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Katie O'Byrne - 7th August 2013
Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has announced that people who come by boat to Australia and claim asylum will be transferred to detention facilities at Manus Island in Papua New Guinea (PNG) for processing and be permanently resettled in that country. PNG signed up to Australia’s “Regional Resettlement Arrangement” (RRA) in exchange for hundreds of […]
- 5th July 2013
This is republished from Border Criminologies: Foreigners in a Carceral Age A new report in the UNHCR Legal and Protection Police Research Series co-authored by Cathryn Costello and Esra Kaytaz from the University of Oxford explores the nature and impact of alternatives to detention for refugees, asylum seekers and other migrants in Geneva and Toronto. Based […]
Guest Contributor - 13th May 2013
By Victoria Prais European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) judgments can have a huge impact in Member States by highlighting systemic and serious problems in human rights protection. But what happens once the initial furore over an ECtHR judgment dies down? The implementation process is critical to the success of the ECtHR system. The Committee […]
Guest Contributor - 27th April 2013
by Marija Jovanovic – The ECtHR in M. and Others v. Italy and Bulgaria departs from a low-threshold approach for triggering Article 4 in potential trafficking situations previously established in Ranstev v. Cyprus and Russia. This regrettable turn creates ambiguity around required state action in potential trafficking cases and allows governments to continue to downplay […]
Sebastian Ko - 1st April 2013
On 25 March 2013, the Court of Final Appeal (CFA) in Hong Kong unanimously allowed an appeal by three asylum seekers, C, KMF and BF. The appeal is based on the repatriation orders of the Director of Immigration (DOI) of the government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR), which were made after the […]
Guest Contributor - 15th March 2013
By Kelly O’Connor – The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) recommends that the refugee status of all Rwandans who fled the country between 1959 and 1998 should cease in June 2013. Rwandan officials argue that the country is safe. Fahamu, Human Rights Watch, and refugees themselves respond that ending refugee status could lead to […]
Anjoli Maheswaran Foster - 11th March 2013
The ruling in Hounga v Allen will have a dangerous impact for undocumented migrant workers. The Court of Appeal’s application of the doctrine of illegality means that because these workers have no right to work, and thus their employment contract is illegal, they are deprived of all fundamental labour rights. Ms Hounga was a Nigerian […]
Guest Contributor - 26th February 2013
By Professor Judy Fudge – Women who cross national borders in order to work in the households of other peoples’ families are very vulnerable to exploitation.Their precarious work situation is a function both of their precarious migrant status – typically they are admitted to the country in which they work on visas that tie their […]
Guest Contributor - 22nd February 2013
By Professor Bridget Anderson – ‘Trafficking’ seems to extend the audience of those engaged with the human rights of migrants. Even those who are not usually sympathetic to the plight of undocumented migrants can engage with the plight of ‘victims of trafficking’ and respond to calls for their protection. Trafficking also seems to offer a rare patch […]
Jaakko Kuosmanen - 19th February 2013
Article 80 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) requires that asylum policies of the Union and their implementation be governed by the principle of solidarity and fair sharing of responsibility among the Member States. The EU is currently in the process of finalising its legislative package for the Common European […]
Mei Ling McNamara - 7th February 2013
Following on from her previous post on forced labour in Britain Mei-Ling McNamara takes a closer look at the specific challenges facing Scotland. Scotland is a unique case on the issue of trafficking in Britain. Its woefully low record of attaining prosecutions has been attributed by some to the legal hurdles in Scots law pertaining to […]
Mei Ling McNamara - 1st February 2013
As previous posts on the OxHRH Blog have highlighted, trafficking for forced labour remains a hot-button issue in the UK. A new report by the Office of International Migration (IOM), released in January 2013, looked at trends in trafficking from over 150 missions since 2010. The report revealed that labour exploitation is now surpassing sexual slavery […]