International Refugee Law Series – serie

In The International Legal Status and Protection of Environmentally-Displaced Persons: A European Perspective, Hélène Ragheboom addresses the topical issue of displacement caused by environmental factors and analyses in particular whether affected persons, who are unable or unwilling to return to their country of origin due to the severe degradation of their living environment, could or, in the negative, should receive some form of international protection within the European Union. The author provides a detailed analysis of relevant instruments of refugee law and international human rights law, and explores possible future approaches to addressing the phenomenon of environmental displacement, ranging from constructive interpretations of existing norms to the allegedly preferable creation of a multidisciplinary sui generis framework.

In Protecting Stateless Persons: The Implementation of the Convention Relating to the Status of Stateless Persons across EU States, Katia Bianchini offers an in-depth comparative study of legislation, case-law and decision-making concerning the treatment of stateless persons in ten EU States. Focusing on whether and why statelessness determination procedures are needed, what their constituent elements should be, how the definition of "stateless person" is interpreted and applied, and what rights are attached to the granting of status, Katia Bianchini critically examines current national legal frameworks, and points a way forward for more effective legislation and practice in the area of statelessness. Against this backdrop, she adds insights into the wider debate on how human rights treaties should be implemented.

The open access publication of this book has been published with the support of the Swiss National Science Foundation.This book offers a comprehensive analysis of the right to citizenship in international and regional human rights law. It critically reflects on the limitations of state sovereignty in nationality matters and situates the right to citizenship within the existing human rights framework. It identifies the scope and content of the right to citizenship by looking not only at statelessness, deprivation of citizenship or dual citizenship, but more broadly at acquisition, loss and enjoyment of citizenship in a migration context. Exploring the intersection of international migration, human rights law and belonging, the book provides a timely argument for recognizing a right to the citizenship of a specific state on the basis of one’s effective connections to that state according to the principle of jus nexi.

The Prohibition of Collective Expulsion: Protecting against Arbitrary Expulsion in Human Rights Treaty Law examines this fundamental safeguard as a cornerstone of migrants’ rights. Without effective procedural guarantees, other protections remain meaningless in the border context. In her book, Lena Riemer explores how the prohibition of collective expulsion ensures due process for migrants and asylum seekers across international and regional human rights systems, from the European and Inter-American Conventions to the African Charter and the Migrant Worker Convention. Through a holistic analysis of jurisprudence, the book highlights the principle’s critical role in preventing arbitrary expulsions.

Achieving a more fair and equitable sharing of refugee protection responsibilities between states has been a perennial challenge of the global refugee regime. The Refugee Convention did not codify a legal obligation of responsibility sharing and as a result any assistance to refugee host states remains voluntary. This responsibility sharing gap has in turn negatively impacted on the quality of refugee protection and on interstate relations by exacerbating existing inequalities undermining the fairness of the international refugee law regime.This book offers a pragmatic yet principled solution to the responsibility sharing gap. It puts down a detailed proposal for the long-resisted UN Protocol on Responsibility Sharing which would codify a light package of responsibility sharing obligations by requiring states to contribute to refugee protection and solutions under a framework of common but differentiated responsibilities based on capabilities. Building on the Global Compact on Refugees and drawing inspiration from international climate change law, the book makes a compelling case for further multilateral law making.

Non-signatory States in International Refugee Law explores the relationship between the international refugee regime and states that are non-signatory to the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees and its 1967 Protocol. The collection examines how these instruments play a central role in shaping responses to refugees. It unpacks the ways in which international refugee law manifests itself in non-signatory states and how those states in turn contribute to its development. The contributions are legally informed and richly contextualized, providing empirical, conceptual, critical and historical insights into how and why the Refugee Convention matters globally.