ABSTRACT
This chapter investigates when, how and why states explicitly close their borders to refugees, and with what consequences. It considers how the international community has chosen to respond to such crises and what this in turn suggests about the strength of international commitment to asylum as a normative exception to states right to choose whom to admit into their territory. Focusing on the specific politics which led to three border closures Turkey/Northern Iraq in 1991, Macedonia/Kosovo in 1999, and Kenya/Somalia from 2007 to 2011, the chapter argues that these border closures were all responses to manufactured ethno-national crises. It outlines the contours of crisis and the process of securitisation. The chapter focuses on the crisis-induced migration and the political decision-making that led to the three border closures under scrutiny. It focuses on the humanitarian consequences of these closures and examines the international politics of response to these real emergencies.
