Description
Book SynopsisThis volume explores the factors that give rise to the number of people seeking asylum and examines the barriers they currently and will continue to face. Divided into three parts, the authors first explore the causality that generates displacement, examining climate change, illegal conflicts and the deprivation of natural resources. They argue that all of these problems either originate from human agency directly, or are strongly influenced by human activities, particularly those of wealthy countries in the North West. The study goes on to discuss how migrants are received and the problems they face on arrival, and concludes with confronting the fate and the status of asylum seekers after arrival, and the walls, both virtual and material, that they encounter. The authors propose ways of approaching the situation, beyond the present language and the limited interpretations of the Convention on the Status of Refugees. Written by leading experts in environmental ethics, asylum law, a
Trade Review’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
Table of ContentsIntroduction 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;
