JournalTOCs

International Journal of Refugee Law
Journal Prestige (SJR): 0.389

Citation Impact (citeScore): 1
Number of Followers: 39

Hybrid journal (It can contain Open Access articles)
ISSN (Print) 0953-8186 - ISSN (Online) 1464-3715
Published by Oxford University Press

[412 journals]

International Refugee Law between Scholarship and Practice
- Authors: Byrne R; Gammeltoft-Hansen T.
  Pages: 181 - 199
  Abstract: Current challenges to the traditionally privileged position of law in both refugee policy and refugee studies invite scholars to consider carefully the approach we take to our craft. This article argues that refugee law scholarship is surrounded by thin walls, as researchers broker the ‘dual imperative’ to simultaneously advance knowledge and protection in a field heavily influenced by policy interests and networks of practitioners that actively take part in, and promote, scholarly production. These close links between the field and the policy world continue to shape research agendas, methodologies, and scholarly positions. This article draws from Bourdieusian field theory and legal sociology to offer a prism through which to look at the forces that influence refugee law research and to consider their implications for scholarship. It is argued that greater sensitivity to the underlying dynamics of our profession is essential, not only to ensure more inclusivity in the community of scholars and expand the current canon of refugee law, but ultimately to sustain claims to policy relevance.
  PubDate: Mon, 15 Jun 2020 00:00:00 GMT
  DOI: 10.1093/ijrl/eeaa011
  Issue No: Vol. 32, No. 2 (2020)
The Meaningful Participation of Refugees in Decision-Making Processes:
Questions of Law and Policy
- Authors: Harley T; Hobbs H.
  Pages: 200 - 226
  Abstract: There has been a significant push in recent years for greater and more meaningful participation of refugees in decision-making processes that affect them. This push is identifiable in a range of international instruments, including the 2016 New York Declaration for Refugees and Migrants and the 2018 Global Compact on Refugees, as well as numerous initiatives developed by refugees, civil society organizations, and international organizations at the local, national, and international level. This article considers the emergent drive for refugee participation from the perspective of both law and policy. It examines the evolution of the international legal framework, analysing the extent to which international refugee and human rights law mandate the inclusion of refugees in decisions that affect them. The article also explores the notion of participation in detail, teasing out several key challenges for consideration in the development of inclusive participatory processes. Drawing this material together, it explores two options that could further promote the moral, political, and ultimately legal authority for meaningfully including refugees in the design and implementation of policy. These options are indicators that establish baselines and track refugee participation in decision-making processes, and a new, non-binding United Nations declaration that clearly details the right of refugees to have some authority in decision-making processes that affect them.
  PubDate: Fri, 08 May 2020 00:00:00 GMT
  DOI: 10.1093/ijrl/eeaa010
  Issue No: Vol. 32, No. 2 (2020)
The Detention of Migrant Children: A Comparative Study of the United
States and Mexico
- Authors: Lee J; Ortega Velázquez E.
  Pages: 227 - 253
  Abstract: Detention facilities are no place for children who are irregular migrants. Yet both the United States (US) and Mexico have struggled with how to respond to the arrival of Central American children who are primarily fleeing violence. In these neighbouring countries, the detention of children reflects both an ineffective and misguided strategy to deter people from moving across their southern borders. This focus on border control is further reinforced by the US outsourcing of enforcement controls to Mexico. In the US, a preoccupation with border control can quickly undermine the purported interest of protecting migrant children because they lack the fundamental right to be free from detention. In Mexico, its role as a buffer State causes it to overlook its human rights, constitutional, and federal law commitments to the fundamental rights of children, while allowing practical obstacles to stand in the way of these legal obligations. This article examines how the political imperative of border control in the US influences the various approaches taken by the US and Mexico towards the detention of migrant children. It analyses the shortcomings and best practices of each system and concludes with recommended reforms that actualize the right of migrant children to be free from detention.
