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Migration and Refugee Law: Relevant Literature

By Marthe Kielland Røssaak (until 2020)

Marthe Kielland Røssaak is a research assistant at the Norwegian Centre for Human Rights, while completing her LLM at the Faculty of Law, University of Oslo. Her research interests include human rights and public international law.

Main Titles

2015-2021

Vincent Chetail, International Migration Law, Oxford University Press (2019).
International Migration Law provides a detailed and comprehensive overview of the international legal framework applicable to the movement of persons across borders. The book offers a unique and comprehensive mapping of this growing field of international law. It brings together and critically analyses the disparate conventional, customary, and soft law on a broad variety of issues, such as irregular migration, human trafficking, refugee protection, labour migration, non-discrimination, regional free movement schemes, and global migration governance. It also offers a particular focus on important groups of migrants, namely migrant workers, refugees, and smuggled migrants. It maps the current status of the law governing their movement, providing a thorough critical analysis of the various stands of international law which apply to them, suggesting how the law may continue to develop in the future. This book provides the perfect introduction to all aspects of migration and international law.
Link to Publisher ǀ £39.99

Satvinder Singh Juss (editor), Research Handbook on International Refugee Law, Edward Elgar Publishing (2019).
This Research Handbook provides critical analyses of the legal ordering of refugees, giving a glimpse at what the future of refugee law could – and should – look like. Bringing together experts in the field, the innovative and groundbreaking chapters provide a critical perspective on the legal landscape for refugees at a time when the politics and legitimacy of transnational regulatory governance are in question as never before. In an age of growing ethnic nationalism and anti-immigrant rhetoric, the contributing authors examine key issues surrounding refugees and migration, and build a new outlook on social justice, as the post-war international order ends. With its informative analysis and moving accounts, this Research Handbook will be a critical tool for students of law, especially those with an interest in human rights and migration. Its insights will also be valuable for policy practitioners and policymakers.
Link to Publisher ǀ £180.00

Other Relevant Titles by Year

Forthcoming 2021

James C. Hathaway, The Rights of Refugees under International Law 2nd edition, Cambridge University Press (2021).
Link to Publisher

Forthcoming 2020

Romit Bhandari, Human Rights and The Revision of Refugee, Routledge (2020).
This book addresses the relationship between International Refugee Law and International Human Rights Law. Using international refugee law’s analytical turn to human rights as its object of inquiry, it represents a critical intervention into the revisionism that has led to conceptual fragmentation and restrictive practices. The exploration of the gap between modern approaches and the unsatisfactory realities of seeking asylum forms the substance of this book. It asserts, by contrast, the existence of revolution rather than evolution. Human rights law has erased the founding tenets of the Refugee Convention, enabling powerful states to contain refugees in their region of origin.The book will be essential reading for those interested in Refugee Law, Refugee Studies, Postcolonial Legal Studies, Postmodern Critiques and Critical Legal Theory. Additionally, given its relevance for the adjudication of refugee claims, it will be an important resource for solicitors, barristers and judges.
Link to Publisher ǀ £120.00

Mathilde Crepin, Persecution, International Refugee Law and Refugees, Routledge (2020).
This book explores the ambit of the notion of persecution in international law and its relevance in the current geopolitical context, more specifically for refugee women. The work analyses different models for interpreting the notion of persecution in international refugee law through a comparative lens. In particular, a feminist approach to refugee law is adopted to determine to what extent the notion of persecution can apply to gender related forms of violence and what are the challenges in doing so. It proposes an interpretive model that would encourage decision makers to interpret the notion of persecution in a manner that is sufficiently protective and relevant to the profiles of refugees in the 21st century, most particularly to refugee women. The book will be of interest to academics and students in the field of public international law, international human rights law, international humanitarian law, immigration law, and refugee law as well as those working in the areas of international relations.
Link to Publisher ǀ £120.00

