International Refugee Law: Where it Comes From, and Where It's Going...

Despite nearly 100 years of international organization and practice, international refugee law is confronted today with the critical challenges of globalization, securitization and an increasingly mobile world. Large-scale movements have exposed serious cracks in the European project; the EU's stated policy goal seems simply to keep refugees away. Elsewhere, numerous refugee situations are "protracted," while persistent underdevelopment continues to drive the movement of people between States, in a context in which States appear unable to manage "irregular" migration. If a generous asylum policy is in practice, contingent on well-controlled external borders, can the basic rules of protection survive? Or are asylum and the principle of non-return to persecution (non-refoulement) at risk in a new international legal order? These are the issues addressed below. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]