International Refugee Law Book Series
The International Refugee Law Book Series is published by Martinus Nijhoff under the auspices of the Refugee Law Initiative. It provides a platform for outstanding new studies of the intersecting legal regimes for the protection of refugees and displaced persons. Monographs and edited volumes in the series aim to advance scholarly and practitioner insight into how ‘refugee law’ is evolving globally, focusing particularly on its interaction with other bodies of international law and manifestation in regions outside Europe. The series is available to purchase online here.
For questions regarding the book series, or to submit a manuscript or proposal for consideration, please contact the Editor-in-Chief at david.cantor@sas.ac.uk.
Editor-in-Chief: Dr David James Cantor
Editorial Board: Professor Deborah Anker, Professor Bhupinder Chimni , Professor Geoff Gilbert, Professor Guy-Goodwin-Gill, Professor Liliana Jubilut, Professor Hélène Lambert, Professor Bonaventure Rutinwa, Dr Volker Türk, Professor Susan Kneebone
The Refugee Status of Persons with Disabilities
Author: Stephanie Anna Motz
Persons with disabilities often face persecution. How does the 1951 Refugee Convention apply to them? In this first comprehensive study on the refugee definition for persons with disabilities, Stephanie Motz proposes adisability-specific approach to refugee status. The book provides a critical analysis of case law on refugee status determination focusing on four selected jurisdictions. Each chapter examines a different element of the refugee definition in light of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities as well as international refugee law standards.
This book is of particular interest to refugee and disability law scholars and an essential tool for courts and tribunals, practitioners and state authorities in the application of the refugee definition to asylum claims of persons with disabilities.
Chinese Refugee Law
Author: Guofu Liu
Understanding Chinese refugee law is difficult for those outside China or unfamiliar with it due to the complex factors involved. Chinese Refugee Law offers a comprehensive, up-to-date, and readily accessible reference to Chinese refugee law. It focuses first on existing laws and practices relating to refugees in China, then offering a scholar's proposal for a law to handle with refugee affairs and implement the Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees. The book provides the detail, insight and background information needed to understand this complex area of law. It examines both existing Chinese statutes and relevant international documents, drawing on and comparing Chinese and English language sources. It is thus an invaluable resource for both Chinese and non-Chinese readers alike.
Exile within Borders
Author: Gabriel Cardona-Fox
Twenty years after the introduction of the UN Guiding Principles for the Protection of Internally Displaced Persons, very little is known about their effectiveness in altering state behavior towards their displaced populations. In this book Gabriel Cardona-Fox takes a systematic and global first look at patterns of commitment and compliance with the IDP regime. Through the innovative use of statistical analysis on all documented cases of displacement and an in-depth case study of Colombia’s evolving response towards internal displacement, this book identifies the domestic and international forces that drive some states to institute and comply with these guidelines. Exile Within Borders fills an important gap in the literature and moves the debate over the regime’s effectiveness beyond anecdotal evidence.
The Internal Protection Alternative
in Refugee Law
Treaty Basis and Scope of Application under the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and Its 1967 Protocol
Author: Jessica Schultz
Under what circumstances can a state refuse refugee status to a person whose risk of persecution exists in only part of her country of origin? This book is the first monograph to examine the treaty basis and criteria for the ‘internal protection alternative’ (IPA), an exception to refugee status increasingly invoked by state parties to the 1951 Refugee Convention and its 1967 Protocol. Through a critical analysis of the relationship between refugee law and related fields, Schultz finds that the legal scope for IPA practice is narrower than is commonly claimed. Since persons subject to an IPA analysis have a well-founded fear of persecution within their countries of origin, any limit on their right to refugee status must involve a careful balancing of the impact of continued displacement against the state's interest in preserving its restricted protection resources. She argues that the doctrine of implied limits in human rights law can provide analytic structure to the IPA concept and reduce the risk of overly broad application.
