The conference "From Geneva to Schengen" examines the evolution of refugee protection in Western Europe between 1951 and 1994. It explores the complex friction between international obligations under the 1951 Geneva Convention and the domestic realities of immigration control, labor migration, and decolonization. By analyzing how individual governments built administrative machinery to determine status and enforce exclusions, the program reassesses the diverse state practices that fundamentally shaped the contemporary European asylum landscape.
The 1951 Geneva Refugee Convention is a watershed in migration “management” by providing refugees a privileged access to the territory of states willing to protect them. The Convention was never just a static legal text. It was a living instrument, constantly reinterpreted throughout time. This workshop looks at high-level diplomacy, but also focusses on the ground level of implementation, examining how Western European states actually put the Convention into practice during its first four decades. We explore the friction between international obligations and the domestic realities of immigration control, labor migration, decolonization, and the shifting economic tides from the Trente Glorieuses to the post-industrial 1980s.
Our analysis centers on how individual governments defined who “counted” as a refugee and how they built the administrative machinery to determine status, grant rights, or enforce exclusions. By tracing these national trajectories up to the decisive 1994 turning point—the threshold of the Schengen era—we reassess how forty years of diverse state practice fundamentally shaped the asylum landscape in Europe.
Programme
Monday, 29 June 2026
2.00 pm Arrival, Registration and Welcome Coffee
3.00 pm Opening Remarks
Michael Mayer, Akademie für Politische Bildung, Tutzing
Frank Caestecker, Ghent University
3.15 pm Keynote
Before Geneva: The Formation of Refugee Regimes in Europe, 1920s–1940s
Philipp Strobl, University of Vienna
4.30 pm Break
5.00 pm Section 1: Shaping the Refugee Regime before the Geneva Convention
“In Limited Terms”: The 1943 Bermuda Conference on the “Refugee Problem” and the Emergence of the Post-War Refugee Regime
Annika Heyen, Osnabrück University
Norms, Practices and Marginality. The Production of Non-Western “Others” in the Postwar Refugee Regime
Jessica Wehner, Osnabrück University
The Afterlife of Atrocity: Jewish Displaced Persons, Sovereignty, and the Administrative Closure of the Holocaust Refugee Problem in Post-1951 West Germany
Harshada Anand Kavade, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi
6.30 pm Dinner
Tuesday, 30 June 2026
8.00 am Breakfast
9.00 am Keynote
The 1951 Geneva Refugee Convention between Humanitarian Protection and Migration Management
Annette Weinke, University of Jena
10.00 am Break
10.30 am Section 2: Implementing the Geneva Convention
Reluctant Cooperation: Italy, Intergovernmentality and Refugees, 1951-1963
Pamela Ballinger, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
Restricting Asylum through International Refugee Law: West Germany and the Geneva Refugee Convention
Michael Mayer
Informal Governance and International Obligations: Luxembourg and the 1951 Refugee Convention, 1951–1993
Denis Scuto, University of Luxembourg
Interpretations of the Refugee Convention: The Case of the Cold War ‘Defections’ to Finland
Matti Välimäki, University of Helsinki
12.30 pm Lunch
3.00 pm Section 3: From Objects to Actors: Refugees in the Making of Protection Regimes
Being a Refugee in Post-War Germany: The Internationalisation and Political Belonging of a Contested Figure
Isabella Löhr, Leibniz Centre for Contemporary History Potsdam
Between Refugee Protection and Restrictive Citizenship Policies: The Naturalization of Geneva Convention Refugees in West Germany
Nicholas Courtman, King’s College London
4.30 pm Coffee Break
5.00 pm Section 4: Reshaping the International Refugee Regime since the 1970s
Between “Refugees Welcome” and Restrictiveness. Policy and Practice in Sweden from the 1970s to 1994.
Pär Frohnert, Stockholm University
Humanitarian Admission and Political Constraints: The Ambivalent Resettlement of Vietnamese Boat Refugees in Europe
Marcel Berlinghoff, Osnabrück University
In the Shadow of the Basic Law. Jurisprudence and Legal Practice of the Geneva Refugee Convention in the Federal Republic of Germany (1980s–1990s)
Bastian Högg, Lern- und Erinnerungsort Notaufnahmelager Gießen
6.30 pm Dinner
Wednesday, 1 July 2026
8.00 am Breakfast (Check-out by 8.45 am)
9.00 am Keynote
Formalizing Asylum Policy under the Pressure of Globalization and the Collapse of the Soviet Bloc, 1975–1993
Frank Caestecker
10.00 am Break
10.30 am From Refugees to Inadmissibles: International Aviation Governance and Migration Control in Western Europe, 1980s–1990s
Carolin Liebisch, Leibniz Centre for Contemporary History Potsdam
Making Human Rights Matter in Migration: The Case of the ECHR in The Netherlands before 1995
Wiebe Hommes, University of Amsterdam
Shaping European Migration Governance: The Origins of the Schengen and Dublin Systems
Simone Paoli, University of Pisa
12.00 pm Conference Wrap-up
12.30 pm Lunch, End of Conference
Antonia Kreitner
Tel.: +49 8158 256-58
a.kreitner@apb-tutzing.de