Access to Asylum
Current Challenges and Future Directions
Monash University Prato Centre, Italy
Thursday, 29 & Friday, 30 May 2014
Contents
Welcome…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
1
Program …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
3
Abstracts …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
7
Presenters Biographies …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
30
Welcome
The aim of this international conference is to determine how best to safeguard the rights of asylum seekers in
balance with the responsibilities of states. It will analyse relevant standards under regional instruments,
international human rights law, and the 1951 Refugee Convention. The conference will examine current
challenges faced by asylum seekers in gaining access to international refugee protection, the implications of
state practices for the rights of refugees, the responsibilities of states and their impact upon refugee status
determination procedures (RSD).
The conference is being organised by Dr Maria O’Sullivan and Professor Susan Kneebone, Faculty of Law, Monash
University with the support of the following:
•
•
•
•
•
The Faculty of Law, Monash University, Australia
The European Council for Refugees and Exiles (ECRE)
Dr David Cantor, Director, Refugee Law Initiative, University of London
Dr Dallal Stevens, Faculty of Law, Warwick University, UK
Professor Donald Galloway, Faculty of Law, University of Victoria, Canada.
The two day conference will have a range of plenary sessions with the final session to comprise a panel of
international experts on burden sharing.
There are two main opportunities to publish papers from the conference: the organisers are in the process of
securing publication of selected papers in book form and the Journal of Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Law
have kindly offered to consider papers in a ‘Special issue’ format.
If speakers wish to avail themselves of these opportunities, please email the conference organisers within two
weeks of the close of the conference (ie by 14 June 2014). It is expected that authors would be required to
provide finalised papers to the organisers in the period Nov 2014-Dec 2014, depending on the requirements of
the relevant publisher. Further details on deadlines and other matters will be provided after the conference.
Access to Asylum: Current Challenges and Future Directions
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Early Career Researcher Symposium
In conjunction with the Access to Asylum conference, an Early Career Researcher (ECR) Symposium will be held on
Wednesday 28 May. Due to venue space limitations the ECR Symposium will be limited to ECR participants /
invitees only.
Venue address and contact details:
Monash University Prato Centre
Address: Via Pugliesi, 26, 59100 Prato, Italy
Phone:+39 0574 43691
Contact details for conference organisers:
Dr Maria O’Sullivan
Professor Susan Kneebone
maria.osullivan@monash.edu
susan.kneebone@monash.edu
Phone in Italy: 3318 505 938
SPONSORS/SUPPORTERS
Access to Asylum: Current Challenges and Future Directions
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Program
Thursday 29 May - Access to Asylum - Recent International & Regional Developments
08:30 – 09:00
Registration
09:00 – 09:15
Introduction and Welcome by Conference Organisers - Room 2 Salone Grollo
09:15 – 10:00
Plenary 1: ‘Access to Asylum - Putting Asylum back into Refugee Law’
Room 2 Salone Grollo
Keynote Speaker: Dr David Cantor, Director, Refugee Law Initiative, University of London
10:00 – 10:30
Morning Tea - Main Bar/Sala Bilardio
10:30 – 12:15
Plenary 2: Accessing Asylum: Where do State Responsibilities Begin and End?
Room 2 Salone Grollo
Chair: Judge Judith Gleeson, Upper Tribunal (Immigration and Asylum Chamber), UK
The purpose of this plenary is to identify the relevant legal norms and to analyse the adequacy of
legal responses to the issue of ‘what should states do to provide meaningful access to an asylum
process.’
1. Dr Cathryn Costello, Refugee Studies Centre and Faculty of Law, Oxford University, ‘Norms
and human rights’ (p 12)
2. Julia Ivan, Hungarian Helsinki Committee, ‘Border Exclusions and State Responsibilities
3. Maria Hennessy, European Council on Refugees and Exiles (ECRE), ‘Access to an Asylum
Procedure: Challenges in the EU’
12:15 – 13:15
Lunch – Main Bar, Sala Biliardo, Sala Specchi
13:15 – 14.45
Concurrent Panel Session 1
Session A: Border Controls
at Sea: Frontex and
Interdiction
Room 2: Salone Grollo
Chair: TBC
Session B: Externalisation
and Privatisation of Borders
Room 6 – Sala Veneziana
Chair: Selma Porobic
Session C: Protection
Capacity Building: Refugee
Camps and Refugee
Autonomy
Room 14 – Sala Giochi
Chair: TBC
Session D: Protection and
Decision-making in the Asia
Pacific and African regions
Studio 1
Chair: Susan Kneebone
Dr Roland Bank, NonRefoulement and FrontexCo-ordinated operations:
Whose Responsibility?
(p 10)
Tania Penovic, Offshore and
outsourced: shifting
responsibility for the
management of asylum
seekers (p 22)
Matthew Zagor, The
Struggle of Autonomy and
Authenticity: Framing the
Savage Refugee (p 27)
Corey Johnson and Sergio
Carciotto, Cape Town, ‘No
Refuge: The State of Asylum
System in South Africa’
(p 17)
Emanuela Parisciani, Search
and Rescue Operations in
the Mediterranean Sea and
access to Asylum: another
‘Dublin’? (p 22)
Marco Formisano,
Extraterritorial Application
of Refugee Law –
Guantanamo’s Protected
Migrants (p 15)
Julian Lehmann, Anything
Goes in Protection Capacity
Building? Perspectives for
Multilateral Assistance in
Strengthening National
Asylum Systems (p 18)
Dr. Mi Zhou, RSD For Status
and RSD for resettlement –
Standards and
Opportunities (p 27)
Maria Valles Ferrero,
Fences to asylum: The role
of international law in
protecting the right to
access to asylum at Ceuta
and Melilla (p 14)
Dr. Claudia Tazreiter,
Externalizing the borders of
Australia: imaginary
pathologies of contagion
Kate Ogg, Protection from
Refuge: Rescue from and
Confinement to Camp Life
(p 21)
Shyla Vohra, Establishment
of a New National Refugee
Determination System:
Threats and Opportunities;
the Case of Nauru (p 26)
Access to Asylum: Current Challenges and Future Directions
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14.45-15.15
Afternoon tea - Main Bar, Sala Biliardo, Sala Specchi
15:15 – 17:00
Plenary Session 3: Access to Justice and Refugee Status Determination Procedures – Examples
from the USA, Latin America and The Middle East
Room 2: Salone Grollo; Chair: Dr Sean Rehaag, Osgoode Hall Law School
1. Professor Deborah Anker, Harvard University, ‘Refugee Law and Advocacy in a Refugee Law
Clinic, Access to Justice/ Access to Refugee Status’
2. Dr David Cantor, Director, Refugee Law Initiative, University of London, ‘ Accelerated
Procedures and Admissibility in Latin America’ (p 11)
3. Dr Reuven (Ruvi) Ziegler, University of Reading, School of Law, ‘On ‘Infiltrators’ and ‘Asylum
Seekers’ in Israel – the mishandling of Eritrean and Sudanese nationals’ (p 28)
4. Dr Dallal Stevens, University of Warwick, ‘Asylum and Protection Challenges in the Middle
East’ (p 26)
18.30-10.30
Conference Dinner – Villa La Fernanda
Via Papa Giovanni XXIII, 59015 Carmignano, Prato,
Phone: :+39 055 875 1426.
Two buses have been booked to transport delegates to the dinner. Buses leave from Piazza Santa
Maria delle Carceri at 6.30pm (see map in Conf pack, the bus stop is 5 mins walk from the Monash
Prato Centre).
We arrive at the villa for a 7pm dinner (4 courses, plus wine and coffee/tea).
Buses depart from the Villa for the return to Prato at 10.30pm sharp. The villa is approximately
30km from the Monash Prato Centre.
Access to Asylum: Current Challenges and Future Directions
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Friday 30 May – Access to Asylum - Obtaining Asylum
This sessions on Day 2 aim to address the difficulties faced by asylum seekers once they cross an international border
and obtain access to an asylum hearing and protection in a host country. It seeks to articulate best practices for
conducting reviews, including the assessment of country information; to examine the reception conditions for
asylum seekers, interpretation of the 1951 Refugee Convention, particular issues arising from vulnerable groups and
debates as to burden-sharing.
09:00 – 10:20
Plenary Session 4: Best practices in RSD – Consistency, Transparency and Scrutiny
Room 2: Salone Grollo; Chair: Dr Cathryn Costello, Oxford University
1. Dr Sean Rehaag, Osgoode Hall Law School, Centre for Refugee Studies, York University,
‘The New Appeal Process in Canadian RSD: An Evaluation of its Efficacy’
2. Linda Kirk, Senior Member, Refugee Review Tribunal Australia, ‘Consistency in RSD-Making
in Australia’
3. Prof Donald Galloway (joint presentation with Tess Acton), ‘Country Conditions,
Consistency and Reasons: A Challenge for the new Refugee Appeal Division’ (p 15)
10:20 – 10:40
Morning Tea Main Bar/Sala Bilardio
10.40 – 12:30
Concurrent Panel Session 2
Session A: Institutions and
decision-making on asylum
Room 2 - Salone Grollo
Chair: Rolf Driver
Session B: The interaction
between the international,
regional and national
Room 6 – Sala Veneziana
Chair: Madeline Garlick
Session C: Access to Asylum
and Reception
conditions/Social Rights
Room 14 – Sala Giochi
Chair: Tania Penovic
Session D: Denial of Access
to Asylum – Safe Country
designations and Exclusion
cases
Room - Sala Toscana
Chair: Ruvi Ziegler
Sean Baker, How the logic
of decision-making may
effect access to asylum,
Migration Review TribunalRefugee Review Tribunal
(p 9)
Bahija Aarrass, The Court of
Justice as the ultimate
future guarantor of
fundamental rights in
European asylum law? (p 7)
Cavidan Soykan, Access to
International Protection
from Detention in Turkey
(p 24)
Dr Rebecca Stern, The
Times They are A-Changing?
Reflections on Access to
Asylum for EU Citizens –
Safe Country (p 25)
Laurel MacKenzie, Truth
Narratives in Institutional
Settings (p 19)
Prof Cecilia Bailliet, National
Case Law as a Generator of
International Refugee Law:
Rectifying an Imbalance
(p 9)
Dr. Deborah Zion (and Prof.
Louise Newman), Can
healthcare in offshore
detention strengthen the
“Right to Health? (p 28)
Assoc Prof Idil Atak,
Implementation of "safe
country of origin" criteria
and access to asylum: A
comparative study (p 8)
Judith Spirig (and Dominik
Hangartner), Judges’ Partyaffiliation, Panel Size, and
Judicial Decision-Making:
Evidence from Swiss Asylum
Decision Appeals: DecisionMaking Structures and
Asylum (p 16)
Dr John Campbell, Asylum
policy and decision making
in the UK Home
Office/Border Agency (p 10)
Lucile Abassade, Legal
challenges for the French
procedure in claiming
asylum in detention centres
in the light of recent
Strasbourg cases (p 8)
Dr James C. Simeon, ‘The
Developing Jurisprudence
on the Exclusion Clauses
Under Article 1F(a) in
Selected Western
Industrialized States’ (p 23)
Sarah Craig, Struggling with
Restricted Access – A survey
of recent reforms to the UK
Home Office decision
making (p 11)
Joel Moss, The Evolution of
a Nascent Asylum System in
Israel (p 20)
Dr Joachim Stern, Effective
Access to Asylum and the
Right to Legal Aid: Progress,
Practices, Challenges (p25)
Dr Cristiano d’Orsi,
Freedom fighters: who are
they? Genesis and history of
the freedom fighters in
Africa (p 12)
Access to Asylum: Current Challenges and Future Directions
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12:30 – 13:30
Lunch - Main Bar, Sala Biliardo, Sala Specchi
13:30 – 15:00
Concurrent Plenaries
Session A: The meaning of ‘asylum’: Interpretation of the Refugee Convention and Human Rights
Protection - Salone Grollo; Chair: Dr Dallal Stevens, University of Warwick
Jean-François Durieux, ‘Three Asylum Paradigms’ (p 13)
Hugo Storey, ‘Autonomous Interpretation and Refugee Law: Three Coins in a Fountain’
Maria O’Sullivan, ‘The role of the CJEU in Interpreting the Refugee Convention – UNHCR as Amicus
Curiae’ (p 21)
Session B: Access to Asylum – Particular Cohorts \ Regional Case Examples - Sala Toscana
Chair: Matthew Zagor, Australian National University College of Law
Jamie Liew, ‘Uni of Ottawa, Delimiting Gender-Based Refugee Claims using the Complementary
Protection Provision in Canada’ (p 18)
Dr Constantin Hruschka (UNHCR) and Nula Frei (University of Bern), ‘Access to asylum procedures
for victims of trafficking under a human-rights based approach’ (p 17)
Selma Porobic, Access to Asylum and Reception conditions in Western Balkans- focus on Bosnia and
Herzegovina (p 23)
15.00-15.30
Afternoon tea - Main Bar, Sala Biliardo, Sala Specchi
15:30 – 17:00
Final panel discussion on proposals for allocation of responsibility \ burden-sharing Salone Grollo
Chair: Professor Susan Kneebone, Emeritus Associate, Castan Centre for Human Rights Law,
Faculty of Law, Monash University – Regional Cooperation on Refugees in SE Asia
1. Jean-François Durieux, ‘A Dublin for the World?’ (p 13)
2. Madeline Garlick, ‘The Dublin System – challenges in Practice; past, present and future’
(p 16)
3. Dr Violeta Moreno-Lax, ‘The (Il-)legality of the 'Safe Third Country' Notion Revisited’ (p 20)
Access to Asylum: Current Challenges and Future Directions
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Abstracts
The Court of Justice as the ultimate future guarantor of fundamental rights in European asylum law?
The European Courts on freedom of religion and respect for private life as grounds for asylum.
 Bahija Aarrass
PhD candidate, VU University Amsterdam
The scope of fundamental rights protection in European asylum law is defined on different levels. The legal orders
that play the most significant role in this field, are undoubtedly the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR)
and the European Union law (EU). The interpretation of relevant human rights provisions lies in the hands of the
respective Courts belonging to these legal orders: the European Court of Human Rights (ECourtHR) and the Court of
Justice EU (CoJEU). This paper will highlight the progressive role played by the CoJEU as opposed to the reluctant
role of the ECHR in ensuring a high standard of protection of human rights in migration issues.
The human rights provision that has been mainly relied upon in migration issues is article 3 ECHR (a prohibition of
torture and inhuman or degrading treatment). It is beyond any question that this article can amount to a
refoulement prohibition, if an asylum seeker fears a treatment that is contrary to the content of this article. In very
few cases about expulsion other provisions have been invoked before the European Court of Human Rights. Two of
these cases, about the freedom of religion and the right to respect for private life respectively, will be discussed in
this paper. The two cases were, without very much ado, declared inadmissible.
