LAW42280

Learning Outcomes:

The main objective of this module is to introduce you to International Refugee Law (IRL) and its workings in practice in the Global Refugee Regime. The aim is to ensure that students understand, and can assess critically, the nature, content and scope of IRL, how it relates to international human rights law (IHRL). We will also consider the limits of IRL, in particular in ensuring the right to flee and ‘solutions’ for refugees, and how to assess its effectiveness and legitimacy.

At the conclusion of this module students should have advanced their skills in the following areas:

 Legal research, analysis and argumentation;
 Treaty interpretation and interpretation of other legal acts;
 Close reading of legal judgements and other legal sources;
 Critical assessment of and engagement in legal and ethical argumentation based on scholarly sources and debates;
 Oral communication and argumentation.

More concretely, the course aims to enable students to:
L01: Contextualise and historicise key sources, concepts and principles of international refugee law and relevant international human rights law.
L02: Understand how international refugee law develops over time, both formally and informally, including the role of refugees, civil society, courts, governments, regional entities, UNHCR and scholars in its development.
L03: Identify and recognise the content, potential, and limits of international protection, in particular the refugee definitions in the 1951 Convention on the Status of Refugees and regional instruments, and appraise the law and practice around exclusion from and cessation of refugee status.
L04: Explore key interactions between international human rights law and international refugee law, in particular as regards non-refoulement and the wider concept of international protection.
L05: Problematise the law and practices of the global refugee regime, in particular by assessing the legality of contemporary practices limiting access to asylum, refugee recognition and rights.
L06: Identify, appraise and engage in key debates on the workings, effectiveness and protectiveness of international refugee law.

Indicative Module Content:

Seminar Dates Topic Seminar Lead
1 09.09.24 Introducing International Refugee Law (LT & CC)
2 16.09.24 Sources, Methods and Approaches to IRL (CC)
3 23.09.24 The refugee under the 1951 Convention on the Status of Refugees (LT)
4 30.09.24 Seeking asylum in a world of shifting borders (LT)
5 07.10.24 International protection beyond the 1951 Convention: expanded definitions, alternative statuses (CC)
6 14.10.24 Mini- Moot (CC)
7 21.10.21 Who is a refugee? The distinctive position of Palestine Refugees under Article 1D and the role of UNRWA (CC)
There is no seminar on Monday 28 October- this is a Bank Holiday in Ireland.
8 04.11.24 Who is excluded from refugee status? (LT)
9 11.11.24 A closer a look at non-refoulement and non-penalisation (CC)
10 18.11.24 The rights of refugees and persons entitled to protection / Cessation of refugee status and durable solutions (LT)
11 18.11.24 Reform Debates (CC)

Student Effort Hours:

Approaches to Teaching and Learning:

Teaching will take place in seminars, with short presentations from the seminar givers, and regular student presentations, group discussion and presentation. The module includes two structured oral activities – a mini-moot based on assigned legal problem questions, where each student will have a role; and a final debate on reform of international refugee law, where students will be provided with motions and key scholarly and policy materials on reform. Class participation, the mini-moot and debate are assessed, as are two written assignments – a legal problem question and reform paper.

Requirements, Exclusions and Recommendations

Not applicable to this module.

Module Requisites and Incompatibles

Not applicable to this module.
 

Assessment Strategy

 

Please see Student Jargon Buster for more information about remediation types and timing. 

Feedback Strategy/Strategies

• Feedback individually to students, on an activity or draft prior to summative assessment
• Feedback individually to students, post-assessment
• Group/class feedback, post-assessment

How will my Feedback be Delivered?

Should students require feedback on their learning for this module, then they should not hesitate to get in touch with the seminar leads to discuss. Brief individual feedback will be provided on the mini-moot and the ethical debate. Individual feedback on the Legal Problem Paper, with a provisional grade, will be provided within 20 working days of the deadline. Individual feedback on the Reform Paper will be provided in January 2025. Professor Costello’s student consultation hours: Please come to me after class to arrange an appointment, or simply email cathryn.costello@ucd.ie. I am in the Law School most days. Liam’s student consultation hours: All appointments can be booked during my student consultation hours here. Meetings will generally take place in my office (L129). If you wish for a meeting to occur via Zoom, then schedule your meeting in the calendar AND then send the Zoom link to me liam.thornton@ucd.ie. If you no longer need to meet with me, just delete the appointment slot on your Calendar so as to open this up for others.

