Arts and humanities
> Thursday, October 24, 2024 at 12 noon
Interview with Naïma Ghermani, professor of modern history at the UFR ARSH, on her latest book "Le droit des exilés. Genealogy of the right of asylum in the 17th century".
The 17th century was hit by an unprecedented "refugee crisis".
Fleeing persecution and coercive policies, hundreds of thousands of people set off into exile: Judeo-Iberians, Waldensians, French Protestants, Walloons and Czechs sought material and legal protection in several European countries. Until now, however, the right to asylum has only been conceived as an immunity granted to delinquents or criminals. How can we make it a right for innocent people?
Drawing on partly unpublished sources, this book, at the crossroads of the history of law and the history of emotions, examines this profound change in the right to asylum. Fugitives scattered across several European countries forged a language of exile and elaborated the compassionate figure of the refugee. It was on this basis that jurists developed a "right of exile". This right to receive vulnerable people, which began to take shape in Protestant Germany, opened up a new, transnational chapter in the law of nations.