The other European Court which is of great importance in migration issues had also never dealt with these kind of
issues, up until recently. In the last two years the CoJEU has passed two major judgments which relate to this theme:
the first case about religious persecution and the second about persecution of homosexuals. The two cases have
caused a major debate amongst scholars and outside the legal field, not in the least because of the extensive
reasoning of the CoJEU in both cases.
This is a major contrast with the admissibility decisions of the ECHR in the two mentioned cases, which drew very
little attention despite the fact that they concerned almost identical circumstances as the cases of the CoJEU. One
would rather expect the opposite since the main theme in all cases is about interpreting human rights norms and the
ECHR seems the appropriate institution to do that.
However, the cases seem to lead to the rather surprising conclusion, that the CoJEU provides more human rights
protection in refoulement cases than the European Courts of Human Rights. The purpose of this paper is to analyse
the reasoning of both Courts and try to understand what exactly causes the differences in interpretation. This
comparative analysis will give great insight in the method and interpretation of both courts with regard to
fundamental rights norms in refoulement issues.
Access to Asylum: Current Challenges and Future Directions
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Legal challenges for the French procedure in claiming asylum in detention centres in the light of recent
Strasbourg cases.

Lucile Abassade
Maître de Conférences Associée à l'uinversité du Havre (Associate lecturer in Law in Le Havre University),
Barrister at the Paris Bar (Avocate au Barreau de Paris)
University of Le Havre, France, School of Law, Faculté des Affaires Internationales
This paper aims at exploring the means of access to Asylum for Asylum Seekers who are being put in Detention
Centres (centres de retention) in France. In particular, it will focus on the conformity, or non-conformity, of French
legislation to the European Convention on Human Rights in this matter.
The conformity to the EU legislation body will also be considered. France has a specific body of laws, and a specific
legal stream for accessing the Asylum authorities, when an asylum seeker is put in detention, called Procédure
prioritaire. In the first part, this paper will explain the legislative process for claiming asylum in different detention
situation: Waiting Areas in airports (Zone d’attente), Prisons and Detention Centres (Centre de retention). I will
develop, in a second part, the practical difficulties arising from this situation for Asylum Seekers in Detention Centres,
by giving the example of a case I am working on, after rendering it anonymous. In some cases, the non-conformity of
this specific procedure for asylum seekers may end up in the liberation of the person put in detention. This is a link
to the third part, where the conformity of French legislation to ECHR law will be addressed. Recent cases such as I.M.
c/ France or K.K. c/ France will be studied. It will focus on the violation of articles 3 and articles 3 + 13 of the ECHR.
Finally, after considering the ECHR case law concerning other Member States in this field, the challenges of French
lawyers will be exposed and discussed, with the possibility of a call for a reform in this field.
Implementation of "safe country of origin" criteria and access to asylum: A comparative study
 Dr Idil Atak
Ryerson University
Following the widely publicized arrivals of two boats of asylum seekers on Canadian shores in 2009 and 2010,
Canada introduced the Protecting Canada’s Immigration System Act (2010) and the Balanced Refugee Reform Act
(2012) which contain a number of extraordinary measures that apply to asylum seekers arriving in groups of two or
more with the help of a migrant smuggler. These measures include expedited refugee claim hearings and growing
use of deterrents such as mandatory detention.
Canada also introduced “safe country of origin” criteria, which authorizes the Minister of Citizenship and
Immigration to presume that refugee claimants from designated countries do not face risks of persecution, torture
or similar abuse. This expedites removal, as refugee claimants are processed through accelerated procedures. “Safe
country of origin” criteria is directly inspired from or modeled on similar policies implemented by the European
Union (EU) and its Member States since 1990s.
The aim of this paper is to evaluate the nature and human rights impacts of the implementation of “safe country of
origin” criteria in Canada in light of the experiences of the EU and selected member states (especially the UK and
France). The paper will draw on several court decisions and independent studies available in Europe. It will also
examine the revision process of the relevant EU legislation recently undertaken with a view to ensuring higher
protection standards for asylum seekers. In contrast with the EU, Canada has not generated until now a
comprehensive evaluation of the practical and human rights impacts of the “safe country of origin” criteria.
Access to Asylum: Current Challenges and Future Directions
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It is argued that the experiences of the EU and its Member States are helpful in appraising these impacts in Canada.
An international and comparative perspective also informs our thinking about unintended policy consequences of
the said criteria as well as its suggested improvements.
National Case Law as a Generator of International Refugee Law: Rectifying an Imbalance
 Professor Cecilia M. Bailliet
University of Oslo, Norway/PluriCourts
The evolution of International Refugee Law is marked by the fact that it lacks an international refugee court to
provide authoritative statements on the interpretation of the 1951 Convention on the Status of Refugees. Instead, it
relies on soft law guidelines produced by UNHCR, case law emitted at the national level by refugee tribunals,
administrative agencies, and other courts; as well as decisions from international courts from other regimes, such as
human rights or international criminal law. There are initiatives to promote transnational judicial dialogues, such as
the International Association of Refugee Law Judges, but this has been criticized as having “no real impact” at the
European level. In 2000, UNHCR convened Global Consultations on International Protection with academic experts
in order to pursue “greater clarity and coherence of interpretation” of the 1951 Convention on the Status of
Refugees. The papers commissioned for the Global Consultations served as background notes for the elaboration of
soft- law guidelines.
At present, UNHCR has produced ten guidelines including those on gender-related persecution, “membership of a
particular social group”, cessation of refugee status, internal flight alternative and claims related to military service.
These issues present challenging interpretation dilemmas according to the 1951 Convention. This paper will seek to
discuss discrepancies in citation of national case law in the evolution of refugee law.
Part 1 will give examples of national jurisprudence from a variety of jurisdictions which offer a dynamic
interpretation of the Refugee Convention and offer an alternative view on transnational judicial dialogues. Part 2 will
discuss the increased influence of case law from international human rights and criminal tribunals on UNHCR
guidelines, indicating possible preference for international decisions over national tribunals. Part 3 will assess the
UNHCR’s limited references to national case law in its guidelines. It is suggested that there is a dominance of
common law/English-language national decisions which renders UNHCR output subject to legitimacy challenges as it
seeks to provide objective guidance on interpretation of the 1951 Convention on the Status of Refugees. Part 4 will
offer a conclusion calling for greater pluralism in the reference to national case law by UNHCR in its soft law
guidelines and policy documents in order to improve the evolution of international refugee law.
How the logic of decision-making may effect access to asylum, Migration Review Tribunal-Refugee
Review Tribunal
 Sean Baker
Member of the Australian Refugee Review Tribunal and Migration Review Tribunal
The assessment of asylum requires a prospective assessment. In making this assessment, decision makers apply rules
of probability to replace the uncertainty of predicting the future. In doing this, asylum decision makers are entering
into a world of probabilities, statistical analysis and assessment. One response is to shy away from this - quantitative
analysis needs data, and the reaction to this may be to not attempt any probabilistic approach. On the other hand,
attempting a Bayesian probabilistic approach without all of the data leads to dangerous results. act as a place holder
Access to Asylum: Current Challenges and Future Directions
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for the uncertainty in making decisions about the future, but it needs a set. Both of these approaches are flawed. My
thesis is that whilst the same facts should lead to the same assessment of risk, we need a common basis and
language to do this. Probability can of guidelines about the qualitative assessment of risks around it. I suggest a
middle ground in which the way decision makers think about thinking about our cases is clear to ourselves,
applicants, and the wider public.
Non-refoulement and Frontex-coordinated operations – Whose Responsibility?
 Dr Roland Bank
UNHCR
The extraterritorial application of the non-refoulement obligation has found far-reaching support and confirmation
both in academic writing as well as in the human rights jurisprudence. The need to adhere to the principle of nonrefoulement has also found its expression in the EU Regulation establishing the EU border agency Frontex. Even
though it seems clear, that sea border surveillance measures in the Mediterranean also beyond territorial waters
would need to keep in line with the non-refoulement obligation, it is less clear how this is implemented in practice
and who bears responsibility for respecting international human rights and refugee law in multilateral operations.
The situation gets more complicated – also legally – if EU member states supported by Frontex and in cooperation
with coastal states in Northern Africa carry out interception measures in the territorial sea of such states. These
aspects have become all the more important since in reaction to the Lampedusa catastrophe, measures for
increased control of the Mediterranean are under discussion. It shall be argued that Frontex and states participating
in joint border operations carry a joint legal responsibility for the respect of the non-refoulement principle,
irrespective of where the operation is carried out. This involves not only the responsibility for, under certain
circumstances, providing access to asylum procedures in the EU’s territory, and for eventual violations but also
obligations for establishing preventive mechanisms.
Asylum policy and decision-making in the United Kingdom’s Home Office and Border Agency
 Dr John Campbell
School of Oriental & African Studies
Based on anthropological fieldwork and the analysis of policy, this paper examines the work of the United Kingdom’s
Home Office and the UK Border Agency with specific reference to its role in the field of asylum. I first examine how
both institutions have changed in recent years. Thus in 2007 the Secretary of State for the Home Department (SSHD)
transformed the Immigration and Nationality Directorate, a department in the Home Office, into the independent
UK Border Agency by an executive decision and in 2012 the SSHD created the UK Border Force.
However in light of subsequent criticism about its ineffectiveness, the SSHD reabsorbed the Border Agency back into
the HO in April 2013. I argue that these changes have had little or no effect on the issues analysed in this book.
I then examine how UKBA implement Home Office policy. In particular I examine the work of Home Office
Immigration Officers, asylum case owners, Presenting Officers and officers in the Legal Advisory Department whose
work directly affects the outcome of asylum applications. Because of its role in litigating on behalf of the Home
Office, I also look briefly at the role played by the Treasury Solicitors Office. I conclude by asking whether asylum
policy and implementation represents the actions of a state bound by international law, or whether officials
regularly breach the law by taking unlawful decisions to refuse asylum claims.
Access to Asylum: Current Challenges and Future Directions
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‘Accelerated Procedures and Admissibility in Latin America’
 Dr David Cantor
Refugee Law Initiative, School of Advanced Study, University of London
The global tendency towards ever more restrictive approaches to refugees and asylum-seekers in law and policy is
well-documented since the decade of the 1980s. A good part of these governmental efforts narrow access to asylum
through introducing impediments to reaching the country of asylum. Yet they are accompanied by measures in the
country of asylum that often have the effect of reducing access by asylum-seekers to the substantive procedures for
determining the need for international protection.
It is arguable, though, that this tendency in the field of asylum law and policy has been reversed in Latin America.
Here, liberalism rather than restrictionism has been the norm over the past three decades. Even so, this positive
assessment has been qualified in the past five years by the adoption of restrictive measures by certain States in the
Andean and Central American sub-regions. These have centred on the creation of accelerated procedures that in
practice serve as an obstacle to admissibility to the substantive asylum procedures.
The present paper aims to briefly describe these tendencies and to relate them to broader underlying questions. In
particular: Why did Latin America apparently buck the global trend towards decreased access to asylum from the
1980s to the late 2000s? What has caused northern Latin American States recently to move more into line with
restrictive global practice? What might the current situation in Latin America add to our understandings of the global
trend towards reducing reduce access to asylum?
The research for this paper was carried out under a three-year ESRC Future Research Leaders grant [grant number
ES/K001051/1] entitled ‘Pushing the Boundaries: New Dynamics of Forced Migration and Transnational Responses in
Latin America’.
Struggling with restricted access
 Sarah Craig
University of Glasgow
The UK’s refugee status decision-making process has led to cases which have made key contributions to the
development of the 1951 UN Refugee Convention as a “living instrument”.
That decision-making process of initial Home Office decision followed by appeal to a two tier administrative tribunal
and supervision by the higher courts - has in the past decade and more been the subject of continual change and
reform, instigated by successive Governments with the aim of restricting access to the decision-making process and
of developing measures aimed at deflecting asylum applicants away from the UK.
This paper will survey how the UK’s administrative decision making and appeals process has been reformed in recent
times, including those in the current Immigration Bill, and will explore what such reforms mean for applicants as they
struggle to communicate their claim in a process which has also been criticised for routinely regarding their claims
with scepticism. Drawing on initiatives introduced in the UK’s devolved administrations and elsewhere to assist
vulnerable applicants to grapple with such complex procedures, this paper will explore some of the ways in which
the space can be regained where the applicant can effectively communicate their asylum claim, and the decision
maker can hear it.
Access to Asylum: Current Challenges and Future Directions
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Norms and Human Rights
 Dr Cathryn Costello
Refugee Studies Centre and Faculty of Law, University of Oxford
International human rights law uses the concept of 'jurisdiction' to delimit states' duties. This is a highly contested
concept. Human rights bodies have developed this concept to extend states' responsibilities beyond the territorial
borders of the state, in particular to situations where they exercise 'effective control' over persons or territory. This
move captures some, but by no means all, extraterritorial border control practices. This presentation will summarise
the current conception(s) of jurisdiction in international law. It will also outline an argument (developed by MorenoLax and me elsewhere) that EU human rights' obligations are not delimited in the same way, and track EU activities
in general.
Having set out the legal landscape (or seascape), the paper will open up the normative debate about whether
extending legal obligations extraterritorially, in particular the duty of non-refoulement, is an effective way to ensure
access to asylum. In so doing, the paper will open up space to examine importance of both law and politics
(however these are conceptualized) in maximizing access to asylum. In particular, it will engage with the arguments
against this development of the concept of jurisdiction, as outlined by David Martin in the recent symposium on the
20th anniversary of the US Supreme Court in Sale v. Haitian Centers Council (509 U.S. 155 (1993)), contrasting that
ruling with European Court of Human Rights in Hirsi Jamaa v. Italy (Application no. 27765/09, Eur. Ct. H.R. 10 (2012)).
http://opiniojuris.org/2014/03/15/yls-sale-symposium-interdiction-asylum-seekers-realms-policy-law-refugeeprotection/. Martin argues that
'[Sale] accepted a protection regime that mixes policy and law, providing flexibility (but not complete
discretion, especially for those who reach national territory) within the complex arena of modern
international affairs. Going forward, both systems [US and ECHR] will produce some successes, some
failures, some outrages, and a lot of gray area. Which vision is more likely to optimize refugee
protection – in the context of other national and global objectives – remains to be seen.'
By examining Martin's arguments, and other scholarly contributions which engage with both law and politics (in
particular the work of Gammeltoft-Hansen) I will attempt to understand how law can develop to best shape political
support for increasing access to asylum.
Freedom fighters: who are they? Genesis and history of the freedom fighters in Africa
 Dr Cristiano d'Orsi
University of Michigan Law School
1. Freedom fighters under International and African Refugee Law: the 1951 Geneva Convention and the
1969 OAU Convention: my intention would be to analyze the inclusion clauses that would allow a
freedom fighter to seek and eventually obtain protection.
