Book launch: Daniel Ghezelbash’s "Refuge Lost: Asylum Law in an Interdependent World"
The Bonavero Institute of Human Rights and the Refugee Studies Centre will be co-hosting the launch of Daniel Ghezelbash’s Refuge Lost: Asylum Law in an Interdependent World (Cambridge University Press, 2018). To attend this event, please register by following the link to the right of this page, under 'related websites'.
As the so-called 'refugee crisis' drags on in Europe, Australia's harsh border control policies have been suggested as a possible model for Europe to copy. In Refuge Lost: Asylum Law in Interdependent World, Daniel Ghezelbash sets out the dangers of Europe going down this path. Key measures of this system such as long-term mandatory detention, intercepting and turning boats around at sea, and the extraterritorial processing of asylum claims were actually used in the United States long before they were adopted in Australia. The book examines the process through which these policies spread between the United States and Australia and the way the courts in each jurisdiction have dealt with the measures. Ghezelbash's innovative interdisciplinary analysis shows how policies and practices that 'work' in one country might not work in another. This timely book is a must-read for those interested in preserving the institution of asylum in a volatile international and domestic political climate.
Dr Daniel Ghezelbash is a senior lecturer at Macquarie Law School in Sydney, Australia and the founding director of the Macquarie University Social Justice Clinic. His research focuses on comparative refugee and immigration law and the search and rescue of asylum seekers at sea. He has spent time as a Visiting Fellow/Scholar at the Refugee Studies Centre at Oxford University, Harvard Law School, Brooklyn Law School, New York Law School and Queen Mary Law School. He is a Special Counsel at the National Justice Project, a not-for-profit legal practice focusing on strategic public interest litigation.
Ghezelbash will be joined by Jeff Crisp (University of Oxford), Steve Meili (University of Minnesota) and Catheryn Costello (University of Oxford) to discuss the book.
Reviews of Refuge Lost
'People are on the move, and this book shows how desperate policy-makers ply the international market for laws and policies which might be borrowed and adapted to their own illusory goals of deterrence and control. In jurisdictions insufficiently attuned to the rule of law and democratic accountability, this leads too often, not to meaningful solutions for those in search of refuge, but to almost total disregard of their fundamental humanity, and to lasting damage to the lives, health and well-being of men, women and children at risk. With international institutions and principles under threat and legal black holes on the rise, Dr Ghezelbash’s analysis provides a critical foundation for restoring credibility and protection.' - Guy S. Goodwin-Gill, University of New South Wales, Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law & All Souls College, Oxford.
'This is a powerful and timely exposé of how and why governments around the world are adopting restrictive laws and policies for asylum seekers and their families. The author gives rigorous and scholarly attention to the harsh measures that have been adopted, their devastating impact on vulnerable people and their debasement of the Good Samaritan purposes of international refugee law. Hopefully, it will contribute to a timely turnaround from the current dark chapter in local and international refugee law and policy.' - The Honourable Michael Kirby, AC CMG, Justice of the High Court of Australia (1996–2009) & Co-Chair, IBA Human Rights Institute.
'This book explores a significant and somewhat overlooked dark side of transnational cooperation, namely how states take inspiration from each other when designing ever-more draconian responses to block and deter refugees from accessing their territories. In this path-breaking and innovative study, Daniel Ghezelbash develops a sophisticated framework for understanding immigration policy transfers and the troubling implications of this kind of state practice for international refugee law.' - Thomas Gammeltoft-Hansen, Research Director at the Raoul Wallenberg Institute of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law & adjunct Professor of Law, Aarhus University, Denmark.
A reception will be held for those attending the event from 7.30pm.