The only comprehensive analysis of international refugee rights, anchored in the hard facts of refugee life around the world.

Millions of people are forced to flee their homes as a result of various forms of persecution. The instruments to secure international protection are the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and its 1967 Protocol. This book examines challenges to the Convention.

The long-awaited second edition of this seminal text, reconceived as a critical analysis of the world's leading comparative asylum jurisprudence.

The essays selected and reproduced in this volume explore how international refugee law is dynamic and constantly evolving. From an instrument designed to protect mostly those civilians fleeing the worse excesses of World War II, the 1951 Refugee Convention has developed into a set of principles, customary rules, and values that are now firmly embedded in the human rights framework, and are applicable to a far broader range of refugees. In addition, international refugee law has been affected by international humanitarian law and international criminal law (and vice versa). Thus, there is a reinforcing dynamic in the development of these complementary areas of law. At the same time, in recent decades states have shown a renewed interest in managing migration, thereby raising issues of how to reconcile such interests with refugee protection principles. In addition, the emergence of concepts of participation and responsibility to protect promise to have an impact on international refugee law.

The book is designed to provide an overview of the development, meaning, and nature of international refugee law. The jurisprudence on the status of refugees, loss and denial of the refugees status, non-refoulement, asylum, problems and challenges of refugee protection, the law of return and the right of return, critical refugees and immigration law, and the role of international organizations in protection of refugees are revisited in the context of contemporary realities. The relationship between armed conflict, climate change, and human right violations induced refugees and the existing international refugee regime emerging will be succinctly highlighted and analysed in the book. This lucidly written and timely book will be immensely helpful to anyone grappling with the demonstrated inadequacies of international refugee law in real life situations today and desirous of the reorientation of its meaning and scope to cater for the changing needs and shared expectation of the international community in the 21st century.

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.

This Handbook draws together leading and emerging scholars to provide a comprehensive critical analysis of international refugee law. This book provides an account as well as a critique of the status quo, setting the agenda for future research in the field.

International migration law is an important field of international law, which has attracted exceptional interest in recent years. This book has been written from a wide variety of perspectives for those wanting to understand the legal framework that regulates migration. It is intended for students new to this field of study who seek an overview of its many components. It will also appeal to those who have focussed on a particular branch of international migration law but require an understanding of how their specialisation fits with other branches of the discipline. Written by migration law specialists and led by respected international experts, this volume draws upon the combined knowledge of international migration law and policy from academia; international, intergovernmental, regional and non-governmental organisations; and national governments. Additional features include case studies, maps, break-out boxes and references to resources which allow for a full understanding of the law in context.

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.