2. Ineligibility under Refugee Law: exclusion from and cessation of refugee status for freedom fighters
Here, I will analyze also the concept of “serious non-political crimes” that is one of the concepts that
make the difference in distinguish a freedom fighter from a terrorist. I could make this analysis in a
paragraph that I could entitle, for instance, “Distinguishing between freedom fighters and terrorists:
addressing the political character of freedom fighters”. I have, however, a doubt on the fact that, in
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converse on what conceived here, I could dedicate an entire paragraph on the distinction between
genuine freedom fighters and “terrorists”)
3. “Subversive activities” and expulsion from the state of refuge: implications for freedom fighters.
4. Repatriation, local integration or resettlement: is there a better, durable solution for a freedom fighter?
A freedom fighter, by definition, would like to go back to his/her country of origin. However, the title, as
conceived, moves the perspective from the will of the freedom fighter to the angle of his physical and
psychological security as well as the preservation of his/her dignity
Conclusion: The future of freedom fighters in Africa: prospects and possibilities
A Dublin for the world?
 Jean-François Durieux
Refugee Studies Centre, University of Oxford
The lack of an agreed answer to the question: "Where should a refugee stop in her search for asylum?" is the
Achille's heel of the international refugee regime. Attempts at putting the onus on the asylum seeker (following
notably the language of EXCOM Conclusion no. 58) and/ or at justifying 'protection elsewhere' (notably through the
safe third country concept) have proved unsuccessful in practice, besides being legally dubious.
The only serious attempt at complying with the recommendation of EXCOM Conclusion no. 15 to adopt common
criteria that 'make it possible to identify in a positive manner the country which is responsible for examining an
asylum request' has taken the shape of the Dublin system, which is itself plagued by many flaws.
The question raised by this paper is whether a 'Dublin for the world' can be theoretically envisaged, and, if so, what
such a system could learn from both the failures and the corrective measures of the EU regional scheme. The
parameters of this discussion are (1) a view of the 1951 Convention as a living system, which can be activated from
any point on behalf of all participating states; (2) a delinking of asylum-as-residence responsibilities from those
pertaining to the identification of a need for international protection; and (3) in respect of the latter, a shift from
space-based to time-based criteria.
The paper will propose a set of concrete ways in which responsibility-sharing can be realised, under the rubrics of
monitoring and peer review; process enhancement; and physical burden-sharing, including under each the duties of
UNHCR as guardian and facilitator of the Convention-based regime. It will end with a reflection on fairness, to
conclude that ( in the words of S. Legomsky) some 'unequal justice' is inherent in the regime.
Three asylum paradigms
 Jean-François Durieux
Refugee Studies Centre, University of Oxford
What special sense of duty connects us to those people whom we call refugees, and how does this duty translate
into asylum? What does the practice of asylum tell us about who we are, as individuals as well as members of
political communities? How does one morally justify the special concern we feel for, and consequently the privileged
treatment we give, refugees as compared with other foreigners in need?
Revisiting the main features of the ethical debate over asylum and refugeehood, this paper argues that there cannot
be one coherent set of answers to these questions, because in today’s world the concepts of ‘refugee’ and ‘asylum’
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describe not one, but three distinct realities. The 1951 Refugee Convention provides a coherent framework to
explain the first asylum paradigm, centered on admission and on the figure of the refugee as a ‘moral comrade’.
The concept of persecution, emphasizing the prohibition of discrimination and the identifying value of tolerance, is
key to understanding this first paradigm. However, one must acknowledge that a proper understanding of the moral
duty to admit and integrate refugees does not suffice to explain contemporary state practice in dealing with the
‘refugee problem’ as a matter of solidarity.
The paper identifies two additional asylum paradigms at work in today’s world: one takes disaster as a motivation
for action, and rescue as the underpinning moral and legal imperative; and the other rests upon a duty not to return
individuals to specific forms of danger, absent affinity or even compassion. The paper examines some of the impacts
which the co-existence of these three paradigms has on the global refugee regime, and their implications for lawand policy-making on asylum, both within and among states.
Fences to asylum: The role of international law in protecting the right to access to asylum at Ceuta and
Melilla, the only European Union´s land border in Africa
 Maria Valles Ferrero
University of Essex
Despite its geographic situation of its South coast, only 14 kilometers far from Morocco, and being one of the
external land borders of the EU, Spain has registered only 2565 international protection claims in 2012, the lowest
per each 1000 habitants among EU Member States, only above Portugal and Estonia. Beyond the political and
cultural issues, these figures raise several legal questions regarding access to asylum and potential human rights
violations.
The practice of EU States regarding interception at Mediterranean Sea, including Spain, has raised a great interest
among scholars on refugee issues. This paper is aimed, however, at contributing to the discussion by addressing
another phenomenon: physical access to protection at external land borders. In particular, as a case study, the paper
addresses the legal implications on access to asylum in the attempts to reach Spanish soil, by climbing the fences
that have been erected in Ceuta and Melilla. This phenomenon, with great impact on the media, deserves, in my
opinion, more legal attention.
The paper proposes a journey through different stages that at a refugee often needs to follow to have access to
asylum procedures. Applying this approach to the prosed case study, the paper will try to establish international
obligations of EU and Spain towards refugees at three moments. First, before the fences as whether or not Spain is
exercising jurisdiction by funding and encouraging Morocco to prevent refugees to reach its soil.
Second, at the fences as whether Spanish and EU law is applicable in the events of people trying to obtain protection
by climbing the barriers. Third, within Ceuta and Melilla as whether the Spanish authorities might be violating the
freedom of movement of asylum seekers by preventing them to leave the Autonomous cities, arguing the territorial
exception of Article 36 of Schengen Code.
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Extraterritorial application of refugee law: the case of Guantanamo’s ‘Protected Migrants’
 Marco Formisano
Geneva Graduate Institute
The US Coast Guards interdicts an average of 2,000-3,000 undocumented migrants, traveling each year in
unseaworthy vessels in the Caribbean, heading to the coasts of Florida. The vast majority are invariably Cuban
nationals. Among them there are a handful of individuals of Cuban origin who are screened out for protection.
Instead of processing refugee status determination and by virtue of legislation and policy interdicting Cubans from
entering the US via the sea, they are instead assessed to be so-called ‘protected migrants’. Not being able to touch
US soil and be thus prevented to apply for asylum under the provisions of the Immigration and Nationality Act, they
are disembarked and detained in the US Naval Station of Guantanamo Bay waiting another country to resettle them.
In this peculiar scenario, US authorities are not assuming their international obligations vis-à-vis those individuals at
risk of persecution and create a parallel sui generis system of weak and uncertain protection.
This attitude contrasts with a quite elaborate doctrine of jurisdiction-by-control, developed mostly by the European
Court of Human Rights. Whether asylum-seekers are onboard US Cutters or in administrative detention in
Guantanamo, US authorities should process their refugee status determination. This paper analysis US international
obligations vis-à-vis the interdiction policy for Cubans in mixed migratory flows in the Caribbean with particular
reference to the Guantanamo’s ‘Protected Migrants’ as a case for extraterritorial application of refugee law.
Country Conditions, Consistency and Reasons: A Challenge for the new Refugee Appeal Division
 Prof Donald Galloway
Professor of Law, University of Victoria; additional author Tess Acton, University of Victoria
The establishment of a new Refugee Appeal Division of the Canadian Immigration and Refugee Board offers the
Board an opportunity to develop a solution to a problem that has so far eluded it. During its twenty five year history,
the Board has failed to articulate a consistent and defensible approach to issues relating to the availability of State
Protection. Its earlier desultory attempts to promote consistency in general through jurisprudential guides, lead
cases and persuasive decisions seem to have sunk into desuetude.
The creation of an appeal tribunal may turn out to be similarly unsuccessful particularly since access to it is denied to
significant numbers of claimants, including those from countries of origin where the adequacy of state protection
has been a major issue. However its establishment does offer a glimmer of hope. The Board’s past failure has
extended both to matters of substance – it has not developed criteria by which to determine when state protection
is inadequate - and to matters of evidence – it has not made clear to claimants how they can meet their burden of
proving that state protection is insufficient. These two aspects of the problem are interlinked. As has been noted by
one Federal Court judge, “Refugees are not political scientists (though some may be) who can establish systemic
lack of state protection. They are generally persons who fled with little else than what they could carry in their arms.
Their knowledge may not extend beyond their own experience and that of others who are similarly placed.”
Claimants are placed in the unfortunate predicament: their own experiences are usually adjudged to be insufficient
proof of inadequate state protection and they are required to rely on documentary and opinion evidence supplied
by the IRB in National Documentation Packages. But this evidence also rarely addresses the issue of adequacy. We
will argue that the Refugee Appeal Division now has the opportunity to explore the issue of adequate state
protection and will offer some suggestions on the nature of evidence on which future decisions could be based.
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The Dublin system: challenges in practice: past, present and future
 Madeline Garlick
University of Nijmegen
The Treaty on the Functioning of the EU (TFEU) established a new obligation requiring solidarity among Member
States in implementation of asylum rules. However, States rejected a European Commission proposal for a
temporary suspension mechanism in the amended Dublin Regulation, adopting instead an ‘early warning’ system
designed to identify and prevent systemic problems. EU funding and practical measures, including from the
European Asylum Support Office, have been deployed to rectify the situation in Greece, and prevent similar failures
in other States. Nevertheless, Dublin transfers continue to be challenged successfully in many national cases
involving States other than Greece, including where the problems identified fall short of ‘systemic deficiencies’.
The paper will analyse, firstly, the nature of practical challenges to Dublin’s operation, including (a) those related to
the processes of applying the criteria and determining States’ responsibilities; and (b) failure to apply Dublin flexibly
and in line with solidarity principles, including through the ‘discretionary’ clauses. It will also examine trends in
jurisprudence, highlighting varying approaches to interpretation of Dublin. Some of the achievements, as well as the
gaps, will be considered in the practical mechanisms designed to ensure effective application of Dublin since MSS.
The paper will draw conclusions about the implications of these developments for operation of the recast Dublin
Regulation, as well as the linkages to international refugee law and human rights principles.
Judges’ Party-affiliation, Panel Size, and Judicial Decision-Making: Evidence from Swiss Asylum Decision
Appeals: Decision-Making Structures and Asylum (Case-Loads, Approval Rates, Comparison of 1–2 Tier
Systems)
 Dominik Hangartner, Ass Prof, Department of Methodology, London School of Economics & Political
Science and Judith Spirig, University of Zurich
Empirical studies focusing on several of the largest refugee-receiving countries consistently demonstrate disparities
in judicial asylum adjudication. This raises two questions: i) which personal factors – in addition to the law - influence
judicial adjudication that might explain this lack of uniformity in decision-making? ii) Which institutional factors –
such as a larger panel size – would decrease this variance in case outcomes. Due to data confidentiality issues and a
lack of exogenous variation in panel size, studies to date have not been able to answer both these questions
systematically. We fill this void by analyzing the universe of 17,000 asylum decision appeals processed between 2007
and 2012 by the Swiss Federal Administrative Court.
Several strengths of our research design help us to improve upon existing studies: all appeals to asylum decision are
decided nationally by the Swiss Federal Administrative Court, the judges have a known party affiliation and have to
get a party’s support to be voted in office, the judges are randomly assigned to cases and positions on the panel, and
while some cases are effectively decided by one judge, other cases are decided by three-judge panels. This allows us
to identify the influence of the personal politics of the judges on decisions, correlate these disparities with judges’
political ideology and previous work history, and estimate the tempering effect of increasing the decision-making
body from effectively one to three judges. The analysis suggests considerable disparities in judges’ appeal approval
rates that can partly be explained with their political affiliation. The effect of the judge’s political ideology is
considerably larger when (effectively) one judge, instead of three-judge panels, decides on cases.
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Access to asylum procedures for victims of trafficking under a human-rights based approach
 Dr Constantin Hruschka, UNHCR,
 Additional author: Nula Frei, University of Bern
The obligation to install a special protection regime for victims of trafficking (VoT) is now widely recognized in
International and European law as well as human rights jurisprudence. These obligations also have an impact on
asylum seekers, which have been or claim to be victims of trafficking. The authors will examine these obligations in
the context of access to asylum procedures, especially in relation to admissibility arrangements, as well as in the
context of substantial RSD determination.
Taking the example of the “Dublin” admissibility system in Europe, the authors hold that Member States are not
living up to the standards of protection of VoT from re-trafficking and refoulement as the cases are often not
properly examined and differentiated in view of the diverging constellations that may be at stake (e.g. regarding the
place of exploitation, place of “recruitment” as well as the risk of re-trafficking). The authors argue that identification
of VoT is key to ensure protection and that admissibility procedures are often inadequate to ensure identification
and subsequent protection. From a human rights perspective, Dublin transfers of VoT should therefore not take
place to countries of exploitation and in other cases only if protection is guaranteed – according to an individual
assessment of the situation of the potential transferee on the basis of the standards set by the EU Directive 2011/36
and the Council of Europe Convention against Trafficking - in the other Dublin MS.
Furthermore, even if VoT are admitted to the substantial asylum procedure, in many European national asylum
systems there is an apparent lack of sensitization of the respective decision makers and a general problem of
identification of VoT, which often renders protection illusory given the lack of a substantial assessment of the risks
incurred. This raises practical and legal questions, of which the authors will focus on the question whether VoT may
be entitled to refugee status. The questions examined in this paper are related mainly to the Convention ground
“membership of a particular social group” as well as to the nexus requirement and the question of the risk of being
persecuted in the country of origin. The authors hold that the potential of the 1951 Convention in the protection of
VoT is currently not fully developed in European state practice."
No Refuge: The State of the Asylum System in South Africa
 Corey Johnson and Sergio Carciottlo
Scalabrini Centre of Cape Town
South Africa’s transition to democracy in 1994 began a new era for human rights protections for displaced persons
seeking protection in the country. The government ratified international human rights instruments and implemented
international refugee law in domestic legislation through the Refugees Act of 1998 which provides for an urban
refugee policy with individualised refugee determination procedures, freedom of movement, and the right to work.
Under the legislation, the primary point of contact between the state and refugees are Refugee Reception Offices
(RRO) established in urban centres throughout the country and access to these facilities is a critical component of
the refugee protection framework.
Since the Refugee Act’s inception, South Africa has consistently been one of the highest recipients of asylum
applications globally and the government has struggled to effectively process and manage the high number of
asylum claims. The system is now best characterised by inefficiency, enormous backlogs, and poor refugee status
determination decisions. The high demand has manifested itself at RROs in the form of overcrowding, access issues,
and corruption.
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In response, the government has been unable to develop a coherent migration policy to manage the increasingly
mixed flow of migrants into the country and has instead employed a variety of ad hoc policies and practices which
largely restrict access to the asylum system and RROs, the most drastic of which has been the closure of urban RROs
and intended relocation to sparsely populated towns on international land borders.
