Handbook on Humanitarianism and Inequality - Chapter 25 - Refugee protection and assistance

Every two weeks I am going to feature one of the chapters of our Handbook on Humanitarianism and Inequality which was published in spring 2024.
This week we are taking a closer look at Chapter 25 - Refugee protection and assistance - contributed by Naoko Hashimoto.

From the introduction 
The chapter begins with a brief overview of the current international institution of providing and promoting legal protection and humanitarian assistance for refugees. It is followed by an outline of a variety of inequalities embedded and emerging in the institution. It includes: the centrality of the notion of inequality and discrimination in the definition of refugees, which in turn results in an unequal access to asylum; unequal ‘burden-sharing’ in hosting refugees particularly between the Global South and Global North countries and their major reasons; the recent neoliberal trend in choosing and admitting only the best and the brightest refugees; glaring and institutionalised inequality in admitting and assisting only certain people fleeing from the Russian aggression in Ukraine; and disproportionality in humanitarian assistance for displaced populations in the world and potential implications of the UN agencies in exacerbating it. The chapter concludes with suggestions for future research.

Note on contributor 
Naoko Hashimoto is associate professor in the Division of Arts and Sciences, College of Liberal Arts, International Christian University, Japan. 
Before joining academia, Naoko worked for UNHCR, IOM, and the Government of Japan for 15 years. She holds a master of studies in Forced Migration, Refugee Studies Centre, University of Oxford, LLM in International Human Rights Law from University of London, and PhD in Politics from University of Sussex. 
She is affiliated with Refugee Law Initiative, University of London and serves as a Refugee Adjudication Counsellor appointed by the Japanese Minister of Justice.

Overviews are already available for the following chapters: 

Introduction: humanitarianism and inequality – a re-orientation

Humanitarianism and colonialism

Humanitarianism and the global Cold War, 1945–1991

Humanitarianism and the new wars: humanitarianism, security, and securitisation

Humanitarianism, development and peace: a southern perspective

Localisation and the humanitarian sector

Human rights and humanitarianism

Humanitarian organisations: behemoths and butterflies

Faith actors in humanitarianism: dynamics and inequalities

Diaspora assistance  

Political solidarity movements and humanitarianism: lessons from Catalonia, Spain (1975–2020)

Subversive humanitarianism

Citizen’s groups and grassroots humanitarianism

Humanitarianism and the military

Race, racialisation, and coloniality in the humanitarian aid sector

Humanitarian organisations as gendered organisations

Sexuality and humanitarianism: colonial ‘hauntings’

Class matters in humanitarianism

Humanitarianism and disability 

Media representations of humanitarianism

Humanitarianism and pandemics 

Humanitarian technologies

Linguistic inequality in the humanitarian sector: unravelling English-centric multilingualism

Climate change, disasters and humanitarian action 

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