Dana Schmalz, Refugees, Democracy and the Law, Routledge (2020).
The book provides an in-depth discussion of democratic theory questions in relation to refugee law. It introduces readers to the evolution of refugee law and its core issues today, as well as central lines in the debate about democracy and migration. Bringing together these fields, the book links theoretical considerations and legal analysis. Based on its specific understanding of the refugee concept, it offers a reconstruction of refugee law as constantly confronted with the question how to secure rights to those who have no voice in the democratic process. The book will be essential reading for academics and researchers working in the areas of migration and refugee law, legal theory and political theory.
Link to Publisher ǀ £120.00

2020

Matthew Scott, Climate Change, Disasters, and the Refugee Convention, Cambridge University Press (2020).
Climate Change, Disasters and the Refugee Convention is concerned with refugee status determination (RSD) in the context of disasters and climate change. It demonstrates that the legal predicament of people who seek refugee status in this connection has been inconsistently addressed by judicial bodies in leading refugee law jurisdictions, and identifies epistemological as well as doctrinal impediments to a clear and principled application of international refugee law. Arguing that RSD cannot safely be performed without a clear understanding of the relationship between natural hazards and human agency, the book draws insights from disaster anthropology and political ecology that see discrimination as a contributory cause of people’s differential exposure and vulnerability to disaster-related harm.
Link to Publisher ǀ £26.99

Mariagiulia Guiffré, The Readmission of Asylum Seekers under International Law, Hart Publishing (2020).
This monograph could not be more timely, as discourses relating to refugees’ access to territory, rescue at sea, push-back, and push-back by proxy dominate political debate. Looking at the questions which lie at the junction of migration control and refugee law standards, it explores the extent to which readmission can hamper refugees’ access to protection. Though it draws mainly on European law, notably the European Convention on Human Rights, it also examines other international frameworks, including those employed by the United Nations and instruments such as the Refugee Convention. Therefore, this book is of importance to readers of international law, refugee law, human rights and migration studies at the global level. It offers an analysis of both the legal and policy questions at play, and engages fully with widely-disputed cases concerning readmission agreements, deportation with assurances and interception at sea. By so doing, this book seeks to clarify a complex field which has at times suffered from partiality in both its terminology and substance.
Link to Publisher ǀ £80.00

Megan Bradley, The International Organization for Migration: Challenges, Commitments, Complexities, Routledge (2020).
This book provides an accessible, incisive introduction to IOM, focusing on its humanitarian activities and responses to forced migration. IOM’s humanitarian work is often overlooked or dismissed as a veil for its involvement in other activities that serve states’ interests in restricting migration. In contrast, Bradley argues that understanding IOM’s involvement in humanitarian action and work with displaced persons is pivotal to comprehending its evolution and contemporary significance. Examining tensions and controversies surrounding the agency’s activities, including in the complex cases of Haiti and Libya, the book considers how IOM’s structure, culture, and internal and external power struggles have shaped its behaviour. The International Organization for Migration is essential reading for students and scholars of migration, humanitarianism, and international organizations.
Link to Publisher ǀ £34.99

2019

James C. Hathaway (editor), The Michigan Guidelines on the International Protection of Refugees, Michigan Publishing (2019).
The Michigan Guidelines on the International Protection of Refugees are the result of a collective endeavor of hundreds of scholars, advocates, judges, and international officials to tackle some of the most important and challenging questions in international refugee law. This volume presents 20 years of the Guidelines — the consensus work of senior Michigan Law students and experts from around the world on cutting-edge refugee law concerns — in five languages (English, French, Spanish, Arabic, and Russian). The Guidelines address five of the most difficult issues of refugee status: what is the meaning of a “well-founded fear”; when may refugee status be denied on grounds of an “internal protection alternative”; how is the causal connection to a Convention ground to be assessed; when is a risk fairly said to be for reasons of “political opinion”; and under what circumstances are persons believed to have violated rules of international criminal law to be excluded from refugee status?
Link to Publisher ǀ £19.99

