We kindly invite you to join the panel discussion about the situation on the Polish/Belarusian border with experts on migration and migration lawyers. The The webinar will take place on Friday, October 15th, 2021, at 3:00 p.m. - 4:30 p.m. on the Facebook profile of the Multicultural Centre in Kraków. The event will be conducted in English. Organizers: Multicultural Center in Krakow and Global Trends Lab as part of the FutureSoc PRA.

Since June 2021, the Eastern border of the EU with Belarus has seen a dramatic increase in irregular crossings, from just over 100 in 2020, to 11,500 to date in Poland in 2021, mainly of refugees and migrants from Iraq and Afghanistan.

Governments in Warsaw, Riga and Vilnius have issued a joint statement about Lukashenko’s hybrid warfare tactics and ‘artificially created migrant route with Putin’s support’ in what is said to be a clear weaponization of migrants for political purposes, and the need for a strong, unified EU response to this security threat. The result has been a large military deployment to border zones, the erection of barbed-wire fences, government-sanctioned push-backs and, to date, 6 deaths of migrants in the dense forests between Belarusian and Polish border authorities.

The European Court of Human Rights has called on Poland and Latvia to provide humanitarian assistance to those caught in between these zones, and Amnesty International and the UNHCR have condemned the push-backs. In a tense political and social climate, wherein a state of emergency along the border has effectively cordoned off the area to media and NGOs, there are many questions left unanswered.

This panel attempts to broach some of the most pressing ones and from various angles, amongst others focusing on the patterns of border and migration securitization, the role of the EU and Frontex, the role and interpretation of human rights and refugee laws and conventions, the reasons for and possible solutions to the acute humanitarian crisis, as well as the tense international and internal political confrontation which has developed.

The webinar will take place on Friday, October 15th, 2021, at 3:00 p.m. - 4:30 p.m. on the Facebook profile of the Multicultural Centre in Kraków. The event will be conducted in English.

Our guests include: 

Dr. Katarzyna Przybysławska - lawyer, director of the Halina Nieć Legal Aid Center in Krakow, a part of the ‘Grupa Granica’ (ad hoc network of NGOs working at the Polish-Belarusian border). 

Dr. Marta Jaroszewicz - Assistant Professor at the Centre for Migration Research, University of Warsaw, and previously a senior research fellow at the Centre for Eastern Studies. 

Dr. Przemysław Tacik - holds a PhD in Philosophy and International Law, Assistant Professor in the Institute of European Studies, Jagiellonian University.

Dr. Maciej Stępka - holds a PhD in Security Studies (University of Warsaw). Assistant Professor in the Institute of European Studies at Jagiellonian University in Kraków.

Moderator: dr. Karolina Czerska-Shaw (PhD in Sociology, Assistant Professor JU, Multicultural Centre in Krakow).

Join us on Facebook: https://fb.me/e/UspaG7KP

BIOs:

Katarzyna Przybysławska - a human rights and refugee law lawyer, combining her academic interest in the area of forced migration and asylum with legal work at a UNHCR-partnering NGO. Most of Katarzyna Przybysławska’s research is carried out within the scope of her NGO work (www.pomocprawna.org) and in cooperation with UNHCR. She has published research reports, articles, delivered trainings and conference presentations on statelessness, the risk of arbitrary detention in cases of statelessness, asylum, sexual and gender-based violence victims in asylum proceedings, vulnerable refugees, Palestinian refugees, non-refoulement, return procedures and human trafficking. Additionally she holds various voluntary positions and cooperate with several institutions including being a member of the European Network on Statelessness Advisory Committee and an expert to the Commission of Experts on Migration at Ombudsmann’s office in Poland.

Marta Jaroszewicz - an assistant professor at the Centre for Migration Research, University of Warsaw, where she is the principal investigator on various research projects. She was previously a researcher with the Centre for Eastern Studies, where she worked as a senior research fellow, head of department and project lead for many years. She finished her PhD in 2008. She has also worked as a project manager at the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) in Kiev, Ukraine, as well as a national expert for the European Commission (Directorate-General for Neighbourhood and Enlargement Negotiations). Her research interests include the nexus between migration and security, the diffusion of policies, politics of migration in countries of the Eastern Neighbourhood of the EU as well as the Eurasian geographical area and eastern borders of Poland.

Maciej Stępka - teaches courses on theories of security, European and international security policy, EU institutions and politics. He was a guest researcher at such academic institutions as University of Amsterdam, Utrecht University, or École française d'Athènes. His research interests include critical security studies and migration studies, more particularly discourses and practices of security deployed during complex and persisting crises. He has authored articles and books chapters on securitization of migration in the EU, resilience, crisis and risk management in the EU. He is currently working on a monograph entitled “Identifying Security Logics in the EU Policy Discourse: The “Migration Crisis” and the EU” for Springer Nature.

Przemyslaw Tacik - Assistant Professor at the Institute of European Studies of the Jagiellonian University of Kraków, Poland, and Director of the Nomos: Centre for International Research on Law, Culture and Power. A philosopher, lawyer and sociologist by education, he holds PhDs in philosophy (2014) and international law (2016). He has been a visiting scholar at several universities (i.e. Columbia University, SUNY at Buffalo, Université de Nice, Université Paris-1, Université d’Orléans, Heidelberg Universität, Max-Planck-Institut für ausländisches öffentliches Recht und Völkerrecht, Salzburg Universität, the Higher School of Economics in Moscow and Lisbon University). He received a scholarship of the French government (2018), a scholarship for the best young researchers awarded by the Polish Ministry for Science and Higher Education (2018-2020) and DAAD scholarship (2020). In his academic work he combines both philosophical and legal perspectives, attempting to approach them from an interdisciplinary angle. His main fields of interest are: in philosophy – contemporary philosophy, Jewish philosophy and animal studies; in law – critical legal studies, international law, human rights law. He has authored four books: Socjologia Zygmunta Baumana (Sociology of Zygmunt Bauman, 2012) Przystąpienie Unii Europejskiej do Europejskiej Konwencji Praw Człowieka (The Accession of the European Union to the European Convention on Human Rights, 2017), The Freedom of Lights. Edmond Jabès and Jewish Philosophy of Modernity (Peter Lang 2019), A New Philosophy of Modernity and Sovereignty: Towards Radical Historicization (Bloomsbury 2021), as well as over 40 articles and one translation of a poetry volume (from French to Polish).