Alfredo Dos Santos Soares

Alfredo Soares (Portugal 2016) is a postdoctoral researcher affiliated with CEDIS (Center for Research and Development on Law and Society), Universidade NOVA de Lisboa, Portugal. He holds a PhD in Contemporary International Migration (Public Law) from Comillas Pontifical University, Madrid, Spain. His major research interest deals with global governance of forced migration, addressing its legal and socio-political dimensions, especially the “Responsibility to Protect” people forcibly uprooted in contexts of armed conflicts, effects of climate change and development projects.

Topic: A Political and Legal Framework to Address Forced Migration in a Globalized World with Implications for the European Union

Recent flows of forced migrants towards the territory of the European Union have clearly brought to light the seriousness and complexity of contemporary forced migrations, not only as untold human suffering, but also as a result and a powerful manifestation of persistent armed conflicts, jihadist terrorism and other threats to peace and human security, such as growing impacts of climate change, extreme poverty and social exclusion imposed by the ongoing economic globalization.

The inability and political unwillingness to properly manage the so-called “refugees crisis” has demonstrated the enormous potentialities of migratory phenomenon to easily bring Europe to a political crossroad, undermining some of EU’s fundamental pillars, mainly the Schengen Agreement on free movement.

Rising from the consideration of current forced migrants as being, probably, the most evident and dramatic human face of several and interconnected global crises, which are claiming for global and shared solutions, this research uses qualitative methodology combining critical review of literature and in-depth interviews with the aim of analyzing the role the EU should and must play in this regard.