LAW42280 International Refugee Law

Seminars, Mondays 14:00 to 16:00 QUI-012

Draft Indicative Reading List

Students will be provided with a final reading list at the beginning of the course. This will identify the essential- must complete- reading prior to the seminar. Recommended reading may be engaged with before or after the seminar. Further reading allows you to explore a particular issue in greater depth. At master’s level, it is expected that students develop their own insights into the material by reading widely.

Introductory (non-legal texts)
Gil Loesher, Refugees: A Very Short Introduction (OUP 2021)
David Owen, What Do We Owe Refugees (Polity 2020)

Core
Cathryn Costello, Michelle Foster and Jane McAdam, The Oxford Handbook of International Refugee Law (OUP 2021) (referred to as OHILR) (available as an e-book via UCD Library)
Guy S. Goodwin-Gill and Jane McAdam, The Refugee in International Law (4th edn, OUP 2021) (Goodwin-Gill & McAdam).
James C. Hathaway and Michelle Foster, The Law of Refugee Status (2nd edn, CUP 2014) (Hathaway & Foster).
Hugo Storey, The Refugee Definition in International Law (OUP 2023).

Other useful books include the following. While there is no expectation that you will read all of these, but if you are going deeper into any of the topics, then these are high quality academic works:
• Francesca Albanese and Lex Takkenberg, Palestinian Refugees in International Law (2nd ed, OUP 2020).
• Efrat Arbel, Catherine Dauvergne and Jenni Millbank (eds), Gender in Refugee Law: From the Margins to the Centre (Routledge 2014).
• Bruce Burson and David James Cantor (eds), Human Rights and the Refugee Definition: Comparative Legal Practice and Theory (Brill/Nijhoff 2016).
• Cathryn Costello, The Human Rights of Migrants and Refugees in European Law (Oxford University Press 2015).
• Jean-François Durieux and David Cantor (eds), Refuge from Inhumanity: War Refugees and International Humanitarian Law (Brill/Martinus Nijhoff, 2014).
• Thomas Gammeltoft-Hansen, Access to Asylum: International Refugee Law and the Globalisation of Migration Control (Cambridge University Press 2011).
• James C Hathaway, The Rights of Refugees under International Law (Cambridge University Press, 2nd ed, 2021).
• Kate Ogg Protection from refuge: From refugee rights to migration management (Cambridge University Press, 2022).
• Maria O’Sullivan, Refugee Law and Durability of Protection: Temporary Residence and Cessation of Status (Routledge 2019).
• Volker Türk, Alice Edwards and Cornelis Wouters (eds), In Flight from Conflict and Violence: UNHCR’s Consultations on Refugee Status and Other Forms of International Protection (Cambridge University Press 2017).
• Andreas Zimmerman, Terje Einarsen, and Franziska M. Herrmann (eds), The 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees and its 1967 Protocol: A Commentary (2nd edition, OUP, 2024)

We will refer to articles from a variety of academic journals. The journals specialized on refugee law and policy include:
• International Journal of Refugee Law http://ijrl.oxfordjournals.org/
• Journal of Refugee Studies http://jrs.oxfordjournals.org/
• Refugee Survey Quarterly http://rsq.oxfordjournals.org/
• Georgetown Immigration Law Journal

International Law Blogs:

International law blogs often include coverage of IRL and related topics. The best blogs include:
• EJIL: Talk! – Blog of the European Journal of International Law (ejiltalk.org)
• Home - Opinio Juris
• IntLawGrrls | voices on international law, policy, practice (ilg2.org)
• Refugee Law Initiative Blog - RLI Blog on Refugee Law and Forced Migration (sas.ac.uk)
• TWAILR – Third World Approaches to International Law Review
• Verfassungsblog - https://verfassungsblog.de/

Some relevant podcasts include:
• Jus Cogens : The International Law Podcast | Podcast on Spotify.
• Borderline Jurisprudence | Podcast on Spotify.
• Oxford Human Rights Hub podcast - https://ohrh.law.ox.ac.uk/category/audio/

Timetabling information is displayed only for guidance purposes, relates to the current Academic Year only and is subject to change.