“Regional Disembarkation Platforms” and “Controlled Centres”: Lifting The Drawbridge, Reaching out Across The Mediterranean, or Going Nowhere?
European Union, September 14, 2018
Assuming that the EU and the EUMS are committed to respecting international and EU law, and that they don’t plan to upend the institutional structure of the CEAS by establishing common processing centres offshore, no “game changers” are within easy reach. As shown, Regional Disembarkation Platforms (RDPs) are highly unlikely to add anything of substance to the EU’s already extensive “externalization toolbox.” Controlled Centres (CCs) in EUMS, for their part, are unlikely to ever take off absent predictable solidarity arrangements (as opposed to: fuzzy solidarity promises). This supposed exit from Europe’s solidarity conundrum leads, in fact, back around to it.
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Aug31
The Spanish-Moroccan border: Forgotten refugee zone
August 31, 2018
This article analyzes the practices of Spain and Morocco towards refugees near the Hispano-Moroccan borders and aims to better understand not only the illegality of “hot returns” and repression toward refugees, but also the ways in which the European Union (“EU”) accomplishes and perpetuates the externalization of its borders to North Africa.
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Aug24
The Issue of Our Generation: An Interview with Lara Finkbeiner, Deputy Legal Director, International Refugee Assistance Project
August 24, 2018
On July 10, 2018 RefLaw Managing Editor Kara Naseef interviewed International Refugee Assistance Project (IRAP) Deputy Legal Director, Lara Finkbeiner about recent developments in international refugee law. What follows is an edited version of that interview.
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Aug17
Support for Refugees with Disabilities and Other Specific Health Care Needs
August 17, 2018
Chapters 2 and 3 of the 1951 Refugee Convention enumerate the rights granted to recognized refugees. Many of those rights—public education, association, gainful employment, etc., cannot be realized if Member States do not provide accommodations for disabilities.
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Jul24
A Review of the Attorney General’s Review(s)
U.S., July 24, 2018
Sessions’ Matter of A-B- decision, together with previous decisions, ignores the plight of refugees fleeing gang and domestic violence in Southern and Central America and violates international obligations.
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Jul10
Taking Subjectivity Out of the Serious Harm Determination
July 10, 2018
The Sixth Circuit should have carefully laid out a standard for serious harm instead of simply rejecting the violation of a human right as an insufficient basis for granting asylum.
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Jun22
Contemplating a Forcible Return to Syria
June 22, 2018
The Illegality and Immorality of Returning Syrian Refugees Against Their Will.
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Jun16
Refugee Status Determination by South Pacific Island Countries: Legal Overview, Recent Developments, and a Brief Critique
June 16, 2018
South Pacific island countries should carefully consider the legal and ethical issues relating to Australia’s practice of offshore asylum processing and the role they play in this practice.
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Jun1
Anti-Gang/Guerrilla Opinions are Political Opinions
June 1, 2018
[W]hen adjudicators fail to recognize these opinions as political, they deny some deserving applicants protection the Convention guarantees.
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May29
Refugee Law in Ecuador: An Interview with Liliya Paraketsova, 2017 PRAL Fellow
Ecuador, May 29, 2018
On March 22, 2018, RefLaw Associate Editor Sam Kulhanek interviewed Liliya Paraketsova, a 2017 Fellow of the Michigan Law Program in Refugee and Asylum Law (PRAL), about her experience working with the Asylum Access regional office for Latin America in Ecuador. What follows is an edited version of that interview. The views and opinions represented are solely Liliya's and do not necessarily reflect the views of Asylum Access.
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