This paper will provide an overview of South Africa’s experience in managing its urban refugee policy and argue that
restricting access and relocating RROs will not adequately address the failures of the asylum system.
Anything Goes in Protection Capacity Building? Perspectives for Multilateral Assistance in Strengthening
National Asylum Systems
 Julian Lehmann
Global Public Policy Institute
Deficiencies in national asylum systems are a major obstacle for ensuring access to asylum. As a result, States
increasingly assist other States in developing and strengthening the capacity of their national asylum systems. Such
capacity building may aim to improve refugee status determination (RSD) procedures, improve the security of
refugees, meet their basic needs, increase their self-reliance, or create durable solutions for them. This paper
explores the legal and political challenges involved in such capacity building exercises.
First, it considers the design of capacity building programs in line with State obligations under human rights and
refugee law, as well as the appropriate accountability standards by donors and recipients. It also addresses the
potential relevance of protection capacity building for the EU law concepts ‘First Country of Asylum’ and ‘Safe Third
Country’, and engages the potential problems involved in fostering non-State capacity as opposed to State capacity.
Drawing on these challenges, the paper enquires whether there is such thing as a human rights and refugee law
approach to capacity building for national asylum systems. Second, the paper maps past and current capacity
building endeavours by EU States, EU institutions and the UNHCR, identifying their contexts, goals, scopes, and
accountability mechanisms.
Using the legal challenges identified, the paper analyses these protection capacity projects, finding that most
concentrate on registration and RSD procedures, while many fail to identify clear indicators and some are embedded
within broader migration-management projects that conflict with the overall aim of refugee protection. Last, the
paper proposes policy-oriented guidelines for improving future capacity building efforts to ensure both protection
and access to asylum.
Taking it personally: Delimiting Gender-Based Refugee Claims using the "Complementary Protection
Provision" in Canada
 Jamie Liew
University of Ottawa
Random violence. General criminal risk. Decision makers evaluating refugee claims in Canada are characterizing
violence against women in this manner. The reduction of gendered violence, leading to the denial of refugee claims,
has occurred under the covert operation of Canada’s consolidated refugee definition.
Canada’s refugee determination process has received accolades for recognizing that asylum can and should be given
to women basing their claims on gender-related persecution. Since recognizing the viability of gender-based claims,
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Canada, in 2002, consolidated its refugee definition, legislating a “complementary protection provision” in the
Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (IRPA). Prior to 2002, risk assessments that occurred just prior to the
removal of persons from Canada included an appraisal of whether persons would be returned to a risk of torture or
cruel and unusual punishment. In 2002, this assessment was moved to the front-end of the system, the refugee
determination process. There has been little evaluation of this provision since then.
The paper examines the performative functions of Canada’s complementary protection in gender-based claims.
Jurisprudence reveals that the scheme does not supplement the regime that uses the five enumerated grounds of
race, nationality, political opinion, religion and membership in a particular social group. Rather than providing
another venue for protection, the complementary protection provision delimits gender-related claims in three ways.
First, this provision does not fill in the gaps left by enumerated grounds system. Second, the provision encourages
the production of harmful discourse on violence against women, downplaying the severity of the harm, and the
unique aspects of violence particular to women. Finally, the provision encourages decision makers to conflate the
separate analyses (enumerated grounds scheme versus the complementary protection scheme) under Canada’s
refugee definition, erroneously allowing factors such as the universality of oppression or violence, and whether risk
is public or private, to erode the enumerated grounds regime.
Truth Narratives in Institutional Settings
 Laurel MacKenzie
RMIT University, Australia
This paper discusses the disjunctive problem of the institutional frameworks and expectations around ‘truth’ that
shape refugee narratives to fit within a particular discourse. It problematises interviewing processes that adopt a
criminalising approach, arguing that these utilise evidence-based interviewing techniques that rely very strongly on
capturing a linear record of truth that is verifiable, comprehensive, and matches the existing records.
However this style and technique frequently occludes the possibilities of refugee and asylum seeker truth narratives
emerging in the best way, both in terms of their own desired outcomes to be recognised as refugees and granted
visas; and in terms of the institutional need for best practice to be followed. Its insistence on ‘accuracy’ also arguably
gets in the way of capturing an record that actually is ‘accurate’ – one that actually tells the interviewee’s story as
appropriately as possible, without creating problematic power relations (such as power relation they may perceive
themselves to be in relation to their interviewer) or revisiting trauma.
Based on case studies from my own research interviewing refugees, this paper argues that different kinds of refugee
narratives that emerge in an open-ended interview than from the style of interview engaged in when their cases are
decided upon. This highlights a crucial problem with treating refugee (or any personal) narratives as verifiable truth
documents – issues of subjectivity, point of view, perception and in the case of refugee narratives, trauma, create
gaps and barriers often exacerbated by the official interviewing process itself.
Further, the legal decisions based upon this premise have major ramifications – on refugee and asylum seekers’ lives,
welfare and potential chances of resettlement. This is exacerbated by the predilection in current discourse in
Australia to treat refugees and asylum seekers as though they are already criminals, applying an evidence-based
approach to eliciting their stories.
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The (Il-)legality of the 'Safe Third Country' Notion Revisited
 Dr Violeta Moreno-Lax
Lecturer in Law, Queen Mary, University of London - Law Department
This paper intends to revisit and contest existing analyses on the acceptability of the STC notion from a legal
perspective. Drawing on contemporary practices from developed countries around the world, the paper examines
their compatibility with legal standards from two perspectives: the vertical dimension (refugee – receiving country)
and the horizontal dimension (receiving country – purportedly ‘safe’ (third) country of destination).
The objective is to unpack ideas surrounding the construction of Articles 1E, 31 and 33 of the 1951 Convention, in
light of general principles of interpretation as well as the role of Articles 30, 35, 40 and 41 of the Vienna Convention
on the Law of Treaties in the configuration of burden-sharing arrangements. The final aim is to show that the law, as
it stands, does not allow for burden-shifting strategies and that collaborative solutions are embedded in both
refugee law principles and international customary law at large.
The Evolution of a Nascent Asylum System in Israel
 Joel Moss
Director, HIAS Israel
Until 2006, Israel was not a significant destination country for asylum seekers. In the following years monthly
entries rose to 2,000 people until reaching a peak of over 60,000 asylum seekers in the country during 2012.The
numbers have recently dropped to almost no new arrivals, but the presence of African asylum seekers in the country
continues to be a turbulent issue in the public discourse. The discussion will explore several aspects of this
phenomenon including: a historical review of the rapid and unforeseen influx of asylum seekers; initiatives to
develop expertise and fairness in a new RSD system in the context of government and societal prejudice against the
influx of asylum seekers; the interplay between state, religious and democratic values in the responses to the
phenomenon of asylum seekers; role of government and civil society in providing services to asylum seekers;
government deterrents and their effectiveness; legal challenges and responses. This is an opportunity to view almost
each of the concerns that the conference addresses through the prism of a current evolving example. The author
will draw from his experience as the lead trainer for the Israel government RSD officers as well as participating in the
NGO community in Israel and as a former member of the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada."
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Protection from Refuge: Rescue from and Confinement to Camp Life
 Kate Ogg
Lecturer, Australian National University College of Law
In December 2012, the Kenyan Government issued a directive requiring all refugees living in urban areas to move to
one of Kenya’s refugee camps. However, in July 2013 the High Court of Kenya declared this policy invalid. The High
Court ruled that requiring urban refugees to move to a refugee camp would violate the right to freedom of
movement in the Refugee Convention and the ICCPR, the right to dignity in the Kenyan Constitution and the
principle of ¬non-refoulement. This paper will discuss this case and a number of recent cases in which courts have
relied on refugee and/or human rights law to rule that a person cannot be returned or sent to a refugee camp,
internally displaced persons’ camp or a state with a grossly inadequate asylum system.
Such cases have been lauded as examples of the strengthening of refugee rights and the growing reach of human
rights law into asylum seeker and refugee protection.
However an issue that remained extrinsic to the courts’ reasoning – the elephant in the courtroom – is that
thousands of asylum seekers and refugees languish in the very same camps and inadequate asylum systems for
many years and, in some cases, lifetimes. Accordingly, this paper will demonstrate that throughout these cases there
is a common emerging and unexplored pattern, which I call ‘protection from refuge’: that is, refugee and human
rights law are determining who will be confined to camps and under-resourced asylum systems, but also who
deserves to be protected from these places of ‘refuge’.
This paper will provide a critical examination of this case law and link this analysis to the concept of ‘international cooperation’ in the Refugee Convention’s preamble, questions about the divergent doctrinal underpinning of refugee
and human rights law and Arendt’s and Rancière’s debate on the ‘right to have rights’.
The Role of the CJEU in Interpreting the Refugee Convention – the UNHCR as Amicus Curiae
 Maria O’Sullivan
Faculty of Law, and Castan Centre for Human Rights Law, Monash University
UNHCR has a supervisory role under Article 35 of the Refugee Convention. A number of commentators have
underscored the need for UNHCR to have a greater influence and supervisory role over States. In recent times,
UNHCR has significantly increased its judicial intervention activity by filing amicus curiae briefs in litigation on
refugee law matters in various jurisdictions.
The judicial intervention role of UNCHR raises some interesting issues in the EU. Although the European Court of
Justice (CJEU) examines significant numbers of referrals on refugee law issues (arising from the EU asylum directives),
it does not set out a formal intervention role for UNHCR in its rules or procedures. In some cases, UNHCR guidelines
have been treated as ‘informal’ amicus curiae briefs (eg by Adv Gen Sharpston in the Article 1D case of the CJEU,
Bolbol (2010)), however, any such action is purely discretionary.
My paper will examine whether UNHCR’s supervisory role should include intervening and making submissions to
quasi-judicial institutions or courts in the form of amicus curiae briefs, with particular focus on the CJEU. I will do so
by discussing intervener rights of organisations in other international and regional courts such as the European Court
of Human Rights, the International Court of Justice and the International Tribunal on the Law of the Sea where
proceedings concern the interpretation of that organisation’s constituent instrument. This analysis will then be used
to determine whether a case can be made that UNHCR should have a formal right of intervention before the
European Court of Justice.
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Search and Rescue Operations in the Mediterranean Sea and access to Asylum: another ‘Dublin’ ?
 Emanuela Parisciani
Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna
The Europe Southern Sea Borders have seen the establishment of pre-border controls such as high seas
interceptions or in third country territorial waters implemented by Member States acting individually and in joint
operations coordinated by FRONTEX, the European Agency for the Management of Operational Cooperation at the
External Borders of the Members States of the European Union.
The recent events off Lampedusa island’s shores underlines the cogent need for a better regulation of search and
rescue operations and, mostly, the necessity of a accountability sharing mechanism among EU Member States, not
only for the operations per se, but mostly for the rescued people, who are often asylum seekers in need of
international protection. This article seeks to address this issue by examining the solution brought forward by the
recent EU Commission proposal “establishing rules for the surveillance of the external sea borders in the context of
operational cooperation” coordinated by FRONTEX.
On these bases, the article argues that the allocation of responsibility for disembarkation put forward by the
Commission proposal is at odds with international law and risks to echo the Dublin Regulation, leaving without a
concrete answer the quest for a framework for identifying a place of disembarkation and the persistence of several
non-rescue incidents that this has caused.
To obviate this, a number of concrete proposals are put forward as a platform for further discussion among legal
scholars and policy-makers. In particular, the article argues that engaging the responsibility of FRONTEX, and, as a
consequence, of the Union, may have a potential significant contribution in ‘fairly’ shaping the management of
external borders and boosting up burden-sharing among Member States for the allocation of responsibility for the
examination of asylum applications.
Offshore and outsourced: shifting responsibility for the management of asylum seekers
 Tania Penovic
Faculty of Law and Castan Centre for Human Rights Law, Monash University
It has been observed that the classical dictum that a state’s executive power is to be exercised by its own officials
within its territorial borders has been diluted in recent years, with the offshoring processing of asylum seekers and
outsourcing of their management from government to private actors emerging as one of the most striking features
of migration control internationally. The Australian government has, in the past 20 years, increasingly characterised
its offshore resettlement program as the legitimate means of achieving protection as a refugee in Australia. With
respect to the onshore protection component of its humanitarian program, efforts have been made to divest
Australia of the burdens of processing asylum seekers who arrive spontaneously by boat and to distance the federal
government from its responsibilities concerning their management. Key measures adopted to this end have included
the privatisation of immigration detention and the establishment of offshore processing facilities in other countries,
currently referred to as ‘regional processing countries’.
My paper will focus on the outsourced management of immigration detention and processing facilities. After
considering the impact of privatisation in Australia’s mainland and Christmas Island detention facilities, I will
consider the experience of managing asylum seekers in the privately managed regional processing centres at Nauru
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and Manus Island with reference to Hannah Arendt’s work on the stateless person forced outside the pale of the law
as ‘bare life’ and Georgio Agamben’s elaboration of ‘bare life’ with reference to the state of exception, considering
the emergence of the camp as the space which is opened when the state of exception begins to become the rule.
Access to Asylum and Reception conditions in Western Balkans- focus on Bosnia and Herzegovina
 Selma Porobic
Director, Centre for Refugee and IDP Studies (CESI), University of Sarajevo
The countries of the Western Balkan have traditionally been refugee producing countries, and Bosnia-Herzegovina
(BiH), Serbia and Croatia, in particular are the three countries that have been most affected by war-induced
displacement during the 1990s dissolution of the former Yugoslavia, when around 4 million people (every sixth
inhabitant of the former Yugoslavia) were uprooted and/or forced to flee their homes.[1] According to UNHCR’s
regional profile for South-East Europe, in 2013, there are still 300,000 persons in need of a ‘durable solution’.
For this reason, working towards ending the protracted refugee and internal-displacement situations that followed
the break-up of the former Yugoslavia is still an important political and humanitarian endeavour in the Western
Balkan’s countries. However, in the last decade the Western Balkan’s region has transformed to a transit route for
out-of-regional flows of migrants and asylum-seekers attempting to reach Western Europe.[1] Furthermore, with
Croatia’s recent membership in the European Union (July 2013), and the progress of other countries in the region
towards the EU accession, the mixed migration management and in-country provisions of full services to the asylum
seekers and refugees have become salient issues.
By and large, there is a shortage of systematic and independent academic research (and generally scientific
capacities) in the area of asylum and refugee protection in the three countries of the region. Main data on the
situation for asylum seekers and asylum matters in these countries comes from UNHCR, reports and legal documents
produced by competent state authorities (e.g. country migration profiles, strategies and action plans in the area of
migrations and asylum) and from NGOs surveys.
