Publications
Published: 1 Jun 2016
“While the obligations under the Convention remain sound, the mechanisms for implementing those obligations are flawed in ways that too often lead states to act against their own values and interests, and which produce needless suffering amongst refugees. ” A global solution to a global refugee crisis. James C. Hathaway. European Papers, Vol. 1. 2016.
“The Home Office must learn from experience when agreeing the terms of any new contracts in this area, in particular with regard to performance standards, and must move more swiftly when delivery is not meeting operational needs.” An inspection of Home Office outsourced contracts for escorted and non-escorted removals and Cedars pre-departure accommodation July – November 2015. David Bolt, Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration. March 2016.
“UNRWA continues to provide protection and assistance to Palestinian refugees in the Occupied Territories and in neighbouring countries within its mandate, and an individual must demonstrate that UNRWA protection or assistance has ceased to be accessible. That is likely to be the case for Palestinian refugees from Syria, but each claim must be considered on its individual merits.” Asylum Policy Instruction, Article 1D of the Refugee Convention: Palestinian refugees assisted by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA). Home Office. 9 May 2016.
“In liberal-democratic societies there are two broad approaches to promoting human rights reforms and challenging abuses: working from the inside to achieve progress with the risk that principles may be compromised and good intentions confounded; or promoting change from the outside, which is more uncompromising but less influential, at least in the short-term.” Can inspection produce meaningful change in immigration detention? Hindpal Singh Bhui. Global Detention Project. 19 May 2016.
“Our research found wide discrepancies between Mexico’s law and the way it is enforced. Children who may have claims for refugee recognition confront multiple obstacles in applying for refugee recognition from the moment they are taken into custody by the National Institute of Migration (INM).” Closed Doors: Mexico’s failure to protect Central American refugee and migrant children. Human Rights Watch. 31 March 2016.
“Legislation restricts the way in which Ahmadis are able openly to practise their faith. The legislation not only prohibits preaching and other forms of proselytising but also in practice restricts other elements of manifesting one’s religious beliefs, such as holding open discourse about religion with non-Ahmadis.” Country Information and Guidance – Pakistan: Ahmadis. United Kingdom: Home Office. May 2016.
“Evidence suggests that both evangelical and non-evangelical Christians face increased discrimination and targeted attacks because of their faith. However, there are a large number of Christians in Pakistan and, whilst some individuals may be at greater risk, taken as a whole the evidence does not indicate that Christians are, in general, subject to a real risk of persecution or inhuman or degrading treatment.” Country Information and Guidance – Pakistan: Christians and Christian converts. United Kingdom: Home Office. May 2016.
“First-hand accounts from Central American women and their family members interviewed for this project reveal the dangerous and bleak circumstances of life these women and their children faced upon return to their home countries, as well as serious problems in the deportation process.” Detained, deceived, and deported: Experiences of recently deported Central American families. Guillermo Cantor, Ph.D. and Tory Johnson. American Immigration Council. May 2016.
“The Immigration and Refugee Protection Regulations (IRPR) presents a biological definition of family as a determinant of parenthood in the context of family reunification that is inconsistent with the psychosocial definition used in provincial family laws.” DNA testing for family reunification in Canada: Points to consider. Yann Joly, Shahad Salman, Ida Ngueng Feze, Palmira Granados Moreno, Michèle Stanton-Jean, Jacqueline Lacey, Micheline Labelle, Janet Dench, Edward S. Dove, Idil Atak, Coline Bellefleur, Torsten Heinemann, Hugues Langlais, and Roger Love. Journal of International Migration and Integration.
“More than half of the transgender women Human Rights Watch interviewed were held in men’s facilities at some point. Half also spent time in solitary confinement, in many cases allegedly for their protection.” ‘Do you see how much I’m suffering here?’: Abuse against transgender women in US immigration detention. Human Rights Watch. 23 March 2016.
“The present issue of the REDIAL Journal is the first one of the three that will be published in the course of 2016 dealing successively with Chapter II, III and IV of the Return Directive. It covers Chapter II related to the termination of illegal stay.” Electronic Journal on Judicial Interaction and the EU Return Policy First Edition: Articles 7 to 11 of the Return Directive 2008/115. Madalina Moraru and Géraldine Renaudiere. REturn Directive DIALogue – REDIAL. February 2016.
“The aim of this section is to offer a comparative overview of the national jurisprudence dealing with issues related to the interpretation and application of Article 7 Returns Directive.” European Synthesis Report on the Termination of Illegal Stay (Articles 7 to 11 of Directive 2008/115/EC). Philippe De Bruycker, Madalina Moraru and Géraldine Renaudiere. REDIAL. January 2016.
“This article focuses on deportation by air and engages largely with policies and practices relating to the UK deportation experience.” The flight of the deported: aircraft, deportation, and politics. William Walters. Geopolitics. 16 February 2016.
