Who owes what to Syrian refugees? Ethical responsibility and the global politics of connection

Abstract

The politics of refugee protection reveals deep asymmetries in how responsibility is understood, shared, and often avoided within the international system. This article advances a justice-based framework for rethinking global responsibility towards refugees by applying David Miller’s account of remedial responsibility—grounded in six principles: moral responsibility, outcome responsibility, causal responsibility, benefit, capacity, and community—to refugee protection. Moving beyond humanitarian appeals and policy pragmatism, it conceptualises refugee protection as an ethical duty rooted in justice rather than discretion. Using the Syrian refugee crisis, it shows how diverse actors—including Syria, Russia, Iran, Türkiye, the European Union, the United States, the Gulf states, and the United Nations—bear differentiated yet interdependent responsibilities shaped by their distinct connections to harm, capacity to respond, and roles in protection. Integrating philosophical reasoning with empirical realities, the article critiques the moral minimalism of current global refugee governance and reframes protection as a differentiated remedial responsibility within global justice debates on transnational ethics and inequality.