The New Asylum and Transit Countries in
Europe During and in the Aftermath of the
2015/2016 Crisis
Editors: Vladislava Stoyanova and Eleni Karageorgiou
Understanding the realities of protection in a Europe that had failed to manage the crisis in asylum that unfolded in 2015 and 2016 requires a comprehension of how law shapes and distorts refugee protection practices in frontline states. In this collection Vladislava Stoyanova and Eleni Karageorgiou provide an essential cartography of the state of asylum during the crisis. The volume captures four dynamics: the absorption of EU norms in Central and South Eastern Europe; the reaction in this region to the massive movement of asylum seekers in 2015 and 2016; the initiation of normative developments in the area of asylum during and beyond the crisis by the countries in this region; and the question of solidarity.
Returns of Internally Displaced Persons
during Armed Conflict
International Law and its Application in Colombia
Dr. David James Cantor
By 2017, it was estimated that over 40 million people were displaced within their own countries by conflict and violence across at least 56 countries worldwide. Solutions to the epidemic of forced internal displacement are frequently premised on the return of internally displaced persons (IDPs). Indeed, as a characteristic need of IDPs, such returns benefit from a special protection framework developed by IDP protection instruments such as the Guiding Principles. However, the legal status of those instruments remains ambiguous, generating attendant questions about the congruity of the IDP return framework with existing international law. Moreover, limited knowledge exists on its practical implementation. As a result, both inter-national agencies and individual scholars have repeatedly issued urgent calls for comprehensive and grounded theoretical investigation into this topic. This book answers those long-standing calls for research by presenting a detailed study of the return of conflict-afffected IDPs under international law.
Protecting Stateless Persons
The Implementation of the Convention Relating to the Status of Stateless Persons across EU States
Dr. Katia Bianchini
In Protecting Stateless Persons: The Implementation of the Convention Relating to the Status of Stateless Persons across EU States, Katia Bianchini offers an in-depth comparative study of legislation, case-law and decision-making concerning the treatment of stateless persons in ten EU States. Focusing on whether and why statelessness determination procedures are needed, what their constituent elements should be, how the definition of "stateless person" is interpreted and applied, and what rights are attached to the granting of status, Katia Bianchini critically examines current national legal frameworks, and points a way forward for more effective legislation and practice in the area of statelessness. Against this backdrop, she adds insights into the wider debate on how human rights treaties should be implemented.
Temporary Protection in Law and Practice
Dr. Meltem Ineli-Ciger
Temporary protection is a flexible tool of international protection, which offers sanctuary to those fleeing humanitarian crises, and currently affects the lives and legal status of millions of forced migrants. However, the content, boundaries and legal foundation of temporary protection, remain largely undefined or unsettled. There are only a few instruments that provide guidance to states on how to respond to mass influx situations and how to implement temporary protection regimes. In Temporary Protection in Law and Practice, Meltem Ineli-Ciger takes a step towards clarifying those undefined aspects of temporary protection, by examining temporary protection’s legal foundation in international law and its relationship with the Refugee Convention. The book also reviews temporary protection policies in Europe, Southeast Asia, Türkiye and the United States, with a view to identifying elements that enhance and compromise the legality and viability of temporary protection regimes. Building on this analysis and legal limitations to the freedom of states to conceptualize different aspects of temporary protection, this book provides guidance to states on how to introduce and implement a viable temporary protection regime, which operates within the boundaries of international law and international human rights law.
The International Legal Status and Protection of Environmentally-Displaced Persons: A European Perspective
Dr Hélène Ragheboom
In The International Legal Status and Protection of Environmentally-Displaced Persons: A European Perspective, Hélène Ragheboom addresses the topical issue of displacement caused by environmental factors and analyses in particular whether affected persons, who are unable or unwilling to return to their country of origin due to the severe degradation of their living environment, could or, in the negative, should receive some form of international protection within the European Union. The author provides a detailed analysis of relevant instruments of refugee law and international human rights law, and explores possible future approaches to addressing the phenomenon of environmental displacement, ranging from constructive interpretations of existing norms to the allegedly preferable creation of a multidisciplinary sui generis framework.
