Declarations on International Protection

The Refugee Law Initiative promulgates a Declaration on International Protection every two years.

The Declaration catalyses the refugee law expertise of the global research networks hosted at the RLI in order to develop targeted and creative legal thinking on the protection of refugees and other displaced persons.

The RLI Declarations on International Protection provide timely, expert guidance from the legal academic community specifically, and address topical cross-cutting legal challenges of fundamental importance for the protection of refugees and other displaced persons. The principal audience for each Declaration varies from topic to topic, but includes national and regional courts, international NGOs, international organisations, UN bodies and governments.

The process of creating each Declaration at the RLI is characterised by the fact that it is:

• Driven by early career experts, with key input of senior scholars;
• Involves an open and participatory approach; and
• Seeks to provide independent, high quality legal analysis.

Each RLI Declaration is posted open access on the RLI website. It is accompanied by a background analytical paper, which sets out the analysis on which each Declaration is based. We encourage readers to use and widely disseminate both the Declaration and its background paper.

2024 RLI Declaration and Analytical Paper

Please find below the links to the 2024 declaration and analytical paper which have been published on the International Journal of Refugee Law (IJRL) website:

• RLI Declaration on International Protection in the context of Disasters and Climate Change
• RLI Paper - International Protection, Disasters and Climate Change

You can also view our downloadable PDF versions of each document here: Declaration and Analytical Paper.

For further information, please contact Professor David Cantor or Steve Miron.