The Levan Alexidze Foundation hosted an international webinar on “Migration and Covid-19”
The Academician Levan Alexidze Foundation, in close cooperation with the International Centre for Migration Policy Development, hosted an international webinar on the topic “Migration and Covid-19”.
The international webinar brought together representatives of academia and international organisations, international researchers and young scholars. In particular, representatives of the Sussex and Maastricht Universities, Tbilisi State University, Georgian American University, Caucasus University and Geocase, as well as the International Centre for Migration Policy Development, joined that initiative of the Levan Alexidze Foundation which continued the tradition of holding annual National Conferences on Migration, as initiated by Academician Levan Alexidze and Professor Ketevan Khutsishvili in 2014.
To promote academic discourse around one of the the most acute, topical issues for the international community, Conference speakers first addressed the influence of Covid-19 on migration, the economic impact of the resulting crises on labour migrants, as well as the importance of further research regarding the influence of the pandemic on the migratory processes, and the need to collect reliable statistical data for further research.
The second section of the webinar was dedicated to realities related to migration and the Covid-19 pandemic in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. Particular attention was devoted thereby to the different approaches adopted by States, as well as legal limitations of restrictive measures in the view of balancing state sovereignty and human rights protection. The discussion also focused on the role of the World Health Organisation in managing and coordinating global health related issues within the UN system. Specific attention was paid to the degree and importance of WHO’s dependence on member states in data collection and monitoring.
The concluding section of the international webinar was devoted to the presentation of the results of related academic explorations of young researchers. The discussion, among others, focused on the following topics: effects of Covid-19 on the protection afforded to asylum seekers and the “rights framework” for (undocumented) labour migrants during the pandemic. The young researchers presented their findings about the possible influence of migratory processes on the pandemic, discriminatory perceptions in respect of migrants against the background of the global pandemic, etc.
In conclusion, the Founder of the Academician Levan Alexidze Foundation, Prof. Dr. Marina Meskhi, expressed her conviction that, as demonstrated in this webinar, the cycle of public lectures and scientific conferences dedicated to Professor Levan Alexidze in collaboration with research centres around the world and international organisations, will continue to advance also in cyber space, considering the new realities.
The Academician Levan Alexidze Foundation was established on the initiative of Professor Ketevan Khutsishvili in 2019, in order to advance Academician Levan Alexidze’s professional legacy and promote Georgia’s International Law school established by him.