'Boat Refugees' and Migrants at Sea: A Comprehensive Approach
Edited by Violeta Moreno-Lax and Efthymios Papastavridis
This book aims to address ‘boat migration’ with a holistic approach. The different chapters consider the multiple facets of the phenomenon and the complex challenges they pose, bringing together knowledge from several disciplines and regions of the world within a single collection. Together, they provide an integrated picture of transnational movements of people by sea with a view to making a decisive contribution to our understanding of current trends and future perspectives and their treatment from legal-doctrinal, legal-theoretical, and non-legal angles. The final goal is to unpack the tension that exists between security concerns and individual rights in this context and identify tools and strategies to adequately manage its various components, garnering an inter-regional / multi-disciplinary dialogue, including input from international law, law of the sea, maritime security, migration and refugee studies, and human rights, to address the position of ‘migrants at sea’ thoroughly.
Seeking Asylum in the European Union
Edited by Céline Bauloz, Meltem Ineli-Ciger, Sarah Singer and Vladislava Stoyanova
Seeking asylum in the European Union (EU) today is as complex as the EU asylum system itself: the different forms of protection that exist do not remain easily accessible and are sometimes not tailored to the specific protection needs of asylum-seekers. The aim of this volume is to provide critical analyses of selected problems that scholars and policy-makers will have to address in the ‘second phase’ of the Common European Asylum System. A broad range of issues are examined relating to access to and qualification for international protection and the further problems raised by this amended set of asylum instruments which continue to impede asylum-seekers from benefiting from effective protection in EU Member States.
Exploring the Boundaries of Refugee Law
Edited by Jean-Pierre Gauci, Mariagiulia Giuffré and Evangelia (Lilian) Tsourdi
Protection challenges around the globe require innovative legal, policy and practical responses. Drawing primarily from a new generation of researchers in the field of refugee law, this volume explores the ‘boundaries’ of refugee law. On the one hand, it ascertains the scope of the legal provisions by highlighting new trends in State practice and analysing the jurisprudence of international human rights bodies, as well as national and international Courts. On the other hand, it marks the boundaries of refugee law as ‘legal frontiers’ whilst exploring new approaches and new frameworks that are necessary in order to address the emerging protection challenges.
Refuge from Inhumanity? War Refugees and International Humanitarian Law
Edited by David James Cantor and Jean-François Durieux
This book contributes to a long-standing but ever topical debate about whether persons fleeing war to seek asylum in another country – ‘war refugees’ – are protected by international law. It seeks to add to this debate by bringing together a detailed set of analyses examining the extent to which the application of international humanitarian law (IHL) may usefully advance the legal protection of such persons. This generates a range of questions about the respective protection frameworks established under international refugee law and IHL and, specifically, the potential for interaction between them. As the first collection to deal with the subject, the eighteen chapters that make up this unique volume supply a range of perspectives on how the relationship between these two separate fields of law may be articulated and whether IHL may contribute to providing refuge from the inhumanity of war.
Protecting Civilians in Refugee Camps
Unable and Unwilling States, UNHCR and International Responsibility
Maja Janmyr
Rather than serving as civilian and humanitarian safe havens, refugee camps are notorious for their insecurity. Due to the host state’s inability or unwillingness to provide protection, camps are often administered by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and its implementing partners. When a violation occurs in these situations, to which actors shall responsibility be allocated? Through an analysis of the International Law Commission’s work on international responsibility, Maja Janmyr argues that the ‘primary’ responsibility of states does not exclude the responsibilities of other actors. Using the example of Uganda, Janmyr questions the general assumption that ‘unable and unwilling’ is the same as ‘unable or unwilling’, and argues for the necessity of distinguishing between these two scenarios. Doing so leads to different conclusions in terms of responsibility for the state, and therefore for UNHCR and its implementing partners.