Towards a Refugee Oriented Right of Asylum

Laura Westra is Professor Emerita at Windsor University, Canada, where she teaches international environmental law. She also teaches at the University of Milano (Bicocca) and the University of Trento (Italy). She is the author of over 85 articles and 31 books on environmental and human rights law, ethics and global justice. Satvinder Singh Juss Ph.D FRSA, is professor of law at King’s College London, UK, a Barrister-at-Law of Gray’s Inn, London, UK, and a former Human Rights Fellow at Harvard Law School, Massachusetts, USA. He specialises in human rights, public law, comparative constitutional law and international refugee law. He has published widely on the subjects of migration and human rights law. Professor Juss is fluent in Urdu and Swahili. Tullio Scovazzi is professor of international law at the University of Milano-Bicocca, Italy. He occasionally is the legal expert of Italy in negotiations and meetings relating to international law of the sea, cultural properties, and human rights.

’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

• Introduction to the Question of Asylum Seekers, LauraWestra, SatvinderJuss, TullioScovazzi; Part I Proximate and Distant Causality Affecting Asylum Seekers and Internally Displaced Persons; Chapter 1 The Limitations of the Present International Instruments for the Protection of Refugees, LauraWestra; Chapter 2 Climate Change Refugees, Donald A.Brown; Chapter 3 Escape from Development and the Plunder of Resources, LauraWestra; Chapter 4 Exodus after Conflict, SatvinderJuss; Part II Present Challenges, Legal Regimes and Jurisprudence; Chapter 5 After the Flight, LauraWestra; Chapter 6 The Particular Problems of Migrants and Asylum Seekers Arriving by Sea, TullioScovazzi; Part III The Case for the Support of Asylum Seekers; Chapter 7 The Case for Asylum Seekers, LauraWestra; Chapter 101 Epilogue, SatvinderJuss;