Hemming close: a comparative analysis of Turkish and Colombian refugee regularisation frameworks

How do states facing sudden, large-scale displaced people reconcile international commitments with other state priorities? Existing scholarship has often emphasised deterrence, exclusion, and strategic non-compliance with refugee norms. This article argues that ad hoc regularisation has emerged as an alternative governance strategy. By granting temporary, revocable, and selectively targeted legal statuses outside formal asylum channels, states can provide protection at scale while avoiding the binding commitments associated with international refugee recognition. Based on a comparative case analysis of Türkiye’s and Colombia’s responses to mass displacement, the article shows that, despite differing legal commitments, both states converged on similar instruments of governance, including ad hoc legal categories, large-scale registration systems, conditional bundles of generous rights, and controlled pathways to permanence. This exploratory research contributes to scholarship on refugee governance by showing that international refugee law norms continue to shape state responses, but do so alongside enduring concerns about state capacity, sovereignty, and control, and that ad hoc regularisation can provide extensive rights.