Paper details

Paper authors	Ralph Wilde
In panel on	Migration, Protracted Crisis and Humanitarianism
Paper presenter(s) will be presenting	In-Person / Online

Abstract

The story of the development of legal protections for forced migrants in international law is, in terms of the scope of protection, a progressive one. From expanded definitions of who is entitled to refugee protection, to the development of complementary protection in human rights law, the ambit of that which law covers has moved wider. One might see this as part of the broader trend in the expanding coverage of international human rights law generally. Yet a corresponding trend in the opposite direction can also be detected: a diminution in states’ commitments to refugee protection, as evidenced in the expanded scope of non-entrée measures, from visa restrictions to carrier sanctions and push-back operations. This backlash trend can also be identified in human rights policy generally. The present paper asks: how can and should we understand the causal relationship, if any, between these two concurrent, divergent developments? Have progressive legal developments played a causal role in the broader trend of resistance to the protection of refugees?

The paper will consider what are and may be the negative blowback consequences for protection of the progressive legal developments that have taken place. Might the greater legal regulation drive states towards even more extreme non-entrée measures? Might all these developments, when allied to other progressive developments in human rights law generally, lead states to place into question their continued commitment to human rights law, and seek to diminish and even withdraw from existing international legal regimes?

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