Seminar Invitation

Treating Like Cases Alike in Refugee Law Adjudication: The Troubling Lack of Consistency in Refugee Status Adjudication Within and Across State Parties to International Refugee Rights Instruments.

Where: STB, Stewart House, University of London

When: 25 April 2013, 3.00 pm

Speakers:

Madeline Garlick: (UNHCR Europe) Head of Unit, Policy and Legal Support, Brussels, Belgium.  

Violeta Moreno-Lax: (EU) UK Lecturer in Law, Liverpool Law School, University of Liverpool; EU Asylum Law Coordinator, Refugee Law Initiative, School of Advance Studies, University of London, UK.

Elspeth Guild: (The Netherlands) Professor of Law, Jean Monnet-Professor ad personam at Queen Mary Univeristy; Co-Director, Centre for Migration Law (CMR), Radbound University Nijmegen, The Netherlands; Partner of the London firm Kinsgley Napley; Associate Senior Research Fellow, Centre for European Policy Studies, Brussels; Visiting Professor at the College of Europe, Bruges.

James C. Simeon: (North America: Canada) Acting Director, Centre for Refugee Studies and Associate Professor, School of Public Policy and Adminstration, Faculty of Liberal Arts and Professional Studies, York University, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

Sean Rehaag: Associate Professor, Faculty of Law, Osgoode Hall Law School, York University, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

Java Ramji-Nogales: (USA) Associate Professor of law, Beasley School of Law, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA. 

Refugee status determination is considered commonly as one of the most difficult forms of judicial decision-making. Refugee law decision-making not only have to have a thorough knowledge of their own country's laws and conventions and the legal tests and the standard of proof for their legal judgements in both law and fact but they also must conversant with current country of origin conditions in order to assess whether a refugee claimant has a well-founded dear of being persecuted should they return to either their countries (ies) of nationality (ies) or, being stateless, their country (ies) of former habitual residence.

No on is, of course, infallible, including refugee law adjudicators. Errors are made inevitably in either findings of fact and/or interpretations of the law as evident through the appeal process within the respective court systems. This can, of course, account for some of the variance in acceptance or grant rates within and across jurisdictions.

This joint public seminar will include researchers from refugee research centres from a number of jurisdictions in the EU and North America, will seek to explore the major issue of the lack of consistency in refugee law decision-making within and among a number of industrialised states in the Global North. The purpose of this joint public seminar will be to consider the factors that contribute to the apparent lack of consistency in refugee law adjudication in these jurisdictions and the efforts that have been undertaken by these States and the UNHCR to try and address these apparent inconsistencies.

Attendance is free but participants must reserve a place. Please book now using this link