The subject of this volume is the phenomenon commonly known as 'migrant smuggling' - the criminal offence of illegally transporting migrants across international borders. This study provides a comprehensive analysis of migrant smuggling in Australia and the Asia Pacific region in its different aspects and dimensions. It examines the nature characteristics and magnitude, the causes, conditions and consequences of migrant smuggling, and the inadequacies of existing policies and legislation. It compiles, reviews and analyses existing and proposed legislation at national, regional and...

An extraordinary volume with 28 of the world's leading refugee and human rights scholars and advocates in a wide-ranging examination of the major issues in the field today.

This book explores the developing relationship between statelessness and migration. Migration law is setting the new parameters for international protection. Irregular migration is producing new forms of statelessness. International conventions on statelessness, refugees and migrant workers and international human rights instruments do not provide effective protection for these contemporary groups of stateless persons. The case study of Burmese irregular migrant workers in Thailand demonstrate that women and children are among the most unprotected because of the gendered construction of...

The legal instruments, on which refugees can rely to secure international protection, are the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and its 1967 Protocol. Supported by soft laws which were developed by the international community during the past decades, they form the "protection regime for refugees" which is set to respond to all refugee situations. This book is an evaluation of the international response to a major protracted humanitarian situation. As such, it is the first comprehensive account and assessment of the effectiveness of international law in dealing with Iraqi...

The 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and the 1967 Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees are the two primary international legal instruments that states use to process asylum seekers' claim to refugee status. However, in Southeast Asia only two states have acceded to these instruments. This is seemingly paradoxical for a region that has been host to a large number of asylum seekers who, as a result, are forced to live as 'illegal migrants'. This book examines the region's continued rejection of international refugee law through extensive archival analysis and argues...

This ground-breaking volume brings the refugee issue out of the narrow confines of refugee law into the centre of international law and international relations. It reviews the concept of the refugee and the international protection of refugees from the unconventional angle of the prospects and limitations of multilateralism in the post Cold War era. This approach - taking conflict prevention and resolution as its point of departure - ensures that Broadening the Edges: Refugee Definition and International Protection Revisited is not only novel, but comprehensive and practical as...

When there are powerful push factors in sending countries or pull factors in receiving countries, restrictive measures alone cannot contain migratory flows - they are simply diverted to irregular channels. This book provides an analysis of irregular migration in its different aspects and dimensions: its nature, characteristics and magnitude; its causes, conditions and consequences and the inadequacies of existing policy measures. Against the backdrop of this analysis, the last chapter puts forward a set of specific proposals which can be woven into a comprehensive strategy to combat irregular...

Refugee law faces a serious crisis in Europe. This crisis highlights the need to explain the following questions: What is the relationship between refugee law and immigration policy? How much immigration do States need to tolerate for moral and practical reasons even if they do not wish any immigration?
The general legal principle of necessity offers a useful theoretical basis for refugee law. Necessity explains the conditions under which it would be unfair to fight off unwanted immigrants by deportation and punishment. Necessity also explains the conditions under which a restrictive...

The use of international human rights machinery to protect refugees has acquired an important dimension in recent years. This is true of both the United Nations treaty body system and the African, European and Inter-American regional systems of human rights. The result is a dynamic international invigoration of traditional refugee law that, in contradistinction, tends to be applied at the level of national courts and tribunals. Yet the precise role of human rights in the protection of refugees is sometimes viewed with suspicion and uncertainty. This Commentary provides a valuable insight into...