This paper will discuss the Bosnia-Herzegovina’s (BiH), Croatia’s and Serbia’s national systems of asylum and refugee
protection on the one hand, and current asylum seekers and refugees experience of accessing and enjoying the
provisions of the systems on the other hand.
Based on the recently conducted empiric and qualitative study of asylum reception conditions in BiH and policyoriented analysis of the three countries asylum sector, I will draw attention to how refugees’ legal right to asylum in
transitional settings of Western Balkan is being accessed and practiced and provide reccomendations on how to
strengthen the capacity building of protection and reception services for asylum seekers and refugees in this region.
The Developing Jurisprudence on the Exclusion Clauses Under Article 1F(a) in Selected Western
Industrialized States
 Dr. James C. Simeon
Associate Professor, School of Public Policy and Administration, and Centre for Refugee Studies, York
University
This paper will review and analyze the leading court decisions in a number of Western Industrialized States as they
pertain to the exclusion of refugee claimants under Article 1F(a) of the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of
Refugees, in order to discern the current state of the law and the likely trajectories and trends in the jurisprudence
Access to Asylum: Current Challenges and Future Directions
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into the foreseeable future. The paper will, specifically, consider the leading recent final courts of appeal judgements
in the following jurisdictions: UK, Germany, France, United States, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada.
Each of the leading precedential judgements will be analyzed on a number of factors to try to discern whether there
is a convergence or divergence among these States Parties with respect to the application and interpretation of
Article 1F(a).
One of the perennial challenges confronting international refugee law and practice today is its consistent application
and common understanding and interpretation across State Parties to the 1951 Convention. Indeed, one of the
central roles of the UNHCR under Article 35 is “to supervise the application of the provisions” of the 1951
Convention. In this regard, the UNHCR issues guidelines for the proper application and interpretation of the
provisions of the 1951 Convention. The UNHCR has issued Guidelines with respect to the application and
interpretation of the Exclusion Clauses that it is currently in the process of revising.
The most recent Guidelines were issued in September 2003. (UNHCR, Guidelines on International Protection:
Application of the Exclusion Clauses: Article 1F of the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees. 4
September 2003.)
This paper will also consider the UNHCR’s Guidelines in these States Parties’ leading appeal court decisions to discern
whether these States are applying and interpreting Article 1F(a) consistent with the UNHCR’s Guidelines on this
matter. The paper will conclude with some general observations regarding the future development of the
jurisprudence under Article 1F(a) across these jurisdictions and its potential impacts on the access to asylum.
Access to International Protection from Detention in Turkey
 Cavidan Soykan
Research Fellow, Ankara University Faculty of Political Science Human Rights Centre
Turkey has been receiving growing numbers of irregular migrants from different parts of the world since the
beginning of 2000s. Most of these migrants are thought to be in transit to Western Europe. A significant number of
people from this group are in need of international protection and seek asylum in Turkey.
However, Turkey does not accept refugees from non-European countries due to its geographical limitation to the
1951 Refugee Convention. Since these migrants travel through the country without any identification; they are taken
into detention for deportation when they are caught by the Turkish security forces.
On the other hand, Turkey adopted its first law in the field of asylum and immigration in April, 2013. This new law,
namely ‘The Law on Foreigners and International Protection’ indicates a comprehensive codification of the national
laws on foreigners, asylum and migration and it specifically regulates the practice of detention in Turkish law for the
first time. In this paper, I will first outline the past practice of detention in Turkey before the adoption of this new
law. I will show how the practice itself differed from the normative rules on paper by referring to the interviews I
conducted with detained asylum seekers and refugees.
In this part, I will claim that the practice of detention worked as a formal deterrent together with its degrading
conditions which, in turn created another informal deterrent effect on potential asylum applicants. Then, I will turn
to critically analyzing the rules of the new law with regards to detention and deportation. This second part will aim
to assess the possible progress and legal shortfalls in access to asylum for irregular migrants after the new law fully
comes into effect in April, 2014.
Access to Asylum: Current Challenges and Future Directions
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Effective Access to Asylum and the Right to Legal Aid: Progress, Practices, Challenges
 Dr Joachim Stern
University of Vienna/UNHCR
Within the last decades, asylum procedures in EU Member States have become increasingly complex. While some
aspects of this development can be considered a progress towards the establishment of quality protection regimes,
the possibility to effectively access procedures for asylum seekers has overall decreased.
While binding procedural rights for asylum seekers have been regarded upon as internal matters for a long time,
recent judicial developments such as the judgement of the European Court of Human Rights in MSS v Belgium and
Greece in 2011 have recognised a right to legal aid as one of the keys to effective access to international protection.
At the human rights level, stronger procedural guarantees, including for first instance procedures, have also been
recognised under the EU’s Charter of Fundamental Rights (Articles 41, 47), which entered into force in 2009.
Some of these conditions have been recognised and reframed in the recast process of the EU asylum directives and
regulations in 2013. However, several optional clauses contained in the new instruments still question the
availability and quality of legal aid for asylum seekers.
The presentation will analyse the right to legal aid for first and second instance (appeals) procedures under the new
EU framework in the light of fundamental rights obligations and put them into the context of different national
practices. It will demonstrate that, if general legal aid systems are open for asylum seekers, these systems have to
live up to the specific needs of legal counselling and representation of asylum seekers such as translation or the
detection of vulnerabilities.
If – like in some Member States – alternative forms of support, i.e. through NGOs, are provided for, these forms have
to be scrutinized as to whether they are functionally equivalent to professional, independent legal aid provided by
lawyers free of charge and whether they provide sufficient guarantees that the rights of asylum seekers are
effectively protected.
Times They are A-Changing? Reflections on Access to Asylum for EU Citizens
 Dr Rebecca Stern
Uppsala University, Faculty of Law
The presumption that all European Union (EU) countries are safe countries of origin which can be relied upon to
safeguard the fundamental values referred to in Article 2 of the Treaty of the European Union, namely “respect for
human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law and respect for human rights, including the rights of
persons belonging to minorities” constitutes a vital part of the self-image of the EU. The description of these values
as “common to the Member States in a society in which pluralism, non-discrimination, tolerance, justice, solidarity
and equality between women and men prevail” establish that anything below this standard is not to be expected in
EU countries. Consequently, the possibilities open to an EU citizen seeking asylum in another EU country are limited
as the claims of human rights violations justifying international protection are presumed to be unfounded.
The human rights record of certain Member States, however, reveals that for some of their citizens this image is not
a true representation. Perhaps the most obvious example, though not the only one, is the plight of the Roma
minority. Based on an analysis of the right to asylum and its limited scope within the EU context, this article contends
that the predicament of the Roma, as well as recent political developments in Europe (where in certain countries
Access to Asylum: Current Challenges and Future Directions
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fundamental rights have been constrained), provides grounds for challenging such a presumption of safety and for
recognizing that EU citizens could indeed have valid claims for protection.
The paper goes on to explore various alternatives for safeguarding EU citizens. It asserts that recent ECtHR and CJEU
case law on third-country nationals in Dublin cases opens up fresh possibilities for asylum claims by EU citizens to be
assessed thoroughly rather than being routinely dismissed as ‘manifestly unfounded’.
Asylum and Protection Challenges in the Middle East
 Dr Dallal Stevens
Law School, University of Warwick
The refugee crisis in the Middle East has, once more, heightened concern about some fundamental issues of refugee
law and policy: what does the right to seek asylum actually mean? And is there sufficient provision of protection for
Middle Eastern refugees in the region?
In an area of the world where the majority of states are not party to the Refugee Convention/Protocol, the
interpretation and application of concepts such as asylum and protection may differ from that of signatory states.
This paper asks: (i) whether this is, in fact, the case? (ii) what the implications are of the current dualist system (party
versus non-party)? and (iii) if it is possible to conceive of universal standards of asylum and protection in the face of
the various conflicting tensions in the refugee context today between law, politics, economics, humanitarianism and
morality? The answers to these questions are important not only for the region itself but also for global approaches
to asylum law and policy.
Establishment of a New National Refugee Determination System: Threats and Opportunities; the Case of
Nauru
 Shyla Vohra
Department of Justice and Border Control, Republic of Nauru
In August 2012, the Australian Government decided to re-open its offshore processing centre on the remote Pacific
island of Nauru. Unlike the operation of the Centre from 2001 to 2008, it was decided that this time, refugee
determinations would be done under Nauruan law. With limited resources and capacity, Nauru faced the task of
establishing a refugee determination system entirely from scratch. Realizing the unique opportunity this afforded,
Nauru consulted with international refugee law experts and with UNHCR and has put in place a system which, on
paper, is truly world class.
The system incorporates legal representation for asylum seekers, determinations based on best international law
policy and practice, merits review and judicial review. UNHCR has endorsed the system and it has been praised by
refugee advocates. This paper describes the decision making structure in Nauru, the elements of the RSD system, the
establishment of the refugee review status tribunal, issues of complementary protection and oversight of the system.
It considers the potential contribution that such a system could make to refugee assessments throughout the region,
in terms of regional cooperation and burden-sharing. It then goes on to explore potential threats to the system,
including resources, the risk of detention becoming arbitrary and the presence of two sovereign nations in the
transfer and resettlement process.
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The Struggle of Autonomy and Authenticity: Framing the Savage Refugee
 Matthew Zagor
Australian National University
James Hathaway has described refugee law as 'fundamentally oriented to the promotion of autonomy of refugees'.
Borrowed from the Kantian roots of human rights theory, this theme has come to the fore as refugee advocates
decry Australia's increasingly draconian experiments in deflection and deterrence of boat arrivals. But what exactly
does it mean for a refugee to exercise autonomy? And how is it connected to that other popular refrain – that those
who arrive irregularly by boat, despite their high recognition rates, are not 'genuine' refugees?
By examining the assumptions underpinning autonomy as a contemporary political value, and working within the
theoretical construct that identifies the 'recognition' of autonomy with authenticity and identity, this paper aims to
provide insights into tensions within both public discourse and the discipline itself. It explores how and why the
refugee who exercises 'authentic' moral agency and choice by boarding a boat is depicted not just as a threat, but as
inherently irrational (and thus not truly autonomous) and less 'genuine' (and thus virtuous) than the 'passive'
refugee languishing in a camp overseas, awaiting Australia's redemptive touch. Finally, it asks whether refugee law
similarly suffers from the contradictory moral promise of human rights law which places autonomy at its heart while
in practice requiring, as scholars such as Douzinas and Mutua argue, that humanity be split between victim, savage
and redeemer.
RSD for status, RSD for resettlement: standards and opportunities
 Dr Mi Zhou
University of Hong Kong
In countries that are not signatories to the 1951 Refugee Convention, such as Pakistan, UNHCR often has primary
responsibility for conducting RSD. In such operations, two types of RSD exist with different goals: RSD for status to
determine whether the individual falls within the protection of UNHCR’s Mandate conducted by eligibility staff; and
later, as a part of the search for durable solutions, RSD for resettlement to a third country undertaken by
resettlement staff.
Theoretically, while resettlement staff do not conduct RSD, in practical terms, RSD decisions from the status stage is
often re-assessed or – at the very least – updated and re-drafted before submission to resettlement countries.
Although asylum seekers can appeal RSD decisions made by UNHCR, such review mechanisms remain internal. The
submission of individuals for resettlement consideration to third countries is the only time when UNHCR is
accountable to an external party for the quality of its individual casework, particularly in relation to its RSD decisions.
This paper explores the implications of this internal two-tier system within UNHCR RSD. First, the impact of the
quality of RSD decisions at status stage on the standards of asylum, particularly in situations of conflict with a large
and protracted refugee population. Second, the opportunity that potentially lies within RSD for resettlement to
influence the domestic RSD policies of resettlement countries. Currently, RSD decisions by UNHCR operations make
few explicit references to national developments and judicial decisions relevant to RSD. However, by engaging with
domestic developments of resettlement countries (particularly Australia, USA and Canada) more explicitly,
resettlement may be used as a strategic advocacy tool to promote Convention standards for RSD.
Access to Asylum: Current Challenges and Future Directions
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On ‘Infiltrators’ and ‘Asylum Seekers’ in Israel – the mishandling of Eritrean and Sudanese nationals
 Dr. Reuven (Ruvi) Ziegler
Esq., Lecturer, University of Reading, School of Law
Editor-in-Chief, Refugee Law Initiative Working Paper Series, School of Advanced Study, University of London
The proposed paper considers the mishandling of Eritrean and Sudanese asylum seekers in Israel in light of recent
legislation, government policies, and public rhetoric.
Sixty years after the drafting of the refugee convention, Israel, one of its initiators and a state party since 1954 has
not incorporated it into its domestic legislation. 54,000 asylum-seekers currently reside in Israel; the vast majority
are Eritrean (36,000) and Sudanese (13,000) nationals, who are generally ineligible to submit individual asylum
applications, following a regulatory determination made by the Population, Immigration, and Borders Authority.
The Prevention of Infiltration Act refers to asylum seekers as ‘infiltrators’. Concurrently, Israel recognises that they
cannot be refouled to their countries of origin or to Egypt (whose border they crossed into Israel). Consequently,
Sudanese and Eritreans nationals are issued a ‘permit’ in accordance with section 2(a)(5) of the Entry to Israel Act,
defined as a 'temporary visitor permit issued to an individual who resides in Israel illegally and whose deportation
has been ordered - until his departure from Israel or his deportation'. While asylum seekers have resided in Israel
since 2007, the ‘permit’ has to be renewed every three months, does not entitle permit-holders to social security
benefits or to (nonemergency) medical treatment.
Meanwhile, according to section 2(a) of the Foreign Workers Act, employing such a 'permit' holder is a criminal
offence. Nonetheless, in response to a petition to the Supreme Court (HCJ 6132/10), the State has announced a nonenforcement policy, leading to most asylum seekers working in exploitative conditions without access to statutory
benefits. It is now a criminal offence for ‘infiltrators’ to transfer money abroad, allegedly to reduce the ‘incentive’ to
come to Israel for work purposes. Indeed, State officials often refer to them as ‘work infiltrators’.
Legislation passed in 2012 mandating lengthy detention of ‘infiltrators’ was explicitly justified as a means to deter
new arrivals and encourage current ‘infiltrators’ to voluntarily leave. Indeed, the State allocates funds to provide
financial incentives for repatriation. While the Israeli Supreme Court unanimously quashed the legislation as
unconstitutional on 16 September 2013, the State’s reaction has been to introduce new legislation (currently
considered by parliament) which could potentially prove more draconian.
The paper explores the predicament of Eritrean and Sudanese asylum nationals in Israel resulting from their
inaccessibility to the asylum system and to social services.
Can healthcare in offshore detention strengthen the “Right to Health?”
 Dr Deborah Zion & Professor Louise Newman
Monash University
Australia has long criticised for its draconian treatment asylum seekers. It is currently the only high income country
that mandatorily incarcerates those arriving by boat. Studies and accounts of onshore detention centre such as
Baxter and Woomera revealed human rights abuses and a culture of secrecy and violence.
