With increasing enthusiasm, European states are reviving the Refugee Convention’s cessation provisions in service of their return-oriented refugee policies. This practice threatens the careful balance established by refugee law between the security of refugee status, on the one hand, and its impermanence on the other.

In 2015, more than one million migrants reached Europe in the largest movement of people since WWII. In order to seize control of “irregular migration,” the EU and Schengen countries instituted a new policy of regional containment that targeted migrants arriving via major land and sea routes.

On November 22nd 2019 the Cartagena Declaration on Refugees (Cartagena Declaration) turns 35. It is a paramount document on refugees’ protection in Latin America, setting both normative standards and the regional tone for policies and actions in this area, thus, being a cornerstone of Refugee Law in the region.

On October 23, 2019, 39 bodies were found inside a refrigerator lorry on an industrial estate in Essex. The vehicle was registered in Varna, Bulgaria, had entered the UK four days before and was driven by a man from Northern-Ireland. The victims – 38 adults and a teenager – were identified as Vietnamese. This incident is just the latest example of vehicle-induced migrant mass fatalities.

Thousands of people have died in the Mediterranean Sea in the past few years in an attempt to reach Europe. What happened two days ago was only the most recent episode in this human-made, ongoing catastrophe.

The Norwegian-registered vessel Ocean Viking, operated by Médecins Sans Frontières, has recently been at the centre of a debate that has become dominated by one assumption: that search-and-rescue (SAR) operations are encouraging people to attempt to cross the Mediterranean.

More than a million migrants crossed the Mediterranean in an attempt to reach Europe during the 2015 refugee crisis, the vast majority arriving either in Greece or Italy. The following year the European Union entered the so-called “EU-Turkey Deal”, a statement of cooperation between European states and the Turkish government.

Drawing on the case of Niger, this blog examines some of the processes through which the EU projects penal power beyond Europe and its allegedly humanitarian rationale.

How do individuals tasked with carrying out state policies on border control react to direct encounters with human suffering, and what are the implications of such interpersonal encounters on border studies?

Examining UK ‘managing migration’ initiatives, illustrating a securitisation of humanitarian aid.

The ‘internal protection alternative’ (IPA) is a limit on refugee status used to exclude claimants with access to adequate protection somewhere within their countries of origin. A reflection on refugee law’s ‘surrogate’ role, which states use to justify IPA practice.

It might surprise some that Norway, normally viewed as a human rights stalwart, is at the forefront of efforts to push the boundaries of refugee law in a restrictive direction. A case study on Norway and the internal protection alternative (IPA).