Annamari Vitikainen

On Exit provides fresh, new perspectiveson the debates on the rights of individuals against their own cultural or religious groups. It brings together scholars from different disciplines to discuss some of thekey questions concerning the relations of cultural and religious groups, group members, citizens, and the state within Western liberal democracies. The volume revisits some of the theoretical controversiesrevolving aroundthe right of exit, and provides insights into the more practical problems of cultural accommodation.

This comment discusses Lenard’s view on the resettling of LGBTQ+ refugees (Ch. 7) and pursues two claims. First, it shows how Lenard’s method, while providing a novel account of the general duties of resettlement, overlooks some specific features of LGBTQ+ refugeehood that are crucial for understanding both the specific contents and grounds for these duties. Second, it demonstrates how some of the reasons for states to select LGBTQ+ refugees for resettlement coincide with some of the grounds for LGBTQ+ resettlement duties thus pointing towards the need to discuss LGBTQ+ refugee admission and integration conjointly. The comment highlights the need to centralize LGBTQ+ experiences in our theorizing of LGBTQ+ resettlement duties, as opposed to discussing them in the abstract – or in brackets – as an illustration of the broader principles of resettlement duties.

This special issue consists of four articles, contributed by David Owen; Désirée Lim, Sahar Akhtar and (as co-authors) Mollie Gerver, Miranda Simon, Patrick Lown and Dominik Duell. These contributions address issues related to migration policies with the aim of bringing normative theories of migration and discrimination into dialogue. These theories describe the various types of discrimination inherent in the domestic and global migration systems, as well as assess arguments, pro et contra, about whether these forms of discrimination are permissible.

_This article discusses some of the normative bases for the recent (2020) Norwegian policy prioritizing LGBTIQ+ refugees in refugee admissions. It argues that, when properly interpreted, this policy is compatible with the UNHCR vulnerability selection criteria but is not independently supported by it. Combined with some of the broader moral principles guiding refugee admissions – including both state-based and refugee-based reasons in refugee resettlement – the article provides qualified support for the Norwegian policy of LGBTIQ+ refugee prioritization. Drawing from some of the specifics of LGBTIQ+ refugee resettlement and integration, the article nevertheless points to certain limitations of such a policy in so far as refugees’ own agency is concerned. The article emphasizes the need to listen to refugees’ own voices in the selection and resettlement processes, including cases where the default position of LGBTIQ+ prioritization may be overridden by LGBTIQ+ persons’ own interests in being resettled elsewhere__._ _Keywords_: LGBTIQ+, Norwegian refugee policy, priority setting, refugee selection, LGBTIQ+ integration.

This paper discusses a recent turn in the ethics of refugee resettlement which involves taking the interests of refugees themselves into account in the distribution of refugees among potential refugee receiving countries. It argues that there is an important category of interest that does not align with the two commonly held views on what is owed to refugees: ‘safety’ or ‘conditions of a good life’. This category, focussing on the refugees’ interests in not being subjected to a variety of non-asylum-grounding injustices, should, by default, take precedence in the assessment of the refugee-based reasons in refugee resettlement. The normative salience of this category – not being subjected to injustice – is illustrated with the help of the case of LGBTIQ+ refugees, and the kinds of injustices they may be subject to in countries that provide them with asylum.

This introduction discusses some of the background assumptions and recent developments of the current refugee crisis. In this issue, the crisis is not viewed as a primarily European, Western or even Syrian, Afghan, or Iraqi crisis, but as a global crisis that raises complex ethical and political challenges for all humanity. The contributions to this thematic issue discuss a variety of questions relating to the rights and duties of different actors involved in the refugee crisis, and assess some of the suggested responses to handling the crisis.

Why should the liberal state be concerned about people's cultural differences? How should it respond to these differences? Can culturally differentiated treatment, including the rights and exemptions of minority members, be justified within the liberal framework? And if it can, to whom should this treatment be extended? The Limits of Liberal Multiculturalism discusses cultural accommodation from the perspective of liberal political theory on the one hand, and concrete multicultural policies on the other. It explores some of the weaknesses, but also the successes, of the liberal multicultural project, and develops a new, individuated, yet culturally sensitive approach to cultural diversity. While establishing differentiated rights as legitimate policy options of the liberal state, Vitikainen turns our focus to a further question: How do we reach the actual beneficiaries of such rights? In order to track their targets, differentiated rights must be fairly allocated. This requires extending the scope of the liberal multicultural project, and applying a pluralist, individual-centred approach to allocating differentiated rights in liberal democratic societies.