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Full-Text Articles in Law
The Michigan Guidelines On Refugee Freedom Of Movement
The Michigan Guidelines On Refugee Freedom Of Movement
Michigan Journal of International Law
Despite the clear legal foundation of refugee freedom of movement at international law, states are also committed to the deterrence of human smuggling and trafficking, to the maintenance of effective general border controls, to safeguarding the critical interests of receiving communities, and to effectuating safe and dignified repatriation when refugee status comes to an end. Legal obligations to respect refugee freedom of movement therefore co-exist with, and must be reconciled to, other important commitments.
Special Feature: Eighth Colloquium On Challenges In International Refugee Law, James C. Hathaway
Special Feature: Eighth Colloquium On Challenges In International Refugee Law, James C. Hathaway
Michigan Journal of International Law
It is our hope that, as in the case of earlier Michigan Guidelines on the International Protection of Refugees, these unanimously agreed standards will inspire a thoughtful and principled debate among scholars, officials, and judicial and other refugee law decision-makers committed to the legally accurate and contextually sound application of international refugee law norms.
Refugees And The Right To Freedom Of Movement: From Flight To Return, Marjoleine Zieck
Refugees And The Right To Freedom Of Movement: From Flight To Return, Marjoleine Zieck
Michigan Journal of International Law
This background study focuses on the right to freedom of movement of refugees. It reviews the law pertaining to this freedom from the perspective of the spatial journey of refugees. This focus on the law means that extralegal considerations will not be taken into consideration. The analysis will not proceed from any perceived need for limits that should be accepted as “a product of realism about the strains that migration, especially high-volume migration or sudden influxes, can bring to a society.”
Toward A New Framework For Understanding Political Opinion, Catherine Dauvergne
Toward A New Framework For Understanding Political Opinion, Catherine Dauvergne
Michigan Journal of International Law
This paper was written to frame the work of the Seventh Colloquium on Challenges in International Refugee Law, held at the University of Michigan Faculty of Law, on March 27–29, 2015. To some extent, therefore, it has already served its purpose. It is somewhat tempting in the wake of the Colloquium to completely reconstruct the paper in light of the conversations and conclusions of that event. Such reconstruction, however, would be misleading. Instead, I have chosen to publish the paper in a form that is very similar to its earlier iteration, with a few corrections, clarifications, and explanatory notes about …
Identifying The Start Of Conflict: Conflict Recognition, Operational Realities And Accountability In The Post-9/11 World, Laurie R. Blank, Benjamin R. Farley
Identifying The Start Of Conflict: Conflict Recognition, Operational Realities And Accountability In The Post-9/11 World, Laurie R. Blank, Benjamin R. Farley
Michigan Journal of International Law
On December 19, 2008, the Convening Authority for the United States Military Commissions at Guantanamo Bay referred charges against Abd al-Rahim Hussein Muhammed Abdu Al-Nashiri for his role in the October 2000 bombing of the U.S.S. Cole. The charge sheet alleged that al-Nashiri committed several acts—including murder in violation of the law of war, perfidy, destruction of property—”in the context of and associated with armed conflict” on or about October 12, 2000 in connection with the bombing. At the time of the attack, the statement that the United States was engaged in an armed conflict would have been a surprise …
Non-Refoulement In A World Of Cooperative Deterrence, Thomas Gammeltoft-Hansen, James C. Hathaway
Non-Refoulement In A World Of Cooperative Deterrence, Thomas Gammeltoft-Hansen, James C. Hathaway
Articles
Developed states have what might charitably be called a schizophrenic attitude towards international refugee law. Determined to remain formally engaged with refugee law and yet unwavering in their commitment to avoid assuming their fair share of practical responsibilities under that regime, wealthier countries have embraced the politics of non-entrée, comprising efforts to keep refugees away from their territories but without formally resiling from treaty obligations. As the early generation of non-entrée practices — visa controls and carrier sanctions, the establishment of “international zones,” and high seas deterrence — have proved increasingly vulnerable to practical and legal challenges, new forms of …
Defensive Force Against Non-State Actors: The State Of Play, Monica Hakimi
Defensive Force Against Non-State Actors: The State Of Play, Monica Hakimi
Articles
This article assesses the implications of the current Syria situation for the international law on the use of defensive force against non-State actors. The law in this area is highly unsettled, with multiple legal positions in play. After mapping the legal terrain, the article shows that the Syria situation accentuates three preexisting trends. First, the claim that international law absolutely prohibits the use of defensive force against non-State actors is increasingly difficult to sustain. States, on the whole, have supported the operation against the so-called Islamic State in Syria. Second, States still have not coalesced around a legal standard on …