Isabel M. Borges, Environmental Change, Forced Displacement and International Law, Routledge (2019).
The book seeks to provide answers to two basic questions: whether and to what extent existing international law protects cross-border environmental displacement, and whether and how existing formalized regional complementary protection standards can interpretively solidify and conceptualize protection for cross-border environmental displacement. The discussion outlines that the protection of the human person is not only an ex post facto obligation of states, but must be increasingly seen as an ex ante one. The analysis further suggests that the European Union regionally orientated protection regime can help states to consolidate an evolving protection paradigm of proactive and reactive measures being erected at the international level. It can also narrow the identified legal protection gaps. In so doing, it helps states to reconceptualise protection as a holistic and dynamic enterprise. This book will be of great interest to academics in law, political science and human rights, policy makers and civil society organisations both at national and international level.
Link to Publisher ǀ £36.99

Elizabeth G. Ferris and Katharine M. Donato, Refugees, Migration and Global Governance: Negotiating the Global Compacts, Routledge (2019).
As debates about migrants and refugees reverberate around the world, this book offers an important first-hand account of how migration is being approached at the highest levels of international governance. This book provides a fly on the wall analysis of the opportunities and challenges of the two new Global Compacts on Refugees and Migration as governments, international NGOs, multilateral institutions and other actors develop and negotiate them. Looking beyond the compacts, the book considers migration governance over time, and asks the bigger questions of what the international community can do on the one hand to affirm and strengthen safe, orderly and regular migration to help drive economic growth and prosperity, whilst on the other hand responding to the problems caused by increasing numbers of refugees and irregular migrants. This highly engaging and informative account will be of interest to policy-makers, academics and students concerned with global migration and refugee governance.
Link to Publisher ǀ £24.99

Michelle Foster and Hélène Lambert, International refugee Law and the Protection of Stateless Persons, Oxford University Press (2019).
International Refugee Law and the Protection of Stateless Persons is the first book to analyse statelessness through the lens of international refugee law. The book draws on historical and contemporary interpretation of international law based on the travaux préparatoires to the 1951 Refugee Convention and its antecedents, academic writing, UNHCR policy and legal documents, UN Human Rights Council resolutions, UN Human Rights Committee general comments, UN Secretary General reports, and UN General Assembly resolutions. It is also based on original comparative analysis of existing jurisprudence worldwide relating to claims to refugee status based on or around statelessness. By examining statelessness through the prism of international refugee law, this book fills a critical gap in existing scholarship.
Link to Publisher ǀ £70.00  

Charlotte Lülf, Conflict Displacement and Legal Protection: Understanding Asylum, Human Rights and Refugee Law, Routledge (2019).
This book analyses the relevant legal instruments for the provision of a protection status for persons fleeing to Europe from conflict and violence. It focuses on the conceptualisation of conflict and violence in the countries of origin and the different approaches taken in the interpretation of them in the 1951 Refugee Convention, the Recast Qualification Directive of the European Union and the European Convention on Human Rights. It traces the hierarchical order of protection granted, starting with refugee protection status, to subsidiary protection status and finally with the negative protection from non-refoulement. Recent case law and asylum status determination practices of European countries illustrate the obstacles in the interpretation as well as the divergence in the application of the legal instruments.
Link to Publisher ǀ £120.00

Maria O’Sullivan, Refugee Law and Durability of Protection: Temporary Residence and Cessation of Status, Routledge (2019).
This book examines the link between refugee protection, duration of risk and residency rights. It focuses on two main issues of importance to current state practice: the use of temporary forms of refugee status and residency and the legal criteria for cessation of refugee status under Article 1C(5) of the 1951 Refugee Convention. In analysing this issue, this book canvasses debates which are pertinent to many other contentious areas of refugee law, including the relationship between the refugee definition and complementary protection, application of the Refugee Convention in situations of armed conflict, and the role of non-state bodies as actors of protection. It also illustrates some of the central problems with the way in which the 1951 Refugee Convention is implemented domestically in key asylum host states.
Link to Publisher ǀ £120.00


2018

Simon Behrman, Law and Asylum: Space, Subject, Resistance, Routledge (2018).

In contrast to the claim that refugee law has been a key in guaranteeing a space of protection for refugees, this book argues that law has been instrumental in eliminating spaces of protection, not just from one’s persecutors but also from the grasp of sovereign power. To illustrate the complex ways in which these two paradigms – asylum and refugee law – interact with one another, this book examines their historical development and concludes with in-depth studies of the Sanctuary Movement in the United States and the Sans-Papiers of France. The book will appeal to researchers and students of refugee law and refugee studies; legal and political philosophy; ancient, medieval and modern legal history; and sociology of political movements.

