ABSTRACT
What follows from the findings of the book and where is the world moving regarding refugee protection and rights? The Outlook describes the opposing developments in refugee law over the past few years and places the conclusions of the chapters within a broader look on migration and global inequalities. On the one hand, the book has reconstructed how legal developments reflect a concern for political rights of refugees and endeavors to improve conditions. In that way, the past years are read as a sequence of critique and reactions to critique. On the other hand, however, the past years have meant ever-increasing measures of deterrence in many places, open violations of the prohibition of refoulement, and a growing discourse of securitization. Whereas refugee law constitutes a lever for democratic inclusion and for transnational obligations, its bases depend on the commitment to universalist values of freedom and equality. There have always been denials that these are actually values that regard all humans, and the past years have bolstered such rejection. In that sense, the Outlook sketches two scenarios of where we are going and argues for a critical cosmopolitanism that recognizes the values of institutions and boundaries while also accepting the essential openness of democratic citizenship.
