published by Oxford University Press in 2011.

Those wishing to attend the talk should email info@gorwel.co or sarah.sharpe@assembly.wales or use the booking form on the www.gorwel.co website.