Link to Publisher ǀ £36.99

Jacqueline Bhabha, Jyothi Kanics and Daniel Senovilla Hernández (editors), Research Handbook on Child Migration, Edward Elgar Publishing (2018).

Bringing together both leading experts and grass-roots activists, this Research Handbook is a comprehensive and diverse collection of the best and most up-to-date research on global child migration. It covers a wide range of topics from the history of specific child migration flows, the ethnography of child migration, and child specific legal tools and challenges, to the psychological effects of migration on child migrants. Presented in an accessible style, this Research Handbook provides a wealth of evidence and reflection which will enrich and improve the readers’ ability to tackle this key human rights challenge. This Research Handbook is an innovative tool which will be of use not only for students and scholars interested in migration displacement, immigration, and human rights, but also for policymakers and others actively engaged in the migrant and refugee rights advocacy community.

Link to Publisher ǀ £180.00

2017

Volker Türk, Alice Edwards and Cornelis Wouters (editors), In Flight from Conflict and Violence: UNHCR’s Consultations on Refugee Status and Other Forms of International Protection, Oxford University Press (2017).

The impact of violence and conflict on refugee status determination and international protection is a key developing field. This book will provide a comprehensive analysis of the global and regional refugee instruments as they apply to claimants in flight from situations of armed violence and conflict, exploring their interrelationship and how they are interpreted and applied (or should be applied). As part of a broader United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees project to develop guidelines on the interpretation and application of international refugee law instruments to claimants fleeing armed conflict and other situations of violence, it includes contributions from leading scholars and practitioners in this field as well as emerging authors with specific expertise.

Link to Publisher ǀ £30.99

Meltem Ineli-Ciger, Temporary Protection in Law and Practice, Brill Nijhoff Publishing (2017)

Temporary protection is a flexible tool of international protection, which offers sanctuary to those fleeing humanitarian crises, and currently affects the lives and legal status of millions of forced migrants. However, the content, boundaries and legal foundation of temporary protection, remain largely undefined or unsettled. In Temporary Protection in Law and Practice, Meltem Ineli-Ciger takes a step towards clarifying those undefined aspects of temporary protection, by examining temporary protection’s legal foundation in international law and its relationship with the Refugee Convention. The book also reviews temporary protection policies in Europe, Southeast Asia, Turkey and the United States, with a view to identifying elements that enhance and compromise the legality and viability of temporary protection regimes.

Link to Publisher ǀ €156.00

Maria O’Sullivan and Dallal Stevens (editors), States, the Law and Access to Refugee Protection, Hart Publishing (2017).

This timely volume seeks to examine two of the most pertinent current challenges faced by asylum seekers in gaining access to international refugee protection: first, the obstacles to physical access to territory and, second, the barriers to accessing a quality asylum procedure (termed ‘access to justice’). The book brings together leading commentators from a range of backgrounds, including law, sociology and political science, as well as NGO practitioners. While the examination offers a strong focus on European legal and policy developments, the book also addresses the issues in different regions (Europe, North America, the Middle East, Africa and Australia). Given the currency of the questions under debate, this book will be essential reading for all scholars in the field of asylum law.

Link to Publisher ǀ £75.00

Samantha Arnold, Children’s Rights and Refugee Law: Conceptualising Children Within the Refugee Convention, Routledge (2017).

This book explores the possibility of a children’s rights approach to the interpretation of the Refugee Convention and within that what such an approach might look like. The book also analyses to what extent the Refugee Convention is capable of dealing with claims from children based on the modern conceptualisation of children, which is underscored by two competing ideologies: the child as a vulnerable object in law to be protected and the child as subject with rights and the capacity to exercise their agency. The work discusses how a children’s rights approach might improve outcomes for child applicants. The book makes an original contribution to child refugee discourse and as such will be an invaluable resource for academics, researchers and policymakers working in the areas of migration and asylum law, children’s rights and international human rights law.