“The strict order and secrecy surrounding the return operations creates concerns related to both moral and human rights…such operations entail a manifest risk of inhuman and degrading treatment during operations prior to the deportation, during the actual flight or if the deportation is aborted.” Flights of shame or dignified return? Return flights and post-return monitoring. Jari Pirjola. European Journal of Migration and Law 17. 2015.
“During 2015, there were 27.8 million new displacements associated with conflict, violence and disasters in 127 countries. This is roughly equivalent to every man, woman and child in New York City, London, Paris and Cairo grabbing what they could carry and fleeing their homes in search of safety.” Global Report on Internal Displacement. Internal Displacement Monitoring Center. May 2016.
“We believe that this information provides strong evidence that civilians are being directly and deliberately targeted by the Sudanese government in Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile as all the attacks referred to in this report were launched against areas that were clearly identifiable as civilian in character.” Human Rights Update: January – February 2016. The Sudan Consortium.
“What she did was refocus it so that refugees, their hosts, government at different levels, and the emerging order composed of international and voluntary humanitarian agencies came to be seen as mutually evolving through complex interactions which simultaneously defined and changed them all.” Imposing Aid: The Ethnography of displacement and its aftermath. Elizabeth Colson. Kroeber Anthropological Society Papers, Vol. 99/100.
“More than 620,000 removal and asylum cases are pending, and many asylum seekers are waiting three to six years for resolution of their claims. The growing backlogs threaten to undercut the integrity of the US immigration system and expose vulnerable people and their families to prolonged separation and anguish as they wait.” In the balance: Backlogs delay protection in the US asylum and immigration court systems. Human Rights First. 19 April 2016.
“This article explores the inhibiting factors of monitoring immigration detention in Australia and offshore locations, and the prospects for securing systematic and transparent independent scrutiny should Australia ratify the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture (OPCAT).” The limitations of monitoring immigration detention in Australia. Australian Journal of Human Rights, 21 (1).
“In order to increase the access and effectiveness of micro-finance programmes for refugees, it is vital to gain a sound evidence base on refugee- run micro-savings and lending groups, and how they could be built upon and linked to MFIs.” (Loan) cycles of innovation: researching refugee-run micro-finance. Robert Hakiza and Evan Easton-Calabria. April 2016.
“All of these factors—extreme poverty; a lack of opportunity; a dysfunctional justice system; and astonishingly high rates of violence and crime—combine to push children and families out of the region.” A medium- and long-term plan to address the Central American refugee situation. By Dan Restrepo and Silva Mathema. Center for American Progress. 5 May 2016.
“It identifies how international refugee law has coped with issues that arise from the contribution of multiple parties to a single wrongful outcome.” The practice of shared responsibility in relation to refoulement. Maarten den Heijer. University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam Center for International Law. 20 April 2016.
“The European Agenda on Migration presented in May 2015 proposed the establishment of a single asylum decision process, to guarantee equal treatment of asylum seekers throughout Europe, and a mechanism for mutual recognition of positive asylum decisions. The European Commission now seems set to develop a relocation mechanism based on a distribution key.” Refugees, the European Union and the “Dublin system”. The Reasons for a Crisis. Bruno Nascimbene. European Papers, Vol. 1. 2016.
“In Britain, migrants are nearly twice as likely as locals to start a business and in Australia refugees are the most entrepreneurial migrants.” Refugees work: A humanitarian investment that yields economic dividends. Philippe Legrain. The Tent Foundation. May 2016.
“Federal appellate courts have warned that the practice might violate the statutory right to a fair hearing, or even constitutional due process, if it were to affect the ultimate decision at trial on the merits.” Remote adjudication in immigration. Ingrid V. Eagly. Northwestern University Law Review, Vol. 109, No. 4.
“The CJEU has held in the joined case of X & Y that risk avoidance should play no part in risk assessment whereas the majority in the chamber judgment at the ECtHRs in F.G. v Sweden disagreed and indicated that it does play a role in risk assessment.” The Researcher, Volume 11, Issue 1. Ireland: Refugee Documentation Centre. April 2016.
“What we need, says one author, is ‘full global recognition that the challenge of forced displacement is an integral part of the development agenda too.’” Thinking ahead: displacement, transition, solutions. Forced Migration Review. May 2016.
“Over the past two years, the Obama Administration has sought closer cooperation with Central American governments to dissuade children from making the journey to the United States, target smuggling networks, and repatriate unauthorized migrants.” Unaccompanied children from Central America: Foreign policy considerations. Congressional Research Service. 11 April 2016.
“Pentecostals and Evangelicals comprise the majority of religious prisoners…It has characterized these groups as being part of a foreign campaign to infiltrate the country, engaging in aggressive evangelism alien to Eritrea’s cultural traditions, and causing social divisions.” USCIRF Annual Report 2016 – Tier 1 CPCs designated by the State Department and recommended by USCIRF – Eritrea. United States Commission on International Religious Freedom. 2 May 2016.