Towards a Refugee Oriented Right of Asylum

’The ever-increasing number of displaced people and the growing resistance of states to grant them asylum is an unfolding human tragedy of the highest order. The plight of millions of people raises fundamental questions about state sovereignty, citizenship and human rights. This book offers thorough analysis and practical solutions. Written by eminent scholars, a convincing case is made for legal reforms based on human rights and global responsibilities.’ Klaus Bosselmann, University of Auckland, New Zealand ’This very timely book dares to ask the hard questions about causes and conditions of mass migrations that potential receiving states, through their politicians, refuse to confront. The authors probe the increasingly serious problems faced by spiralling numbers of refugees, displaced persons or asylum seekers produced by trafficking, climate change, wars, or terrorism, and the woefully inadequate laws available to protect them or give them refuge. The authors examine the principles underlying policies of closed borders and exclusion, challenging the cynicism of border imperialism and arbitrary treatment of asylum seekers by those who simultaneously espouse fidelity to principles of human rights and humanitarian law. They make concrete suggestions, from re-defining refugee to include a far broader range of migrants, to re-configuring international refugee law to be as much a compensatory scheme as a human rights one based on the fundamental legal principle that those who cause harm to others through their deliberate or negligent acts must pay for them. This book is a voice for reform, for moral and ethical leadership and for states to take responsibility for their role in causing the unbearable conditions leading to mass movements of the most vulnerable and destitute people in the world. Anyone interested in this most critical issue of our time, should read this book.’ Kathleen Mahoney QC, FRSC, University of Calgary, Canada