Detailed Description

Remittances, money sent by migrants to their countries of origin, have been the main source of external finance for low and middle-income countries (LMICs) except China since 2015. For such countries, remittances exceed overseas development aid and foreign direct investment flows. In 2024, remittances to LMICs were estimated to amount to 685 billion dollars, a sum that would have been even greater if migrants did not lose up to 10% of each remittance transfer in transaction fees. Despite the centrality of remittances to migration, and increasing recognition of the unfairness of current levels of remittance transaction costs, there is a paucity of scholarship that explores remittances from a migrants’ rights perspective. This seminar, generously supported by funding from the Modern Law Review and Oxford Development Studies, aims to address this gap in the scholarship by bringing together key figures working on the issue of remittances in a range of international institutions as well as emerging and established academics from a diversity of disciplines.