Publications
‘Recent and unprecedented research undertaken by the [International Detention Coalition] IDC found that there are cost-effective and reliable alternatives to prevent unnecessary immigration detention, currently used in a variety of settings that are beneficial to government, the community and the individual’ — ‘International Detention Coalition submission to the Special Rapporteur concerning his report on the issue of immigration detention’. International Detention Coalition. 3 February 2012.
‘The threat to Palestinians in Iraq has grown to the extent that their continued presence in the country is now under serious threat. Palestinian refugees in Iraq are stateless, vulnerable, and forgotten’ — ‘An ongoing Nakba: The plight of Palestinian refugees in Iraq’. Tom Charles. Jadaliyya. 6 February 2012.
‘Recast Article 2 (o), defining “withdrawal of international protection” does not address a conceptual and definitional problem with existing Article 2 (j) of the Asylum Procedures Directive and in the Qualification Directive, where both directives seem to confuse the legal concepts of cessation, cancellation and revocation’ — ‘UNHCR Comments on the European Commission’s Amended Proposal for a Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on Common Procedures for Granting and Withdrawing International Protection Status (Recast), COM(2011) 319 final’. UNHCR. January 2012. (The referenced Amended Proposal is available here)
‘Jose pulled down the collar of his t-shirt and showed me the long, raised scars on his chest. “This is why I don’t want to go back to Mexico,” he said. “This is from torture in Mexico.” He says that Mexican federal cops tortured him in a town near the border, as he made his way back to the United States’ — ‘Dispatch from detention: A rare look inside our “humane” immigration jails’. Seth Freed Wessler. Colorlines. 4 January 2012.
‘If a woman living in [UK Border Agency] UKBA accommodation is experiencing violence, the accommodation provider must ensure that the victim, and any children, are transferred to alternative accommodation immediately’ — ‘Fact Sheet 13: Asylum support for women who are victims of domestic violence’. Asylum Support Appeals Project. December 2011.
‘Many immigrants in removal proceedings, including asylum seekers and others with legitimate claims to lawful immigration status, face the harsh prospect of being removed from the United States simply because they cannot afford competent legal representation’ — ‘The Asylum Representation Project: An innovative partnership to increase pro bono representation for indigent asylum seekers’. Lori Adams and Alida Y. Lasker. Cardozo Law Review, vol. 33: 2. December 2011.
‘With global terrorism and anti-American sentiment on the rise, it was thought that weaknesses in the asylum system could be easily exploited leaving American citizens vulnerable to another attack from the inside. Acting quickly, the government passed legislation and various reforms that attempted to reinforce our borders and security. However, it is believed by many that these new changes have been made at the expense of our humanitarian efforts to provide a safe haven for those who need it most’ — ‘Refugee admittance and asylum outcomes in the US before and after 9/11; Fair or unfair?’. Seth Feingold. Birdsong’s Law. 16 February 2012.
‘[D]espite the attention in recent years to asylum flows into Western countries, around three quarters of the world’s refugees are located in Asia and Africa — regions where an even greater share of them originated. … About 30 percent of refugees (and especially those in Africa) are located in camps, sometimes under appalling conditions where they lack basic necessities and where there is little security. As a result the refugee burden still falls disproportionately on some of the world’s poorest countries’ — ‘Refugee and asylum migration to the OECD: A short overview’. Timothy J. Hatton. Australian National University Centre for Economic Policy Research. February 2012.
‘[T]he concerns identified by UNHCR lie rather with the humanitarian impact of detaining asylum seekers and whether those who need international protection are identified properly. … UNHCR observed that safeguards to identify vulnerable and traumatised individuals are inadequate’ — ‘Your asylum procedure is too fast and not fair, UNHCR tells UK government’. Roland Schilling. openDemocracy, OurKingdom. 23 February 2012.
‘These Guidelines are intended to provide interpretive legal guidance for governments, NGOs, legal practitioners, decision-makers and the judiciary, as well as for UNHCR staff and other UN agencies involved in addressing statelessness’ — ‘Guidelines on Statelessness No. 1: The definition of “Stateless Person” in Article 1(1) of the 1954 Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons’. UNHCR. 20 February 2012.
‘This report comprehensively outlines the law, policy and practice in the UK regarding the refugee status determination process, the asylum procedure, reception conditions and detention conditions from a gender perspective. This information is analysed in light of the experiences of women seeking asylum in the UK and their legal representatives and advocates working on their behalf’ — ‘I feel like as a woman I’m not welcome’: A gender analysis of UK asylum law, policy and practice. Christel Querton. Asylum Aid. January 2012.
‘Throughout the country, non-citizens face deportation after pleading guilty to minor offenses without counsel and without any warning that their plea might jeopardise their immigration status’ — ‘Petty offences, drastic consequences: Toward a Sixth Amendment right to counsel for non-citizen defendants facing deportation’. Alice Clapman. Cardozo Law Review, vol. 33: 2. December 2011.
‘This commentary identifies what the “Still Human, Still Here” coalition considers to be the main inconsistencies and omissions between the currently available country of origin information (COI) and case law on Iraq and the conclusions reached in the December 2011 Iraq Operational Guidance Note (OGN), issued by the UK Border Agency’ — ‘A Commentary on the December 2011 Iraq Operational Guidance Note’. Still Human, Still Here. 20 February 2012.
‘Currently, refugees need protection and care while living in the Dadaab camps. While longer-term solutions should be considered, today’s reality is that hundred of thousands of refugees depend on the aid system and the host government to ensure their human rights are respected’ — ‘Dadaab refugee camps: Back to square one’. Médecins Sans Frontières. February 2012.
