LL4BB      Half Unit
International Law and the Movement of Persons Between States

This information is for the 2025/26 session.

Course Convenor

Availability

The course provides a detailed study of the international legal framework in which the causes, problems, policies, standards, techniques and institutions concerning the movement of persons between states, the protection of asylum seekers, refugees and refugee women, and migrants are situated. The substantive content of the course explores the overlap between the diplomatic protection of nationals abroad in International Law, International Refugee Law, International Human Rights Law, and International Criminal Law. It covers: the diplomatic protection of nationals abroad, standards governing the movement of persons between states, the definition of refugees, regular and irregular migrants, including smuggling and trafficking in human beings; the concepts of 'well-founded fear' of persecution and group eligibility to refugee protection; procedures for determining refugee status on an individual and group basis, in Africa, Asia, Australia, the European Union, North America, and Latin America; temporary protection; the process of exclusion from refugee protection; the role, in refugee law and human rights, of the principle of non-refoulement in refugee protection; the cessation of refugee status, voluntary repatriation, and safe return; standards applicable in international law to the protection of refugees, migrants, and evolving standards against human trafficking; the regulation of migration in regional economic and political unions, namely the European Union, East African Community, the Union of West African States, the Caribbean Community and the Southern African Development Community; and finally the institutional protection of refugees, and migrants by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and the, the International Organisation for Migration.

Topics include:

• International Law standards governing the Movement of Persons Between States
• Origins of asylum and refugee protection
• Definition of Refugees
• The Right to Seek and Obtain Asylum and Determination of Refugee Status
• Exclusion from Refugee Protection
• Protection of asylum seekers and refugees from Refoulement
• Standards of Protection and cessation of refugee status
• Definition of Migrants
• Protection of Migrants in International Human Rights Law
• Regional Integration and Migration
• Trafficking in Human Beings and Human Smuggling

20 hours of seminars in the Winter Term.

This course has a reading week in Week 6 of Winter Term.

All students are expected to produce one 2,000 word formative essay during the course.

G.S. Goodwin-Gill and Jane MacAdam, The Refugee in International Law, 4th ed., (Oxford, 2021) J. Hathaway, The Rights of Refugees under International Law, 2nd ed., (Cambridge, 2021), E. Feller, V. Turk and F. Nicholson, Refugee Protection in International Law: UNHCR’s Global Consultations on International Protection (Cambridge University Press 2003) I. Brownlie and G. Goodwin-Gill, Basic Documents on Human Rights latest edition, Oxford: Clarendon Press, OR Ghandi, International Human Rights Documents, latest edition, Oxford: Clarendon Press

Exam (100%), duration: 150 Minutes in the Spring exam period