Complementary Pathways: New Horizons or Muddied Waters?

Abstract Amid ongoing displacement crises and shrinking protection space, complementary pathways have emerged as promising avenues for refugees to find safety and solutions through work, study, and sponsorship programmes. Framed as “complementary to” more traditional solutions, such as resettlement, they engage a wider range of actors and aim to benefit both refugees and host States. However, this article argues that linking complementary pathways too closely to resettlement and framing them as protection-based “solutions” is both conceptually and practically problematic. Scrutinising the origins and central promises of complementary pathways, we show how this framing risks weakening protection standards, masking resource limitations, and constraining the broader mobility potential of these pathways. Rather than expanding durable solutions, current models may inadvertently reinforce a tiered system of refugee rights and exclude those most in need. We call for a repositioning of complementary pathways within the wider field of mobility governance, decoupled from their subsidiary relationship to resettlement. Such an approach could enhance protection for those displaced within migration governance, rather than merely adjacent to it. This reframing, we argue, would better support equitable, rights-based migration opportunities, while safeguarding the humanitarian principles central to the international protection regime.