‘Balancing long-held traditional beliefs, as with witchcraft and other popular beliefs, with emerging legal norms can create a friction between the law which is perceived as “foreign” in relation to the societal practices it aims to address. This has been apparent in other African countries, as well as many other parts of the world. However, in balancing the individual’s rights of freedom of belief, respect must be ensured for the protection of vulnerable groups against discriminatory practices which have a negative effect on society as a whole’ — ‘Observations of the Bar Human Rights Committee on the relevant international standards: Submission to the Malawi Law Commission, addressed to the Special Law Commission established to review the Witchcraft Act Cap. 7:02, Laws of Malawi’. Bar Human Rights Committee. June 2011.
‘Migrant smuggling is a complex, ever-changing crime that takes different forms in different parts of the world. The criminals who smuggle migrants operate with varied levels of organisation. There are not only mafia-like, hierarchically structured organised criminal groups but also more loosely connected networks of criminals, all playing their own particular part at various points in the smuggling process’ — ‘International Framework for Action to Implement the Smuggling of Migrants Protocol’. UN Office on Drugs and Crime. January 2012.
‘The primary goal of providing assistance to refugees is to stabilise their lives, but a critical component of stability — livelihoods — is indirectly and inadvertently undermined by a service delivery system that requires refugees to spend an excessive amount of time and money getting to the offered assistance, particularly in urban settings’ — The cost of living: An analysis of the time and money spent by refugees accessing services in Nairobi. Martin Anderson. UNHCR. January 2012.
‘South African law does not provide for the mandatory detention of asylum seekers and refugees. Rather, asylum seekers and refugees are entitled to sojourn in South Africa outside of detention in accordance with the Refugees Act 130 of 1998 (the Refugees Act). Despite the legal protections afforded to asylum seekers, refugees and other migrants in South Africa, the detention and deportation of foreign nationals is often carried out in an unlawful manner’ — ‘Submission to the Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights of Migrants’. Lawyers for Human Rights, South Africa. 30 January 2012.
‘At a time when Greece faces a severe financial crisis and an outright violation of economic and social rights of the population takes place, it is inevitable that the most vulnerable groups — amongst them the asylum seekers and refugees — are from the outset those most strongly affected. As a result their situation has deteriorated even more’ — ‘Greece: The rights of refugees in times of economic crisis’. AITMA. 14 February 2012.
‘The report aims to bring together — for the first time — evidence of the lived experience of discrimination and inequality in Kenya on a wide range of different grounds, including ethnicity, sex, disability and sexual orientation, with an analysis of the adequacy of the laws, policies and institutions established to address these issues’ — In the spirit of harambee: Addressing discrimination and inequality in Kenya. Equal Rights Trust and Kenya Human Rights Commission. 27 February 2012.
‘In short, such circumstances present a real chance of the appellant being persecuted at the hands of the authorities in Rwanda. Such persecution is not limited to Kigali alone, but would extend throughout Rwanda where the gacaca jurisdiction applies’ — AB (Rwanda), [2011] NZIPT 800019, New Zealand: Immigration and Protection Tribunal, 24 August 2011.
‘[T]he current [UK] government continues to withdraw and withhold support to refused asylum seekers as a way to expedite their return to their country of origin. This leaves many thousands of people, including children and young people, who cannot return to their country of origin, destitute for prolonged periods of time, sometimes several years, and without access to even the most basic welfare support’ — ‘I don’t feel human’: Experiences of destitution among young refugees and migrants. Ilona Pinter. The Children’s Society. February 2012.
‘Iran’s multiple and often parallel security bodies — including a new cyber police force — can now scrutinise activists as they use personal computers in the privacy of their homes. They have restricted bandwidth and are developing state-run servers, specific internet protocols (IPs), internet service providers (ISPs) and search-engines’ — ‘We are ordered to crush you’: Expanding repression of dissent in Iran. Amnesty International. February 2012.
‘The more significant changes were: the reduction in the requirements as regards social assistance and health care; the possible complete withdrawal of support for asylum seekers; the lowering of detention standards, most notably as regards the possible detention of asylum seekers in prisons (there is still no maximum time-limit to their detention, unlike the time-limits for detaining other immigration detainees set out in the EU’s Returns Directive)’ — ‘Analysis: The Revised Directive on asylum seekers’ Reception Conditions: How much lower can the Member States go?’. Steve Peers. Statewatch. February 2012.
‘Union policy in the field of the external borders aims at an integrated border management ensuring a uniform and high level of control and surveillance, which is a necessary corollary to the free movement of persons within the Union and a fundamental component of an area of freedom, security and justice. To that end, the establishment of common rules on standards and procedures for the control and surveillance of the external borders is contemplated’ — ‘Regulation (EU) No 1168/2011 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 25 October 2011 amending Council Regulation (EC) No 2007/2004 establishing a European Agency for the Management of Operational Cooperation at the External Borders of the Member States of the European Union’. Journal of the European Union. 22 November 2011.
‘[T]he National Safety Courts served primarily as a vehicle to convict defendants of alleged crimes stemming from the exercise of fundamental rights of freedom of expression, association, and assembly, in violation of international and Bahraini law. According to the report of the [Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry] BICI, the special military courts convicted some 300 defendants for what it termed “political crimes”. Even the Bahraini Public Prosecution Office later conceded that more than 340 defendants were convicted of crimes related to their right to free expression’ — No justice in Bahrain: Unfair trials in military and civilian courts. Human Rights Watch. February 2012.