Toward A Legal Theory On The Responsibility To Protect, Monica Hakimi
Toward A Legal Theory On The Responsibility To Protect, Monica Hakimi
Articles
Over the past several decades, the central focus of international law has shifted from protecting only sovereign states to protecting individuals. Still, the worst imaginable human rights violations—genocides, ethnic cleansings, crimes against humanity, and systemic war crimes—occur with alarming frequency. And the international response is often slow or ineffectual. The most recent development for addressing this problem is the “responsibility to protect,” an idea that has received so much attention that it now goes simply by R2P. Almost all heads of state have endorsed R2P. The U.N. Secretary General has made R2P a top priority and issued multiple reports on …
Human Rights Obligations To The Poor, Monica Hakimi
Human Rights Obligations To The Poor, Monica Hakimi
Book Chapters
Poverty unquestionably detracts from the human rights mission. Modern human rights law recognizes a broad range of rights - for example, "to life, liberty, and security of person" and to adequate "food, clothing, and medical care."1 Any number of those rights might go unrealized in conditions of extreme poverty. However, human rights law has always been partly aspirational. For those seeking to improve the lives of the poor, the key question is not what rights exist but how to make those rights operational. What does human rights law actually require of states? And how might its obligations benefit the poor?
Refugees And Asylum, James C. Hathaway
Refugees And Asylum, James C. Hathaway
Book Chapters
During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, European governments enacted a series of immigration laws under which international migration was constrained in order to maximise advantage for States. These new, largely selfinterested laws clashed with the enormity of a series of major population displacements within Europe, including the flight of more than a million Russians between 1917 and 1922, and the exodus during the early 1920s of hundreds of thousands of Armenians from Turkey. The social crisis brought on by the de facto immigration of so many refugees - present without authorisation in countries where they enjoyed no protection …
An Emerging Norm - Determining The Meaning And Legal Status Of The Responsibility To Protect, Jonah Eaton
An Emerging Norm - Determining The Meaning And Legal Status Of The Responsibility To Protect, Jonah Eaton
Michigan Journal of International Law
The responsibility to protect, from its recent nativity in the 2001 report of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS), is the latest round in an old debate pitting the principle of nonintervention in the internal affairs of states against allowing such intervention to prevent gross and systematic violations of human rights. Advocates for the concept see it as an important new commitment by the international community, injecting new meaning into the tragically threadbare promise to never again allow mass atrocities to occur unchallenged. ICISS offered the concept of responsibility to protect as a new way to confront …
Left Out In The Cold: Trafficking Victims, Gender, And Misinterpretation Of The Refugee Convention's "Nexus" Requirement, Martina Pomeroy
Left Out In The Cold: Trafficking Victims, Gender, And Misinterpretation Of The Refugee Convention's "Nexus" Requirement, Martina Pomeroy
Michigan Journal of Gender & Law
Victims of human trafficking who seek international protection in their country of destination face a steep uphill battle. Special visa programs designed to regularize their status are often riddled with conditions that make them inaccessible to all but a very few victims. Despite widespread international agreement that the manifold harms inflicted upon the majority of trafficked persons generally rise to the level of persecution, and therefore that victims should be eligible to apply for asylum, many national courts misinterpret international refugee law standards and routinely deny refugee status to deserving applicants. Courts often refuse to recognize persecution on the basis …
Fifth Colloquium On Challenges In International Refugee Law. The Michigan Guidelines On The Right To Work., Penelope Mathew
Fifth Colloquium On Challenges In International Refugee Law. The Michigan Guidelines On The Right To Work., Penelope Mathew
Michigan Journal of International Law
An Explanatory Note covering the Fifth Michigan Colloquium on Challenges in International Refugee Law and the Right to Work.
The Michigan Guidelines On The Right To Work
The Michigan Guidelines On The Right To Work
Michigan Journal of International Law
The right to work is fundamental to human dignity. It is central to survival and development of the human personality. According to the International Labour Organization (ILO), decent work "sums up the aspirations of people in their working lives-for opportunity and income; rights, voice and recognition ..." Work is interrelated, interdependent with, and indivisible from the rights to life, equality, the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health, an adequate standard of living, the right to social security and/or social assistance, freedom of movement, freedom of association, and the rights to privacy and family life, among others.
