Refugees, Law and Crises

Catalog description

How does international law respond to global challenges confronting refugees and states? In recent years 68.5 million men, women, and children worldwide have fled their homes due to conflict, natural disaster, violence, and persecution, amounting to the highest level of forced migration since WWII. Those who manage to cross international borders confront a global refugee system in crisis, with no consensus as to how it should be reformed. This course explores the history of the international refugee regime and the limitations of international law and governance. It asks how the ever-present tension between the sovereign right of states to control their borders and the international duties owed to refugees has influenced the way that international law has been shaped and interpreted by countries across the world's major regions. Taking a comparative approach via African, Latin American, Asian, European and Middle Eastern case studies, the course will conclude by examining the UN Global Compact for Migration, adopted in Dec 2018, which provides an occasion for critical analysis of the international community’s attempt to create an effective and humane regime for protecting refugees.