Law Commons^™

Crisis Within A Crisis: A Comparative Analysis Of Covid-19’S Implications On Greece And Spain’S Migrant And Refugee Processing Policies, Injy Elhabrouk

Undergraduate Honors Theses

With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic came a collective global panic regarding health, safety, and security. Since the major outbreak of the coronavirus in March of 2020, few issues have received scrutiny and attention in the public sphere. Yet, the problems that existed before COVID-19 have not become obsolete, however, they were removed from the public eye. One such issue to receive less scrutiny is the treatment of the most vulnerable populations in the world—migrants and refugees. Spain and Greece’s locations on the Mediterranean Sea mean they are often the first place migrants seek refuge in their journey to …

Global Apathy And The Need For A New, Cooperative International Refugee Response, Emily Gleichert

Northwestern Journal of Law & Social Policy

While an increasing number of nations move toward isolationist, nationalist policies, the number of refugees worldwide is climbing to its highest levels since World War II. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is the international body tasked with protecting this population. However, the office’s traditional solutions for refugees – local integration, resettlement in a third country, and voluntary repatriation – have mostly eluded refugees who spend an average of twenty years in exile. The limitations UNHCR’s structure imposes on the office, specifically in its ability to fund its operations and compel nations to act, have contributed to its …

The Case Against Prosecuting Refugees, Evan J. Criddle

Faculty Publications

Within the past several years, the U.S. Department of Justice has pledged to prosecute asylum-seekers who enter the United States outside an official port of entry without inspection. This practice has contributed to mass incarceration and family separation at the U.S.–Mexico border, and it has prevented bona fide refugees from accessing relief in immigration court. Yet, federal judges have taken refugee prosecution in stride, assuming that refugees, like other foreign migrants, are subject to the full force of American criminal justice if they skirt domestic border controls. This assumption is gravely mistaken.

This Article shows that Congress has not authorized …

Who Is A Refugee?: Twenty-Five Years Of Domestic Implementation And Judicial Interpretation Of The 1969 Oaw And 1951 Un Refugee Conventions In Post-Apartheid South Africa, Tiyanjana Maluwa, Anton Katz

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

As a party to the UN Refugee Convention and the OAU Refugee Convention, South Africa is obligated to apply international refugee law when addressing the protection needs of asylum seekers in the country. The Refugees Act, 1998 encapsulates the cardinal principles of the two conventions. This essay discusses how government officials and judges have interpreted and applied these principles in asylum application cases. These cases demonstrate that officials are either not always fully conversant with the legal obligations, incumbent upon the government, arising from both international law and domestic law or purposefully ignore them. For the most part, officials tend …

Temporary Protection Status: A Yugoslavian Precedent, Medina Dzubur

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

Analyzing the past use of temporary protection status to shield those facing "ethnic cleansing, massacres, mass rapes, and cultural vandalism" is fundamental in understanding how this tool can be utilized to protect modern refugees, and why EU members have refused to implement this status further. In other words, should temporary protection status, considering the legal framework and the socioeconomic effects, be granted to Syrian refugees? This note argues in favor of granting temporary protection status to Syrian refugees because the status (1) offers a recourse for displaced persons that would not be covered by traditional legal protections, (2) produces quicker …

Refugees And Human Rights In French-Speaking Europe, Jacob Kang

French Summer Fellows

This paper seeks to explain the manner in which French-speaking European States, namely France, Switzerland, and Belgium, treat asylum seekers. To do so, we will first examine, the philosophical underpinnings of European conceptions of the state, of personhood, and of human rights. In doing so, we move to understand cultural attitudes towards asylum seekers through European philosophers such as Rousseau and Kant. The second aspect, the legal aspect, will explain the manner through which the aforementioned philosophies are reflected through governance in each of the states. Finally, we will examine the demographic profiles of the refugees and perform an outcomes …

Asylum Update: Ninth Circuit Upholds Injunction Against Third Country Rule, Peter Margulies

Law Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Nicolás Maduro’S Impunity Is A Foregone Conclusion: A Case For Replacing The Treaty-Based Rule Of Law Model With Universal Jurisdiction, Alec Waid

University of Miami Inter-American Law Review

No abstract provided.

Revisiting Immutability: Competing Frameworks For Adjudicating Asylum Claims Based On Membership In A Particular Social Group, Talia Shiff

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

The Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) defines a refugee as any person who has a “well-founded fear of persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion.” An emerging issue in U.S. asylum law is how to define the category “membership of a particular social group.” This question has become ever-more pressing in light of the fact that the majority of migrants seeking asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border are claiming persecution on account of their “membership in a particular social group.” The INA does not define the meaning of “particular social group” and …

Exploring The Overlap: Women Now’S Feminist Humanitarian Support And The Community Of Practice, Judith Bruce, Aisha Dennis

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

This conversation took place between Judith Bruce, Senior Associate and Policy Analyst of the Population Council, and Aisha Dennis, former Program Director for Women Now for Development. Women Now for Development’s mission is to initiate programs led by Syrian women that protect Syrian women and children across socioeconomic backgrounds and empower women to find their political voice and participate in building a new, peaceful Syria that respects and safeguards equal rights for all its citizens. Aisha’s impressive breadth of expertise includes conflict resolution and the application of international law through strategic litigation, as well as practical experience in supporting Syrian …

Series Editor's Preface, James C. Hathaway

Other Publications

Could we – should we – think differently about the ways in which refugees are assisted and protected? Is it possible to turn traditional thinking on its head by seeing refugees not as the objects of protection and assistance, but instead as the architects and managers of solutions?

The New Migration Law: Migrants, Refugees, And Citizens In An Anxious Age, Hiroshi Motomura

Cornell Law Review

Once every generation or so, entire fields of law require a full reset. We need to step back from the fray and rethink basic premises, ask new questions, and even recast the role of law itself. This moment has come for the law governing migration. Seasoned observers of immigration and refugee law have developed answers to core questions that emerged a generation ago. But now these observers often talk past each other, and their answers often fail to engage coherently with the daunting challenges posed by migration in this anxious age.

To try to do better, I undertake four inquiries. …

Talking Foreign Policy: The Rohingya Genocide, Milena Sterio, Todd Buchwald, Jenny Domino, Rebecca Hamilton, Michael P. Scharf, Paul R. Williams

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

Talking Foreign Policy is a production of Case Western Reserve University and is produced in partnership with 90.3 FM WCPN ideastream. Questions and comments about the topics discussed on the show, or to suggest future topics, go to talkingforeignpolicy@case.edu.

OCTOBER 1, 2019 BROADCAST

'Water Is Life!' (And Speech!): Death, Dissent, And Democracy In The Borderlands, Jason A. Cade

Scholarly Works

Decades of stringent immigration enforcement along the Southwest border have pushed migrants into perilous desert corridors. Thousands have died in border regions, out of the general public view, yet migrants continue to attempt the dangerous crossings. In response to what they see as a growing humanitarian crisis, activists from organizations such as No More Deaths seek to expand migrant access to water, to honor the human remains of those who did not survive the journey, and to influence public opinion about border enforcement policies. Government officials, however, have employed a range of tactics to repress this border-policy “dissent,” including blacklists, …