The Regional Law of Refugee Protection in Africa

Julie Lugulu, Human Rights Review This book makes an outstanding contribution to the refugee protection field and is an invaluable resource for judges, academics and practitioners in refugee law.

Paul White, International Journal of Refugee Law The Regional Law of Refugee Protection in Africa raises great expectations in a sparsely populated area of scholarly research. ... [Sharpe's] critical scholarship is vital reading for the legal novice seeking practical engagement with refugees in Africa and for the scholars and judges working through legal issues.

Professor Franois Crpeau, Hans & Tamar Oppenheimer Professor in Public International Law, McGill University, Former UN Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights of Migrants At last, an in-depth analysis of the African theory and practice of refugee protection, which specifically underlines how international and regional human rights law is key to protecting refugees and persons in refugee-like situations. This book is a remarkable contribution to scholarship, bound to become an instant reference classic.

The Honourable Justice Tujilane R Chizumila, Judge of the African Court on Human and People's Rights We have needed this book for decades.

Professor Chaloka Beyani, Associate Professor of International Law, London School of Economics, Former UN Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights of Internally Displaced Persons This important work is the first to exhaustively analyse all regional elements of African refugee law together in one book. It provides rigorous analysis of the 1969 OAU Convention and the role of the African Charter in refugee protection, including a sophisticated account of how these treaties relate to each other and to the 1951 Refugee Convention. It also addresses the regional institutional architecture supportive of this treaty framework, exploring the OAU's historical work to draft its refugee treaty and the AU's contemporary engagement with refugee protection. It is extensively researched, clearly written and persuasively argued. It will be highly useful to both academics and practitioners and will likely come to represent a seminal contribution to the field of refugee law.

Erika de Wet, SARChI Professor of International Constitutional Law, University of Pretoria and Honorary Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Bonn, Germany The monograph makes a significant contribution to the existing literature pertaining to the Convention Governing the Specific Aspects of Refugee Problems in Africa of 1969. The analysis succeeds very well in illuminating the historical context in which the 1969 Convention came about, while also engaging with its inter-relationship with other treaties relevant to refugee protection. It is a very timely contribution on a topic of seminal importance to the African continent and beyond.

Marina Sharpe is a lawyer called to the bars of New York and England & Wales and an international law scholar. She holds a DPhil in law from the University of Oxford, where she studied as a Trudeau Scholar, along with degrees in civil and common law from McGill University, an MSc in international development from LSE, and a BA in economics from McGill. She practiced law with the firm Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP and has worked with refugee rights NGOs in Africa, Europe and North America, as well as with UNHCR. She has lectured and published widely in refugee and human rights law.

1: Introduction I: The Treaty Framework 2: The drafting of the 1969 Convention 3: The 1969 Convention 4: The relationship between the 1951 and 1969 Conventions 5: Regional human rights law II: The Institutional Architecture 6: The Organization of African Unity and the African Union 7: The African Commission and human rights courts 8: Conclusion