  PubDate: Thu, 23 Jul 2020 00:00:00 GMT
  DOI: 10.1093/ijrl/eeaa014
  Issue No: Vol. 32, No. 2 (2020)
When Law Forgets: Coherence and Memory in the Determination of Stateless
Palestinian Refugee Claims in Canada
- Authors: Blum J.
  Pages: 254 - 282
  Abstract: This article highlights the incoherence in Canada’s treatment of many Palestinian refugee claims, and argues that this state of affairs is best understood as a failure of legal memory. The drafters of the Refugee Convention recognized both Palestinian refugees’ collective entitlement to protection, and the distinct protection needs of stateless persons. Canadian refugee law, however, contains no trace of this history. As a result, refugee determination in Canada does not account for the persecution that caused and maintains Palestinian statelessness, and holds an often-misplaced focus on where a stateless person ‘habitually resided’ at the expense of where they are actually at risk. This article charts the path to the present legal regime for stateless Palestinian refugee claimants in Canada, and identifies three problematic trends in the application of the Convention refugee definition to Palestinian claims. Alternative interpretations of the law are then offered to restore recognition of the collective nature of the persecution of Palestinian refugees, and the distinct human rights problem of statelessness.
  PubDate: Tue, 25 Aug 2020 00:00:00 GMT
  DOI: 10.1093/ijrl/eeaa019
  Issue No: Vol. 32, No. 2 (2020)
‘The Makings of a Success’: The Global Compact on Refugees and the
Inaugural Global Refugee Forum
- Authors: Triggs G; Wall P.
  Pages: 283 - 339
  Abstract: The last five years have witnessed a dramatic increase in the number of forcibly displaced people worldwide, and a key part of the international response has been a multilateral and multi-stakeholder effort to develop an architecture to share more equitably and predictably the burden and responsibility for hosting and supporting the world’s refugees. This piece offers a reflective assessment of this regime-strengthening exercise – the key milestones of which have been the New York Declaration, the Global Compact on Refugees, and the first Global Refugee Forum – and assesses what has been achieved and what challenges still lie ahead. The Global Compact on Refugees is presented as the product of a ‘States plus’ approach to multilateralism that brought together a wide range of States, other stakeholders, and – importantly – refugees to fill a crucial gap in the international refugee protection regime. It seeks to do this by bolstering international cooperation with a view to enhancing protection and expanding access to solutions, building on existing and emerging trends, and laying the ground for future cooperation. The first Global Refugee Forum in December 2019 was an important and positive first step in the Compact’s implementation, but much more remains to be done before success can be declared.In postscript, the authors reflect on the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic, its impact on the international refugee response regime, and the role for the Global Compact on Refugees in the response.
  PubDate: Sun, 20 Sep 2020 00:00:00 GMT
  DOI: 10.1093/ijrl/eeaa024
  Issue No: Vol. 32, No. 2 (2020)
From the 1965 Bellagio Colloquium to the Adoption of the 1967 Protocol
relating to the Status of Refugees
- Authors: Barsky R.
  Pages: 340 - 363
  PubDate: Mon, 24 Aug 2020 00:00:00 GMT
  DOI: 10.1093/ijrl/eeaa013
  Issue No: Vol. 32, No. 2 (2020)
A Watching Brief on the Impacts of COVID-19 on the World’s Displaced
People
- Authors: McAdam J.
  Pages: 364 - 366
  Abstract: The COVID-19 epidemic is challenging us all. Its health, economic, social, and personal costs are already enormous, and they will continue to grow.
  PubDate: Fri, 18 Sep 2020 00:00:00 GMT
  DOI: 10.1093/ijrl/eeaa020
  Issue No: Vol. 32, No. 2 (2020)
We Can Secure Both Public Health and the Rights of Asylum Seekers to
Protection
- Authors: Triggs G.
  Pages: 367 - 369
