Reconceiving international refugee law

Violence and other human rights abuses continue to force desperate people to migrate in search of protection. Yet because the political and economic reasons that induced an historical openness to the arrival of refugees have largely withered away, there is no longer a guarantee that any state will be prepared to receive these involuntary migrants. Governments of both North and South are withdrawing from the international legal duty to provide potentially indefinite protection to any and all refugees who arrive at their borders. The challenge is to reconceive refugee protection in a way that is reconcilable with the legitimate concerns of modern states, yet which does not sacrifice the critical right of at-risk people to seek asylum. The essays in Reconceiving International Refugee Law offer a response to the concerns of many states that refugee protection has become no more than a `back door' route to permanent immigration, and that its costs are not fairly apportioned among states. Drawing on the research of leading migration scholars from around the world, and vetted through dialogue with senior officials and non-governmental experts, this volume explores the potential for a shift to a robust and empowering system of temporary asylum, supported by a pragmatic system of guarantees to share both the costs and human responsibilities of refugee protection

Intro -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Table of Contents -- Acknowledgements -- Contributors -- Preface: Can International Refugee Law be Made Relevant Again? -- 1. The Demise of the Interest-Convergence -- 2. The Politics of Non-Entrée -- 3. The "Right to Remain" -- 4. Relegation of Burdens to the South -- 5. Principles for a New Paradigm of Refugee Protection -- 6. Toward the Reformulation of International Refugee Law -- I. Temporary Protection -- 1. Why Temporary Protection Should be Considered -- 2. How to Render Temporary Protection Humane -- 2.1 Responding to the Vulnerabilities of Refugees -- 2.2 The Refugee Family -- 2.3 Social Organization -- 2.4 Interaction with the Local Community -- 3. How Temporary Protection Should be Structured -- 3.1 Designating the State of Temporary Protection -- 3.2 The Duration of Temporary Protection -- 4. How Temporary Protection Should be Brought to an End -- Insights from Refugee Experience: A Background Paper on Temporary Protection -- 1. Becoming a Refugee: Desocialization and Dematuration Issues -- 2. Staff-Inmate Relations: Interaction, Communication and Information Problems -- 3. Reactions, Adaptations, and Adjustments -- 4. Aspects of Temporariness: Attitudes Towards Time and Space -- 5. Other Aspects of Camp Experience: Grief and Anxiety -- 6. Interim Conclusions and Qualifications -- Issues for Discussion -- II. Repatriation Aid and Development Assistance -- 1. Introduction -- 2. Assessing the Contemporary Status of International Efforts Concerning Refugee/Returnee Aid and Development -- 2.1 Evolution of Solutions to the Refugee Problem -- 2.2 The Need for Change -- 2.3 Orthodoxy Questioned -- 2.4 The Myth of Inter-Agency Cooperation -- 2.5 In Search of the Locus of the Gap -- 2.6 The Weaknesses of the "Innovative Models" -- 2.7 Inclusion of Areas of Return in National Plans of Development.