The Architecture of Containment: Refugee Protection in a Postliberal Order

Abstract This essay argues that the global refugee regime is undergoing a fundamental transformation. While the 1951 Refugee Convention and its legal framework remain formally intact, their practical application has shifted toward a model of flexible containment. Rather than offering protection within their own borders, states increasingly manage displacement through externalization, legal ambiguity, and informal cooperation. Drawing on the concepts of institutional drift and legal substitution, the essay shows how states recalibrate their obligations without renouncing them, preserving the appearance of compliance while limiting access to asylum. These practices form a broader architecture of containment, characterized by border externalization, procedural delays, and institutional delegation. What emerges is not the collapse of the refugee regime but its reconfiguration around a postliberal logic that prioritizes sovereignty, discretion, and risk management over multilateralism and rights enforcement. By tracing this shift across legal frameworks and policy instruments, the essay contributes to debates on norm erosion, soft law, and the future of international cooperation. It concludes by calling for a rethinking of solidarity and responsibility in global governance, recognizing that the challenge is not simply to restore past commitments but to confront the evolving politics of mobility and protection in a fragmented international order.