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Joanne van Selm is an Independent Consultant on Migration and Refugee issues, who also serves as Associate Director for Research at Eurasylum. Dr van Selm co-edited the Journal of Refugee Studies (Oxford University Press) from 2001-2011 and has almost two decades’ experience in policy and academic research on migration, asylum and refugee issues. She has previously been an adjunct professor at Georgetown University (2012-2013); Senior Policy Analyst at the Washington DC-based Migration Policy Institute (2001-2006), and Lecturer in Political Science at the University of Amsterdam and the Vrij Universiteit, Amsterdam. She has participated in studies for the European Commission, including the feasibility studies on joint processing (2011), relocation (2010) and resettlement (2004) as well as the study on the transfer of protection status (2005), and the European Parliament on solidarity (2011). As an Independent Consultant, her clients have included UNHCR, UNDP, Dutch governmental and non-governmental bodies, ECRE, and, through EUrasylum she has conducted work for the EU institutions and IOM. The author of several books and numerous chapters and articles, Joanne van Selm has lived and worked in Jamaica, Japan, fyr Macedonia, the US and several EU Member States.
This essay explores how, if the European Union had a more complete refugee policy—one that covers all aspects of refugee arrival, reception, and protection—the Syria crisis might have been mitigated, if not averted. The essay focuses specifically on the desirability and advantages of resettlement (among other mooted policies) as a vital protection tool.
