LAWS6198: Refugee Law

Refugee Law provides students with a practical and theoretical understanding of the development and operation of international refugee law and forced migration more broadly. Forced migration is not a new phenomenon. What has changed over the last century is the scale and frequency of the conflagrations causing the mass movement of peoples and the ease with which individuals have become able to move around the world in search of protection. Although Australias experience of direct refugee flows has been limited it has not escaped the phenomenon of mobile refugees Noncitizens who come uninvited and thereafter seek protection as refugees are the source of inordinate public concern and debate. The controversy arises in part from a sense of loss of control of immigration and also from the cost of the processes available to asylum seekers fighting to remain here. Having signed and ratified the key international treaties Australia has assumed certain international legal obligations with respect to refugees. The most important is the obligation not to return or refoule a refugee to a place where she or he faces persecution on one of five grounds. This unit is designed to give students a critical understanding of the international legal regime of refugee protection It begins with an overview of the evolution of refugee law at the international level considering the various conceptualizations of refugeehood that have characterized international agreements from the period of the League of Nations through to the present day. The unit then turns to issues such as the definition of the term refugee under international and regional law the express exclusion of certain persons from refugee status the rights and obligations accorded to refugees the broadening of international protection through principles of human rights and humanitarian law complementary protection and the impact of terrorism on asylum procedures and eligibility. It considers attempts by States to restrict access to asylum through mechanisms such as carrier sanctions interdiction transit processing centres detention and safe third countries to which asylum seekers may be removed. Contemporary protection concerns such as mass influx situations and temporary protection flight from generalized violence and civil war internal displacement burden-sharing and the question of economic migrants and environmental refugees are also addressed. These considerations necessarily require an understanding of the role of international organizations such as UNHCR, the mechanisms in place for refugee status determination and appeals in Australia and abroad and the jurisprudence that has developed internationally and in Australia relating to the qualification and rights of asylum seekers refugees and other persons in need of protection. Refer to the Sydney Law School timetable - https://canvas.sydney.edu.au/courses/4533/pages/postgraduate-lecture-timetable