‘Now’, Ep. 8: Oliver Della Costa Stuenkel on the Refugee Crisis in Latin America

I took the opportunity when sitting down with Oliver Della Costa Stuenkel to discuss the BRICS (Summit Dialogue: Episode 6) to raise with Oliver the serious refugee crisis that engulfs a number of Latin American states arising from the Venezuelan political crisis. This refugee crisis is unmatched in recent Latin American history and has hit a number of frontline states including Columbia, Peru, Brazil, Ecuador and Argentina. For a hemisphere that has advanced a number of regional organizations, it is startling to see the lack of regional effort, if only with respect to the humanitarian aspects of this crisis. Why has there been so little regional effort to deal with this human crisis? Oliver is an associate professor of international relations at Getulio Vargas Foundation (FGV) in Sao Paulo. There, with a number of his colleagues, he is launching a new School of International Relations. Oliver has written extensively on the politics of the rising powers, including The BRICS and the Future of the Global Order and his most recent book from Polity, Post-Western World: How Emerging Powers are Remaking the Global Order. He is a frequent commentator on the Hemisphere in journals and in the media across the region.