Humanitarian groups report that children as young as nine are risking their lives in desperate attempts to reach Europe.
Solving the increased influx of refugees is getting even more challenging since the coup in Turkey 2016 and the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s authoritarian responses to his opponents.
The overarching question left to discuss is whether the EU is about to lose its legitimacy as a normative power and as a promoter of human rights in our contemporary times.
Michelle Pace, a professor at Roskilde University specialised at European Union´s external relations with the Middle East, will give a lecture on 25 October in Lund focusing on the EU-Turkey deal and its impact on refugee children.
Ilhami Alkan Olsson, Director of Raoul Wallenberg Institutes office in Istanbul will act as the discussant and Spyros Sofos, researcher at Centre for Middle Eastern Studies, will be chairing the discussion.
The lecture is part of a series of human rights-related lectures held in co-operation with the Association of Foreign Affairs at Lund University and the Raoul Wallenberg Institute of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law.
More about the participants
Michelle Pace is Professor MSO at Roskilde University (RUC) and Honorary Professor in Politics and International Studies at the University of Birmingham in the UK. She is also co-editor of the peer-reviewed journal Mediterranean Politics.
Ilhami Alkan Olsson, is the Director of RWI’s office in Istanbul and has a law degree from Ankara University, a Master degree in International Human Rights Law (2002) from Lund University, and a PhD (2007) from Kent University (UK). From 2009 to 2017, when he joined RWI, he worked as Ass. Prof. in international law at Istanbul University.
Spyros is a researcher at Centre for Middle Eastern Studies at Lund University and has worked many years in Turkey. Amongst his other research interests are Kurdistan regional government, Rojava, Islamic State, Kurdish issue, minorities in the Middle East, Conflict, divided societies, Muslims in Sweden/Muslims in Europe, radicalism and violent extremism.
The lecture is part of a series of human rights-related lectures held in co-operation with the Association of Foreign Affairs at Lund University and the Raoul Wallenberg Institute of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law.
Location: Palaestra et Odeum, Paradisgatan 4, 223 50 Lund
Date and time: 25 October, 19:00 to 21:30