Join us for an evening with
FRANÇOIS CRÉPEAU
UN Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights of Migrants
H.E. INIGO LAMBERTINI
Deputy Permanent Representative of Italy to the UN
6 - 6:30 p.m. | Wine and cheese reception
6:30 - 7:15 p.m. | Program
followed by Q+A until 7:30 p.m.
Steelcase
4 Columbus Circle (58th Street and Eighth Avenue)
New York, NY
ADMISSION
UNA Members: FREE
UNA Student Members: FREE
Guests and Non-Members: $15
Europe is facing years, if not decades, of mass migration. That possibility alone provokes a burning question: should this only be taken as misfortunate news?
Resisting it opens a market for smuggling rings — pushing people underground, increasing the use of dangerous routes, causing deaths at sea — and creating chaos in the process. Also, equating territorial sovereignty with the capacity to stop migration at borders is a fantasy, unless we start shooting at people. As borders are porous, democratic borders are even more so. Border control is better understood as knowing who comes in, which can't happen unless foreigners present themselves to the border guard.
Europe must embrace mobility in order to manage it. Offering the mobility solutions that refugees and migrants need will take over the market from the hands of the smugglers. For refugees, massive resettlement programs (in the millions of persons over a number of years) will disincentivize them from paying huge sums to smugglers and risk the lives of their children.
For other survival migrants, considerably reducing underground labour markets, which thrive on unscrupulous employers recruiting cheap labour, as well as offering legal and safe mobility solutions, in the form of multiple entry visas for migrants to come and look for work — these measures would also progressively eliminate the smugglers from the picture and allow for European States to regain control of their borders.
Join us for a stimulating and bracing discussion with François Crépeau, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights of Migrants, as he demonstrates that the better outlook is always to embrace change and to work with the actuality of circumstances on the ground. Joining the discussion will be Ambassador Inigo Lambertini, the Deputy Permanent Representative of the Permanent Mission of Italy to the UN.
Read the Guardian interview UN's François Crépeau on the Refugee Crisis
FRANCOIS CREPEAU
Francois Crepeau is Full Professor and holds the Hans and Tamar Oppenheimer Chair in Public International Law, at the Faculty of Law of McGill University. He has been appointed UN Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights of Migrants in 2011. He is a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and was a Fellow 2008-2011 of the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation.
The focus of Crépeau's current research includes migration control mechanisms, the rights of foreigners, the interface between security and migration, and the interface between the Rule of Law and globalization.
He has given many conferences, published numerous articles, and written or edited five books: Les migrations internationales contemporaines: Une dynamique complexe au cœur de la globalisation (2009), Penser l'international, Perspectives et contributions des sciences sociales (2007), Forced Migration and Global Processes: A View from Forced Migration Studies (2006), Mondialisation des échanges et fonctions de l'État (1997) and Droit d'asile: De l'hospitalité aux contrôles migratoires (1995).
Crépeau heads the "Mondialisation et droit international" collection at Éditions Bruylant-Larcier (Brussels), in which 23 books have been published since 1997, and is a member of several editorial committees: International Journal of Refugee Law, Journal of Refugee Studies, Refugee Law Reader, Refuge, and Droits Fondamentaux.
From 2001 to 2008, he was a professor at the Université de Montréal, holder of the Canada Research Chair in International Migration Law, and founding scientific director of the Centre d'études et de recherches internationales de l'Université de Montréal (CÉRIUM). From 1990 to 2001, he was a professor at the Université du Québec à Montréal.
Crépeau has been guest professor at the following institutions : Université catholique de Louvain (2010-2015); Institut international des droits de l'homme (Strasbourg) (2001, 2002, 2007, 2008) ; Graduate Institute for International Studies (IUHEI-Genève, 2007), Institut des hautes études internationales, Université de Paris II (2002), Université d'Auvergne-Clermont 1 (1997).
Until 2011, he also sat on the Quebec Law Society's Committee on Human Rights and Committee on Citizenship and Immigration, was the "Justice, police and Security" domain coordinator for the Quebec Metropolis Center and was a member of the Canadian Commission for UNESCO. He served as vice-president of the Canadian Human Rights Foundation (now Equitas) (1992-2004) and director of the Revue québécoise de droit international (1996-2004). He participated in observer missions in the occupied Palestinian territories (2002) and in El Salvador (1991). He was also a fellow of the Institute for Research in Public Policies (IRPP).
François Crépeau holds diplomas from McGill University (BCL and LLB, 1982), Bordeaux University (LLM in private law, 1982), Paris II University (DEA in legal sociology, 1985) and Paris I University (DEA in Business Law, 1984; LLD, 1990).
AMBASSADOR INIGO LAMBERTINI
Ambassador Inigo Lambertini was appointed Deputy Permanent Representative of Italy to the United Nations in January 2014.
From 2010, Ambassador Lambertini served four years as Principal Director for Country Promotion at the Italian Foreign Ministry in Rome. Before that he was appointed Advisor to the Secretary-General of the Foreign Ministry for Economic Diplomacy (2009-10). In January of 2009 he had been promoted to the rank of Minister Plenipotentiary.
Between 2005 and 2009 he served as Deputy Permanent Representative of Italy to the OECD in Paris. During this mandate, he became Coordinator of the Task Force created by the Italian Government in Paris to support the candidature of the City of Milan for "EXPO 2015."
Ambassador Lambertini served as Counsellor on Domestic Policy at the Embassy of Italy in Washington and subsequently First Counsellor (2001-05). During that period he was appointed as Observer to the OAS.
In the previous decade, Ambassador Lambertini served in various offices, beginning in 1987-91, when he was assigned to the Foreign Ministry's Directorate of Economic Affairs in Rome. This was followed by service as Chargé d'Affaires at the Embassy of Italy in Kinshasa, DRC (1991–93). In the following four years he was Head of the Commercial Office at the Embassy of Italy in Brasilia, Brazil. He was appointed Counsellor at the Permanent Mission of Italy to the EU in Brussels and Coordinator of COREPER (Permanent Representatives Committee of the Council of the European Union) from 1997 to 1999. After that, he served as Adviser to the Coordination Unit of the General Secretariat of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Rome (1999-2001).
He completed fellowship research (1984–85) at the Universite' Libre de Bruxelles in Belgium funded by the Italian National Research Council (C.N.R.). Prior to that, he obtained a degree in Law cum laude from Universita' Federico II in Naples (1983). After completing his education, he entered the Diplomatic Service in 1987, specializing in economics and business.
He is fluent in Italian, as well as English, French, Spanish, and Portuguese.
Ambassador Lambertini was born in Naples, Italy on 10 June 1959. He is married and has two children.
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