Access to Asylum: Current Challenges and Future Directions
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The current government policy has exacerbated these features. Asylum seekers are now sent to offshore detention
in Nauru, Christmas Island and Manus Island, where transparency and access by Human rights organisations is
limited.
In 2013 I undertook research interviewing healthcare providers who have worked in offshore detention, employed
by the private company IHMS. Drawing on the accounts of twenty such practitioners, I investigated whether or not
their practice could restore and strengthen the Right to Health in a rights deprived environment, despite the way in
which both the privatisation of health services, and the polices of the department of Immigration and Citizenship
actively work against the ethical provision of healthcare services. In particular I focus on use of “health advocacy” as
a mechanism to achieve this. I will also draw upon data that focusses on unaccompanied women and how gender
issues further complicate access to the right to health.
Access to Asylum: Current Challenges and Future Directions
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Presenters Biographies
Bahija Aarrass
Ms. Bahija Aarrass is lecturer and researcher at the VU University Amsterdam. She is part of the Migration law
section of the faculty of law. She is conducting a PhD research on the relevance of human rights in Migration law,
such as the freedom of religion and the right to respect for private life. She has previously worked as legal advisor
and was member of the organising committee of the Migration and Diversity center.
Lucile Abassade
Lucile Abassade is both a barrister at the Pais Bar, and an Associate lecturer of Law at Le Havre University, where she
teaches English Public and Private Law. She is also a member of the LexFeim, the Laboratoire of Le Havre School of
Law, with other fellow lecturers. The laboratoire has several exchange agreements with international universities.
After studying Law in the university of Paris 10, Nanterre, and completing a Masters in Comparative Law, Lucile
Abassade completed a LLM in Bristol University (UK). She did her research dissertation on the Critical Analysis of
Irregular Immigration legislation in EU law, under the supervision of Prof. Achilles Skordas. She successfully passed
the French bar exam in France in 2008. Since then, she has worked in different Human Rights organisation, first in
the Immigration Advisory Service in Birtol (UK), then as a lawyer for l'Anafé, an association helping asylum seekers at
the borders in Roissy Charles de Gaulle airport (France), then as a lawyer for the legal acess bureau in the Prison of
Fresnes, one of the largest prisons in France, where she focused on helping asylum seekers and immigrants with
their legal claims. She has done her pupillage with Pascal Levy, barrister specialised in Criminal and Immigration Law
in 2008-2009. She then worked as a junior barrister for Marianne Lagrue and Christine Martineau, barristers,
specialised in Asylum and Refugee Law. The office is also a member of Avocats sans frontières, and has worked with
the International Tribunal for Cambodia. Lucile Abassade has opened her own practice in May 2012. She works
mainly with asylum seekers. She is a member of different organisations defending Migrant's rights: le Groupement
d'Information et de Soutien aux Immigrés (GISTI) and l'Association des Avocats pour la Défense des Droits des
Etrangers (ADDE). After teaching for one year in Le Havre, she was promoted as a Maître de Conférences Associée
(Associate Lecturer) in 2011. She has entered the Lexfeim, the lab of the Law School in 2013. Her main interests are
Asylum and Refugee law, Immigration Law, Human Rights, Prison Law, Law and Psychiatry, Public Law.
Tess Acton
Tess Acton is a LL.M. student working at the University of Victoria. She is interested in immigration, refugee, human
rights, language, and literacy issues. Prior to beginning graduate studies, Tess worked in literacy programs serving
refugee children, completed her J.D. at the University of Ottawa, and articled at a litigation firm in Toronto. Tess was
one of the 2013 recipients of a Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers Award for her work with the Research
Committee on the changes to refugee healthcare.
Deborah Anker
Deborah Anker is Clinical Professor of Law and Director of the Harvard Law School Immigration and Refugee Clinical
Program (HIRC). She has taught law students at Harvard for over 25 years. Author of a leading treatise, Law of
Asylum in the United States, Anker has co-drafted ground-breaking gender asylum guidelines and amicus
curiae briefs. Professor Anker is one of the most widely known asylum scholars and practitioners in the United
States; she is cited frequently by international and domestic courts and tribunals, including the United States
Supreme Court. Deborah Anker is a pioneer in the development of clinical legal education in the immigration field,
training students in direct representation of refugees and creating a foundation for clinics at law schools around the
country.
Access to Asylum: Current Challenges and Future Directions
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Idil Atak
Idil Atak is Assistant Professor at Ryerson University’s Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology. She is a
research associate at Hans & Tamar Oppenheimer Chair in Public International Law (McGill University) and a regular
researcher at Chaire de recherche en immigration, ethnicité et citoyenneté (UQAM). Her research interests include
irregular migration, refugee protection, and international and European human rights law. Idil served as a legal
expert for the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Ankara, then as deputy to the Permanent Representative of
Turkey to the Council of Europe in Strasbourg.
Cecilia M. Bailliet
Cecilia M. Bailliet is Professor and Director of the Masters Program in Public International Law at the University of
Oslo, Norway. Her publications address the protection of vulnerable interests within international law, human rights,
refugee law, counter-terrorism, and peace. Her books include Non-State Actors, Soft Law, and Protective Regimes
(Cambridge 2012); Cosmopolitan Justice and its Discontents (co-edited with Katja Franko Aaas Routledge 2011);
Security: A Multidisciplinary Normative Approach, (Brill 2009), and Promoting Peace through International Law (coedited with Kjetil M. Larsen, forthcoming Oxford 2014). She is currently on the Steering Committee of PluriCourts
research project, awarded Centre of Excellence Status.
Sean Baker
Sean Baker has been a Member of the Australian Refugee Review Tribunal and Migration Review Tribunal since July
2011. Prior to that he worked as an in-house lawyer for the Tribunals and the Australian Department of Immigration
for 10 years. He studied law and political science and has recently completed a Master of Laws where he focused on
group rights for resettled persons affected by climate change and questions of citizenship. As well as migration and
refugee law he has experience as a policy maker, an international tax consultant, a teacher of English as a foreign
language and a bicycle advocate. His research interests include the use of statistics and probability in legal decision
making, questioning and fact finding, and the humanitarian impacts of drones and other robotic warfare.
Roland Bank
Dr. Roland Bank is Head of Protection at UNHCR's Representation in Germany, Berlin, where he has been working
since 2005. He was Lecturer in International Human Rights and Refugee Law at the Refugee Studies Centre in Oxford
during the academic year 2012-13. He held academic positions in various institutions including at the Max-PlanckInstitute for Comparative Public and Public International Law in Heidelberg as well as at the European University
Institute in Florence. His research interest focuses on various aspects of criteria for refugee status as
well as on the role of the Court of Justice of the EU in shaping international refugee law. His more recent
publications include "Refugees at Sea" in: A. Zimmermann (ed.), The 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of
Refugees and Ist 1967 Protocol - A Commentary" (2011); "Das Verbot von Folter, unmenschlicher oder
erniedrigender Behandlung oder Strafe", in: O. Dürr / R. Grote, / T. Marauhn, EMRK / Grundgesetz
Konkordanzkommentar (2013); "Forced Migration in Europe", in: E. Fiddian-Qasmiyeh a.o. (eds.), The Oxford
Handbook of Refugee and Forced Migration Studies (2014).
John Campbell
I am a social anthropologist who has undertaken 2 years fieldwork in the British courts, law offices, barristers
chambers and in refugee communities in SE England. In addition to writing a number of papers about asylum claims
in the British courts, I have recently published ‘Nationalism, Law and Stateless: Grand Illusions in the Horn of Africa
(2013, Routledge)’. I am currently writing an ethnography of the British asylum system.
Access to Asylum: Current Challenges and Future Directions
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David Cantor
Dr David James Cantor is Director of the Refugee Law Initiative and a Reader in Human Rights Law at the School of
Advanced Study, University of London. His research on the protection of refugees and displaced persons has
involved extensive fieldwork across Latin America. He has also trained and advised governments from Latin America,
the Caribbean, Africa, Asia and the Pacific. He previously worked as a Legal Officer at the Refugee Legal Centre and
for UNHCR. He directs a new distance-learning MA in Refugee Protection and Forced Migration Studies that will
launch in October 2014 and is the first of its kind.
Sergio Carciotto
Sergio Carciotto holds an MA in Refugee Rights and Migration Studies from the University of Rome and an MA in
Development Studies from the University of Western Cape in South Africa. With over 8 years of experience in Africa,
South America and Europe he has acquired broad practical and theoretical experience in management and
coordination of developing and humanitarian projects through his work in with government, NGOs, and the UN. He
has a strong expertise in assisting refugees, displaced people and other vulnerable groups in local integration in
urban and rural settings and promoting refugee and human rights.
Cathryn Costello
Cathryn Costello is Andrew W. Mellon Associate Professor in International Human Rights and Refugee Law, at the
Refugee Studies Centre, Oxford, with a fellowship at St Antony's College. From 2003-2013, she was Francis Reynolds
Fellow & Tutor in EU & Public law at Worcester College, Oxford, during which time she also completed her DPhil
studies on EU asylum and immigration law. She has taught a range of public and EU law courses on the Oxford
undergraduate and postgraduate curriculum. She began her academic career in 1998 as Lecturer in European Law at
the Law School, Trinity College Dublin, and from 2000-2003, she also held the position of Director of the Irish Centre
for European Law. She has been a Visiting Professor at the University of San Francisco and a visiting research fellow
at NYU School of Law. Cathryn has published widely on many aspects of EU and human rights law, including asylum
and refugee law, immigration, EU Citizenship and third country national family members, family reunification and
immigration detention. Her monograph on the Human Rights of Migrants in European Law will be published by OUP
later in 2014, as will a collection of essays (co-edited with Mark Freedland) on the intersection of labour and
migration law, entitled Migrants at Work.
Sarah Craig
Sarah Craig, Lecturer in Public Law, School of Law, and Co-Convenor, Glasgow Refugee Asylum and Migration
Network (GRAMNet http://www.gla.ac.uk/research/az/gramnet/ ), University of Glasgow. Previously a practising
lawyer, Sarah has conducted research on immigration and refugee status decision making for UNHCR and other
organisations. She has published on this subject in the Edinburgh Law Review, the International Journal of Refugee
Law and elsewhere.
Cristiano d’Orsi
I am currently a Grotius Post-Doctoral Research Scholar at the University of Michigan Law School, affiliated to the
Program in Refugee and Asylum Law. I hold a Ph.D. in International Relations (International Law) from the Graduate
Institute of International and Development Studies (GIIDS) in Geneva (Switzerland); a two-year master in
International Relations (International Law) from the same institution; a master in Diplomatic Studies (International
Relations) from the Italian Society for the International Organization (SIOI) in Rome (Italy) and a degree in
International Relations from the University of Perugia (Italy). I published more than ten articles on the issue of
refugee protection and a book-proposal derived from my Ph.D. thesis (on the challenges of the refugee protection in
Sub-Saharan Africa) has been recently accepted for publication as a monograph. My research focus is mainly on
Africa. I have been for several years part-time teacher in both refugee and migration law at the International
Access to Asylum: Current Challenges and Future Directions
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Institute for Humanitarian Law in Sanremo (Italy).
Jean-François Durieux
Jean-François Durieux is a graduate of Facultés Universitaires St-Louis in Brussels, Belgium, and obtained a Law
Degree from the Catholic University of Louvain. He has taught international law at the Refugee Studies Centre
(Oxford) 2007-2009, and again 2011-2012. In 2011 Mr Durieux completed a 30-year career with UNHCR, his last
position in the organisation being that of Director in the Division of Programme Support and Management.
Mr Durieux’s research in the 1990's was mainly policy-oriented and “operational”, addressing the protection
challenges faced by UNHCR in the regions in which he worked, and at the global level. In recent years, his research
interest has focused on legal responses to mass influxes of refugees, including a comparison of African and European
regimes and a reflection on the legal implications of refugee emergencies and protracted refugee situations. He has
organised seminars and short courses on statelessness and on the cross-fertilisation of refugee law, human rights
law, and international humanitarian law. He is currently associated with the Humanitarian Innovation Project at the
RSC and preparing a broad research project on the connections between organised crime, violence, and
displacement with a focus on Mexico and Central America. He is co-editing, with Dr David Cantor, a book based on
the presentations and discussions in the February 2013 conference ‘Refuge from Inhumanity’, which he co-hosted in
Oxford.
Maria Valles Ferrero
María Valles Ferrero is a human rights and refugee lawyer, who worked for more than seven years (from 2001 to
2008) at the Spanish Commission for Refugees (CEAR) providing legal aid to asylum seekers at Madrid Airport. After,
she worked as protection officer at UNHCR from 2008 to 2012. She is now conducting legal research for European
Council for Refugees and Exiles (ECRE) on Spanish practice on asylum for the Project “Actors of Protection and the
Application of Internal Protection Alternative (APIPA)”. Ms Valles Ferrero is also a LLM candidate on international
human rights law at the University of Essex.
Marco Formisano
Marco Formisano (Mst Int'l Human Rights Law, Oxford, MA European Studies, College of Europe, MA Political
Science, La Sapienza, MA Law, La Sapienza). PhD candidate in Internationa Law at the Geneva Graduate Institute for
International and Development Studies. Thesis on 'The Protection of Smuggled and Trafficked Migrants in
International Law'. Since 2005, Mr. Formisano is also a staff member of the United Nations High Commissioner for
Refugees. He worked as Legal Officer in the Division of International Protection and is currently the Americas
Bureau's Executive Assistant and Desk Officer for North America and the Caribbean. Mr. Formisano has published a
number on articles on the 2004 EU Enlargement and more recently on Refugee Policy and Law.
Nula Frei
Nula Frei is working as a research assistant at the Centre for Migration Law and the Swiss Centre of Expertise in
Human Rights at the University of Bern, Switzerland. Her main areas of work are Asylum and Refugee Law,
International Human Rights Law, Public International Law and Swiss Constitutional Law. She has studies law and
political science at the Universities of Bern, Fribourg, Zürich and Lille. She is currently working on her PhD thesis on
Identification and Protection of Victims of Human Trafficking in Asylum Procedures from a Human Rights Perspective.
Donald Galloway
Donald Galloway is a Professor of Law at the University of Victoria He specializes in Immigration Law, Citizenship
Law and Refugee Law. He has authored and co-authored three general texts on Canadian Immigration Law He has
served as a member of the Immigration and Refugee Board, was the founding President of the Canadian Association
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for Refugee and Forced Migration Studies, and until recently was a member of the executive of the Canadian
Association of Refugee Lawyers serving as the co-chair of its Legal Research Committee.