Link to Publisher ǀ £36.99

2016

Vincent Chetail (editor), International Law and Migration, Edward Elgar Publishing (2016).

This collection takes stock of the important legal scholarship devoted to the multifaceted impact of international law on migration. It highlights the great diversity of the legal literature and provides a representative and didactic mapping of the key issues and rules at stake. The selected papers explore the core notions of movement, sovereignty and globalization. They also examine the complex and conflicting issues raised by alienage, citizenship and the rule of law as well as the main controversies surrounding the legal protection of migrant workers and refugees in contemporary international law. The original introduction by the editor illuminates these important issues on this highly relevant topic.

Link to Publisher ǀ £520.00

Penelope Mathew and Tristan Harley, Refugees, Regionalism and Responsibility, Edward Elgar Publishing (2016).

This book critically examines the merits of regional approaches to refugee protection through a detailed examination of five major regions of the world and five regional arrangements. As well as drawing attention to the strengths and weaknesses of regional arrangements on a practical level, this book explores the normative debates regarding refugee protection as a moral imperative, deliberating on why and how responsibility for refugee protection should be shared. This comprehensive and contemporary work will interest both academics and students specializing in law, human rights or the political sciences as well as those studying philosophy who specialize in the study of forced migration. Its eminently practical approach also makes this book prime readership for human rights defenders and advocates as well as policy makers and legislators in the fields of refugee protection and forced migration.

Link to Publisher ǀ £85.00

Christiano d’Orsi, Asylum-Seeker and Refugee Protection in Sub-Saharan Africa, Routledge (2016).

It is not often acknowledged that the great majority of African refugee movement happens within Africa rather than from Africa to the West. This book examines the specific characteristics and challenges of the refugee situation in Sub-Saharan Africa, offering a new and critical vision on the situation of asylum-seekers and refugees in the African continent. Cristiano d’Orsi considers the international, regional and domestic legal and institutional frameworks linked to refugee protection in Sub-Saharan Africa, and explores the contributions African refugee protection has brought to the cause on a global scale. Key issues covered in the book include the theory and the practice of non-refoulement, an analysis of the phenomenon of mass-influx, the concept of burden-sharing, and the role of freedom fighters. This book will be of great interest and use to researchers and students of immigration and asylum law, international law, human rights, and African studies.

Link to Publisher ǀ £39.99

2015

Mary Crock (editor), Refugees and Rights, Routledge (2015).

Refugees and Rights focus attention on refugees, victims of trafficking and others who cross borders seeking protection from anthropogenic or natural disasters. The opening essays provide historical and conceptual overviews of rights to freedom of movement and asylum; and links between human rights and refugee law. Articles on the principle of non-refoulement in international law explore the occasional disjuncture between the individual’s right to protection and the State’s rights to protect its national interests. The refugee’s rights to due process and the substance of entitlements at law are explored in essays that range across administrative processes; social and cultural rights, including family reunion; detention; and the right of return. There follow four essays that address sexual orientation and refugee rights; refugees and disability rights; human rights and persons displaced by climate change disasters; and the rights of victims of human trafficking. The volume concludes with work reflecting on the rights discourse outside of traditional ’Western’ theatres. These cover Africa (Kenya), India, South America (Brazil) and the Asia-Pacific (Indonesia and Papua New Guinea).

Link to Publisher ǀ £270.00

Satvinder Juss, Laura Westra and Tullio Scovazzi, Towards a Refugee Oriented Right of Asylum, Routledge (2015).

This volume explores the factors that give rise to the number of people seeking asylum and examines the barriers they currently and will continue to face. Divided into three parts, the authors first explore the causality that generates displacement, examining climate change, illegal conflicts and the deprivation of natural resources.  They argue that all of these problems either originate from human agency directly, or are strongly influenced by human activities, particularly those of wealthy countries in the North West. The study goes on to discuss how migrants are received and the problems they face on arrival, and concludes with confronting the fate and the status of asylum seekers after arrival, and the walls, both virtual and material, that they encounter. The authors propose ways of approaching the situation, beyond the present language and the limited interpretations of the Convention on the Status of Refugees. Written by leading experts in environmental ethics, asylum law, and international law, the book will be essential reading for those working in these and related areas.

