Upholding Moral Responsibilities: a normative analysis of the Joint Way Forward on migration issues between Afghanistan and the EU

Abstract: Strict deportation policies have emerged as an increasingly popular way for more developed countries to tackle the issue of irregular migration. Estimations tell us that more that 3 million Afghan refugees will be deported in 2017 and it is argued that such massive returns to Afghanistan, despite the ongoing and escalated conflict, will risk contributing to severe human right violations as well as risk worsening the economic, social and political instability that the country is struggling with. In this study, I explore what normative obligations developed states should have towards developing countries in terms of the consequences of their deportation polices. Using methods of a normative policy analysis, the analysis specifically examines whether a declaration between the European Union and the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan that focuses on strengthening deportation efforts, lives up to those obligations. The findings include that the deportation policies enforced by this declaration do not meet the normative obligations of developed states and this thesis argues that greater attention on how the political response in receiving countries affects the development prospects in refugee generating countries needs to be incorporated into deportation policies to a greater extent.