Madeline Garlick
Madeline Garlick (LL.M., Cantab; B.A.(Hons), LL.B (Hons), Monash) is a doctoral candidate at the University of
Nijmegen. She was Head of the Policy and Legal Support with the Europe Bureau of UNHCR until 2013. She has
worked with the UN in Cyprus, for the Office of the High Representative in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and on refugee
issues in the UK and Australia.
Dominik Hangartner
Dominik Hangartner is an Associate Professor in the Department of Methodology at the London School of Economics
and Political Science and a senior research associate in the Department of Political Science at the University of Zurich.
After pre-doctoral fellowships at Harvard University, Washington University in Saint Louis, and the University of
California, Berkeley, he received his Ph.D. in Social Science from the University of Bern in 2011. His primary research
interests include applied causal inference, political behavior and political economy. His work has been published in
leading peer-reviewed journals such as the American Political Science Review and won several awards.
Maria Hennessy
Maria Hennessy is Senior Legal Officer at the European Council on Refugees & Exiles. She leads and develops ECRE's
legal advocacy work in the field of asylum as well as working specifically on developments concerning the recast
Qualification Directive and the recast Dublin Regulation. She has a particular interest in asylum claims related to
gender, sexual orientation and gender identity and is ECRE’s contact point for the European Asylum Support Office’s
reference group on training.
Maria chairs the asylum subgroup of the European NGO Platform on EU Asylum and Migration (EPAM). She has
conducted training on behalf of ECRE for lawyers, public officials and NGOs on a wide range of legal topics related to
asylum. Prior to joining ECRE, Maria was a legal researcher within the Office of the Refugee Applications
Commissioner in the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform in Ireland and was a Senior Appeals
Caseworker at the former Refugee Migrant Justice in the UK. Maria studied law and environmental science at
National University of Galway, Ireland and Leiden University and holds a Masters in Law and Development from the
University of London.
Constantin Hruschka
Dr. Constantin Hruschka works as a Research Officer in the Policy Development and Evaluation Service (PDES) of
UNHCR in Geneva. He studied law, history and philosophy in Würzburg, Poitiers and Paris. Subsequently he worked
as a scientific researcher at the Universities of Würzburg and Munich. After his bar exam in 2002 he also started
working as a lawyer in Munich. Constantin Hruschka joined UNHCR in 2004 and has worked as Associate Protection
Officer in the UNHCR Office in Nuremberg and thereafter (as of 2009) as Legal Officer in the Office for Switzerland
and Liechtenstein prior to joining PDES in October 2013.
In addition to his work with UNHCR he is teaching European Asylum Law at the Universities of Bielefeld and Fribourg.
He has written (mostly in German) a number of articles on the Common European Asylum system with a particular
focus on the Dublin system. The latest articles have covered the protection of fundamental rights within the Dublin
system (Grundrechtsschutz in Dublin-Verfahren, in: Breitenmoser/Gless/Lagodny (eds.): Rechtsschutz bei Schengen
und Dublin, Basel 2013, 155) and the recast Dublin Regulation (Klarere Abläufe und gestärkte Verfahrensrechte –
eine erste Einschätzung der Neufassung der Dublin-II-Verordnung, in: Achermann et.al. (eds.), Jahrbuch für
Migrationsrecht 2012/2013, Bern 2013, 199).
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Júlia Iván
Júlia Iván received a Masters in Law and Political Sciences in 2006 at the Eötvös Lóránd University Faculty of Law in
Budapest. She joined one of the main human rights NGO, the Hungarian Helsinki Committee (HHC) in 2007 as a legal
officer in the organisation’s refugee programme. She is the ELENA coordinator for Hungary and is in charge of
coordinating the lawyers’ network of the HHC, which deals with several hundreds of asylum applicants each year. As
a coordinator she is responsible for providing strategic guidance and updates on international legal developments
for practitioners. Her main areas of work are drafting human rights reports on Hungary, reporting on access to
protection and territory within the UNHCR funded border monitoring programme and the protection of
unaccompanied minor refugees and migrants. Besides individual case management and project coordination she
regularly delivers trainings to border guards, attorneys, case workers and students with the HHC.
Corey Johnson
Corey R. Johnson holds a BSc in Political Science from the University of Wyoming, an MA in International Policy from
La Trobe University and an LLM in Human Rights Law from Monash University. He presently works in the Advocacy
Programme at the Scalabrini Centre of Cape Town and has worked with refugees and migrants in Australia and South
Africa.
Linda Kirk
Linda Kirk holds a Master of Laws degree from the University of Cambridge and a First Class Honours degree in Law
and an Economics degree from the University of Adelaide. She is currently enrolled in a Graduate Diploma in Law
(Human Rights) at Monash University. Linda is a Senior Member of the Migration Review Tribunal and the Refugee
Review Tribunal in Melbourne, Australia and the Chair of the Australasian Chapter of the International Association of
Refugee Law Judges.
Susan Kneebone
Susan Kneebone is Professor of Law at Monash University. She has published widely on issues of forced migration,
human trafficking, and refugee law. Her latest book is Kneebone S.Y, Stevens, D., and Baldassar, L., (eds) Refugee
Protection and the Role of Law: Conflicting Identities (Routledge, 2014). Professor Kneebone introduced Forced
Migration and Human Rights, International Refugee Law and Practice, and Citizenship and Migration Law to the Law
Faculty. She is Secretary for the International Association for the Study of Forced Migration and leader of the Asia
Pacific Forced Migration Connection (APFMC), an Institutional Partner of the Refugee Research Network (RRN http://www.refugeeresearch.net/), Canada.
Julian Lehmann
Julian Lehmann is a research associate at the Global Public Policy Institute (GPPi) in Berlin, where he contributes to
the human rights program. In addition, Julian is working on a doctoral project about home state protection in EU
asylum law, supervised at the Dresden University of Technology. Prior to joining GPPi, Julian conducted research for
the European Council on Refugees and Exiles, for the International Institute of Human Rights in Strasbourg and for
Professor Paul Hunt, former UN Special Rapporteur on the right to health. He has also worked as a protection
consultant for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees in the Morocco office and as a legal intern for INTERIGHTS in
London. Julian holds an LLM in international human rights law from the University of Essex and a bachelor’s in
international relations from the Dresden University of Technology. He was an exchange student at the Moscow State
Institute of International Relations in 2008 and a research scholar at the University of Michigan in 2012. His doctoral
project is funded by the Villigst Foundation. For previous studies and postgraduate traineeships, Julian has received
stipends from the German Academic Exchange Service, the German National Academic Foundation, EU LEONARDO
and the Villigst Foundation.
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Jamie Liew
Jamie Liew is a refugee lawyer and an assistant professor at the University of Ottawa, Faculty of Law in Canada.
Jamie teaches Advanced Refugee Law, Immigration Law, and Administrative Law. In the past, she has taught Torts,
and also Public Law. Her research focuses on immigration and refugee law, and in particular the performative and
consequential aspects of Canadian refugee law in relation to gender-related claims.
She has written, in the past, on the viability of detention as a policy tool for immigration control, the notion of state
protection and how it has evolved to limit refugee protection to those who may deserve protection, and the evolving
acceptance of refugee claims based on sexual orientation. Jamie obtained her LL.B. from the University of Ottawa,
her M.A. in international affairs from Carleton University, and her LL.M. from Columbia University in New York. After
articling at a full-service firm in Toronto, Ontario, Jamie clerked with Justice Douglas Campbell at the Federal Court
of Canada. She also served as counsel for the Issa Sesay defence team at the Special Court for Sierra Leone.
Following her time in Sierra Leone, Jamie opened a feminist legal practice with a colleague in Ottawa, Ontario, where
she practiced mainly immigration and refugee law, but also provided legal services in administrative tribunals,
criminal law, family law and civil law. Jamie also served as counsel for the Cornwall Public Inquiry, which was
mandated to investigate allegations of sexual abuse of young persons in Cornwall, Ontario. Jamie continues to
provide legal services for those who may not be eligible for legal aid, and may have merit to their refugee claims or
other immigration applications. She also serves her community by volunteering as the Ottawa Chair for the Canadian
Association for Refugee Lawyers, and as a member of the Canadian Council for Refugees litigation support subcommittee.
Laurel MacKenzie
Laurel MacKenzie lectures in Social Constructionism at RMIT University. She wrote her Honours thesis in Gender
Studies at Monash University, writing on correlations of material immanence in feminist approaches to spirituality
and in the postmodern theories expounded by Deleuze and Guattari. She took a more historical perspective in her
Masters Degree, also undertaken in Gender Studies, at the University of Melbourne. In this piece she explored the
ways that women living in the Southern states of Antebellum America constructed their identities in their diaries and
personal letters, focussing especially on themes of work (and access to the public sphere as a voiced subject),
motherhood, and race. MacKenzie’s interest in the construction of identity through language is continued in her
current research, which explores self-representation in the narratives of people who have come to Australia from
Afghanistan as refugees and asylum seekers. Her background in feminist epistemology provides a methodological
praxis which informs her current work around refugee self-conception. This research focuses on themes around
home, resistance and self-conception that are produced and perpetuated in narratives of refugees and ex-refugees
from Afghanistan. A key point of interest is the way that these narratives are constructed, drawing on narrative
theories of identity.
Violeta Moreno-Lax
Dr Violeta Moreno-Lax is a Lecturer in Law at Queen Mary and the EU Asylum Law Coordinator at the Refugee Law
Initiative of the University of London. Before coming to Queen Mary, she was Lecturer in Law at the University of
Liverpool (2012-13), Departmental and College Lecturer in Law at the University of Oxford (2011-12), Law Tutor at
the University of Louvain (2006-10) and Teaching Assistant at the College of Europe (2005-06). Dr Moreno-Lax is
Invited Lecturer at the Law Faculty of the University of Oxford (2013 and 2014). She was Visiting Fellow at the
Refugee Studies Centre of the University of Oxford (2010-12), Visiting Researcher at the Centre for Studies and
Research of The Hague Academy of International Law (2010), and Visiting Fellow at the Centre for Migration Law of
the University of Nijmegen (2009). Dr Moreno-Lax read law at the University of Murcia (Spain), European Studies at
the College of Europe, and EU Immigration and Asylum Law at the Free University of Brussels (ULB). She completed
her PhD in international and European refugee law and human rights at the University of Louvain (Belgium). Her
dissertation: Access to Asylum in Europe: Extraterritorial Border Controls and Refugee Rights under EU Law, is
currently under preparation for publication as a monograph with Oxford University Press.
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Joel Moss
Joel Moss holds a Bachelor's degree in Social Work from McGill University, a Master's in Social Services from
l'Université de Montréal, a Diploma in Public Administration from l’École nationale d'administration publique, and
has pursued master's level studies in business administration at Concordia University. He has been a human services
professional and manager for more than 40 years. From 1976 to 1986, he was a clinician and manager in Youth
Protection Services at Jewish Family Services Social Services Center of Montreal. From 1986 to 1989, Mr. Moss was
the Assistant Director of the Baron de Hirsch Institute, a Jewish community funded social service agency in Montreal.
From 1989 to 1997, Mr. Moss was the executive director of the Jewish Immigrant Aid Services (JIAS) of Montreal.
In 1997, Mr. Moss received a Federal Cabinet appointment as a Member of the Immigration and Refugee Board of
Canada. In this capacity, over a ten year period, Mr. Moss was responsible for hearing and determining refugee
claims as a member of this leading administrative tribunal. In December, 2008 Mr. Moss was engaged by HIAS
(Hebrew Immigrant Society) to provide the professional leadership for the training of officers for Israel’s Refugee
Status Determination program. Since February, 2009, Mr. Moss has also served as the Director of the HIAS Israel
office. In addition to his clinical and managerial experience, Mr. Moss has led training seminars for professionals,
students at all levels, community groups, and volunteers on a wide variety of human service topics.
Louise Newman
Professor Louise Newman is the Professor of Developmental Psychiatry and Director of the Monash University
Centre for Developmental Psychiatry & Psychology. She is the Convenor of the Alliance of Health Professions for
Asylum Seekers and an advocate for the rights of asylum seekers and refugees. She is the Chair of the Detention
Expert Health Advisory Group an independent body providing advice to the Department of Immigration and
Citizenship on the health needs of asylum seekers. She has been involved in research into the impact of immigration
detention on child asylum seekers.
Kate Ogg
Kate Ogg is a Lecturer at the ANU College of Law. Her research interests are in refugee law, human rights law,
litigation and access to justice. Kate is currently undertaking research on the ways in which refugee and international
human rights law have been used by courts, governments and the UNHCR to regulate who will be confined to camps
and under-resourced asylum systems, but also who deserves to be protected from these places of ‘refuge’. Her
research has been published in a number of journals, including the International Journal of Refugee Law, and she is
the co-editor in chief of the Oxford Monitor of Forced Migration. Kate has worked as a litigator for international and
Australian based firms where she conducted both commercial litigation and also undertook a number of pro bono
matters. Kate recently graduated with an MSc in Refugee Studies from the University of Oxford with Distinction. She
also holds a BA and LLB (first class honours/university medal) from Griffith University.
Maria O’Sullivan
Dr. Maria O’Sullivan is a Lecturer in the Faculty of Law and an Associate of the Castan Centre for Human Rights at
Monash University, Australia. Her research focuses on a comparative analysis of Australian and European refugee
law and practice. Maria’s publications include: ‘Territorial Protection: Cessation of Refugee Status and Internal Flight
Alternative Compared’ in S. Juss (ed.), Research Companion to Migration Theory and Policy (2013); ‘Non-state actors
of Protection in Refugee law’ (2012) 24(1) IJRL. In 2012 she completed her doctoral thesis on Article 1C(5) of
the Refugees Convention, dealing with cessation of refugee status. She has made a number of submissions to
Parliamentary inquiries on refugee law issues and is a regular contributor to media commentary on asylum in
Australia.
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Emanuela Parisciani
Emanuela is a PhD candidate in Politics, Human Rights and Sustainability at the Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna, Pisa and
a PhD candidate in Politics and International Relations, University of Dundee, Scotland (Joint PhD). She has a special
interest in international refugee law, human rights and international humanitarian law, and EU immigration and
asylum law. Her PhD thesis focuses on the ‘Common European Asylum System between judicial dialogue and
fragmentation’. The research stems from the fact that, notwithstanding all the efforts in putting together a Common
European Asylum System (CEAS) that effectively implements obligations at regional and international level,
discrepancies beyond the simple divergences on the interpretation of the 1951 Refugee Convention and other
international and regional human rights treaties remain. In fact, the actual European four layers tridimensional legal
scenario presents overlapping and conflicting obligations over which the main national and supranational European
courts have adopted different legal reasoning and reached different conclusions. The research has an important
theoretical focus on the recent evolution of fragmentation of refugee and asylum law in Europe and focuses mainly
on the role of the Court of Justice of the European Union and its role as either a soloist or a chorus’ director.
