GAPs Presents Findings at University of Geneva Workshop on Return Politics
On 16 April 2025, the GAPs project shared key research insights at the “Workshop on the Politics of Return: Cooperation Frameworks and Negotiation Dynamics,” hosted by the University of Geneva, Switzerland. Organized under the Horizon Europe project Finding Agreement in Return (FAiR), the one-day event brought together around 20 practitioners and scholars from Germany, Italy, Nigeria, Switzerland, and representatives of international organizations including UNHCR and IOM.
Representing GAPs, Dr. Zeynep Şahin-Mencütek, project coordinator and senior researcher at BICC, presented lessons learned from intergovernmental negotiations on return and readmission, highlighting dynamics of cooperation between states. Her presentation examined how international cooperation is shaped or predetermined, the role of international organizations and inter-state consultations in facilitating return diplomacy, and the significance of formal agreements, political conditionality, and their impact on both efficiency and legitimacy.
Discussions throughout the day also addressed often-overlooked factors that hinder equitable cooperation on return and explored potential policy recommendations to foster more balanced international frameworks.