  Abstract: The United Nations Secretary-General has declared the COVID-19 pandemic to be a global health crisis unlike any other in the 75-year history of the UN. The pandemic also creates an international protection crisis, for, in the face of COVID-19, we are all vulnerable. The virus has shown that it does not discriminate. Over 71 million asylum seekers and refugees and those who are internally displaced or stateless are especially vulnerable to health risks. Three-quarters of them live in overcrowded camps, settlements, makeshift shelters, or reception centres, where they lack access to adequate health care and sanitation. Social distancing and handwashing in clean water are difficult, if not impossible.
  PubDate: Mon, 07 Sep 2020 00:00:00 GMT
  DOI: 10.1093/ijrl/eeaa022
  Issue No: Vol. 32, No. 2 (2020)
By Refugees, for Refugees: Refugee Leadership during COVID-19, and beyond
- Authors: Alio M; Alrihawi S, Milner J, et al.
  Pages: 370 - 373
  Abstract: The speed with which COVID-19 has spread around the globe has been as extraordinary as the impact it has had on communities. This includes refugee communities, but in very particular ways. From refugees in remote and isolated camps, to refugees living in precarious conditions in urban settings, to all whose movement has been blocked by the closing of borders and increased State controls, scores of refugees have been significantly affected both by the arrival of the virus and by government policies implemented in response.
  PubDate: Fri, 18 Sep 2020 00:00:00 GMT
  DOI: 10.1093/ijrl/eeaa021
  Issue No: Vol. 32, No. 2 (2020)
COVID-19, Asylum in the EU, and the Great Expectations of Solidarity
- Authors: Tsourdi E.
  Pages: 374 - 380
  Abstract: ‘Stay at home. Wash your hands frequently with soap and water.’ These simple instructions could help save lives and flatten the coronavirus curve. Unfortunately, things are not so simple for the almost 39,000 asylum-seeking men, women, and children,11 among them thousands of unaccompanied children,22 residing on the Greek Aegean islands. Asylum seekers on the islands’ ‘hotspots’,33 where most are accommodated, face unsanitary conditions. There is one shower for every 500 people, and one toilet for every 160.44 To collect their meals, they must queue in line for hours, with hundreds of other people around them.55 The situation is no better on the mainland. Refugee camps and accommodation facilities in Ritsona, Malakasa, and Kranidi were placed into quarantine in the course of April 2020 after hundreds of asylum seekers tested positive for COVID-19.66
  PubDate: Fri, 18 Sep 2020 00:00:00 GMT
  DOI: 10.1093/ijrl/eeaa023
  Issue No: Vol. 32, No. 2 (2020)
Case Law Summaries
- Pages: 381 - 390
  Abstract: Prepared by the Case Law Editorial Team, from the Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law, UNSW Sydney: Tamara Wood (Coordinating Editor), Brian Barbour, Madeline Gleeson, Regina Jefferies, and Riona Moodley
  PubDate: Mon, 05 Oct 2020 00:00:00 GMT
  DOI: 10.1093/ijrl/eeaa012
  Issue No: Vol. 32, No. 2 (2020)
Refuge Lost: Asylum Law in an Interdependent World
- Authors: Storey H.
  Pages: 391 - 394
  Abstract: GhezelbashDaniel, Refuge Lost: Asylum Law in an Interdependent World (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge2018) xvii + 207 pp, ISBN 978-1-108-42525-4 (hbk), ISBN 978-1-108-44141-4 (pbk)
  PubDate: Mon, 05 Oct 2020 00:00:00 GMT
  DOI: 10.1093/ijrl/eeaa018
  Issue No: Vol. 32, No. 2 (2020)
Citizen Refugee: Forging the Indian Nation after Partition
- Authors: Gatrell P.
  Pages: 394 - 396
  Abstract: SenUditi, Citizen Refugee: Forging the Indian Nation after Partition (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge2018) xviii + 285 pp, ISBN 978-1-108-42561-2 (hbk)
  PubDate: Mon, 05 Oct 2020 00:00:00 GMT
  DOI: 10.1093/ijrl/eeaa016
  Issue No: Vol. 32, No. 2 (2020)
Banned: Immigration Enforcement in the Time of Trump
- Authors: Barsky R.
  Pages: 397 - 399
  Abstract: WadhiaShoba Sivaprasad, Banned: Immigration Enforcement in the Time of Trump (New York University Press, New York2019) viii + 195 pp, ISBN 9781479857463 (hbk)
  PubDate: Mon, 05 Oct 2020 00:00:00 GMT
  DOI: 10.1093/ijrl/eeaa015
  Issue No: Vol. 32, No. 2 (2020)
International Migration and Challenges in the Beginning of the
Twenty-First Century
- Authors: Sengul I.
  Pages: 400 - 402
  Abstract: İpekIşıl Zeynep Turkan and GoularasGökçe Bayındır (eds), International Migration and Challenges in the Beginning of the Twenty-First Century (Lexington Books, Lanham, MD2018) xii + 198 pp, ISBN 978-1-4985-8601-6 (hbk), ISBN 978-1-4985-8602-3 (ebk)
  PubDate: Mon, 05 Oct 2020 00:00:00 GMT
  DOI: 10.1093/ijrl/eeaa017
  Issue No: Vol. 32, No. 2 (2020)