Syria’s Displaced and the Obstacles to Return

The Lemkin Reunion 4^th Meeting

Call for Participants

Shattuck Center, School of Public Policy, Central European University

February 18 – 19, 2017

To view in PDF, please click here.

“After three years struggling for the better Syria I dreamed of, I eventually was forced to leave with my family, psychologically bruised. I am not sure I can return to a Syria that now has worse human conditions than when we started in 2011, where the price of a word is death.”[1]

With the fall of Aleppo and other parts of the country to the Syrian regime, half the country’s population remains forcibly displaced internally or abroad. Wishes and questions about return and access to home arise. What are the conditions that could allow for return, and what are the threats and obstacles created by the Syrian regime and other actors that are preventing repatriation?

The Shattuck Center invites you to its fourth annual session. This year’s question is return. What constitutes return? Who are those who left? And how did they leave? What guarantees do they have for their safety? How has return been dealt with by the regime’s security arm?

The Lemkin Reunion, with the participation of expert panelists, and external seminar participants, as well as specialists from the CEU community, will examine the obstacles to return through the identification and categorization of the different obstacles that those who decide to fully or partially return are facing, in addition to the categorization of actors causing these obstacles.

The Shattuck Center invites participants of those interested to submit paper descriptions of no more than 200-300 words to be presented in the Reunion’s fourth meeting in Budapest. The contribution should address one of the obstacles to return and offer a road map for a more detailed short report that must be submitted by the date of Reunion – February 18. Submissions are specifically welcome from students and researchers or any one who has valuable observations to tell about displacement. Contributions by Syrian participants are especially welcome. The descriptions can be submitted in Arabic or English.

Deadline for abstracts submission is December 28^th,  2017. Selected applicants will be contacted by January 10, 2018.[2]

CVs, paper descriptions to be submitted to [email protected]

[1] Aleppo Project Interview with Syrian refugee in Denmark

[2] Travel and accomodation expenses are covered by the Shattuck Center. Due to time restraints, we are only able to consider applicants with valid Schengen visas.