Research

Overview

I specialise in global justice, particularly the political philosophy of migration. My published work thus far has focused on the rights of refugees and displaced people.

I have argued at length that more people should be entitled to refugee status under international law. Specifically, I have defended a revised definition of refugeehood which is distinctive because it eradicates the alienage condition—the requirement that a person must have left their country of nationality or habitual residence in order to be eligible for refugee status. Rejecting alienage, I argue, has implications for how the widely-criticised persecution condition should be amended. Additionally, I claim that modifying the definition of refugeehood could improve the protection of Internally Displaced Persons.

I have also written about refugee rights to family reunion. My paper on this topic extends the existing literature on immigrant family reunion to refugees, arguing that refugees should have stronger, broader, less-conditional rights to family reunion, particularly when they are children. This piece was inspired by some research I co-authored many years ago while interning at Oxfam GB. A further piece on this topic, co-authored with Matt Lister, was recently published in this book.

In addition to this work on refugees and displaced people, I have also written about the rights of long-settled undocumented immigrants, vaccine nationalism, and special obligations to co-nationals.

My current research projects concern (i) sanctuary and (ii) nation-state-centricity in political philosophy.

Publications

(11) Nested Sovereignty and Self-Determination in our Non-Ideal World. Commentary on Jamie Draper’s Climate Displacement for forthcoming special issue in Philosophy and Public Issues, ed by Laura Santi-Amantini.

(10) Methodological Nationalism is Not the (best articulation of the) Problem. Forthcoming in Philosophy.

(9) Refugees and Family Unification (2025). With Matthew Lister. In Handbook of Migration Ethics ed. by Johanna Gördemann, Andreas Niederberger, and Uchenna Okeja (Dordrecht: Springer). Abstract.

(8) Robust Protection as Rich Protection? A Response to Efthymiou (2025). Commentary for ‘The Ethics of Migration Policy Dilemmas’ project, Migration Policy Centre, European University Institute. Published paper (open access).

(7) Internal Displacement and International Protection (2024). In The Political Philosophy of Internal Displacement ed. by Jamie Draper and David Owen (Oxford: Oxford University Press). Abstract. | Book.

(6) Special Obligations (2023). Encyclopedia of the Philosophy of Law and Social Philosophy, ed. by Tetsu Sakurai (section editor), Mortimer Sellers and Stephan Kirste. Published entry.

(5) The Right to Family Unification for Refugees (2023). Social Theory and Practice 49:1, 1-28. Abstract. | Published paper.

(4) The Wrong of Removing the Long-Settled (2021). Philosophy and Public Issues 11:1, 183-215. Special issue ‘Migration and Justice for People on the Move’ (ed. by Gianfranco Pellegrino). Abstract. | Published paper (open access).

(3) Crisis Nationalism: to what degree is national partiality acceptable during a global pandemic? (2021). With Mike Gadomski, Dylan Manson, and Kok-Chor Tan. Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 24:1, 285-300. Abstract. | Published paper (open access).

(2) Against the Alienage Condition for Refugeehood (2020). Law and Philosophy 32:9, 147-176. Abstract. | Published paper.

(1) Replacing the Persecution Condition for Refugeehood (2020). Archiv fur Rechts- und Sozialphilosophie 106:1 (2020), 4-18. In conjunction with the IVR Young Scholar Prize. Abstract. | Published paper. | Ukrainian translation (trans. by Kateryna Buriakovska).

Professional Reports

(2) Mapping the Climate Emergency: Will Migration Change the World? (2020)
With Christine Carpenter.
Global Shifts Pre-Colloquium Report, Perry World House.

(1) Safe But Not Settled: The Impact of Family Separation on Refugees in the UK (2018)
With Anna Musgrave and Josephine Liebl
Oxfam and Refugee Council. Published report.

Doctoral Dissertation

The Right to Refuge, and What Happens Next (2020)
Supervised by: Kok-Chor Tan.
Committee members: Brian Berkey and Samuel Freeman.
Defended April 2020. Available here.