State Bystander Responsibility, Monica Hakimi
State Bystander Responsibility, Monica Hakimi
Articles
International human rights law requires states to protect people from abuses committed by third parties. Decision-makers widely agree that states have such obligations, but no framework exists for identifying when states have them or what they require. The practice is to varying degrees splintered, inconsistent, and conceptually confused. This article presents a generalized framework to fill that void. The article argues that whether a state must protect someone from third-party harm depends on the state's relationship with the third party and on the kind of harm caused. A duty-holding state must take reasonable measures to restrain the abuser. That framework …
Jurisdiction Without Territory: From The Holy Roman Empire To The Responsibility To Protect, Anne Orford
Jurisdiction Without Territory: From The Holy Roman Empire To The Responsibility To Protect, Anne Orford
Michigan Journal of International Law
This Essay focuses upon one contemporary manifestation of that ongoing battle over the relationship between jurisdiction and control over territory-the emergence and institutionalization of the "responsibility to protect" concept. The idea that States and the international community have a responsibility to protect populations has shaped internationalist debates about conflict prevention, the use of force, and international administration since its development by the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS) in 2001. The responsibility to protect concept is premised on the notion, to quote former Secretary- General Kofi Annan, that "the primary raison d'être and duty" of every State is …
Human Security And The Rights Of Refugees: Transcending Territorial And Disciplinary Borders, Alice Edwards
Human Security And The Rights Of Refugees: Transcending Territorial And Disciplinary Borders, Alice Edwards
Michigan Journal of International Law
This Essay examines the concept of human security through the lens of refugee protection. In particular, the author asks whether the concept of human security could add anything to the international protection regime for refugees and asylum seekers under international law. Before international lawyers can reject the notion of human security on the basis of its non-legal, and therefore nonbinding, character, it is necessary to examine the gaps in the existing legal framework, into which policy discourse, including security discourse, may step in as an important player.
The Michigan Guidelines On Protection Elsewhere, Colloquium On Challenges In International Refugee Law
The Michigan Guidelines On Protection Elsewhere, Colloquium On Challenges In International Refugee Law
Other Publications
Refugees increasingly encounter laws and policies which provide that their protection needs will be considered or addressed somewhere other than in the territory of the state where they have sought, or intend to seek, protection. Such policies-including "country of first arrival," "safe third country," and extraterritorial processing rules and practices-raise both opportunities and challenges for international refugee law. They have the potential to respond to the Refugee Convention's concern "that the grant of asylum may place unduly heavy burdens on certain countries" by more fairly allocating protection responsibilities among states. But insistence that protection be provided elsewhere may also result …
Protection Elsewhere: The Legal Implications Of Requiring Refugees To Seek Protection In Another State, Michelle Foster
Protection Elsewhere: The Legal Implications Of Requiring Refugees To Seek Protection In Another State, Michelle Foster
Michigan Journal of International Law
This Article first questions the legitimacy of protection elsewhere practices. It then considers the circumstances in which the transfer of refugees might take place. It should be emphasized that the Michigan Guidelines set out the minimum requirements and constraints imposed by international law when a state wishes to implement a protection elsewhere policy. In addition, in some instances the Michigan Guidelines engage in "progressive development" of the law by suggesting safeguards that, while not strictly required by international law, should be respected in order to ensure the implementation of such policies in a way that protects and ensures the rights …
The False Panacea Of Offshore Deterrence, James C. Hathaway
The False Panacea Of Offshore Deterrence, James C. Hathaway
Articles
Governments take often shockingly blunt action to deter refugees and other migrants found on the high seas, in their island territories and in overseas enclaves. There is a pervasive belief that when deterrence is conducted at arms-length from the homeland it is either legitimate or, at the very least, immune from legal accountability.
Beyond State Sovereignty: The Protection Of Cultural Heritage As A Shared Interest Of Humanity, Francesco Francioni
Beyond State Sovereignty: The Protection Of Cultural Heritage As A Shared Interest Of Humanity, Francesco Francioni
Michigan Journal of International Law
In this paper the author will try to explore the topic from a different perspective: i.e. the emergence of cultural heritage as part of the shared interest of humanity, with the consequent need for international law to safeguard it in its material and living manifestations, including the cultural communities that create, perform and maintain it. Culture in itself is not extraneous to the formation of the modern nation State. Especially in the history of nineteenth century Europe, culture as language, religion, literary and artistic traditions provided the cement and the legitimizing element to support the claim to independent statehood.
