CALL FOR CHAPTERS. The humanitarian Crisis in the 21st century: challenges of liberal democracies to deal with the humanitarian crisis 

Publisher: Nova Science Publishers

Maximiliano E. Korstanje- University of Palermo, Argentina

Christina Akrivopoulou – Hellenic Open University, Greece – Editor in Chief of Int. Journal of Human Rights and Constitutional Studies.

One of the dichotomies of globalization, or at best its contradictions seems to be the current migratory crisis. While the capital escapes to the control of states, straddling borders, migrants are closely scrutinized, exiled or even ghettoized as never before (Daly, 2003; Parreñas, 2015). No matter the ideological speech, western countries have quadruplicated their deportation rates over the recent decades. This migratory crisis not only calls for an international effort to relocate migrants but also begs the question of to what extent developed nations should assist in developing ones (Akrivopoulou, 2016). Western hospitality is facing an unparalleled crisis given the left-wind parties as well as an over-hostility directed against outsiders (Korstanje & Seraphin 2022). Moved by the ecological crisis, or the rise of political violence which includes ethnic cleansing, terrorism as well and civil wars, millions of migrants or asylum seekers are -metaphorically speaking- knocking the heaven's doors. As a modern project, which cemented its authority in the doctrine of self-determination, each nation-state reserves the monopoly of violence to protect its borders but what happens when the violence emanates from the state? The opposite is equally true, some democratic administrations boycott economically undemocratic countries or call for military interventions in the name of democracy. The so-called War on Terror is an example of that but it is not limited to. Liberal democracy had historically legitimated the intervention in foreign countries in the context of emergence (Smith 2012). To put this in brutally, the turn of the century has brought many uncontemplated risks, which confronted the liberal democracies. Ranging from terrorism to the current ecological and migratory crises, specialists have questioned to what extent liberal democracies do the correct to fix the inter-class asymmetries or to solve the current humanitarian crisis. For the case of human rights violations, Michael Ignatieff (2001; 2004) puts into question why would liberal democracies welcome strangers or asylum seekers without changing the basis of legal jurisprudence? The opposite is equally true, why Western democracies are insensitive to the suffering of thousands of asylum seekers who escape from political violence or terrorism? To date, thousands of young people and boys are found dead on the European coasts without receiving any shelter. For other voices, the state intervention in autonomous government or abroad constitutes a clear violation of international law. For sure, there is a dichotomy between different levels of mobilities, as it was discussed with focus on the convergence of tourists who are legally encouraged to travel and forced migrants doomed into a climate of oppression and immobility (Bauman 2017; Ray 2020;  Tzanelli & Korstanje 2020).

As this backdrop, the present book concentrates efforts to resolve the dilemma of human rights and legal studies in a time where the government revolve around the dilemma of middling or leaving things as they stand. Humanitarian intervention has become a buzzword very hard to apply in pragmatic conditions. The lack of an international jurisprudence that protects the more vulnerable people is part of the topics hotly debated here.

Book chapters should be written in English and formatted in APA citation style. Chapters dotted with an abstract and 5 keywords should be sent to mkorst@palermo.edu or mkorstanje76@gmail.com no later than 15 December. The schedule for acceptance and publication is April 2024.

References

Akrivopoulou, C. (Ed.). (2016). Defending Human Rights and Democracy in the Era of Globalization. Hershey, IGI Global.

Bauman, Z. (2017). Tourists and vagabonds: Or, living in postmodern times. In Identity and social change (pp. 13-26). Abingdon, Routledge.

Daly, H. E. (2003). Globalization and its inconsistencies. Real World Economic Outlook: The Legacy of Globalization: Debt and Deflation, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

Ignatieff, M. (2001). Human rights as politics and idolatry. Princeton, Princeton University Press.

Ignatieff, M. (2004). The lesser evil: Political ethics in an age of terror. Princeton, Princeton University Press.

Korstanje, M. E., & Seraphin, H. (2022). A Problem Called Alterity: The Position of the ‘Other’in HBO Saga Westworld. In Tourism Through Troubled Times: Challenges and Opportunities of the Tourism Industry in the 21st Century (pp. 7-20). Bingley, Emerald Publishing Limited.

Parreñas, R. (2015). Servants of globalization: Migration and domestic work. Stanford, Stanford University Press.

Ray, A. (2020). The" Vagabond" as a Nemesis of the Tourist: Toward a Postcolonial Critique of Zygmunt Bauman. Tourism, Culture & Communication, 20(2-3), 107.

Smith, T. (2012). America's Mission: The United States and the Worldwide Struggle for Democracy: Princeton, Princeton University Press.

Tzanelli, R., & Korstanje, M. (2020). Introduction: Critical thinking in tourism studies. Tourism Culture & Communication, 20(2-3), 59-69.