During the Fall 2012, Emanuela spent 4 months as a Visiting Research Scholar, University of Michigan Law School,
Department of International and Comparative Law. During that period, she attended the “Refugee Law” course of
Prof. James Hathaway and conducted the initial bulk of her PhD research under his supervision. She also sat in on
Prof. Bruno Simma seminar “The Impact of Human Rights in International Law” and took part to the the SJD
Research Scholar Colloquium. She holds a LL.M from the Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and a
MA in International Relations cum laude from the University of Macerata. Emanuela is also a Doctoral Affiliate,
Refugee Law Initiative Consortium, London School of Advanced Studies, London (UK)
Tania Penovic
Tania Penovic is a Deputy Director of the Castan Centre for Human Rights Law. In December 2012, she was
appointed as the Deputy Convenor of the ABC Advisory Council by ABC Chairman, the Hon James Spigelman. Tania
has a Master of Studies degree in International Human Rights Law (with distinction) from the University of Oxford
and is currently completing her PhD on Australia’s asylum seeker policy. Tania has written numerous articles and
book chapters on a range of human rights issues, including the rights of asylum seekers, the extraterritorial
application of Australia’s human rights obligations, children’s rights, the rights of indigenous peoples and the role of
the common law in promoting human rights. Tania has written numerous submissions to parliamentary committees
on law reform and is invited regularly to give evidence and quoted in committee reports.
Tania has provided human rights training to Victorian judges as part of an intensive human rights program (‘the
Practice’) run by the Judicial College of Victoria in 2007. She has acted as a trainer in AusAID training for Iraqi
government officials from 2010-2012, trained Indonesian government officials in 2006 and Department of Foreign
Affairs and Trade personnel in 2013. She has taught human rights in Monash University’s undergraduate and
postgraduate programs, including a Masters unit on international human rights law and women.
Selma Porobic
Selma Porobic is a PhD holder in migration studies from Lund University in Sweden and director of the Centre for
Refugee and IDP studies, Faculty of Political Sciences, University of Sarajevo. She has done an extensive research in
refugee coping, religiosity and resilience, from an interdisciplinary background in social sciences and humanities
obtained at Lund university, Sweden and American University in Cairo, Egypt. In 2006 she was a Visiting fellow at
Refugee Studies Centre, Oxford University, UK. She holds the International Diploma in Humanitarian Assistance from
the Centre for International Humanitarian Cooperation at Fordham University, New York, US. Her research interest
today are ranging from asylum policies in Western Balkans to return process, reintegration, identity, religiosity and
home-making among Bosnian war displaced, both IDPs and settled refugees. Her current research projects are
focused on sustainability of return and return migration trends in Bosnia, preservation and transformation of mental
health among displaced women in Bosnia, Serbia and Kosovo, and rights and needs of asylum seekers in Bosnia,
Croatia and Serbia.
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Sean Rehaag
Professor Sean Rehaag teaches and researches in the areas of immigration and refugee law, human rights and legal
process. He is a frequent contributor to public debates on immigration and refugee law, and he engages in law
reform efforts in these areas. In 2012, he received the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers Advocacy Award for
outstanding achievement in advocacy on behalf of refugees. He is also committed to exploring innovative teaching
methodologies, with a particular interest in clinical education and experiential learning pedagogies in social justice
sectors. In 2011, he received the Osgoode Teaching Excellence Award.
Professor Rehaag has published broadly in journals such as McGill Law Journal, Queen’s Law Journal, Osgoode Hall
Law Journal, Ottawa Law Review, International Journal of Human Rights and Canadian Journal of Women and the
Law. His current academic research focuses on empirical studies of immigration and refugee law decision-making
processes, including examinations of extra-legal factors that influence outcomes in the refugee determination
process. He received the 2013 Canadian Association of Law Teachers Scholarly Paper Award for an article entitled
"Judicial Review of Refugee Determinations: The Luck of the Draw?".
Prior to joining the Osgoode faculty in 2008, he was a visiting scholar at the University of Montreal’s Chaire de
recherche du Canada en droit international des migrations. He has also been a visiting scholar with the Center for
Gender and Refugee Studies at UC Hastings, a visiting researcher at the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights
Commission, and an instructor at the University of Victoria and the University of Sherbrooke.
Professor Rehaag holds degrees in civil law and common law from McGill University. His doctoral dissertation, which
received the Alan Marks Medal for best graduate thesis in 2008 at the University of Toronto's Faculty of Law,
examined the competing legal claims that arise when faith-based communities offer sanctuary to unsuccessful
refugee claimants to prevent their deportation. He has continued to explore these themes in several publications,
including a collection of essays that he co-edited entitled Sanctuary Practices in International Perspectives.
James C Simeon
Dr. James C. Simeon is an Associate Professor and the Director of the School of Public Policy and Administration
(SPPA), Faculty of Liberal Arts and Professional Studies, York University, Toronto, Canada. He is a Member-at-Large of
the Executive of the Canadian Association for Refugee and Forced Migration Studies (CARFMS) and a past President
of CARFMS. He also serves as the Coordinator of the International Association of Refugee Law Judges' (IARLJ) InterConference Working Party Process. His primary areas of research are international refugee law, international
humanitarian law, international criminal law, public policy and public administration. He has published widely in
these areas of research and he has organized and led many highly successful academic and professional conferences,
symposia and workshops. Before joining the faculty at York University he served as the IARLJ's first Executive
Director and prior to that he was a Member and Coordinating Member of the Immigration and Refugee Board of
Canada (IRB).
Cavidan Soykan
Cavidan Soykan is in the final stages of her PhD in Sociology at the University of Essex. She holds a Bachelor and a
Master’s degree in Politics from Ankara University as well as certificates in international human rights law from the
European University Institute and the International Institute of Human Rights. The focus of her doctoral research is
on Turkey’s asylum system, exploring how it works and how asylum applicants experience it. Through the in-depth
interviews with asylum applicants mainly from Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia and Sudan, her study aims to explore
people’s asylum trajectories and the lived experiences of asylum and migration law in Turkey. At present she works
for Ankara University Faculty of Political Science Human Rights Centre and teaches human rights research methods
at the master's level. Her main research interests are asylum and trans-national migration, sociology of rights and
sociology of law.
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Judith Spirig
Judith Spirig is a PhD student at the Department of Political Science at the University of Zurich. After BA studies at
the University of Basel in philosophy and economics, she completed a MSc in International Development and
Humanitarian Emergencies at the London School of Economics and Political Science 2011-2012. Her main research
interests include asylum and refugee issues, migration, and discrimination.
Joachim Stern
After law studies at the Universities of Paris V (Maîtrise en droit européen et international 2003), Stockholm, and
Vienna (Magister iuris 2005), Dr. Joachim Stern worked as researcher and lecturer at the Institute for Public and
Administrative Law of the University of Vienna with a focus on EU migration law. Besides his scientific activities,
which included organising the academic program for the new International Constitutional Law Approach Summer
School“ held in cooperation with 12 partner universities, he worked as legal advisor and trainer in migration and
asylum matters. He defended his PhD (with honors) on 'The Right to Legal Aid for Asylum Seekers – Public
International Law, European Law and Charter of Fundamental Rights, Principles of Constitutional Law‘ (in German) at
the University of Vienna in 2011. The work was published with Nomos in 2012, and, in close cooperation with
UNHCR, the author developed standards and benchmarks for legal aid in asylum procedures. Joachim Stern currently
lectures at the Master Programme of Human Rights at the University of Vienna and is working for the UNHCR Liaison
Office to the European Asylum Support Office in Malta, focussing on the harmonisation of European asylum law. He
is national legal expert at the European University Institute’s European Union Democracy Observatory on
Citizenship“, and member of various academic and practitioners‘ networks in the field of asylum and migration law.
Rebecca Thorburn Stern
Dr. Rebecca Thorburn Stern (LL M, LL D) is a Senior Lecturer in International Law at the Faculty of Law, Uppsala
University. Previous positions include being a Senior Researcher at the Raoul Wallenberg Institute of Human Rights
and Humanitarian Law, Lund University. In the autumn of 2012, she was a Visiting Fellow with the Refugee Law
Initiative, School of Advanced Study, University of London. Her research interests include migration law, asylum law
in particular, human rights – in particular implementation issues, children’s rights, the philosophy of rights and the
relationship between national, regional and international law, focusing on the field of asylum.
She has published in all these fields. Dr. Thorburn Stern is also the Coordinator/Director of the Lund/Uppsala
Migration Law Network (L/UMIN), a research network including senior and junior researchers from a number of
Swedish universities. L/UMIN supports research projects (currently six projects), organises seminars for academics
and practitioners and works to promote migration law research in Sweden. The network is financed by the European
Refugee Fund.
Dallal Stevens
Dallal Stevens is Associate Professor of Law at the University of Warwick. Her expertise is in the fields of refugee and
asylum law. Her work adopts a contextual and, at times, comparative approach, and is concerned with highlighting
the tension that exists between asylum law and human rights protection. She is author of UK Asylum Law and Policy
- Historical and Contemporary Perspectives (Sweet & Maxwell, 2004) and co-editor with Susan Kneebone and Loretta
Baldassar of Refugee Protection and the Role of Law: Conflicting Identities (Routledge, 2014, forthcoming). She is
currently researching asylum and refugee policies in the Middle East.
Hugo Storey
Hugo Storey is an Upper Tribunal Judge (Immigration and Asylum Chamber) (formerly Senior Immigration Judge of
the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal) in the United Kingdom. He is currently a member of the Chamber’s executive
committee and also its reporting committee. He has sat on a number of the Tribunal’s main country guidance cases
(e.g. on Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia) and also acts as co-ordinator of the Tribunal’s country guidance work. He was
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formerly a law academic, and later an Honorary Research Fellow, at the University of Leeds. In an academic capacity
he has published widely on human rights, refugee, international law and European law issues. His recent publications
include an article in Refugee Studies Quarterly 2012 devoted to the topic of asylum law and armed conflict (“the
“war-flaw”) and two which set out a working definition of persecution. He is one of the International Association of
Refugee Law Judges’ (IARLJ’s) founding members and is currently a member of its Council, chair of its Publications
Committee, Rapporteur of its COI-CG (Country of Origin-Country Guidance) Working Party and is the current
President of the IARLJ’s European Chapter. He was one of the experts utilised by the European Commission when
drafting the Refugee Qualification Directive (/2004/83/EC) and, more recently, its “recast”. He has been active in the
training of judges doing asylum and immigration work inside and outside the UK.
Claudia Tazreiter
Claudia Tazreiter is Senior Lecturer in Sociology in the Faculty of Arts Social Sciences at the University of New South
Wales. Her research focuses on forced and irregular migration, human rights, the role of non-governmental
organizations and civil society in social change as well as gender in migration. She is the author of Asylum Seekers
and the State. The Politics of Protection in a Security-Conscious World (Ashgate 2004, 2006), and editor
of Globalisation and Social Transformation in Two Culturally Diverse Societies: The Australian and
Malaysian Experience (Palgrave 2013). She is managing editor of The Australian Journal of Human Rights and is an
associate of the Australian Human Rights Centre. She is currently completing an ARC Discovery project focusing on
temporary and irregular migration in the Asia Pacific. She is currently working on an ANU-DIBP Collaborative
Research Program study focusing on the experiences of asylum seekers in Indonesia.
Shyla Vohra
Shyla Vohra is the Senior Government Lawyer with the Department of Justice and Border Control of the Republic of
Nauru. She has responsibility for the establishment of the refugee determination law, policy and practices in Nauru.
This has included the development of a Refugee Law Handbook and design of other RSD forms and materials,
establishment of the merits review tribunal, oversight of training of local RSD officers, liaison with UNHCR, Australian
authorities and other bodies, co-Chairing of an RSD committee providing advice and oversight to the system and
making refugee determinations.
Prior to this role, Shyla worked for the International Organization for Migration (IOM) for a period of 17 years as
Senior Legal Officer advising on a variety of international legal and policy issues. She developed the IOM
international migration law training series and has trained government officials in Indonesia and other countries on
international law and human rights as well as on migration issues such as trafficking and smuggling of migrants. She
has published articles on the topics of detention of irregular migrants and asylum seekers and internal displacement.
Shyla has also worked in Melbourne as a solicitor conducting Federal Court litigation in migration and refugee cases.
Matthew Zagor
Matthew Zagor is a Senior Lecturer at the ANU College of Law and an Adjunct Fellow at the ANU Centre for European
Studies. He teaches and writes in the areas of international refugee and human rights law, comparative
constitutional law, and socio-legal theory, and is senior co-editor of the Federal Law Review. He has held Visiting
Fellowships at the LSE Centre for Human Rights and Society, and the University of Grenoble’s Centre for
International Security and European Cooperation (CESICE), and in 2013 participated at the Michigan Colloquium on
Challenges in International Refugee Law. Before joining academia, he worked as a refugee advocate and legal
representative, a legal adviser in the Attorney-General’s Department, and a Member on the Migration Review
Tribunal / Refugee Review Tribunal.
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Mi Zhou
Dr Mi Zhou is currently a Senior Lecturer at the Department of Law at the University of Hong Kong. She began her
law career as a solicitor in corporate practice. From 2004 and 2010, she worked as a legal advisor to various NGOs
on refugee law, minority rights, and post-conflict governance in Cairo, Cape Town, and Kosovo. She also served with
the UNHCR in Pakistan for 18 months as a resettlement consultant.
Reuven (Ruvi) Ziegler
Dr. Reuven (Ruvi) Ziegler is lecturer in law at the University of Reading School of Law (specialising in human rights,
international humanitarian law and international refugee law); the Editor-in-Chief of the Working Paper Series of the
Refugee Law Initiative (Institute for Advance Legal Study, University of London); a researcher at the Israel Democracy
Institute (analysing the treatment of African asylum seekers in Israel as part of the Constitutional Principles project);
and an academic visitor, Faculty of Law, University of Oxford. Previously, he was a visiting researcher at Harvard Law
School and a Tutor in Public International Law at the University of Oxford. His doctoral thesis (Lincoln College,
University of Oxford) considered whether Recognised Geneva Convention Refugees should be entitled to vote in
elections of their Countries of Asylum. He holds DPhil, MPhil and BCL degrees from Oxford, an LLM (with
specialisation in Public Law) from Hebrew University, and an LLB and BA (Economics) from Haifa University.
Webpage: http://works.bepress.com/ruvi_ziegler/ (r.ziegler@reading.ac.uk)
Deborah Zion
Dr Deborah Zion teaches ethics in under-graduate medicine at Monash Malaysia, and in the Masters of International
Research Bioethics, Masters of Public Health, and Masters of International Health. She is lead investigator for an
ARC funded project titled 'Caring for asylum seekers in Australia: Bioethics and Human Rights" with Associate
Professor Bebe Loff and Professor Linda Briskman.
Access to Asylum: Current Challenges and Future Directions
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