Migrant ‘Push Backs’ at Sea are Prohibited ‘Collective Expulsions’
In the early hours of 20 January 2014, a boat coming from Turkey carrying twenty-seven Afghan and Syrian migrants was intercepted by the Greek coast guard near the isle...
The New Barbarians: Bulgarians and Romanians at the Gate!
Joseph Goebbels, Reich Minister of Propaganda in Nazi Germany, is reputed to have said: ‘If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to...
Judicial Review of Migrant Detention in Europe: In Search of Effectiveness and Speediness
Detention has been highlighted in recent years by a number of international and non-governmental organisations as an ineffective and inefficient tool of migration control employed by a large number...
Palestinian Refugees in Syria: A Primer For Advocacy
In the face of crisis, it is very easy for those of us in neither government nor humanitarian work to switch off the news. Certainly, this seems to be the...
XYZ or HJ: How do EU and UK refugee law stack up on identity issues?
The purpose of refugee law is to give sanctuary to people fleeing persecution because of some aspect of their identity. But to what extent, if at all, should people be...
The Prevention of Infiltration (Amendment no. 4) Bill: A malevolent response to the Israeli Supreme Court judgment
On 16 September, the Israeli Supreme Court, sitting as a High Court of Justice (HCJ), handed down a unanimous judgment quashing the 2012 Prevention of Infiltration (Amendment no. 3) Act...
Ode v High Court of Ireland: the Right to Respect for Family Life is Alive and Kicking
There is a constant undercurrent of scepticism in the UK regarding the role of human rights in the legal system. Many see them as a tool to be exploited by...
Fundamental Human Rights and the Community Law of CARICOM
In 1973, pursuant to the Treaty of Chaguaramas (ToC), the independent countries of the Commonwealth Caribbean and Montserrat (at the time a British Crown colony) established the Caribbean Community and...
Sinking hopes? Climate Change Refugees in New Zealand
New Zealand’s Immigration and Protection Tribunal recently considered a “climate change refugee” case under its relatively new jurisdiction, which includes protection under the ICCPR as well as the Refugee Convention....
New Bill Shifts Focus to Survivors of Human Trafficking
Earlier this year, I interviewed a group of young Bangladeshi men who had been trafficked into Scotland to work in the hotel services industry. They had been deceived, abused, exploited...
Disenfranchising the Disenfranchised? – Appeal Rights in the Immigration Bill 2013
The first immigration bill to be published in four years was introduced in the House of Commons on 10 October 2013. The long title – ‘… to limit … access...
Al-Jedda: Judicial Commitment to the Universal Application of the Right to a Nationality
The Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Act 2006 provides that the Secretary of State may, as a general rule, deprive an individual of British citizenship where she is satisfied that this...