Review Of Rethinking Refugee Law, By N. Nathwani. , James C. Hathaway
Review Of Rethinking Refugee Law, By N. Nathwani. , James C. Hathaway
Reviews
It is a wonderful thing when a work of scholarship is published just as policymakers are struggling with the issues that it seeks to address.
Pictures At A Global Exhibition, Noah Leavitt
Pictures At A Global Exhibition, Noah Leavitt
Michigan Journal of International Law
Review of We are the Poors by Ashwin Desai and In America's Court: How a Civil Lawyer Who Likes to Settle Stumbled Into a Criminal Trial by Thomas Geoghegan
Internal Protection/Relocation/Flight Alternative As An Aspect Of Refugee Status Determination, James C. Hathaway, Michelle Foster
Internal Protection/Relocation/Flight Alternative As An Aspect Of Refugee Status Determination, James C. Hathaway, Michelle Foster
Book Chapters
In many jurisdictions around the world, the possibility of an ‘internal flight alternative’(IFA) (often referred to as ‘internal relocation alternative’) is invoked to deny refugee status to persons at risk of being persecuted for a Convention reason in part, but not all, of their country of origin. In this, as in so many areas of refugee lawand policy, the viability of a universal commitment to protection is challenged by divergence in State practice. The goals of this paper are therefore, first, briefly to review the origins and development of the practice of considering IFA as an aspect of the refugee …
Who Should Watch Over Refugee Law?, James C. Hathaway
Who Should Watch Over Refugee Law?, James C. Hathaway
Articles
We simply cannot afford to sell out the future of refugee protection in a hasty bid to establish something that looks, more or less, like an oversight mechanism for the Refugee Convention.
Who Should Watch Over Refugee Law?, James C. Hathaway
Who Should Watch Over Refugee Law?, James C. Hathaway
Articles
We simply cannot afford to sell out the future of refugee protection in a hasty bid to establish something that looks, more or less, like an oversight mechanism for the Refugee Convention.
The Michigan Guidelines On The Internal Protection Alternative
The Michigan Guidelines On The Internal Protection Alternative
Michigan Journal of International Law
In many jurisdictions around the world, 'internal flight' or 'internal relocation' rules are increasingly relied upon to deny refugee status to persons at risk of persecution for a Convention reason in part, but not all, of their country of origin. In this, as in so many areas of refugee law and policy, the viability of a universal commitment to protection is challenged by divergence in state practice. These Guidelines seek to define the ways in which international refugee law should inform what the authors believe is more accurately described as the 'internal protection alternative.' It is the product of collective …
America's Apostasy, James C. Hathaway
America's Apostasy, James C. Hathaway
Articles
It has often struck me that the prominence of the Restatement of the Foreign Relations Law of the United States epitomizes the plight of international law in this country. The title of this standard reference on international law does not even refer to international law, but instead to foreign relations law. That is, it is meant to set out the standards by which we may legitimately judge the conduct of others. The clear, if unintended, message is that the Restatement is not really a codification of laws that bind us. And indeed, it is explicitly not just a codification, but …
Can International Refugee Law Be Made Relevant Again?, James C. Hathaway
Can International Refugee Law Be Made Relevant Again?, James C. Hathaway
Articles
Ironic though it may seem, I believe that the present breakdown in the authority of international refugee law is attributable to its failure explicitly to accommodate the reasonable preoccupations of governments in the countries to which refugees flee. International refugee law is part of a system of state self-regulation. It will therefore be respected only to the extent that receiving states believe that it fairly reconciles humanitarian objectives to their national interests. In contrast, refugee law arbitrarily assigns full legal responsibility for protection to whatever state asylum-seekers are able to reach. It is a peremptory regime. Apart from the right …
Making International Refugee Law Relevant Again: A Proposal For Collectivized And Solution-Oriented Protection, James C. Hathaway, R. Alexander Neve
Making International Refugee Law Relevant Again: A Proposal For Collectivized And Solution-Oriented Protection, James C. Hathaway, R. Alexander Neve
Articles
International refugee law is in crisis. Even as armed conflict and human rights abuse continue to force individuals and groups to flee their home countries, many governments are withdrawing from the legal duty to provide refugees with the protection they require. While governments proclaim a willingness to assist refugees as a matter of political discretion or humanitarian goodwill, they appear committed to a pattern of defensive strategies designed to avoid international legal responsibility toward involuntary migrants. Some see this shift away from a legal paradigm of refugee protection as a source for enhanced operational flexibility in the face of changed …