Link to Publisher ǀ £43.99

Jean-Pierre Gauci, Mariagiulia Giuffré & Evangelia (Lilian) Tsourdi (eds), Exploring the Boundaries of Refugee Law: Current Protection Challenges, Brill Nijhoff (2015).       

Protection challenges around the globe require innovative legal, policy and practical responses. Drawing primarily from a new generation of researchers in the field of refugee law, this volume explores the ‘boundaries’ of refugee law. On the one hand, it ascertains the scope of the legal provisions by highlighting new trends in State practice and analysing the jurisprudence of international human rights bodies, as well as national and international Courts. On the other hand, it marks the boundaries of refugee law as ‘legal frontiers’ whilst exploring new approaches and new frameworks that are necessary in order to address the emerging protection challenges.                            

Link to Publisher ǀ €143.00

Francesco Cherubini, Asylum Law in the European Union, Routledge (2015).

This book examines the rules governing the right to asylum in the European Union. Drawing on the 1951 United Nations Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, and the 1967 Protocol, Francesco Cherubini asks how asylum obligations under international refugee law have been incorporated into the European Union. The book draws from international law, EU law and the case law of the European Court of Human Rights, and focuses on the prohibition of refoulement; the main obligation the EU law must confront. Cherubini explores the dual nature of this principle, examining both the obligation to provide a fair procedure that determines the conditions of risk in the country of origin or destination, and the obligation to respond to a possible expulsion. The book will be of great use and interest to researchers and students of asylum and immigration law, EU law, and public international law.

Link to Publisher ǀ £43.99

Cathryn Costello, The Human Rights of Migrants and Refugees in European Law, Oxford University Press (2015).

Focussing on access to territory and authorization of presence and residence for third-country nationals, this book examines the EU law on immigration and asylum, addressing related questions of security of residence. Concentrating on the key measures concerning both the rights of third-country nationals to enter and stay in the EU, and the EU’s construction of illegal immigration, it provides a detailed and critical discussion of EU and ECHR migration and refugee law. Rights of admission include three categories of entrants: labour migrants, family migrants, and asylum seekers and refugees. Legal entry raises further questions, and recent key measures, including the EU Blue Card Directive, the Family Reunification Directive, and the Dublin Regulation and related instruments are examined. The interaction between the EU norms and the case law of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) is a key concern, and the uniting theme is the interaction between established human rights norms, in particular the ECHR, and EU law.

Link to Publisher ǀ £73.00


Luise Druke, Innovations in Refugee Protection: A Compendium of UNHCR’s 60 Years, Peter Lang Publishing (2015).

This compendium synthesizes innovations of the UN High Commissioners for Refugees (UNHCR) since 1951. The book bridges the gap between academic and field work and uses Joseph Nye’s concept of «soft power» as a methodological approach for understanding and solving political and ethical refugee protection dilemmas. Extending the refugee legal framework (1951 Refugee Convention and 1967 Protocol), UNHCR has increasingly used international human rights law, innovative technologies and new partners. Refugee protection is a responsibility primarily of states. Challenges are: considering increasing power diffusion (Nye) from states to non-state actors and balancing IT potentials with security risks.

Link to Publisher ǀ £48.15

Marie-Bénédicte Dembour, When Humans Become Migrants: Study of the European Court of Human Rights with an Inter-American Counterpoint, Oxford University Press (2015).

This book examines the way in which two institutions tasked with ensuring the protection of human rights, the European Court of Human Rights and Inter-American Court of Human Rights, treat claims lodged by migrants. It asserts that the European Court of Human Rights treats migrants first as aliens, and then, but only as a second step in its reasoning, as human beings. By contrast, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights approaches migrants first as human beings, and secondly as foreigners (if they are). Dembour argues therefore that the Inter-American Court of Human Rights takes a fundamentally more human rights-driven approach to this issue. Ultimately, the book analyses whether the divergence in the case law of the two courts is likely to continue, or whether they could potentially adopt a more unified practice.

Link to Publisher ǀ £127.50

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